Thank you for both your posts, WolfSpirit, which put into better words what I meant.
I detest deliberate cruelty to animals. This is something that I don't believe happens in nature, where killing is for survival - for food, mates, access to resources - rather than the sadistic enjoyment of inflicting torture, pain & suffering, which is only done by (far too many) humans.
That is why this card, & possibly the 9 of Swords too, spoil(s) this otherwise WONDERFUL deck for me. It seems out of kilter with the rest of the nature-based deck.
As a vegetarian, I don't see animal corpses as food to be ingested. I find the sight of slaughtered animals and the stench of blood sickening & nauseating; though I try hard to suppress this instinct if it's the only food the predator can get. In some places on the planet, this is the case for humans - which is entirely different in my view. And even people who choose to eat slaughtered animals don't eat bulls, as far as I know. Bullfighting is for the sick 'pleasure' in bullying & torture alone.
As the 10 of Swords, this image doesn't address the social idea of being metaphorically 'stabbed in the back', nor of 'overkill' / 'enough already!', nor yet of surgery, acupuncture, pins & needles etc that I also sometimes read from it.
However, I will take on board the idea in this card of being metaphorically 'blinded' by one's pain, & see how that works.
When I see swords killing people in RWS-based decks, I too take it metaphorically, to mean ott, melodramatic self-victimisation ... or sometimes as the lowest point for someone's situation & feelings. It isn't the sort of thing that happens for real, literally (unless you're Thomas-a-Becket, & even then it was only 4 swords.) So for me, there's a huge difference.