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Morning all!

I have a challenge for all you hobbits out there, and if its one that belongs in the Green Dragon, I will happily oblige taking it there, but you guys are just nutty enough to handle it I think:

I want to start a discussion that concerns events in Two Towers with Pippin and the palantir.

Here are my questions:

1) (and this goes back to Lothlorien/FOTR actually) What choice do you think Galadriel offered to Pippin?

2) What do you think Pippin meant when, after looking in the palantir, he said "he looked and I understood."

3) In what way do you think Pippin was affected by the palantir?

These are just some beginning questions I have. I think I have already introduced myself as being rather obsessed by the blighter, but am enjoying myself thoroughly in some deep deep discussion by the fandom thread in Imladris.net about the situation coming up in TTT.

Merry and Pippin await your answer...

Hi!

I have no idea what Galadriel offered Pippin (unless it was a comfortable bed, lots of food, pints). Isn't he the one who wouldn't say? I'll have to get back to the source material when I get home.

"he looked and I understood."

That sounds to me like Sauron communicated by telepathy through the palantir. Or is it that all communication through the palantir was by telepathy?

Post palantir:

Again, I'd like to have the source material on hand before I answer more fully, but I think our poor hobbit "grew up" and left his prankish ways behind.

OK. I'm ready for #1 and #3 now:

1) (and this goes back to Lothlorien/FOTR actually) What choice do you think Galadriel offered to Pippin?

Galadriel, when she held the entire Fellowship "with her eyes," apparently offered them all the same thing -- something "they greatly desired" in return for them giving up their quest -- as a test of each of them. From the text it sounds likely that all the hobbits desired pretty much the same thing: "green grass and sunshine" in the peaceful shire. But one cannot be certain of this, becuase only Sam was direct in his description. So what was it that Pippin desired? The fancy answer would probably be what he became in the end. The plain answer would be the first one.

2) In what way do you think Pippin was affected by the palantir?

Other than the obvious and immediate effect described in the book -- i.e. knocked-out and made sick -- the longer-term effect might have been courage. A willingness to die to defeat Sauron, which resulted in the end in the ability to save Faramir from his father and to slay the captain of the trolls (when he thought he was dying in the act).