Wormtongue made an indecisive attempt to kill Gandalf or Saruman with the palantír of Orthanc, but missed both.

Saruman had cause to regret this when, following the confrontation between Saruman and Gandalf, Gríma mistakenly threw a " heavy rock " — which was actually the palantír of Orthanc — at the Rohirrim accompanying Gandalf, or even at Saruman himself.

Importantly, every character who attempted to look through a palantír was deceived -- Saruman looked through the Orthanc stone, and saw what he thought was an unassailable strength in Mordor, helping to corrupt him.

Sauron captured the palantír of Minas Ithil and used it to corrupt Saruman, who had the palantír of Orthanc ; and Denethor, who had the palantír of Minas Tirith.

2759, Saruman obtained the keys of Orthanc from Beren, the ruling Steward of Gondor, possibly because Saruman desired to use the palantír to garner information on his neighbours and their activities.

As a consequence of eliminating the Battle of Bywater, Saruman is killed by Wormtongue much earlier ( at the beginning of the extended edition of The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King ) and the palantír of Orthanc is transferred to Gandalf by means of Pippin retrieving it from Saruman's corpse instead of Wormtongue throwing it from the tower window.

It is unclear in the films whether Aragorn uses the palantír of Minas Anor or Orthanc to do this.

After learning of the impending assault of the Corsairs of Umbar on Minas Tirith by using the palantír of Orthanc, Aragorn discovered that only by walking the Paths of the Dead could he reach Minas Tirith in time to offer aid.

This palantír was used by the Kings of Gondor, but when Minas Ithil fell to the Ringwraiths, Eärnil II stopped using it ; not only did Sauron now have access to the network, but the palantír of Anárion had the strongest link of all seven to the Ithil-stone.

The Stone of Amon Sûl was the chief palantír used for communicating with Gondor.

This combined references to several symbols of the realm: the White Tree was a unique plant brought by Isildur from Númenor, first planted in Minas Ithil and later three times replanted from seed at Minas Anor ; the Crown of Gondor was in the beginning Isildur's war-helmet and later the main symbol of monarchy in the South-kingdom, with wings of a sea-bird being an emblem of the exiled Númenóreans ; and the stars " originally represented the single stars on the banners of each of seven ships of nine in which Elendil and his sons sailed to Middle-earth that bore a palantír ".

In the computer game The Lord of the Rings Online, it is hinted that the palantír of Osgiliath was not lost, but recovered by Sauron and sent to Carn Dûm so he could communicate with the Witch-king of Angmar or his Steward, Mordirith.

When the player successfully attacks Mordirith, the palantír gets stolen by Amarthiel, who takes it to Annúminas.

Rhudaur, by contrast, was unfriendly towards the two other successor states, and fought a bitter conflict with Cardolan over the tower of Amon Sûl and its palantír.

After Saruman's defeat he was confronted by Théoden King of Rohan, Gandalf and Aragorn, at which time Gríma Wormtongue, Saruman's servant, threw the palantír at the group in an attempt to kill them or possibly Gandalf.

The stone ( palantír ) of Amon Sûl was rescued by the forces of Arthedain, but it was later lost at sea.

The palantír of Amon Sûl, most powerful of the three in Arnor, was kept for centuries in the Watchtower of Amon Sûl.

The largest and most powerful palantír in the North was kept in the Tower of Amon Sûl.

The palantír struck the rail where Saruman was leaning, bounced off and fell down, almost striking Gandalf, an act for which Saruman seems to have punished him severely.

Saruman then falls from the tower and is impaled on a spiked wheel, a remnant of his war machines, and the palantír slips out of his cloak.

In the Rankin-Bass adaptation of The Return of the King, Denethor revealed a future that may be in his palantír to Gandalf, some time before he died.

* 1437-Castamir the Usurper, Lord of Ships, usurps throne of Gondor ( see Kin-strife ); Osgiliath's palantír is lost in the river

At this time, Aragorn, through the use of a palantír recovered after the fall of Isengard, reveals himself to the Dark Lord, and marches to the gates of Barad-dûr calling for battle, thus keeping the eye of Sauron focused on the ongoing war rather than the mission of Frodo.

Pippin retrieved the palantír, but Gandalf quickly appropriated it.

After the group left Isengard, Pippin took the palantír from a sleeping Gandalf, looked into it, and came face to face with Sauron himself.

At a later point, the fifth palantír was imagined to have been at Erech, before being discarded overall.

A palantír ( pl.

A palantír ( sometimes translated as " Seeing Stone " but literally meaning " Farsighted " or " One that Sees from Afar "; cf.

When one looks into a palantír, one can communicate with other such stones and anyone who might be looking into them ; beings of great power can manipulate the Stones to see virtually any part of the world.

The Master Stone was kept in the tower of Avallónë on Tol Eressëa, but no record is made of successful communication from any palantír of Middle-earth to this one.

When Arnor was divided into three kingdoms, all of them claimed Amon Sûl, largely because of the palantír.

When Annúminas was abandoned and the Kings moved to Fornost, they took the palantír with them.

This Stone was the first to be lost: during the civil war of the Kin-strife around the middle of the Third Age, the Dome of Stars was destroyed and the palantír fell into the River Anduin.

One Stone, the " palantír of Anárion ", was placed at Minas Anor, which eventually became the capital of Gondor and was renamed Minas Tirith.

In The Fellowship of the Ring, Radagast was unwittingly used by Saruman to lure Gandalf to his tower of Orthanc, where Gandalf was captured.

Gandalf's escape from Orthanc was instead instigated by a moth that Gandalf used to convey a message to the Eagles.

The outer face of this outer wall, the lowest, was made of black stone, the same material used in Orthanc ; it was vulnerable only to earthquakes capable of rending the ground where it stood.

However, Radagast also unwittingly helped rescue him by sending Gwaihir the Eagle to Orthanc with news of the movements of Sauron's forces.

One Stone was placed at Angrenost ( Isengard ) in Orthanc, the great tower built by the Dúnedain in the Second Age at the southern end of the Misty Mountains.

Later, Gríma Wormtongue cast the stone down from Orthanc, where it was recovered by Peregrin Took and turned over to Gandalf.

In the novel, the outermost walls of Minas Tirith was virtually indestructible like the similar black surface of Orthanc, as they were built by the Dúnedain before their craft waned in exile, and Tolkien says only an earthquake or similar seismic convulsion could cause them significant damage.

Isengard was built in the Second Age around the tower of Orthanc by the Númenóreans in exile.

Eventually an army of Ents and Huorns led by Treebeard of Fangorn attacked Isengard, taking the fortress, although they could not take Orthanc.

Orthanc was, according to J. R. R. Tolkien's legendarium, built during the end of the Second Age by men of Gondor out of four many-sided columns of rock joined together by an unknown process and then hardened.

Orthanc housed one of the palantíri of the South Kingdom, and was guarded by a special warden.

Saruman was then locked in Orthanc and guarded by Treebeard, but was set free a short time later, turning the tower's keys over to Treebeard before leaving and taking Gríma with him.

During the Fourth Age Orthanc was searched by King Elessar, and he found there many heirlooms of Isildur, among them the original Elendilmir, the Star of Arnor, evidence that Saruman had found ( and probably destroyed ) Isildur's remains.

According to popular legend J. R. R Tolkien was influenced heavily by the clock-tower in his design of the stone tower Orthanc from the The Lord of the Rings.