• Question - So if wizards are so great then why don't I ever see one on Dawson's Creek?

  Answer - Wow, what a stupid question. Okay, this is simple. Firstly, wizards appeal to a slightly different demographic than the teenage soap opera viewer. Secondly, Dawson's Creek is cancelled, let it go. What you seem to be trying to ask is why wizards aren't more prominent at the moment than they are. This is because the sword and sorcery epics have been pushed aside lately in growing favour for the science fiction craze. Writers feel that settings with castles and evil monsters just are not believable enough anymore due to today's more sophisticated audiences who are likely to believe only realistic things, like that seventy years from now everyone will own a robot butler, police will stop crimes before they are committed, and that nurses will ask you to fill out a form deciding what you want the new baby to be like when he grows up.

• Question - If it is all symbolism, then what are wizards meant to represent?

  Answer - That's better. Some legends hold that, during humankind's genesis, we were given all of God's knowledge and none of His power. It isn't hard to perceive our condition as being in this state, or at least a comparable one. A wizard is how a human might be if he held both God's knowledge and his power. This conception of a wizard was formed a long time ago, when the mystical was civilisation's mindset toward power. Of late, it has been technology that we are pitting against our human frailties, and there is no longer a need anymore to imagine ourselves as wizards. You can now literally have wizardry packaged in a box and sent to your doorstep, and that part of humanity's endless quest for God has halted in a quite unexpected manner.

• Question - Why are wizards so captivating, but at the same time under-appreciated?

  Answer - A great deal of the time spent in the wizardly vocation is mundane and tedious. The only real highlights of a wizard's life come near the end, when all his hard work and experience have culminated. By this point the wizard has past the mark in his life where it might have been his station to play hero. His role has become the one of teacher - just as noble, but passive now. So, when a hero is forged, a person of great courage and vitality, who has all the potential required to overcome the evils of the world, he will still lack the skill and insight that can be cultivated only through a lifetime of lessons learned and obstacles mastered. Obstacles such as the one the hero would have to soon face alone and unprepared were it not for his mentor, his wizard. This is as it should be. For it is the wizard's interaction with the less experienced and more hands-on champions that we identify with and find so appealing. The wizard needs no attention. He has already accomplished his feats. He has already met his destiny. Forgotten unjustly, is only the inexorable replacement wizard, toiling largely unnoticed until such time as he reaches his summation and a new hero rises who will seek his much needed wisdom. Perhaps some of these new heroes that everyone will soon admire are wizards themselves, but more likely they are just unique individuals. Ones familiar, but not obsessed, with magic, and who need just a little guidance and inspiration in their life to help them contend with the great difficulties of which they are expected to struggle. For them there is always wizardry.

• Question - When is this Entry going to end?

  Answer - Forthwith

Further Reading

• Wizard Lore - An Introduction
• Wizard Lore - What's In a Wizard?
• Wizard Lore - Lingustics of Note
• Wizard Lore - Natural Predators
• Wizard Lore - Spell Categories
• Wizard Lore - Loose Ends