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@taylorclogston Oh, I think I see where you’re coming from. Do you mean that you dislike how these characters seem to be wise and respected, but that the authors do not establish why they should be respected? In other words, the protagonist (or whatever character) will listen to their advice but not have a good reason to?

Also, to clarify, at the time that Peet the Sockman acts as a subplot side character (if indeed he does—we’ll have to get @j-a-penrose‘s opinion on that) he neither gives advice nor is respected. He’s the town lunatic who fights street signs and runs around saying things like “wings and dings and purple things.” So he doesn’t earn respect from readers (or most of the characters) till later after they’ve seen him act and have learned more about him.

I don’t know anything about Angela or Hoid, but with Gandalf, I understood right away that he had the authority and that he could be trusted. So that doesn’t really bother me, but maybe I’m missing something.

What does bother me about these guys is that when they’re acting as a mentor, they’re always abandoning their apprentice. Maybe they have a good reason to, but still—they seem to know almost everything, and yet half the time they’re not there. When that happens, the main thing that keeps a character from knowing what to do is the fact that his mentor cannot help him. Personally I prefer there to be mentors who stick around (till a certain point where the protagonist needs to face his situation alone in order for his arc to reach its climax) but don’t have a solution for everything. I like the ones who don’t have an answer for every one of the characters’ questions, not because they don’t want to give them, but because they can’t. (For example, Obi Wan.)

Thanks for bringing up the topic for discussion!