I like how when Tolkien wrote The Hobbit he wasn’t planning to write Lord of the Rings at all… so a lot of the most iconic elements of Middle Earth aren’t Super Serious Lore that Tolkien Created After Hours of Intense Study in to the Gritty Realistic Dynamics of his Fantasy World™, they’re things that Tolkien originally created while he was having fun writing a story for his kids.
Like, in the Hobbit, Tolkien didn’t write Gandalf as a Serious Gritty Epic Fantasy wizard. Tolkien wrote Gandalf as an EXTREMELY PETTY sarcastic drama queen who just roasts everyone 24/7 and is almost like, a parody of a wizard– a funny character who isn’t supposed to be “realistic,” but a character that little kids would find funny and want to hear stories about.
but then years passed
and Tolkien decided to write Lord of the Rings
and he gradually realized the story would not be a lighthearted children’s book like the Hobbit, but a dramatic serious epic
but he was like
“I already wrote Gandalf as a petty grumpy drama queen, and I have to be faithful to that. this element of his character must be preserved”
I also like how Tolkien retroactively explained the weirdest parts in the Hobbit by saying it was written by Bilbo, an unreliable narrator. A lot of the things Bilbo wrote in the Hobbit were exaggerated or outright lies, which explains the contradictions in the Hobbit vs Lotr.
So does Bilbo (our unreliable narrator) describe Gandalf as a petty grumpy drama queen? yes
But is Gandalf really a petty grumpy drama queen? also yes