But there are plenty of wizards with hooded robes carrying staves.
/quote]
And? The silly image being referenced here was Wizards in pointy hats waving sticks around. No pointy hats (which are rather silly in most incarnations) to be seen, unless the argument that casting spells through staves in combat is silly. Actually there is a gnome in a pointy hat pointing at a chalkboard in the PHB, and he does indeed look very comical. Good thing wearing a pointy hat isn't mentioned anywhere in the Wizard class description and people don't defend that flavor while simultaneously insisting on how serious it is.
Do you plan on backing this assertion up? I would love to see the citations on this.
I wasn't planning on it, but we'll use your examples plus the images in the Bard section of the PHB.
If the prominent character walking the tight rope is meant to be a bard (PHB 52), then is that silly? Where is their instrument?
I don't know. The "prominent character" is so small and indistinct I can't even tell the race, gender, expression or much of anything. I too wonder where their instrument is, considering they're proficient in 3 of them and are described as using them to channel their magic and class features. There is a character a bout the same size at the bottom left corner playing an instrument as people go around the maypole. All in all, it is definitely a jovial image.
Are you counting the depicted Halfling as a bard? Or the depicted Performer background as a bard?
I'm not, actually, under the assumption that it could be easily argued they represent Halflings and Performers as opposed to Bards.
What is stopping the character depicted on PHB 148 from being a bard?
What's stopping the Gnome on PHB 35 from being a bard?
The characters in question are wielding a shield and longbow respectively. Bards are not proficient in either.
That could be a bard on DMG 303, if we take the lute as a visual cue, but is this character 1) using the lute in combat, or 2) dressed in a silly fashion? Sure, if you are defining the bard pictures as those in which "the characters are carrying instruments," then of course you will find bards carrying lutes and not find many bards not carrying lutes. If the picture of what is presumably magical music is meant to depict a bard (PHB 202), then there are certainly several things that we can notice about the picture that fly in the face of "silly" stereotypes lobbed at the bard: again, 1) the character is not playing in combat, and 2) the character is not dressed as a troubadour, jongleur, or common minstrel, but is instead decked in mail. Is she smirking or smiling? Hard to say, but the campfire scene looks positively serene as opposed to comically jovial. How many bards can you find who are depicted as the "dude dancing and spouting poetry" while being attacked by trolls or performing in combat?
So they just save those instruments for whenever the fighting is done? They don't use music at all in their Bardic Inspiration, Song of rest, or in their spells?And where's the art of characters with instruments that aren't lute and guitars? I see a harp... Is the Harp character supposed to convince me that instruments in D&D include more than loots/guitars?
So how does one spot a bard in the art? The beauty of the bard is that they could be that character you think is the rogue, the warrior, or the caster.
I thought I knew, but now I'm not so sure. I once thought and was constantly told that music was an integral part of the Bard class and that to downplay music in Bardic characters defeated the point. But people keep trying to convince that the majority of Bards aren't
Which makes the class description full of musical flavor and peoples' insistence that the Bard remain bound to music and song and instruments so perplexing.
You know what's even sillier than a bard playing music in combat? Making the bard and/or their possession of instruments into some sort of conceptual offense. In the Hobbit, for example, adventurers carrying instruments was normal. We know that Thorin's Company at least had with them when they reached Bag End. We hear in lavish detail about the dwarves pulling out fiddles (Kili and Fili), viols (Balin and Dwalin), drums (Bombor), clarinets (Bifur and Bofur), flutes (Ori, Nori, and Dori), and harps (Thorin). I recall that some of the dwarves - I can't recall which off the top of my head - were excited to find magical harps in Smaug's hoard. Did they play these in battle? Of course not, but we also don't see the 5e bard do this either. And how could they anyway? Their hands will be too busy casting spells and holding their weapons.
Honestly, I don't think we'd be having this conversation if the Bard's description didn't include obvious references to them casting magic through music and song, their class features operating off of music/song, and depictions of them often including instruments. If Bards got proficiency with any single tool, were described as picking up their magic from dabbling/eclectic studies, and Bardic Inspiration and Song of Healing were presented as the Bard just being skilled/helpful/inspiring, then we could all have our cake and eat it too.
If we did that, then everyone could have the Bards we're constantly being presented here as proof that Bards aren't silly: the kinds that seem to rarely have instruments, and if they do, they never use them to cast spells, provide buffs for allies in combat, or other such nonsense. They just stay strapped to their backs until it's time to relax around the campfire at night or roleplaying situation. Easily represented via a background.
