Zarathax and his Tower – The Wizard’s Tower Trope
https://wiki.wizard101central.com/wiki/Creature:Zarathax
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/MageTower
Thank you to Ashley D. for her help with this one.
This self-serving Draconian is a former member of the Dragon Titan’s Army. After pretending to help Wizards in finding their way to Malistaire, Zarathax betrays them for a chance at taking the throne of Dragonspyre for himself.
Zarathax, a Balance sorcerer, deceives Your Wizard into helping him activate the crystals and the key to open up the wizard tower. He pretends to be on your side but is using Your Wizard to get him to the wizards tower, the tower is where Dragonspyre wizards came apart to study, get away from the multitudes and to learn more magic as well as crafting runes, Zarathax is under the impression he’s going to rule Dragonspyre. When we confronted him in wizard tower he reveals his intentions and called us stupid.
“Ssstupid Wizard! Ssshould have lissstened to your bessst judgement, after all! I’ll remember you when I sssit on the throne of Dragonssspyre!” – Zarathax
Monstrology Tome Description:
Not a big fan of Malistaire. Doesn’t like the way he just keeps coming back… you know, to Dragonspyre.
Wizards often seem to live in towers. Not all of them, certainly, but enough for the tendency to be noticed.
Sometimes these towers are no larger than is needed for a single individual, while other times they house an entire community of magicians, and may possibly serve as a Wizarding School or the headquarters of The Magiocracy. Many of these towers are solitary, free-standing structures, often in the wilderness and built on top of mountain peaks for extra height, in order to provide their residents with isolation in which to conduct their studies. At other times they’re tacked on to some larger building — if the wizard is a Court Mage, for instance, their residence will often be at the tip of a castle’s tallest tower — or crowd among the skyline of a City of Wizards.
It is not uncommon for entry to these towers to be esoteric in nature, keeping the average Muggle from accessing it; anything from having its entry in the top, to having the only entrance magically warded, to having No Entrance at all and requiring magic to enter, though these esoteric entrances also serve to keep those without ability to exit in, making for effective prisons.
May originate from the fact that many traditions link magic with astronomy or astrology, making the top of a tower a commonsense place for a mage to hang out. A high tower also conveys a sense of isolation from “normal” people, which the magician can use to study in peace, much the same way that monasteries are often on mountaintops. In another sense, high towers are ancient symbols of arrogance and hubris.
A subtrope of The Tower, obviously. A tower owned by a wizard of evil-ish disposition will likely double as an Evil Tower of Ominousness. Up at the top is where one will find the owner’s Wizard Workshop, whose contents may be visible from the outside in the form of telescopes and other, less obviously identifiable objects poking out through the windows.
The current list of all the (known) Dragonspyre references are located here.
Although I am well versed in Pop Culture references but I do not claim to have caught them all. Let me know your favorites in the comments and if I’ve missed one you caught, let me know so I can add it to the list.
Text for this article is excerpted from the linked wiki pages
Zarathax image is from Wizard101, and is copyright of KingsIsle Entertainment.
The Wizard and his tower is a Firefly AI-generated image using prompts by Alien Graphics. It is (c)Alien Graphics
Image usage qualifies as fair use under US copyright law.
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