The Tarot

[anarfea]

 So, I've been brushing up on my tarot study since I applied to be on the Tarot panel at 221b con. Who knows if I'll be accepted, but it certainly won't hurt me to study the tarot a bit more in depth for a couple of months. Not sure if anyone would be interested in me posting about tarot or what kind of posts you would want to see. But anyway, I did an exercise a couple years ago where I assigned Sherlock characters and concepts to all the tarot cards, and I thought it might be cool to review it. I've also been studying the Thoth tarot specifically, and some of those cards are different than in more traditional decks, and also we have new characters since I've done this since I last did it pre S4, so I thought I'd re-vamp my headcanons for those.

0 The Fool: John Watson
I The Magus: Sherlock Holmes
II The Priestess: Molly Hooper
III The Empress: Mrs Hudson
IV The Emperor: Greg Lestrade
V The Hierophant: Mycroft Holmes
VI The Lovers: Sherlock and Molly
VII The Chariot: The Mind Palace
VIII Adjustment: Sally Donovan
IX The Hermit: Wiggins
X The Wheel of Fortune: London
XI Lust: Irene Adler
XII The Hanged Man: Anderson
XIII Death: Eurus Holmes
XIV Art: Mary Watson
XV The Devil: Jim Moriarty
XVI The Tower: Appledore
XVII The Star: Soo Lin Yao
XVIII The Moon: Janine Hawkins
XIX The Sun: Rosie
XX The Aeon: The Work
XXI The Universe: Anthea

Anyway, these are my headcanons. Let me know if you agree or disagree with them. Let me know yours! And let me know if you want me to babble more about the tarot.

Comments

[pangodillo]

I'd be super interested in hearing about the differences between this set, and the traditional Major Arcana; the latter being what I'm familiar with ("familiar with", I have a vague understanding of a few of them). If you've already gone into this in the comments, I will read them tomorrow morning, but I'm replying from my reading page so I haven't yet.

I have a WTNV tarot deck that someone else designed, matching characters and concepts to each card (including the minor arcana), and I love it for the added layer of symbols that I get to play with. So like, The Sun is Strexcorp, and idk if you're familiar with Welcome to Night Vale, but Strexcorp carries its own whole set of feelings and connotations, and I enjoy reading The Sun (which is traditionally, like, happiness) as "capitalism" or "rampant religious oppression" or "gore" or etc etc. And every card gets this extra layer, which may diverge more or less from traditional symbols, depending on how close a match the designer was able to get.

It's been a long time since I consumed anything Sherlock so there are a couple things here I don't recognize (idk Wiggins, and I only vaguely recognize who Euros is/what role she played), but Appledore as The Tower and Anthea as The Universe both strike me as particularly excellent.

[pangodillo]

"I won't read the comments tonight it's almost 2am and I'm cold I'm gonna go to bed"
//reads the comments

Raider-Waite yeah that's the one I mean; I'm sooo familiar with it I can even remember what it's called! I also fucked up Eurus' name but I'm not gonna fix it whoops.

This whole conversation has me itching to go back to my deck, since it's been so long, but not tonight. (For real this time!) Maybe tomorrow I'll find it and try to refresh myself at least on the deck I'm "familiar with"...

[anarfea]

Lol sorry to have kept you from your sleep. Raider-Waite is probably one of the best known decks, so I'll do a post on the differences between that one and Thoth.

[anarfea]

Yeah absolutely I can do a post on the Thoth tarot and what makes it different from say, the Raider Waite (which I also own), and why people might want to use the Thoth tarot.

I am familiar with WTNV, though I stopped listening a couple of seasons ago. That's certainly an interesting take on the Sun. The Sun to me is usually happiness and childlike innocence. I can see how ascribing it to Strex would give it a different connotation.

The only fandom specific deck I have is a LOTR deck. And that one has really beautiful art, but I don't read with it because I don't particularly agree with some of the decisions they made with the ascribing of cards and characters and I don't like the extra layer of connotations it has.

I don't think that my Sherlock list is a perfect way of looking at the cards, either. There really is no good Sherlock figure for the Empress, for example. Hudders is maternal but not a mother herself.

Wiggins is Sherlock's drug chemist/babbysitter. Making him the hermit is kind of a tongue in cheek thing. The hermit carries the light of the sun to mankind, and he's also associated with warnings. And Wiggins warns Sherlock when he's gone too far into the drugs.

Eurus is a really complicated and polarizing figure in the BBC Sherlock canon. She was introduced as S4. She's Sherlock and Mycroft's younger sister, and she's totally psycho and tries to kill them (or well, to make Sherlock kill Mycroft). The reason I associate her here with Death is because of the way that she reinvents herself? And because of the way that she teaches Sherlock about Death. But honestly, I could easily have put Mary on the Death card also.