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Originally Posted by littlemanpoet
At any rate, what I'm really getting at is that the Wizard introduced in the beginning of The Hobbit could have jumped out of a fairy tale by Jacob Grimm. So could the Dwarves.
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Yes. Of course. That's what I thought and what I imagined you meant under that term. "A classic European fairy-tale wizard" then. In any case, that's playing with words. The main point is that we know what we mean. The old bearded guy, preferably in a pointed hat and with a staff, who does some extraordinary things.
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Legate, I remain unconvinced by the "personality growth" argument. It isn't necessary to explain Gandalf's seriousness toward the end of The Hobbit. Nor does it apply (to my mind) to the differences in Gandalf because he is Istari in LotR. We're not talking about a personality change at all. Gandalf really doesn't change in character, except to be known better.
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Okay, your eloquence in the last post has somewhat confused me
So I'm not sure I understand anymore what you were trying to say (at least in the last post. Previously I think it was pretty clear). But I can respond at least to this, since that (I think
) I understand:
I was not talking about any "personality growth". Certainly not "growth". Merely a "change". You behave differently on a holiday, and differently in the middle of a war. Nothing more, nothing less. It is not determined by the time, only by the space or the situation. I don't mean that with the start of the War of the Ring, Gandalf suddenly became more serious. No. He was serious all the time when not on a holiday, if I can put it that way. I think Gandalf was really very much "situational". You can see it especially if you compare e.g. the way he talked to Hobbits (or silly Dwarves or Butterbur etc) and the others (Aragorn or Denethor or whoever). He basically behaved differently in different situations. And among Hobbits, he had this "classical fairytale wizard"-image, because he did not need to maintain the "serious attire". That's what I would say.