Dumbledore vs. Gandalf: What works?

Harry Potter and Bilbo Baggins are two staples of literature for magic-lovers. There are people on either side of the Tolkien/Rowling debate who will not interact with their opposite number. There's an argument to be made for one being outdated or the other not fitting the genre of fantasy. Don't mistake me. I've been calling myself a hobbit since the age of 8 and am a proud Slytherin, so I'm not expressing these views myself. Let's talk about the wise old mentors in Middle-Earth and the Wizarding World.

Hands off

It's almost a running joke in The Hobbit that Gandalf isn't that involved in the story. He brings the dwarves to Bilbo's house, but lets them all get there before him. When they are faced with trolls, he intervenes at the last minute. He sends them into Mirkwood unaccompanied and only returns when the company of Thorin Oakenshield is on the brink of war with a lot of other people.

Dumbledore sometimes seems like this. Throughout each year, he lets the students do what they came to school to accomplish: get an education. He is aware of everything that goes on at Hogwarts to one degree or another, In Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, Harry says that "instead of stopping us, he just taught us enough to help...It's almost like he thought I had the right to face Voldemort if I could." This sometimes comes at a high cost, as Harry finds out at the Ministry of Magic and on the Lightning-Struck Tower, but it helps him grow as a person and study what will help him succeed the next time. And it helps him become a leader for those who will need to be taught "enough to help" in the books to come.

Similarly while Bilbo has a lot of struggles between the moment he longs to go to the Lonely Mountain and when he returns to Bag End, he lives up to the name burglar and becomes an elf-friend in the process. He is known to mentor some younger hobbits such as when he teaches Samwise Gamgee to read (much to the alarm of his father) or by taking Frodo in during is formative years. He neve has quite the same relationship with his proteges as Dumbledore did with his students, but he enabled people to find their own courage.

I'm sure all of us have had teachers who left us feeling in over our heads at one time or another, but it's in that desperation that we discover we are brave. Let's be grateful that those teachers know better.