The Tower Mythos

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.

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.

By Victoria Thorndale

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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.

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.

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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.