Evil Tower of Ominousness: Difference between revisions

{{trope}}

[[File:Barad-dur by itself2 1898.jpg|link=The Lord of the Rings (film)|frame|...in the land of [[Mordor]] where the shadows lie.]]

 

{{quote|''And yet

 

After the [[Elaborate Underground Base]], this is perhaps the most common form of supervillain lair. A jaw-droppingly massive tower that, well, ''towers'' over everyone and everything around it.

 

Such buildings are [[It's Going Down|highly likely]] [[Load-Bearing Boss|to be blown up, torn down,]] or set on fire.

 

== Anime and Manga ==

* The Kaibacorp Building and Duel Tower in ''[[Yu-Gi-Oh!]]''.

* In the ''Gatchaman'' OVA, this is Cross Karakoram (although it's disguised throughout).

* The giant skyscraper where immortal Marcus Octavius lives in the anime movie ''[[Highlander the Search For Vengeance]]''. Pretty much the center of his empire.

 

== Comic Books ==

* The LexCorp/LuthorCorp building in the ''[[Superman]]'' mythos, including ''[[Superman: The Animated Series]]'' and ''[[Smallville]]''.

 

== Fairy Tales ==

 

 

== Film ==

* ''[[Star Wars]]'': The Death Stars, if not in shape then in spirit. The second Death Star had a tower at its north pole, containing the Emperor's penthouse suite, complete with handy-dandy bottomless pit that led into the reactor core for some reason. The first Death Star had a similar tower in it, according to ''[[The Force Unleashed]]''.

* ''[[The Brothers Grimm (film)|The Brothers Grimm]]'' took its cues directly from [[Fairy Tales]], so naturally a tower was needed. In the middle of a [[The Lost Woods|Haunted Forest]], a tower with no doors, surrounded by 12 stone sarcophagi, and the nest for [[Ravens and Crows|a murder of shrieking crows]]. Jakob wants to get in to meet the girl of his dreams. [[What Could Possibly Go Wrong?]]?

* ''[[Time Bandits]]'': The Fortress of Ultimate Darkness.

* ''[[Metropolis]]'': The [[What Do You Mean Its Not Symbolic|New Tower of Babel]], Joh Fredersen's headquarters.

 

== Literature ==

* ''[[The Lord of the Rings]]''

** And Minas Morgul.

** And Orthanc, in the middle of the circle of Isengard.

* The White Tower in Robert Jordan's ''[[The Wheel of Time]]'' books, especially after Elaida's [[Face Heel Turn]]. Mazrim Taim builds and rules the Black Tower, but this is actually a village; the name was chosen specifically as a reference to the other one. Taim does build a palace that he rules from that counts though. And that's not including the Tower of Ghenji, which is probably a portal to a dimension with ''Alien Geometry''. Or the Towers of Midnight, which were the place where the a'dam, a collar to enslave magic users were made. Or, for that matter, the tower that Moridin has recently started using in the Blight. While the 13th book probably won't show the (for the series) literal Towers of Midnight (they're several thousand miles away), it's probably not called Tower of Midnight for no reason. There's a lot of ominousness to go around.

* Southwatch in ''[[Shannara|Heritage of Shannara]]''.

* Prince Xizor in ''[[Star Wars]]: [[Shadows of the Empire]]'' has one, of the skyscraper variety. Partially subverted in that ''every'' building on Coruscant is a skyscraper. {{spoiler|It collapses after Lando Calrissian drops a ''[[Stuff Blowing Up|thermal detonator]]'' in the garbage chute.}}

* The Shadow King in ''[[The City of Dreaming Books]]'' has a tower. Located in a huge vault in the deepest reaching of the city-spanning catacombs.

* The Iron Tower of Carcë in E. R. Eddison's ''[[The Worm Ouroboros]]'', lair of the [[Sorcerous Overlord|sourcerous King]] Gorice of Witchland.

 

* ''[[Frasier]]'': Played for laughs and [[Lampshade Hanging|lampshaded]] when the staff of the radio station have to confront their boss in an office building known as The Black Tower.

* [[Angel|Wolfram & Hart's]] Los Angeles branch corporate building. Angel partially lampshades this: "You set things in motion, play your little games up here in your glass and chrome tower, and people die - innocent people."

* In War and Remembrance the transportees are shown being taken through the gates of Auschwitz and it makes Barud-dur seem like a luxury hotel. Not only that but they used the [[Nightmare Fuel|real Auschwitz]] for a movie prop in that scene making it Truth in Television.

 

== Music ==

* The song "The Dark Tower of Abyss" by Rhapsody is about such a tower.

 

== Radio ==

* Novacom's radio tower in ''[[Adventures in Odyssey]]''.

 

* In ''[[Warhammer Fantasy Battle]]'' Nagash, the lord of the undead, has not just an evil tower, but an entire ''mountain'' that's been turned into a gigantic fortress of evil!

** Towers stick out of Naggaroth, land of the Dark Elves, like it was a pincushion.

* From ''[[Magic: The Gathering]]'': The Darksteel Citadel on the plane of Mirrodin is the lair of the [[Big Bad]] Memnarch.

** Also, the Tower of Calamities, from the same set.

** Halfway up the Spire is the fortress of a [[Big Bad|Slightly Less Big Bad]]. He plunged most of a continent into winter for years as a weapon of mass destruction, created monstrous laboratories in which to create monstrous armies, and generally was bad news for everyone and everything. And he measures up to the halfway point of the original big bad.

* The ''[[Fighting Fantasy]]'' gamebook (kinda a halfway-house between an RPG and a [[Choose Your Own Adventure]] book) ''Tower of Destruction''. [[Exactly What It Says on the Tin|There's one of these, and it flies around destroying things]]. Oh, and demons.

 

== Video Games ==

* The Tower of Guidance from ''[[Fire Emblem]]: Radiant Dawn''.

** A bit of a subversion in that it contains the pervading religion's goddess and isn't malevolent in its outward appearance. {{spoiler|The goddess isn't as nice as everyone thinks.}}

* ''[[Chrono Trigger]]'': Who can forget the scene where the party first sees Magus's Lair in all its gloomy glory?

* ''[[Chrono Cross]]'': It's only the most chilling part of either Chrono series where the party first enters the Dead Sea and sees the creepy-as-hell Tower of Geddon looming on the frozen waves.

** Also, [[The Very Definitely Final Dungeon|Terra Tower]], built by the descendants of the Reptites in an alternate future.

* The [[Shin Megami Tensei Nocturne|Tower of Kagutsuchi]], Tartarus in ''[[Persona 3]]'', [[Shin Megami Tensei Imagine|Tokyo Metropolitan Government Building]] and [[Digital Devil Saga|Karma Temple]]. [[Shin Megami Tensei|SMT]] has a thing with [[Tarot Motifs|towers]]...

* Dr. Loboto's tower lab in ''[[Psychonauts]]'', as well as the thorny tower in the Brain Tumbler Experiment.

* An Evil Tower of Ominousness shows up as the [[Very Definitely Final Dungeon]] in ''[[Medal of Honor]] Airborne'', of all places in the form of the Flak Tower, a giant concrete tower the size of a large town. [[Zero Punctuation]] remarks that "''I was unaware the Nazis had a gigantic armored concrete tower that could only be described as a DOOM FORTRESS''". Although the Flak Tower is a real WWII German war structure, the allies never actually attacked one during the war (and the Soviets could only siege them until the people inside ran out of food).

* ''[[Banjo-Kazooie]]'' and ''[[Banjo Tooie]]''. The final boss battles BOTH take place at the top of a tower.

* The final island in the first ''[[Crash Bandicoot]]'' is basically a giant tower built on a rock. Mount Grimly in ''Mind Over Mutant'' counts as both this and [[Death Mountain]].

* ''[[Legacy of Kain]]'' had a few; the tower of Dark Eden in ''Blood Omen'' and the Silent Cathedral in ''Soul Reaver'' are the trust in the tower sense. The Sarafan Keep in ''Blood Omen 2'' could also count.

* ''[[Rise of the Kasai]]'' actually featured three, but the final level of Hassa is the most striking example. So much so that the tower itself functions as [[The Dreaded]] for the main characters.

* In [[Vampires Dawn]] an invisble tower is the home of [[The Dragon]], while the [[Big Bad]] prefers an [[Elaborate Underground Base]].

* The Watcher's Tower in ''[[El Shaddai: Ascension of the Metatron]]'', which makes up the bulk of the game. As it was created by fallen angels, the interior is so mind mindbogglingly large, it's not so much divided into individual floors, as into individual ''worlds''.

 

== Web Comics ==

* In ''Radio Active Panda'', students from a rival ominous tower of mad scientist-type evil (from the OTHER mad scientist tower/academy of mad robotics who has a moon base) pull a prank by stockpiling garden gnomes all the way to the on the 42th floor. The pile of gnomes is a third ominous tower in its own right - considering the pile is probably telescope-visible from earth as a red spot and the largest known nuke wouldn't remove them all.

* The Templar Towers in ''[[Twokinds]]'' actually turned out to be giant magic batteries {{spoiler|which have the nasty side effect of slowly turning the brains of Bastins and Keidrans into mush, making their lands ripe for a Templar invasion.}}

* In [[Endstone]] the Eternity Spire. [http://endstone.net/2009/02/15/issue-1-page-3/ Where Jon intended to destroy the world].

 

 

== Western Animation ==

* The first ''[[Shrek]]'' movie did a [[Lampshade Hanging]]; when Shrek sees the towering castle of [[Big Bad]] Lord Farquaad (an [[The Napoleon|ill-tempered, tyrannical midget]]), his first thoughts are "Do you think maybe he's compensating for something?"

* From ''[[Gargoyles]]''; the Erie Building is the world's tallest, located in Manhattan. It's the home and office of villain David Xanatos, and just to crank up the ominous factor, it's topped with a real Scottish castle from the 10th century. Plus live gargoyles, at the beginning and end of the series.

* Aku's Tower in [[Samurai Jack]].

* On ''[[Phineas and Ferb]]'', Doofenschmirtz Evil Incorporated is headquartered in a big purple skyscraper.

 

== Real Life ==

* [[Termites]] build mounds that get as high as thirty feet. Stay the [[Gosh Dang It to Heck|heck]] away, aardvarks.

* [http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_ax5ZIdFoW1U/SbZAZsRmpZI/AAAAAAAAL2I/p3RdShBUWkM/s1600/burj-dubai-tower-05.jpg The Burj Dubai], the tallest building in the world. (no relation to [[Mordor|Lugburz]], another dark tower in the middle of the desert.)

* [[Truth in Television]]: pretty much anything designed by Nicholas Hawksmoor.

* ''[[Disney Theme Parks|The Twilight Zone Tower of Terror]]''.

** [[North Korea]]’s [[wikipedia:Juche Tower|Juche Tower]] and [[wikipedia:Ryugyong Hotel|Ryugyong Hotel]] are two rather creepy-looking and rather tall monuments to the ego of Kim Il-Sung. The latter was even creepier-looking before they started putting the glass in. The Soviets, at least, had the good sense to notice how oppressive and money-wasting these sorts of projects looked.

*** To be fair, the monuments are perceived as Towers of Ominousness largely due to their associations with the fanatical regime that constructed them. Stylistically, the Washington Monument (ironically, it's pretty much of the same height as Juche) dominates the surrounding empty space no less than the Juche Tower, or any other obelisk built since the Egyptians, and the Empire State Building once towered over blocks and blocks of buildings 1/6 of its height no better than the Ryugyong Hotel, and considering the Great Depression, most of its offices were just as empty as the unfinished hotel rooms of its Korean counterpart.

* The Nazi's built not one, but 8 flak towers in Germany and Austria. These flak towers were built with 3,5m thick walls of reinforced concrete. They were also heavily armed with 128mm, 37mm and 20mm AA guns. [[wikipedia:Flak tower|Flak tower]]

* A lot of old churches give that impression, for example [http://www.heise.de/foto/galerie/Koelner-Dom-17080870454603308f7491dc28fabe34/ Cologne Cathedral] in Germany.

 

{{reflist}}

[[Category:The Tower]]

[[Category:Settings]]

[[Category:Home Base]]

[[Category:Older Than Print]]