Of Wizardly Mentors In Fantasy Fiction

 On YouTube, there is a skit on Studio C, a comedy show, called “Lord Of The Potter”.  In it, Gandalf goes into an inn to meet Frodo, whom he has never seen before. Instead, he meets Harry Potter, waiting for Dumbledore, and each of them thinks the other is the person he is waiting for, due to the similarities.

Which makes me think of wizardly mentors in fantasy fiction, the guys who advise young heroes about to start their Hero’s Journey and sometimes going on it with them. There are quite a lot out there, but let’s just start with a few. 

Albus Dumbledore mentors Harry Potter. He is quite a lot like Gandalf. He is wise and dignified. He even has a scene with Harry similar to one between Gandalf and Frodo in Lord Of The Rings.  In LOTR Gandalf tells Frodo that he will one day be glad he spared Gollum, which is true - at Mount Doom, Gollum bites off his finger and falls into the fire; if he had been gone, Frodo would have failed. In Harry Potter, Dumbledore tells Harry the same about Peter Pettigrew, also true, as he makes Wormtail hesitate just long enough in Malfoy Manor to save the lives of him and his friends.

 There is also a twinkle in his eye. At the same time, he is human and makes mistakes - a lot of mistakes! In the final book, we find out some of the huge mistakes he made when he was younger, mistakes that led to his sister’s death and the evil Gelert Grindelwald, his dear friend and probably lover, being launched on the world. He appears one more time to Harry, when he says that his brother is the better man.

Gandalf mentors Frodo Baggins. He is the sort of person you’d be pleased to go to the pub with. He has some very human habits, enjoys smoking his pipe and creating fireworks displays. In one scene somewhere in the History Of Middle Earth books, he is having a break during a meeting of the White Council. The villainous Saruman sneers at him for smoking the hobbit pipe weed. Gandalf tells him he might be better off, and a more laid-back person,  trying some of these habits himself. He also recalls his first meeting with Thorin Oakenshield, just before the quest of the Lonely Mountain(The Hobbit) and muses that Middle-Earth was eventually saved because of that meeting. 

He likes mortals, especially hobbits, enjoys hanging out with them. At the same time, he isn’t human. He is a Maia, the Middle-Earth version of an Angel. So, he doesn’t really make mistakes that will cost his family, as he doesn’t have one. He’s just wise and  - well, not always dignified. Again - I’d love to go out for a beer with Gandalf. 

In The Dark Is Rising series, we meet Merriman Lyon, who is the leader of the Old Ones, a group of long-lived humans with powers, who are fighting the Dark, another group of humans with magical powers, on behalf of the Light. Merriman - who is really Merlin - mentors Will Stanton, a young boy who comes into his powers on his eleventh birthday. The title novel of the series is the second. In the first, Over Sea, Under Stone, he is called Great Uncle Merry by three siblings, Jane, Barney and Simon, and  is making a living as an archaeologist and University professor. They find the first object in the quest, a golden grail, and afterwards suspect who he really is. Merriman is only human too, wise or not, and he, too, makes some big mistakes, in one case towards a liege man who becomes angry enough to join the Dark. As a result, Will’s journey becomes harder. 

The Merlin of the Arthurian romances, of course, mentors Arthur. T.H White has him mentoring Arthur as a boy, teaching him by turning him into animals and birds. He is living backwards, so remembers the future. In the film Excalibur, Arthur doesn’t listen to him. As a result, he marries Guinevere, who ends up betraying him with Lancelot. This version of Merlin is eccentric and over-the-top. He is locked in a cave, not by Nimue but by his apprentice Morgana, who just wants power, something he can’t persuade her is not that easy. 

So, here are a few mentor wizards. Can you think of more?