I love the exchange between Merry and Gandalf at the beginning of the chapter. That’s one of my favorite bits of dialogue in the entire book.
There is also this exchange between Gandalf and Aragorn-
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'But if I may counsel you in the use of your own, do not use it- yet! Be wary!'
'When have I been hasty or unwary, who have waited and prepared for so many long years?' said Aragorn.
'Never yet. Do not then stumble at the end of the road,' answered Gandalf.
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This brings to my mind the incident with Anduril in Edoras. Aragorn's pride is showing through a bit. I got the feeling that Aragorn did not like being warned by Gandalf. If you are warned about something it means that you need to be influenced to make a wiser decision. In other words, you might not make the right decision yourself. It insinuates a lacking or shortcoming. Even if Aragorn's pride was not insulted by Gandalf, I imagine he was at least annoyed a bit, like a driver being pestered by a "back seat driver". There is little that I find more annoying than being warned about something when I don't feel I need the warning, like being warned of a sharp right turn on a road I've driven hundreds of times already.
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it would be disastrous for him to see me
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Why did Gandalf say that (about Sauron spotting him)? Surely Sauron knew of him.
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It is beyond his art, and beyond Sauron's too.
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Wow! Sauron and Saruman were both talented Maia of Aule, were they not? You'd think that if anyone had the skills to make things and understand such things, it would be Aule or his helpers.
But the stones are beyond their arts?
That just blows my mind. It makes me believe that, despite the text saying "Feanor...maybe", they
must have been made by Feanor himself.
And speaking of Feanor, I think it's interesting that Gandalf says if he mastered the stone he would... spy on Sauron? no... get instructions from Manwe? no... but that he would view "the unimaginable hand and mind of Feanor at their work". I just love that.
(as everyone who's been here for a while knows, Feanor is as dear to me as his father and Silmarils were to him
)