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The palantiri were created by Fëanor. The kinslayer whose pride, rage, and desire for vengeance drove most of his people to their doom. The potential to corrupt
by jltsiren 6mo ago
The palantiri were created by Fëanor. The kinslayer whose pride, rage, and desire for vengeance drove most of his people to their doom. The potential to corrupt was always present in them.
In the LotR, Aragorn bends a palantir to his will and uses it for good with great difficulty. He manages to do that, because he is (in addition to everything else) the trueborn king and the palantiri are his birthright. Denethor, on the other hand, succumbs to corruption. While he is a powerful lord with good intentions, he is only a steward, not a king. The right to use the palantiri is not inherent in his being, because he only wields power in someone else's name.
- daemin 6mo agoI think that's also one of those problems in stories like this, that there's a powerful tool with the power to corrupt but only those chosen few by right can wield it without becoming corrupted. It implies that there will always be people ordained through some manner which are incorruptible and therefore can use these things to "fight evil". The usual suspects in our world are people in Government, and by extension in military and law enforcement. One example of someone actually destroying such a device after they finished using it rather than letting themselves be corrupted by it was Batman after he finished using it to locate the Joker. But of course this was in a fictional movie, and in no way represents the real world.