[Kalimac]

Gandalf does seem to drawn on a much more manageable scale in "The Hobbit" though most of this could be explained by the fact that this business of the dwarves' is, as was pointed out, more of a detour for him than the all-consuming quest it was for Thorin & Co. (The same way a father might help his little kid build a longed-for train set; for the father it's an interesting thing but not the crux of his existence - for the kid, though, the train set is almost his current purpose for existing).

The only thing that's really hard to reconcile with the LOTR Gandalf is in that scene with the Wargs in the glade, when Gandalf is preparing to leap down and destroy them, and Tolkien comments that "that would have been the end of him" of course. It's just very hard to imagine that this the same guy who, sixty or seventy years later, will fight with a Balrog and be reborn, could be snuffed so finally by a pack of Wargs and some of his own fire.