Wizard Gone Missing

[littlemanpoet]

Originally Posted by cellurdur

1. Gandalf doesn't completely trick Bilbo into taking the adventure. Bilbo himself agrees to go.
2. Gandalf had many things to do. I would say not that he disappeared when the trolls came into play, but that without Gandalf they soon got into trouble.
3. He does not disappear when the goblins come to capture the dwarves. He wakes up in time to fight many of, but the cave closes before he can get through to them.
4. We later learn he has left to deal with the Necromancer.

Gandalf apart from a few white lies cannot relate to the trickers in Norse Mythology. Even Odin is far more ominous character than Gandalf.

As to:

1. It's a better trick that Gandalf gets Bilbo to agree.
2. Your first point is what Tolkien himself says, so I have no argument with it, since it does not argue successfully against Gandalf/Bladorthin as Trickster. Your second point is a quibble; he did leave, knowing that they would get in trouble without him, but he still left.
3. True, but he still surprises the Goblins by trickery.
4. "Later learn" speaks to the changes Tolkien made by the time he realized that he had drawn enough of Middle Earth into TH that he needed to rethink it all, and therefore he has the Necromancer thing going on. It's arguable that if the topic of the Necromancer comes in at the early stages, it may be a rewrite. No proof of that.

Gandalf's trickery with the Trolls is especially Tricksterish.

Of course Odin is a far more ominous Trickster than Gandalf/Bladorthin. That does not in the least remove from the category.