In yesterday’s post, “Breakfast with Mr. Gullible”, I stressed the addictive grip that the television culture exerted on Mr. Gullible and his ilk. In an earlier post, “An Evening with Gollum”, I compared the withered humanity of an alcoholic to the character of Gollum in The Lord of the Rings. I thought about comparing Mr. Gullible with Denethor, another character from The Lord of the Rings, but thought better of it. Denethor, for all his deadly faults, was a man who wielded power, albeit badly; Mr. Gullible, on the other hand, is utterly powerless except for the vote that he casts in elections. There is, however, a real parallel between the “king” (steward) and the plebeian in their shared addiction to television.

Television? Yes, there is television in The Lord of the Rings, though only a few people have the perilous opportunity to watch it. The palantíri, or seeing stones, are Middle-earth’s equivalent of TV. The word palantír means far-seeing or far-seer. The German word for television is Fernsehen, which means far-seeing. The English word for television also means far-seeing, tele being Greek for “far”, and “vision” being derived from the Latin visio or video, meaning to see. Tolkien was a philologist. He knew the linguistic connections between languages and used those connections to build his own invented languages and to connect his languages with the languages of his readers. On many occasions, as is the case with the palantíri, he employed these connections to signify points of allegorical applicability between his invented world and the world in which he and his readers lived.

Tolkien was horrified by the way in which radio had been used during the Second World War for propaganda purposes, both sides employing this powerful new invention to disseminate lies. He would also have been aware of the even newer technology of television, which was being developed in the 1930s.

When anyone looks into the palantír stones they see whatever the one who controls the stones wants them to see. Thus when Denethor peers into the “television” he sees the propaganda of Sauron. Believing that the distorted picture of the truth that the “television” presents to him is the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth, Denethor becomes utterly convinced that the forces of Sauron are irresistible and that the victory of the satanic Dark Lord is certain. He believes the lies. In the final analysis he is as gullible as Mr. Gullible.