Fool: Initial Thoughts
Alright - before I start getting at all into the stuff from the books, here is the only thing I can seem to think when I look at the Thoth Fool: He looks like a prisoner.
I see this guy trapped in those rings, a prisoner of the dangerous, psychotic world around him. While practically standing on a crocodile and being bitten by a tiger, he grins like an idiot, oblivious to either the pain or his impeding doom.
Something I like about the rings on this card are the fact that they make looking at the card from any angle seem appropriate. Completely upside-down, the card seems to make just as much sense as it does right-side-up. There's something very three-dimensional about them, as well. Remember the movie "Contact" with that bizarre space ship that Jodie Foster may or may not have ridden at the end? It has rings just like these that spin at such an incredible speed. When I look at the Fool, I imagine the rings moving just as quickly, perhaps causing his obliviousness and maddening him enough to cause that silly grin on his face.
But what he really looks like is this: (excuse the picture; it was the best one I could find to illustrate what I mean)
Now here's The Fool:
Does anyone else see the resemblance? Look at that woman chained to the wheel, about to have knives thrown at her - what could be more foolish than that? And yet there she is, looking calm, collected, and yet frightening in her own right. The Fool has nearly the same look to him - smiling, seemingly happy, and yet surrounded by an air of acceptance of what's yet to come.
(And how about that sun covering his genitals - certainly, in this present context, looks like a target to me...)
One also can't help but notice that the rings form a circle, reflecting, maybe, the number 0. I then can't help but think of Fortune, the Sun, and, perhaps, the 4 of Wands.
His horns remind me of "The Picture of Dorian Gray". He seems like he would have been a good-looking guy before something happened to turn him into what he is now. Maybe he's a fallen Prince or some kind of hero gone wrong. It feels like he was cursed somehow - the picture was slashed and he became on the outside how he behaved on the inside. A bit like "Beauty and the Beast": handsome guy transmorphed into his personality.
He seems to hold the Universe in his bag, but rather than meaning that he has control of it, it seems to mean that it's out of his reach. The Universe is safely wrapped up, guarded by The Fool, protected by its bag, but the Fool can only watch from afar, like Atlas holding the World on his shoulders.
A very melancholy, hopeless card this would seem to be before exploring the meanings held in its symbology...
