I have had a recurring dream through the years in which one of the characters is a wizard with whatever passes in the wizarding world for Alzheimers. He’s extremely old, extremely ill, and his mind is almost gone, but he still has his power. Consequently he’s very dangerous- not due to malevolence, but because his power escapes from him erratically- an embrace may result in the other person bursting into flames or he may become confused and cause a stone wall to come crashing down onto somebody that, in his right mind, he knows and trusts. In the dream he has a caregiver, a rather thankless job- a person who knows that tending him may cause his/her demise (not sure what gender the caregiver is).
I’m curious as to whether this character is something literally dreamed up by my imagination or if he comes from a story I’ve read or seen on television. Does the character of the senile and dangerous wizard sound familiar?
Completely not what you’re looking for, but I was still vaguely reminded of Barbara Hambly’s Windrose Chronicals, which features as the romantic lead an incredibly powerful but insane wizard. Not in the “wacky” or “eccentric” sense - in the “abused by a powerful dark wizard as a child and driven insane” sense.
Well, you can make a case for Merlin, at the end. Nimue only got her hooks into him because he was already losing it, IMHO.
More pertinently, The Caves of Buda by Leah R. Cutter has a wizard with Alzheimer’s. His granddaughter is trying to take care of him, but thinks his talk of magic and demons is caused by the Alzheimer’s. Otherwise, it doesn’t sound like your dream, however.
Fizban in the Dragonlance Chronicles books is kind of like that. In that he is constantly befuddled, forgetting his own name, arguing with logs, etc. He also tries to open a cage by casting an explosive fireball on the lock despite the fact that they’re in the cage (in close quarters to the lock).
However, he’s also a deity in disguise and the befuddled thing is an act and presumably he has the ability to ensure that no one dies from his ill-cast fireballs. So I don’t know if he really counts. Technicalities are everything.
It sounds like a familiar construct. Aside from many of the wizards in Discworld and the others mentioned here, I keep thinking I saw something like this in a Terry Brooks novel, not the Shannara books though.
In Piers Anthony’s first Xanth book, A Spell for Chameleon, the reigning king is an old man who can hardly work magic anymore, and I believe it’s also said that his mind is pretty much shot.
The Death Gate Cycle (series) by Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman, has a wizard who fits this. He’s mostly forgetful in the cute way, bordering on pathetic, but he does have great powers (if he can ever remember them!)
Also called Fizban. I can’t remember if we ever find out his original name. His mental problems are more a sort of Post Traumatic type thing though.
He was present when the world was sundered, and I think all the death and destruction cracked him. Being thrown into the Labyrinth to recuperate probably didn’t help.
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