Xenophon, Socrates, and Plato

Xenophon, socrates feels free to dispense advice on a wide range of topics. Often xenophon puts rather banal ethical advice into the philosopher's mouth. We see him chastising a man for being unable to bear his hectoring mother. In such passages, socrates seems more like an advice columnist than a philosopher. It's hard to escape the conclusion that xenophon is using socrates as a mouthpiece but putting much less interesting ideas into his mouth. But we should not underestimate Xenophon or aristophanes and made this most extraordinary of men subordinate to their own authorial purposes.