Quote Originally Posted by Sapphire Guard View Post
Wow, those are some excellent reasons to crack. And people complain Tolkien is too black and white.



IIRC this is pretty much what happened. Denethor kept being shown how strong Sauron's forces were.

Notable here is that Denethor was not broken by Sauron's will directly the way Pippin was, which is impressive in itself, although it did age him prematurely.
Scratch that, Denethor showed more mental fortitude than Saruman the White. And unlike Saruman, his fears of his supposed allies plotting against him are actually justified*.

Then again unlike Pippin or Saruman**, Denethor had the legal authority as Reigning Steward to use the Seeing-Stone, which probably helped.

*The Appendices implies he suspected Gandalf was planning to replace him with ‘‘Thorngil’’ (actually Aragorn) since Theoden was a child. And also that his father liked Aragorn better than him, which explains his treatment of Faramir all too well.

**Who initially had it as he was given the Keys of Orthanc by the Reigning Steward, as Steward of Isengard in service to Gondor but it seems the Stone realized his disloyalty at some point. Probably when he used it to talk to Sauron.