Character function

The wizard in medieval chivalric romance often appears as a wise old man and acts as a mentor.  In contrary, other witches and magicians as villains are hostile to the hero as ogres and other monsters.
Both the wizard and other witches are coexisting into fantasy. Wizards featured as mentors as Gandalf in the Lord of the Rings and Albus Dumbledore from Harry Potter. However, evil sorcerers as villains take an important role in pulping fantasy. Being on crucial position makes the genre in which they appeared is dubbed sword and sorcery.
Wizards were usually regarded as elderly or ageless ones. Further development on this theme has been made in modern fantasy, leading wizards to heroes on their own quests, alongside works where the wizard comes into appearance as a mentor figure, or a villain. A work with a wizard hero may give him a wizard mentor as well, as in Earthsea.