He has a strange power as the colour of his hair changes with his moods..from blue to red when he is sad or angry etc.
So they keep him in their ‘Witches Hat Tower’..(which is actually a legit architectural design for tower a pointy top and no parapet) and I had to do a ton of research for that.
Tower tops are good launch off pad for broomstick flights. Perfect for stargazing and the crystal mirror gazing.
The witches hat tower is supposed to symbolize the witch’s pointy hat as the tower itself is the physical body of the witch.
Turns out pointy witches hat have been around since 2-4th century BCE. Mummified remains of witches in China have been found with pointy hats.
Here is my theory..you see, witches(and wizards) have to beckon lightning. When lightning strikes them, they’d end up as charred sticks if not for their pointy witches hats.
The hats have a lightning conductor at the tip. Sometimes you will find it broken..you know that this witch has attracted lightning but hasn’t had time to repair the conductor at the tip. Witches be busy.
Of course..I know everyone will think that it’s also useful while flying the broomstick. But this has nothing to do with the broomstick flying. As it was a children’s book, I didn’t think it was age appropriate to explain the dynamics and purpose of flying high on broomsticks. That’s another short story. For adults.
Of course, not all witches live in towers. As Terry Pratchett informed us..Nanny Ogg lived in a townhouse. Even Granny Weatherwax(Esme Weatherwax) lived in a cottage in the woods. Pointy hats are only for witches who can summon lightning.
Beer was the staple drink as it kept better than water and had nutritional value. Brewing beer was women's work in every household. Some expanded to sell beer at markets, and the pointy hat became a marker for a woman who sold beer.
When men started breweries, it was about the time of witch hunts, and they started to accuse women brewers of witchcraft as a way of removing the competition — and that is how the pointy hat became associated with the image of a witch. Also, the beer was brewed in cauldrons, and cats were used to keep mice away from the grain that the beer was made of.
https://www.penn.museum/sites/expedition/ancient-mummies-of-...
[..] The Witches of Subeshi
The most intriguing mummies in ECA may be the “witches” of Subeshi, who wear very tall, pointed black hats that resemble the iconic headgear of their sisters in medieval Europe. Subeshi, dated to between the 4th and 2nd centuries BCE, is located in a high gorge just to the east of the important city of Turfan.
Historian and author Adrienne Mayor has recently suggested that the single heavy glove worn by one of the female mummies may indicate that she hunted with a raptor such as a golden eagle. A number of impressive male mummies have also been excavated at Subeshi, including a man who wears a felt helmet and another man whose chest has been stitched up with horse hair in what must be one of the oldest (4th century BCE) examples of surgery in the world.[..]
The Salem Witch trials is because the tomato was considered the devils fruit, but it was the plant alkaloids which caused the real trouble (hallucinogens) and libido raising, hence riding the broomstick. Even in the 1930's Bella Donna was used to dilate the pupils to make a woman more attractive but it could also hide Argyll Robertson Pupil (a sign of neurosyphilis) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atropa_belladonna#Toxicity https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argyll_Robertson_pupil
I feel like the line between fantasy and reality has blurred for a lot of people lately.
[..] Other Tarim mummies have also been found wearing decidedly western clothing. One of the oddest bits of clothing found any of these mummies are the flat-brimmed pointy “witch hats” that were discovered on the “Witches of Subeshi.”[..]
https://mummipedia.fandom.com/wiki/Witches_of_Subeshi
[..] Three female mummies of Subeshi were found wearing tall, pointed black hats of felted wool that resemble the stereotypical headgear of traditional witches, and dated to between the 4th and 2nd centuries BC They were located in a high gorge just to the east of the city of Turfan.
It has been suggested that one of the three, wearing a heavy glove, may indicate that she hunted with a raptor.
The headgear worn by the Iron-age mummies were fashioned from black felt, the steep spire tapering to a peak nearly 60cm (2ft) high.[..]
https://www.penn.museum/sites/expedition/ancient-mummies-of-...
[..] The most intriguing mummies in ECA may be the “witches” of Subeshi, who wear very tall, pointed black hats that resemble the iconic headgear of their sisters in medieval Europe. Subeshi, dated to between the 4th and 2nd centuries BCE, is located in a high gorge just to the east of the important city of Turfan.
Historian and author Adrienne Mayor has recently suggested that the single heavy glove worn by one of the female mummies may indicate that she hunted with a raptor such as a golden eagle. A number of impressive male mummies have also been excavated at Subeshi, including a man who wears a felt helmet and another man whose chest has been stitched up with horse hair in what must be one of the oldest (4th century BCE) examples of surgery in the world.[..]
About the pointy hats of wizards - in addition to conducting lightening and inspiration, I imagine it can serve as an antenna also, as a tranceiver that receives and transmits aethereal vibrations.
Why they often live in towers.. I think they like to breathe the atmosphere high above the mundane. It's where wizened philosophers, academics and scholars pursue their thinking and magical meditations, closer to the stars.
Here’s a thread explaining why Saruman lived in the tower of Isengard. https://www.reddit.com/r/AskScienceFiction/comments/33b4v3/l...
I'd also point to the towers of ancient times being places where astronomy and astrology where practiced and the linkage between astrology, divination, and wizards.
A single tower that you live in is also a castle.
He was the only one of the three named wizards in LOTR who lived in a tower. Gandalf didn't really have a fixed abode and Radagast lived in tune with nature, on the western side of Mirkwood.
If it weren't for Tolkien there may not even have been a D&D. I'm in line with Saruman.
Does it? It has a wizard, and later there’s the mountan peak with Chernobog, but no wizard’s tower, from what I recall.
It’s not just the arcane knowledge and elaborate incantations. I actually think musicians and athletes possess more of this type of ability. Movie magic to me seems to involve timing and physicality.
I think the real connection is that programming truly is a generalizable tool. A wizard can apply magic to all kinds of general situations. Similarly, a programmer can apply computation generally. A musician can make magical, mind-blowing music but they can’t use music to make a dishwasher.
Yup. Steve Savitzky's song The World Inside the Crystal uses a similar metaphor: https://thestarport.org/people/steve/Doc/Songs/world/
In Alan Dean Foster's Spellsinger series the protagonist is able to conjure up (on separate occasions) a Jeep and a boat using music magic. A dishwasher wouldn't have been much of a challenge (other than their usual difficulty in getting the result they were aiming for and the fact that there wouldn't be electricity or plumbing to hook it up to).
So the wizards have the "hey you wanna see my tower" routine. A nice cup of mind control potion seals the deal.
I tried complaining to the magic council but they turned me into a toad. Took me 30 minutes to write this lol. Webbed feet are shit. And you can forget using speech input.
TV tropes cites two references to this in Terry Pratchett Discworld novels in the Freud Was Right article:
"Going Postal: As she looks over Moist's ideas for stamp pictures, Adora Belle Dearheart notes that the stamp with the highest value has a picture of the Tower of Art at Unseen University — the tallest building in the city.
Adora: Oh, the Tower of Art... How like a man.
Lords and Ladies: Naggy Ogg tells Casanunda "Magrat says a broomstick is one of them sexual metaphor things." (Footnote: Although this is a phallusy.)"
And, when story-telling, a wizard's tower is a very cheap bit of the narrative. The audience visualizing a mere house might need mention of the size, materials, style, color, etc. - not so the tower.
Actually, skyscrapers ARE the modern equivalent. The "wizards of finance" and the like inhabit them, exerting power with the magic spells of technology, finance, bribery, influence, and organization. Corporations seek them for the same reasons that fantasy wizards, kings, and churches used to.
And duh, Tolkien. It's the title of the second book.
Here is an article where both a CNN columnist and one of Trumps former underlings warn of his dark magic: https://www.cnn.com/2021/03/09/opinions/trump-lindsay-graham...
In ancient cultures, towers were directly associated with status, because at that time it was still impressive to construct tall objects, and tall objects were used by ruling classes also as a tool to help during defensive military emergencies.
With the invention of the elevator, that pyramid was inverted.
Whereas Wizards, as everybody knows, have never required elevators.
Why don’t I see anyone mentioning that wizards are rich and powerful (because they have magical powers), so they live in large expensive houses, which in a medieval setting are often castles with towers?
As the stackexchange answer says it's a trope, but I think it's much richer than that. The territory covered by the field of vision represents the depth of wisdom and domain of the wizard. They are in a sense able to "rule" (or influence) over the area through a perspective and foresight that others do not have on the ground.
I heard of an alchemist once that lived in a very nice townhouse, and was driven nearly mad by the incessant visits of tax collectors. But a tower without stairs wouldn't of been much use to him either, given the limits of what he could do.
In medieval thinking, the ground is less prestigious because it is closer to hell. “Lower” forms of life are called that based on the high-is-close-to-god metaphor.
When wizards draw pentagrams on the ground they are doing darker magic that invokes the powers of Hell.
So, a tower is like an insulator. Great and good magics will need to be invoked up in the air.
Occasionally wizards venture out of their lab to conduct in-situ field research or collect rare materials for experiments. Adventuring wizards are kind of an oddity, like Indiana Jones is to most archeologists.
Evil wizards are mad scientists: their twisted experiments may inadvertently or intentionally create undead abominations or unfeeling automatons, unleash dangerous magical effects in the nearby lands like poisoning water or blighting crops, and luring criminals to buy or steal the fruits of the wizard's research for ill ends.
And yeah, the tower keeps the wizard safe from harm and distraction. No open tower floor plans please.
Hopefully this affects human height and dick size as well
My dick size, for what it’s worth, has not changed.
Secondly, as for the actual tower a wizard's tower just reflects their power, the more they've learned the more they see. There is a tower that is a vertical line up to heaven itself, you could stand next to it crane your neck up until it hurts and ask "how the fuck did she get up there?" The answer was that she read every book in the library.
these other answers about status or power miss the big picture. wizards are not elected nor appointed by any king. They go out and they learn magic based on what is real and what works.
If it doesn't work, it's not magic. Anyone can be a wizard based on casting spells that work. It's the most egalitarian profession that ever existed.
The tower is a natural byproduct of commitment to the craft of skill and magic.
Low to the ground, you can't see much. There are obstructions in the way. What lies beyond those mountains? Ascend high and find out. Atop the tower, there is nothing obstructing your vision. You can see for miles. One who has scaled the tower is all-seeing.
Wizards have reached great heights of knowledge and wisdom. They are all-knowing, or all-seeing, as is the one who's scaled the tower.
Now why a tower rather than something like a whole castle? Towers are a bit more humble, independent, and potentially isolated, as the wizard himself often is.
Also the curators of such collections are also often scholars. Old men, going up stairs to read their old books.
An hypothesis on my part of course, but to me I can se how this over generations gets morphed into "wizards in towers".
They also set up the story of adventuring through the tower, floor by floor, in increasing levels of difficulty —as illustrated in the great fantasy movie: Bruce Lee’s Game of Death. :D
Living in a tower gives them substantial physical security. You can have one point of entrance at ground level that is significantly guarded.
A typical house has numerous points of entry. Not as big of a deal for a fighter that can defend him/herself at a moment’s notice but much riskier for a wizard.
This in addition the the already mentioned: - greater field of sight (eye of Sauron) - greater range of fire - symbolic (to heaven) - status symbol - defense against enemy
I remember this scene from movie 3 lotr where the 2 wizards communicate to each other to invade, by shooting beams from their towers.
As time went by, various other wizards devised new but still similar with variations on visual appearance and potion specifications, or even giving away wind chimes so visiting the forest to hunt song birds was no longer necessary, or imposed medusa-like speaking curses so that only those in the villages following them could use a mutually understandable tongue, locking out others for security, but resulting in many wars of flame.
As wizards are a vain lot, they employed wordsmiths to spread messages of lore when they added an extension to their tower. Sometimes they step too far, for example one wizard long long ago started living in a collection of fields, but this was too flat for even the townsfolk. They moved back into their old tower, sulkingly changing the entrance door to a doormat and fiddled with rivet shapes 11 times.
And as it was, so it will continue to be. Wizards will continue to live in towers that are minor iterations of each other, all imitations of The Mother Of All Towers from times long ago that only stories are told of.
https://critical-hits.com/blog/2017/02/22/the-wizards-and-th...
Thank you for coming to my TED Talk.
In short, according to official Dungeons & Dragons sourcebooks, powerful wizards often live in towers because they can create towers quite easily using magic, and have need of a highly defensible home for reasons of security and privacy. They have many valuable belongings which they need to protect from theft or harm, especially while they're away. They often undertake long periods of research or item crafting where they don't want to be disturbed, and often have enemies or rivals who want to attack them or steal their magical research or items. They may also wield significant personal and regional power and require a base of operations from which to control the local area. All these things necessitate a defensible home, and a tall tower or castle of some sort is a time-tested solution to this.
A tower, shaped as a square, a hexagon, or usually a circle, is a series of limited closed spaces, stacked upon themselves. Any area spell a wizard casts, centered on himself, will probably cover an entire floor. Making the structure easy to defend. Besides, consider the scenario: attackers in the low floor, wizard can see them by a hole in the ceiling. Through the same hole, the wizard can cast a cone area spell that will hit everyone in the floor below. This spell may not kill the entire party, but the wizard can rinse and repeat, going up the tower, wearing down the attackers, until he wins. And that is just one strategy the wizard can use. So, in towers, ONE wizard, can stop an army.
In a way, it's a fitting example of how perspective can shape your perception of reality. From the ground you can't see far but the details are easy to make out, as you rise you're able to see further away in less detail, but as you continue rising your vision eventually becomes obscured by the clouds, and finally you reach the vastness of space.
And if you blow the place up running arcane experiments or attempting congress with demons, hopefully the damage is contained.
Specifically in D&D dungeons have levels, similarly to heroes, and get harder the higher (or deeper) you go.
Consider a wizard who owns a building that is being attacked by an enemy lobbing projectiles, and assume that the building is either box shaped or is a cylindrical tower.
If it is a long range attack all the projectiles arriving in the target area of the building will be traveling almost in parallel. Due to uncertainty and imprecision in aiming they will be randomly distributed over an area.
Suppose the sun at the time of the attack happens to be positioned such that sunlight near the building is moving in the same direction as the projectiles.
A projectile that would have hit a given point on the ground if the building had not been present hits the building if and only if either that point is directly under the building or that point is in the building's shadow. Let's call the area directly under the building plus the area in shadow the building's target area. The chances of being hit by a given random projectile are proportional to the target area.
Now lets compare towers with boxes. Suppose the projectiles are coming in at a 45 degree angle.
Consider a wizard with a cylindrical tower with a radius of 10 m that has 10 floors with 3 m between floors. The gives floor space of around 3100 m^2.
A one story box with the same floor space would have a target area of 3250 m^2, assuming a square floor plan and the attack is coming in from a direction perpendicular to one of the sides.
The tower, if I've done the math right, has a target area of around 900 m^2.
If we double the height of the tower, making it 20 floors and ~6300 m^2, its target area is ~1500 m^2. A 6300 m^2 box with a square floor plan has a target area of ~6500 m^2.
Note that doubling the area of the box doubled the target area, but doubling the area of the tower only made the target around about 67% bigger.
For the one story box, target area is always larger then floor area, and the ratio approaches 1 as floor area goes up.
For the 10 m radius tower with floors 3 m apart, the ratio of target area to floor area goes to ~0.19 as the number of floors goes up.
Although tower wizard's chances of getting hit by a random projectile are lower the box wizard's chances, it should be noted that a hit on the tower is potentially more damaging than a hit on the box. Box wizard doesn't have to worry about a lucky shot collapsing his building. When deciding which kind of building to build, you need to take into account your enemies and decide whether whether a higher chance of a hit being a critical hit is worth a lower chance of not getting hit.
- Response attributed to Talk to Transformer/InferKit
Isn’t Richard Stallman a modern wizard?
