Narrator: With the city besieged in a ring of foes, the Rammas broken, all the Pelennor abandoned to the enemy, and his only surviving son about to die from wounds after being sent forth on a foolish sortie at his command, the last remaining slim thread of Denethor's sanity snaps. With a confused Pippin standing watch nearby, Denethor begins to build a funeral pyre out of Faramir's bed.

Denethor: We must burn. All of us must burn. Only through flame will I find sanctuary. No tomb! No tomb for Denethor and Faramir... we will burn like heathen kings of old!
Pippin: I get the feeling someone is about to cause serious property damage and, for a change, it isn't me. I better go get Gandalf!

Narrator: Pippin managed to find Gandalf and Beregond of the Citadel Guard just in the nick of time. Bursting in on Denethor just as he was about to set himself and his unconscious son Faramir aflame.

Gandalf: Stay this madness!
Denethor: Burning... already burning! Ash! We shall all be ash and smoke upon the wind!
Narrator: It was at this point that Gandalf had finally had enough of Denethor and personally put him out of his misery.
Gandalf: I did no such thing!
Narrator: Yes you did.
Gandalf: He had an accident!
Narrator: You threw him down 3 flights of stairs and kicked him through half a mile's worth of hallway...
Gandalf: He tripped!
Narrator: ...and loaded him into a catapult.
Gandalf: He was very clumsy for a Steward!
Narrator: Then set him on fire...
Gandalf: I thought he had asked me to light his pipe. I certainly hadn't noticed he was covered in flammable oil!
Narrator: ...and launched him straight over the wall and into a mass of orcs.
Pippin: Hey now, I was just curious about what that lever thingie was for!
Gandalf: We have witnesses that back up our version of things, you know!
Narrator: Fine, fine. The important thing we can agree on, however, is that Faramir was saved and the madness of Denethor was at last at an end.
Gandalf: I perceive the evil touch of our enemy in Denethor's insanity... I have long suspected that the Steward had fallen prey to using the seeing stone of Minas Tirith. It was in this way that the Sauron snared him as with Saruman.
Pippin: How could he have done this to a great lord of men like Denethor?
Gandalf: He uses... sarcasm. He knows all the tricks; dramatic irony, metaphor, bathos, puns, parody, litotes and... satire. He is vicious!
Pippin: Compared to that, I got off lucky when he caught me prank calling him.
Gandalf: Indeed, but this would have taken weeks to twist a mind so thoroughly. Had you noticed anything unusual about Denethor recently, Beregond?
Beregond: About him? I should say not. Well, except maybe that Lord Denethor was convinced that he was being watched by a giant hedgehog whom he referred to as "Spiny Norman."
Gandalf: Spiny Norman?!
Pippin: Just how big was this giant "Norman" creature?
Beregond: Normally Spiny Norman was wont to be about twelve feet from snout to tail, but when Denethor was really depressed Norman could be anything up to eight hundred yards long. When Norman was about, Denethor would go very quiet and start wobbling and his nose would swell up and his teeth would move about and he'd get very violent and claim that he'd laid Fran Walsh.
Pippin: Hoy!
Gandalf: Hoy, indeed!
Beregond: Lately, Denethor had become increasingly worried about Spiny Norman. He had come to the conclusion that, with Norman being a hedgehog, only fire would keep him away.
Gandalf: Ahhhh... this explains much.
Pippin: And puts a whole new spin on the term "flaming idiot" as well!
(on that sad note, Gandalf and Pippin walk back out to the walls of the Citadel to witness the latest attack on the city's main gates... hoping against hope for some sign of Rohan's riders somewhere on the horizon)

Hedgehog: Denethor?

Hedgehog: Denethor? Denethor? Denethor?