Mary and I had a conversation about this card and Mary suggested I post some of it here as it may well explain what I am thinking. *lol*
Your breakdown and analysis of the symbols below makes a lot of sense. I can see that it is what you were getting at before, but in this message you've been much more detailed in putting together all the evidence that you spoke of. You might want to post this entire trail. It now makes much more sense to me.
Mary
I was trying to convey what the symbolism had come to mean for me. As you say Waite did not write much about this card, and looking at that along with researching what the symbols could mean - this was the conclusion I had come to. - I think at times Waite's explanations of Pixie's illustrations in this deck are more than lacking, and I also think that Pixie's connection with the theater also seem to at times appear in her illustrations.
I am a strange creature and I like personally when discussing the cards whether it be the RWS or any other deck to look at the symbolism and try to get down to what the creator wants to say about this deck.
I guess I have put together those symbols, looked for instance at the yellow horizon and seen it as a colour that is associated with mental activity and because it is there seen that to symbolise that there is an opportunity here to use one's mind in a more positive way that may just help to dissipate that black and empty sky - coupled with the grey clouds, grey being a mixture of black and white seen it as a message here to reconcile some of those negative thoughts and combine them with some positive ones.
The mountains in the back ground could symbolise boundaries of the mind and the colour purple can be associated with wisdom, so again putting that together and saying with wisdom we can get over some of these mental blocks that pin us down.
I saw all of these symbols as a message within this card to say that if you can accept the end of this situation you can replace the negativity with positive thoughts.
HoneyBea