half-awake Merlin + tarot ruminations, essentially notes for myself
cups - all those damn goblets, including the sundry poisoned ones and ones that give life and blah blah blah blah; cups represent the feminine (lol uteruses lol) and represent the element of water; death by the seaside and by drowning; lancelot from the lake, freya’s death & keeping of excalibur in the lake, keeping it from being used and thus achieving power
swords - Arthur, obviously, also all the other knights. element of air: represents intelligence (lol and sometimes inversion thereof) and wit (lol again) and wisdom (the primary thrust, get it, thrust, of the character development for arthur is the gaining of wisdom, as well as the painful severing of family bonds - where cups give, swords take, which is an interesting reversal for the protagonist to be subtractive and the antagonist to be additive, except in point of fact that is a classic dichotomy - heroes must be HONED.
staves - represents element of fire, represents POWER and ACTION, obviously MERLIN, le DUH. his hidden power and his growing public power under the name of emrys, the gold color of his eyes. staves and swords are sometimes reversed but staves are about the command of power where swords are the application thereof - merlin, through his WORDS, and his PLANS, gets people to do shit FOR him, or DOESNT but WANTS them to - the man behind the throne, the SOURCE of the power. the flame, see, in the engine.
coins - represents the element of earth, growing, green things, prosperity, life, and the twisted manipulation thereof; the dragon deep down in the caves, subsumed beneath the earth, telling merlin they are two sides of the same coin, the struggle for prosperity, the tenuous standing of the druids representing the tenuous possibilities of arthur’s acceptance of merlin; coins stand for luck and chance and possibility and that’s what they are, the antagonists take the cups which are typically used for love so the real lovers get the coins which are much more interesting anyway.
I was going to reblog this yesterday, but somehow I didn’t?
I LOVE THIS. It’s so perfect. I hope you don’t mind if I tack on some of my own interpretations?
The cups one was especially interesting to me, because “all those damn goblets” frequently have to do with magic, and keeping fairly well with the feminine association attached to the suit of cups, the goblets are generally used by and are associated with female magic wielders. Which again brings me back to being annoyed at the lack of GOOD female characters who can do magic, but anyways, it’s certainly a very strong association.
It also occurred to me that the suits each match up nicely with the four main characters, and even their genders match up to the usual associations.
Morgana is cups all the way.
Arthur is swords.
Merlin is staves/wands.
And Gwen is coins/pentacles.
Gwen is just so perfect for coins/pentacles, because that suit represents prosperity, the mundane and earthly, and merchants and the common folk. It’s the suit of worldly concerns. And Gwen represents the common people, those who have to work to earn their living.
things the merlin cast should do together after merlin’s end~ A Founder’s era movie
Except I’m not sure how gay Salazar and Godric were for each other, so… But I’m pretty sure Colin’s parseltongue would be just as sexy as his dragonlord voice. :)
I’m pretty damn sure that Salazar and Godric were hella gay for each other. My own personal Founders headcanon involves besties who had a big stupid fat falling out as time went on with lots of festering resentment and angst and stuff, and why would any of that have happened if they hadn’t have been totally super mega gay for each other in the first place, amirite?
Re: dragonlord voice, I think I must be the only person on the internet who doesn’t find it hot at all - it’s just goofy and overwrought for the most part. Parseltongue would be pretty great though, all the little manipulations of the tongue and the sibilance and whatnot.
But anyway, yes. Godric and Salazar were definitely doin’ it. Thuh ende.
