I: The Magician
Long ago, in a land much like our own, there was earth
below, and sky above. On the earth there lived a score of little creatures,
simple things who dreamed brightly. They looked around the earth and were dissatisfied
with the limits of their existence. Life was short, and cruel. There was no
shelter from the rain. They were trapped in a world of torment, and saw no
means to escape.
Then one day there came a brilliance to their kind,
one different to the rest. Food would not sate him. The earth around was an
especial torture, for he looked up and dreamed of the sky. Perhaps, he thought, Heaven
is the place where I was always meant to be. He thought that if he could
reach it, all of his problems would be solved.
He envisioned the Tower. He would learn of the earth
and all of its contents, and perfect its shape. He would build foundations and
supports, master architecture to make the tower scrape the belly of the clouds.
Then, perhaps, he would ascend to his place in Heaven.
When the others on the earth saw his efforts to create
a tower, they believed him great. They called him ‘The Magician’ or ‘The
Wizard’, for what he did was magic to them. Many understood the beauty of the
tower, and offered to help him build it. Though they lacked his brilliance,
their hands could labour and turn the physical earth. Over time, more and more
of the creatures flocked to the tower. They built their homes in its shadow.
This was how the metropolis was born.
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| By JC Barquet |
II: The Metropolis
The more people who came to the Tower, the harder it
became to support them. Great farms and fisheries were needed to feed the
creatures of Metropolis, forests were stripped bare and mines cut into the
earth. One magician could not oversee all of this, and because these were
matters of earth and not heaven, he let others manage the affairs of the city.
He locked himself inside the highest room of the tower, and philosophized over
how to make it become even taller without collapsing.
In the rooms below him, others established a hierarchy
to determine who was closest to the heaven, and who closest to the earth. Hierophants
and Empresses, Kings and Courtiers all vied for the position of master of the
earth. At some times they shared this power, linked to one another in arcane
conspiracy. At others, they divided Metropolis into districts of higher or
lower importance to the cause. The magician grew distant from his city. Many on
the earth even questioned whether he was real. Every once in a while the
highest of them would say, “I am the Magician!” and use the powers of earth to
convince people of the claim.
In the lowest districts of the city, life was as bad
as it ever was. Though the creatures of earth labored tirelessly for the tower
to keep growing, they saw little of the greatness on its upper levels.
Everything on earth seemed to disappear up the steps of the tower, leaving behind
only scraps for the laborers. There was a terrible separation between the Hands
that brought together the energies necessary to keep the tower standing, and
the Mind that made it grow taller. The tower’s foundation was unstable.
What the Metropolis needed was a Heart that would tell
the Magician what the Hands required, and deliver to earth the beauty of the
Magician’s Mind, and all it envisioned.
But this would not be so easy. For from those that
schemed to puppet the earth came a sorcerer of particularly evil temperament,
who sought not to rule the tower, but to destroy it.
III: The Wheel
 |
| By Michael Whelan |
The evil sorcerer is known by many names. Sometimes, he is called ‘The Necromancer’, to show the abject disconnection between his living mind and his dead hands. Sometimes, he is ‘The Devil’, or ‘The Man in Black’, or a ‘Wicked Witch’. Whatever his name, all that is known of his motives is that he wishes to destroy the tower. Subtle and insidious, he knows of the growing gap between the Mind and Hands, and that all the Tower really needs to be destroyed is to be allowed to grow while its foundation crumbles. But there is a problem with this design: the birth of the Heart. He knows that should she reach the Magician, the Tower will be saved.
She the Heart also goes by many names. She has been called ‘The Lady of
Shadows’. She has been called ‘The Lamb’, or ‘The Stone’. She is
quick and cunning, and kind, with strengths belied by her form.
The Necromancer imprisons her within the tower, where he believes that
she will be under his rule. Exercising control over the world, he believes that
it is only a matter of time before the tower crumbles.
There is one person he does not count on standing against him, because
he has already failed to find his heart and comes from outside of the world in
which the Tower is built. This unlikely antihero was vanquished long ago by the
black magician, found wanting and forever cursed by his failure. He is ‘The
Hanged Man’, ‘The Gunslinger’, ‘The Voodoo Cowboy’. Once he had the potential
to be as great a magician as the one who built the Tower, but having failed in
his ambitions, he turns to petty sorcery, earthly dabbling, and profitless
pleasures. No-one would ever expect that this wasted creature would have a part
to play in saving The Heart, and yet it is he who finds her, and is tasked with helping
her. They begin their long journey to the top of the tower together.
Others of the Dispossessed join their journey along the way, manifest in
the spirit of the tower itself. They sometimes meet a cowardly warrior, or a
mindless scarecrow. Beggars, thieves, and whores are those who end up being the
champions of The Lady, because all of them are in one way or another those made
worthless by the disconnection between the Hands and Mind. But by being exposed
to Her, they connect with their own Hearts and find the qualities that once
held them back from greatness.
 |
| By Gregory Manchess |
As the heroes approach the Tower, they make many stories of victory over
the neglect of the Necromancer. All of earth is won over, and at last the
necromancer is defeated. The Heart rules in the Tower, restoring balance and
communication between the Mind and Hands.
IV: The Wood Between the
Worlds
Reaching his coveted position at the top of the Tower,
The Hanged Man learns the secret of moving between the worlds, and the fate of
the one from which he came. He finds the means of creating his own Tower,
becoming the magician for the next age.
The space between the worlds reveals the true nature
of reality: a vast network of towers, all with their own story, all connected
by the same central players, who wear different faces from earth to earth. Most
importantly, the new magician believes he has found the means to create a Tower
which will climb higher than any that came before it. He sets out with this
goal, ultimately doomed to the fate of all magicians who came before him. He
creates a Tower in a Revised Eden, which falls prey to a new Devil.
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| By Victoria Thorndale |
~~~
Greater
Aspects of The Tower Mythos
The Magician: This
is a symbol for ‘Brilliance’. The Magician is easily identified with genius and
science, an embodiment of The Tower as a person. The Magician is not always the
one who rules the Tower, but is
always the one who envisions it.
The Tower: This is a symbol for ‘Power’. Towers
perfectly exemplify an abstract power that reaches beyond brute material force.
It can be associated with divinity, or with magic, or even with the more subtle
magic of language, politics, reason and rhetoric. It is also seen as a bridge
between a lower state of existence and a higher one. Those who control the
bridge determine who gets to cross.
The Metropolis: This
is a symbol for ‘Society’. It is popular to express The Tower as a city or
nation because The Tower Mythos mirrors the problems that arise as a result of
social hierarchy, and suggests how these problems can be fixed.
The Mind(s): These
are symbols for idealism, aesthetics, and morals. The Emperors, Queens and
Hierophants fit into this category. In the beginning of The Wheel, they are
seen as corrupt, or open to corruption. They spout ideals of control, strict
order, and crippling extortion which permits them to lead extravagant lives.
Inevitably they attempt to control The Tower by means of force. The Mind’s
restoration is shown in the Metropolis as social consciousness and movement up
or down the class system by means other than force. It is shown in the Magician
as a return from isolation within The Tower.
The Hand(s): These are symbols for
practicality, cultivation, and productivity. The labourers, bourgeois, and
crafters fit into this category. In the beginning of The Wheel they are seen as
being oppressed to a point of dysfunction, suffering famine or plague, or
openly riotous. There are those among them who hold that violent revolution is
the only way to achieve their goal, though without the Heart success in this
regard only leads to a different corrupt Mind. By the end of The Tower Mythos
famine ends and plagues are cured, and the working class experiences a
renaissance.
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| By Neville Dear |
The Necromancer: This
is a symbol for ‘Corruption’. The Necromancer, though he is one kind of
magician, does not have a brilliance for creation. His talent is for
destruction. As such, he needs a Tower to destroy. The Necromancer, like the
magician, is not necessarily the one who rules The Tower, but is always the one who
envisions its destruction. The Necromancer may be taken as what happens to a
Magician when he loses his Heart.
The Wheel: This
is a symbol for ‘Revolution’. It denotes
both travel and a cyclical pattern. The stories that take place in The Tower
Mythos are most commonly part of The Wheel, markedly distinct from the events
around it, which are mostly related to background and setting. It can be seen
as the action linking cause (what comes before The Wheel) and effect (What
occurs after it). The Wheel is an effective symbol not only due to its
association with travel and cycles, but also because of its physical shape. A
central, transverse axle holds the wheel in place, and the wheel moves around
it. There is a distinct hub and rim, joined together by spokes. All are good
points on which to base metaphors.
The Heart: This
is a symbol for ‘Restoration’. The Tower’s Heart is frequently replaced by
soldiers or a guardian when it is not in its rightful place, showing that force
is being used in absence of conscience. The Heart is the point of mediation
between the Hands and Mind. The Heart also tends to restore the balance to all
metaphorical extensions of The Tower: by encountering people, people are
healed. By encountering a nation, the nation heals. By being placed in The
Tower, The Necromancer is healed and replaced by a Magician.
The Heart is also identified
with sacrifice, and does not always survive the turn of The Wheel. When the
Heart is sacrificed the Tower is destroyed, along with The Necromancer. Hands
and Minds are rendered equal, and are tasked with building a new tower in the
revised Eden. Should the Heart survive and enter The Tower, then it is taken
that the Tower, Metropolis, and Magician are all saved too.
The Hanged Man:
This is a symbol for ‘Struggle’.
The Hanged Man is a third variation of the Magician, endeavoring endlessly to
become his equal, but held on earth, incapable of breaking through to the upper
levels of The Tower. The corruption that has seeded the earth and stripped it
of its resources prevents him from constructing his own Tower. Thus he becomes
an enemy of The Necromancer.
At the beginning of The
Wheel, The Hanged Man is suffering the same disconnection between Hands and
Mind as The Tower and all its other manifestations, capable only of the lowest
sorceries and mechanical pursuits. It his encounter with The Heart that
restores him to his true ambitions, and enables him to face The Necromancer. He
is frequently depicted as an antihero; sacrificing and pragmatic, an abuser of
drugs (including alcohol) and language. He is, in a word, ‘Real’ rather than
‘Ideal’ due to his unwilling imprisonment on earth. He changes over the course
of the story, becoming more Ideal as his heart is restored.
The Hanged Man is the
Magician of the revised Eden. Once he has reached the top of The Tower, his
struggle is rewarded when he discovers the means of creating his own, either by
building in the ruins of a destroyed Tower or entering a world where a tower
has never been.
 |
| By Robert Sammelin |
The Wood Between the Worlds:
The
Wood is a symbol for the fabric of reality, the ‘hidden truth’ that the
Magician discovered by reaching the heavens. It is a physical manifestation of
the phrase, “It’s the journey that matters, not the destination.” In a way, the
Wood can be identified as a Library (another place made of trees and filled
with stories). The Wood’s part in the Mythos is to reinforce the idea that
nothing really ends, but simply becomes part of something larger and more
complex.
The Revised Eden:
The Revised Eden is the name
for an earth without a Tower, upon which the Hanged-Man-Turned-Magician plans
to create a new, improved Tower. The ultimate teaching of The Tower Mythos is
that even this attempt shall fail, but the way in which it fails may be
different, or less harsh. There is one significant difference in varieties of
The Tower: The fate of The Heart. In some instances it is sacrificed to save
the world, and in others it and its Tower survive to become part of the greater
world.
Lesser
Aspects of The Tower Mythos
A Rose by Any Other Name
The Rose often depicts a revised attempt at creating a
Tower more in tune with its heart and the earth from which it grows. One of the
permutations of the Tower, The World Tree, is seen as a stable basis for the
Hand-Mind relationship which promotes the idea of conservation working
alongside civilization. The message here is clear: Don’t forget that the earth
is what keeps the Tower standing. A balanced Tower works in harmony with
nature.
Sexual Metaphysics
The Tower is pretty obviously a totemic symbol, erect
and phallic. It appears at once to mean Power, but in the context of the
greater narrative it is an unstable power that, ungoverned by a heart, becomes
corrupted. In order to remain stable it needs to heed the Eden that surrounds
it, and if not it will crumble and no second Tower can be born to an Eden
Revised.
The ultimate lesson to this is the necessity of
connection and cooperation between sexual partners in establishing a lasting
existence.
The idea of The Tower as a rose or a flowering tree is
also important in this sense: flowers, in sexual symbolism, are associated with
femininity due to the way they are pollinated and due to their passing
resemblance to female genitalia.
Masculinity is identified with brute force, mechanics
and ‘heartless’ emotional disconnection.
Femininity is identified with diplomacy, nurturing,
and empathy.
The implication is that The World Tree – the most
stable permutation of The Tower – is female, or that the magician at its peak
is feminine.
Why
is The Tower Mythos so recurrent?
The Tower Mythos recurs whether or not people are aware
of it because it is based on forms that affect the world we live in,
principally:
Evolution: The idea that hierarchies will always
emerge, strong elements will succeed and weak ones fail. A power vacuum will
cause conflict over resources, those who have not earned power yet still
possess it will attempt to exploit others to stay in power.
Entropy: The
idea that systems will arrange themselves in a way that gives off the maximum amount
of energy to neighboring systems. In The Tower Mythos, the earth is one system
and the sky is its encompassing neighbor, the Tower the channel between them, and
The Hanged Man the manifestation of the maximum potential of the World.
Sequence: Expressions can be arranged into a state where latter
components are extrapolations of former components. As a cyclical Myth, cause
and effect are interconnected in a fluid network that allows for maximum
variation. All that will happen has technically happened already, so the order
in which things occur is of minimal consequence to the events of the narrative.
Opposition: Every
expression that exists has an absolute state, a negative of that absolute
state, and a neutral point between it. The Tower Mythos is very effective at
demonstrating this through parts that connect in the form of
‘Thesis-Synthesis-Antithesis’. For example, ‘Earth-Tower-Sky’,
‘Hand-Heart-Mind’, ‘Necromancer-Hanged Man-Magician’.
Logic: Most
Tower stories are a sum of their conceptual elements. Given the interactions
between all possible permutations of class, worldscape and character, similar
events are foregone conclusions.
In short, The Tower Mythos recurs because it makes
sense. It is a metaphor for the systems we encounter every day, both personally
and in the world around us.
The Tower Mythos, being a story, also has all major characters
and plot elements that fit the contemporary terms of conducting a narrative:
The Magician: Creator of the
Situation
The Tower: The Conflict
The Metropolis: The Setting
The Mind(s): The Obstructive
Secondary Characters
The Hand(s): The Assistive Secondary Characters
The Necromancer: Antagonist
The Wheel: The Storyline
The Heart: Love Interest
(Not always Romantic)
The Hanged Man: Protagonist
The Wood Between the Worlds: The Turning Point
The Revised Eden: The Conclusion
The Tower Mythos is not a Monomyth, but it is a
specific interpretation of a monomyth with attributes that lend themselves to
broad interpretations, and similar interpretations frequently recur. For example,
the nature of its Protagonist as a reluctant or unlikely antihero, or the
return to a Garden of Eden at the story’s conclusion, or the bafflingly
consistent use of Towers, flowers and trees to mirror a climax. The Tower
Mythos may be one small part of a larger story. But the gist of it is that it does rise again and again.
As such, it is incredibly helpful in understanding the
concepts behind a story, and identifying the elements within a story from their
subliminal associations. For example when someone is looking for a story’s
point of conflict, they may not find it because ‘conflict’ is too abstract. However
if they simultaneously condition themselves to look for a ‘Tower’, there is
more chance of finding a concrete association with Conflict and realizing all the
other conceptual elements that form around it.
The Tower Mythos can get a little out of control, a
clear example of Apophenia, the habit of seeing patterns in things where there are
none (For example with number patterns, or religious characters in breakfast
foods). It encourages a feeling of conspiracy. Yet, we do know that not all
that may be considered apophenia is. The Golden Ratio is a concrete example of
a recurrent number pattern. It occurs because reality has certain immutable
principles in common with mathematics. If The Tower Mythos is the same, it
holds that it too has this quality.
~~~
MINI-UPDATE:
I'm still finding connections to the tower, trying to be strict about what I consider part of the Mythos and what is really little more than my own feverish imagining.
This candidate struck a chord I can't help but work into the melody: Amanda Palmer put up an animation of an old voice-note of Neil Gaiman sleep talking. It made me think of The Wood Between the Worlds immediately.
Props, Amanda.
