Illustration by Pamela Colman Smith, 1910. Public domain in the US since 1966 and in the UK since 2021. Vector digitisation of the Rider–Waite–Smith deck by OpenClipart contributor "klaatu-tarot", released public domain.
The Tower
Ruin and Unforeseen Catastrophe
Waite explicitly called the Tower a card of unforeseen catastrophe in 1911: his guide does not support recasting its stroke as correction instead of catastrophe.
A. E. Waite, The Pictorial Key to the Tarot (1911 edition), Part II, XVI, The Tower; part III, section 3, XVI.
Lightning strikes a crowned tower as fire breaks from its windows and two figures fall.
More context
Waite links the Tower with the rending of a House of Doctrine understood as a House of Falsehood. He discusses destruction on the intellectual plane and treats the two falling figures as the literal word and its false interpretation. He also allows a deeper reference to a dispensation's end. His practical divinatory list names misery, calamity, disgrace, ruin and unforeseen catastrophe. Reversed, he includes lesser forms of the same harms, oppression, imprisonment and tyranny. Neither list guarantees that the destruction will produce necessary healing or successful rebuilding.
Light
Waite permits a reading of false doctrine being torn apart, rather than preserving its claim to authority.
Shadow
Waite gives ruin and unforeseen catastrophe; reversed meanings also include oppression, imprisonment and tyranny.