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Pointy things do tend to leak charge and therefore do tend to neutralise atmospheric potential, but they have to be quite tall and very pointy to have a significant impact on reducing the (huge) atmospheric charge and if they can't reduce it enough to prevent a strike then they become a target for the strike.

On the other hand stubby objects are just in the lottery with every other short stubby object in the area.

If you look at photographs of lightning strikes, there are sometimes small side traces near the ground, looking rather like a river delta. If you have pointy extremities you are more likely to attract (or generate) one of these if there is a nearby strike.

The "pointy thingys" I used to stick on roofs as lightning conductors in an earthing network were called finials 8^))


RIV

Many of Ireland's round towers have been blown apart by a lightning strike.

They all have conductors on them now (dunno what the fare is though).

In the 1920s the title of the tallest round tower changed hands after the roof was blasted clean orf the then biggest.