The universe of Dragon Age is rich with lore, meaningful character development, and compelling storytelling. And whether we know it or not, when we tell any story we use archetypes. Archetypes are the types of recurrent characters or motifs that exist in a culture's stories, and they help to create meaning and depth. Archetypal characters represent ideas and ideals, beyond being characters themselves. We learn about these archetypes unconsciously as we are exposed to stories throughout our lives. The Damsel in Distress and The Evil Genius are two archetypal characters that we see in many Western movies.
Many of the characters in Dragon Age can be categorized into different archetypes, although they are interesting because of how they also deviate from our expectations. Tarot reading works because it utilizes universal archetypes that are present in everyone's life. When you overlap the characters from Dragon Age with the universal archetypes from Tarot you can make some fun connections, but also gain new insight into the Dragon Age characters and their development.
If you are unfamiliar with Dragon Age I suggest you play the games, or else what I write here will make little sense, or worse, it will be uninteresting. If you are unfamiliar with Tarot, however, you're in luck.
A Short Explanation of Tarot
There are different schools of thought about Tarot. My approach, which is a common one, is that Tarot cards simply represent universal archetypes and are not magic. When we lay out the cards for a reading, which present randomly, we use the cards to create a story about our life or the life of someone we are reading for, and frame that story with a question. What can I do to get the most out of my relationship? What information do I need to make the best decision? How can I be a better spouse? We use our question to guide us into creating a story for how our lives could be improved, or how we could better take charge of our lives.
Because the archetypes in the cards are so familiar, at least unconsciously, it is not difficult to apply their interpretations or "energy" to any situation. The "magic" in the cards is that this random presentation of cards forces our brains to view our "story" from a different angle, maybe one we would have never thought of without the cards help. We are then given a chance to see our situation from another vantage point, like when asking someone for advice. One term for it could be re-framing.
For example, I may have viewed a recent move as a step back in my life. I now have no friends, a boring new job, and a difficult living situation. This could make me feel rather depressed, however, when I do a tarot reading it includes the card Death, which indicates a transition, and it reminds me that my situation is only temporary and part of a process to achieve my personal goals. When we think of our situation differently we are open to new choices and new ways of thinking. That shift in our minds can help us to change our outlook and actions. Tarot is then a self-help tool to help us free ourselves from the ways we are used to thinking about our lives.
And since Tarot involves story telling, it works well to compare characters from our favorite stories (and video games) to different cards in order to think about them in new ways.
Tarot Basics
Each post will contain detailed information about specific cards but here is some general information that will guide your understanding of the cards. You do not need to memorize any of this to appreciate the Dragon Age Tarot cards, its just a background in case you are interested. Also, this explanation is based on the most common type of deck, Rider Waite Smith, not all decks are the same.
Major Arcana
There are two types of cards, Major and Minor Arcana. The Major Arcana are the cards that everyone thinks of when they think about Tarot.
Death and Judgement are two Major Arcana cards that many people are familiar with. The Major Arcana cards are numbered 0 (The Fool) to 21 (The World). They are supposed to tell the story of the different phases of one's life from conception to death (there are lots of resources that will describe how that works but I won't do that here). Each card depicts an archetype, the embodiment of some idea/ideal and includes a heavy use of symbology. When reading Tarot, these cards generally represent an important, overarching theme in one's life and their impact tends to be more significant. As the cards move from 0 to 21 the energy each card represents becomes more mature and nuanced.
Minor Arcana
These cards are divided into four suits, much like playing cards. The suits are wands, cups, swords, and pentacles (or coins). These suits correspond to different elements. Wands is fire, cups is water, swords is air, and pentacles is earth.
Each suit has numbered cards, 1 to 10, and court cards; page, knight, queen, and king, also similar to playing cards. These cards typically represent specific and mundane events or people. The court cards often represent specific people who are functioning in our life in a certain way or the querent themselves. The Minor Arcana cards are interpreted as a cross between their number or court card and the suit. For example, the number four typically means stability and the suit pentacles (earth) typically refers to physical, material things, and money. So, the Four of Pentacles often refers to frugality or security, a stable state of wealth.
To perform a reading a querent meditates on a question, typically as they shuffle the cards, and then lays out the cards in accordance with a spread. A spread is a pattern to lay out the cards and each card in the spread it supposed to indicate a different aspect of the problem at hand. For example, the three card spread is very common and can be used in many different ways.
The cards are read from left to right and can be interpreted differently depending on the question asked or the intention of the querent. They can be read as state of mind, bodily health, spiritual health; past, present, future; the querent, the person they have conflict with, the resolution; etc. The possibilities are vast. The Tarot reader then reads or creates a story (or interpretation) with the cards to answer the question of the querent. They do this by combining the interpretation of the cards, their place in the spread, and how the card meanings interact together. Its much more complicated than simply reading the meaning of a card from a book!
Now that you know some basics about tarot reading let's move on to interpreting some Dragon Age Tarot cards!
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