Deviance: How different is too different?

Zyfe said:

Well, I'm a stick in the mud so I'm picky about my Tarot decks sticking hard by the original structure ([14X4] + [21+1]). I'm sure there are great Oracles and Tarot-inspired/nearly-Tarots ('taracles'? I hadn't heard that before, but it's a nifty word to describe them!), and it's not that I think I couldn't learn to read with them - I just don't want to. (And while I've learned to research my decks as thoroughly as possible before buying, I would be pretty annoyed if I picked up a deck advertising itself as 'Tarot' in a shop, only to get it home and find it's no such thing...)

It's not really about unwillingness to learn a new system (though there is that too I suppose)... An integral part of the pleasure I've always taken in Tarot is seeing how each artist/creator is able to provide a slightly different perspective on an established theme. Without this, I'd have no motivation to own multiple decks! Once people wander away from the guidelines and start doing their own thing, I start losing interest. It's apples and oranges: neither is "better", and some people love both, but I only like apples.

Probably the only thing I actively look forward to seeing (slightly) changed is the court cards. I appreciate when a creator has put thought into handling not only the gender imbalance (turning Pages into Princesses is better than nothing, but often feels like it's missing the point) but also the 'hierarchy' - and how those things are best expressed according to the theme of the deck. For historical-flavoured decks, the traditional denominations are generally fine, but in decks with a more modern feel they will likely grate. (The Minors are supposed to represent our everyday experiences, and how many of us really relate to royal court structures on a daily basis? I certainly don't. The Majors on the other hand are archetypes, so seeing things like Empress or Hierophant won't bother me the same way.)

A couple of examples - decks I don't yet own, but have wishlisted - would be the Gaian Tarot, and the Celestial Stick People. In the former, the court cards become Child, Explorer, Guardian, Elder; in the latter, they are Dreamer, Zealot, Paragon, Mentor. Of course some people might quibble with what these word choices imply, but I like them. The two sets of words have some quite different connotations, but you can still see how each arose from the cards' traditional meanings.

And that probably illustrates quite well all the tweaks that I'm prepared to embrace within what I'd still consider a standard Tarot structure - changes to card names, altered meanings, non-standard artistic interpretations... As long as they're somewhat rooted to the traditional meaning of the cards, it's all fine. (Yes, one might say, "what is this 'traditional meaning' of which you speak?", but that's a whole other argument! Personally I'm another one on the RWS boat, but from what I've seen all the main systems - Marseilles, RWS, Thoth - still have a lot of common ground.) Think of it as like using a Thesaurus: look up any common word, and you'll probably find 20+ words listed as 'synonyms'. In truth, only 2-3 of these are likely to mean pretty much exactly the same thing as the word you looked up; another half-dozen might mean close to the same thing, but all have slightly differing interpretations/contextual uses; the rest are likely only be loosely related. Likewise different decks can have different emphases, different connotations, all sorts of shades of one broad meaning/theme, but still fall within what I'd consider "Tarot".

Click to expand...

fractalgranny said:

yes, i think some sort of inner coherence/logic is important to me, as well as an if-ever-so-far-fetched "variation on the theme" - be that RWS, marseille, thoth, whatever. if i keep looking at a card and go, "wha --- ???" and can't find a satisfactory explanation from my experience, intuition or in the LWB, i lose interest. the tarot of the trees is a good example. i really like the artwork, but i don't understand what the artist is trying to do with a lot of the images - they just seem randomly different without any rhyme or reason that i can detect.

the tarot of the celtic fairies, to me, is the opposite example. its really hard to understand in places (the 7 of swords is a good for-instance) but the more i look at it, the more i get it. of course all of this is highly personal! crow's magick is one of my all-time favourite decks and it's pretty obscure to a lot of people.

in terms of adding/subtracting cards and/or suits, i personally am pretty conservative. even though i love the daughters of the moon, i still have problems with the changes they've made to the majors.

regarding suits - i don't much care if they get renamed but like to see a certain semblance to the RWS/marseille/thoth meanings. if, say, the wands were replaced with water bottles, i'd have a problem. but something like pentacles as coins, earth, stones, trees - why not? makes it interesting.

personally i find page, knight, queen, king a bit outdated and sexist and enjoy creative reinterpretations but that doesn't necessarily have to happen in the names given but also in the images.

it's of utmost importance to me that i get a sense that the artist has put a lot of thought, craft and feeling into the interpretation of ALL cards. i don't need another RWS/marseille/thoth remix, thank you very much, unless you come up with a really novel or extremely well executed one. i was very surprised when i came across the cat's eye tarot (a CAT tarot? moi???) and found exactly that.

Click to expand...