Why do wizards live in towers?

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Please, someone, I'm clueless. I thought most wizards to be old old sage like, so I actually wondered why on earth they live in towers. I would think it's pretty hard for an old man walking up and down all those stairs, though it could be for the excersize, just seems for a sage.

Any ideas?

 

they think their invincible so they taunt the enemy with an easy target that they're not meant to hit

 

They have phallic envy

 

Who needs stairs when you can levitate/fly etc?
I blame Tolkien for the tower thing, remember Orthanac, Barad Dur?
Towers are good for scrying from. A wizard relies on magic for defense. An underground dungeon bunker is not necessarily safer when the enemy may have Umber Hulks etc. Besides, "you approach the bungalow of Zardak the Mad Mage" just doesn't sound right somehow.

[This message has been edited by Erran (edited February 26, 2002).]

 

The price of the ground went skyhigh ?

 

In a tower you can have different levels, a smart wizard puts his alchemy ecquipment at the top so as when things blow up, only the highest level of the tower needs to repaired.

 

Why not a cave? Or a nice condo? Or a three-bedroom poece with built in plumbing. Or a tree house? Or an igloo? Or a big tent? Or a skyscraper (hey wait a minute )? Or a shoebox in the middle of the road? Or a cottage - what's wrong with cottages? Witches live there and there's nothing wrong with witches is there? IS THERE

 

Towers are easy to construct, both magically and mundanely. They symbolize elevation and isolation. They are much easier to defend that any of the alternatives, especially for a loner. They are definitely not castles (which warriors have) or townhouses (which merchants have). Its easier to stargaze and other wierdo wizardly activities from the top of a tower than from in a cave.

Aloha
Vormaerin

 

Towers do seem to always be asoitaited with mages/wizards dont they?

What about a nice box? Box's are cheap and you can build some thing really big with a lot of boxs. That where I see a mad mage living.

 

I suppose Tolkien started with it... in every fantasy-story, a mage lives in a tower and I also don't know why. Maybe because it's a good defensive place where you can study spells without being distrubed often....

 

Hmmm... Could it be because they have a bad case of Raistlin-syndrome? They want to become allmighty (Like our dear Tal has ) and reach the skies...

I also suggest phallic envy, Tolkienization and defenseability.

Ara
(Feeling like a snail)

 

*cracks knuckles*

Well, the whole tower/wizard combo is a result of stereotyping. Remember Galileo? He created the first telescope (or at least the first powerful one). The easiest places for astronomers to do their work was on top of buildings. Galileo was reprimanded by the church for saying that the earth was not the center of the universe and threatened him with heretical claims. If an evil heritic lives at the top of the tower, and wizards are historically heritics...

Also, alchemists tended to live in high buildings because the noxious fumes were easier to dispose of. (There is more air up there than at ground level)

 

or maybe alchemists/wizards were savouring the 'noxious' fumes they'd created?

 

There is only one reason: privacy. If you were working on a very difficult spell, that would fail and destroy everything with the most little mistake, so you don't want to be disturbed. What better place could you be than in a tower. If your neighbour knocks on your door to borrow a cup of sugar (that they never return), you wouldn't be disturbed by it, because you are on the highest floor of the tower and don't hear the knocking.

If this doesn't make any sense the first time you read (which probably is the case), wait untill you are doing something with absolute prescion and the neighbour knocks on the door to borrow a cup of sugar.

 

i bet as they think they're above everyone else they like to literraly BE ABOVE everyone else.

 

Towers are easily defended. Many of us have tried to reach Ramazith at the top of his tower in Baldur's Gate, and when Saruman refused to come out and stayed high up in his tower he wasn't easy to catch.

 

All of the above ... plus it is a handy focal point for arcane powers. In a tower you have connection to the sky & earth, a view of any nearby water, and a healthy center pit to contain fire. All of this comes to a crux in the wizard's lab.

There is also an element of defense in a tower. A spiral stairwell can easily be defended by a few heavily armed guards or golums or elementals. If they fall, the wizard would be able to rain spells from a safe distance while keeping intruders strung out during their long climb.

 

I still like my idea of a box tower. Wonder how long that would take??

Anyways you could really argue about this for some time. Unless your an actual mage then I dought that any of this will ever be settled. Which means a long thread:hehe:

Heres my question: Where do the towers come from?

 

well, some gnostic dudes used to sit on very tall pillars to bring them closer to 'enlightenment' ..

oh and technicaly only part of bara-dûr is a tower

 

it could also be that they like small high towers so they can gloat and be high on their arses when silly adventurers come asking for their sage advise..

oh.. the memories (moonstone)
Just hilarious when he turned you into a frog, hehehe