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Originally Posted by Lalwende
But it is almost a double edged statement, because while he might be yearning to look into the palantir through good motives, all too soon he too could be looking into it for selfish motives once Sauron had 'captured' him. And is the yearning to see Valinor and Feanor at work entirely unselfish? There is something dangerous in these stones, something inherently perilous. Could the answer lie in the fact that this stone does not belong to him? It is not his right to use it?
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Perhaps the danger with the Palantiri is the same as with the Ring - the individual is tempted to use it to do good, but if they do, as Shippey has pointed out, they soon start to 'cut corners', bend the rules, in order to achive that good. It quickly becomes a matter of the end justifying the means & they become more & more corrupted till, realising they
can do anything, they do just whatever they want.
In the same way, as Sauron has demonstrated, the Palantiri also can be used to spy on others & dominate their wills. How much of a temptation would that prove to one in posession of a Stone? I think that in reading LotR we do form a very negative view of the Palantiri. We come very quickly to view them as evil - or at least as objects with great potential for corruption & as things best left alone.