If you know anything about tarot, then you already know it tells a story. It’s the tale of the Fool, traveling through a series of challenges and misadventures. As a writer and a witch, I love this. I love that we can find the Hero’s Journey in this spiritual tool.
Using tarot to help you tell a story can be a fun exercise and a great way to fight writer’s block. So explain how each card of the major arcana can represent a plot point found in most stories. Of course, the major arcana is 22 cards long, and I’m shooting for this post to be under a thousand words. So this is probably going to be a mini-series.
If you don’t know anything about tarot, you might pick up some info along the way. I am not in any way a tarot expert, though, just an enthusiast. And this isn’t a description of the card’s interpretation. Only an interpretation of how the card might apply to a story.
As a final note, I’ll be referencing the Tarot of The Divine deck, by Yoshi Yoshitani. It’s a deck inspired by fairy tales and lore from different countries. It felt the most appropriate for this sort of thing.
The Fool
The Fool represents our hero at the start of their journey. They are young, innocent, and dreaming of a better life. This is Ariel looking out at the castles of the people on land. It’s the heroes of countless fantasy stories, living in their sleepy villages and looking for adventure. I can almost hear Belle singing about wanting adventure in the great wide somewhere.
The Magician
The Magician card is the part of the story when we learn something amazing about our main character. The thing that sets them apart from other people.
This is Hagrid showing up to tell Harry he’s a wizard. It’s Luke finding out he’s a Jedi. It’s Luna coming to tell Usagi she’s Sailor Moon. It is, in short, the moment when our Fool finds out there’s something terrific about them.
The High Priestess
Now is when we start calling in the support team.
The High Priestess is the learned elder. Think of Kit Snicket in Series of Unfortunate Events or Haymitch in Hunger Games. This is the character that’s in a perfect position to help our Fool because they’ve already walked to The World and back.
The Empress
Still rounding out the characters, the Empress is a character who acts maternally towards our Fool. It might be their mother, or legal guardian like Aunt May. But it’s someone who wants to look after and protect our Fool.
A thought on the Empress. I would also consider Mother Gothel to be an Empress personality in the life of Rapunzel in Tangled. She certainly has an interest in protecting Rapunzel, even if it’s for selfish reasons.
I’m just saying, this doesn’t have to be a good character.
The Empress also doesn’t have to have anything to do with our next character.
The Emperor
Maybe this is a father figure. Maybe it’s a king or a leader. It doesn’t have to be a man. One great example is Melinda May from Agents of S.H.I.L.D. This is generally a ‘my way or the highway’ kind of character. Which is often why our Fool is butting heads with them. Again, this can be a good or a bad character. A father’s protection can be a blessing. A father’s watchful and judgemental eye can be a curse.
The Hierophant
The Hierophant has a lot of different meanings. It can mean a religious leader or a message from God/Gods. I consider this the inciting incident card. Or the call to action card. Someone or something has called to our Fool. Maybe their hometown was destroyed. Maybe their dog was killed. Maybe they’re destined to kill a dark wizard and someone’s just come and told them like an idiot.
Whatever it is, the journey is serious now. There are implications of real-world consequences for more than just our Fool.
We’ve gone through the first six cards of the tarot and gotten to the real start of our story, so I think we’ll leave off here for now. But I’d love to hear what you think. Am I interpreting a card wrong? Let us know in the comments.
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