Death (Tarot card)

"Death card" redirects here. For the playing card, see Ace of spades.

File:RWS Tarot 13 Death.jpg

Death (XIII)

File:Visconti-Sforza tarot deck. Death.jpg

Death, Visconti-Sforza tarot deck

Death (XIII) is the thirteenth trump or Major Arcana card in most traditional Tarot decks. It is used in Tarot, tarock and tarocchi games as well as in divination.

Description

The Death card usually depicts a skeleton, sometimes riding a horse but more often wielding a sickle. Surrounding it are dead and dying people from all classes, including kings, bishops and commoners. The Rider-Waite tarot deck depicts the skeleton carrying a black standard emblazoned with a white flower along with the Crashing Towers from The Moon raising with The Sun setting behind them in the background. Some decks, such as the Tarot of Marseilles, omit the name from the card. The number 13 card shows positive meaning in reverse reading.

Interpretation

According to Eden Gray and other authors on the subject, it is unlikely that this card actually represents a physical death. Typically it implies an end, possibly of a relationship or interest, and therefore implies an increased sense of self-awareness—not to be confused with self-consciousness or any kind of self-diminishment.

Other versions

• In X/1999, a manga by CLAMP, the Tarot set Death is Seishirou Sakurazuka.
• In the Mythic Tarot deck, Death is depicted by Hades.

In popular culture

• Death is the name of a boss in The House of the Dead III, depicted as a hulking security guard zombie with a club covered in human skulls. All bosses in The House of the Dead games are named for tarot cards of the Major Arcana.
• Death 13 is the name of the Mannish Boy's Stand in JoJo's Bizarre Adventure, appearing as a grim reaper with a clown's face that drags its victims in its nightmares, when they go to sleep near to his user. Most of the other Stands in Part III Stardust Crusaders are also named after Tarot Cards.
• In the 1973 James Bond film Live and Let Die, Solitaire is presented with a Death Tarot card by the villain Dr. Kananga after he learns she has betrayed him, essentially sentencing her to her execution.
• In the 1996 video game Titanic: Adventure Out of Time, the player can win a Death Tarot card in a poker game. The death card serves as a free pass to the lifeboats.
• In the Virtua Fighter series, Death is the name of one of the six branches of Judgment Six, the antagonistic sponsors of the fighting game series' tournaments. This particular branch manufactures atomic, biological, and chemical weapons.
• In the SNES video game Ogre Battle: The March of the Black Queen, the Death Tarot card depicts a black-winged Grim Reaper skeleton wearing a tattered orange robe, holding a huge scythe and stepping forward. On drawing the card after liberation of one of the towns, it decreases the Reputation Meter by 2 points, and summons said Grim Reaper skeleton to wipe out weak enemy units, sending all the experience points from slain units to the main character when used in battle.
• Metalcore band Sworn In's debut album is called The Death Card and has the same roman numeral and floral design on the cover directly inspired from this.

Further reading

• A. E. Waite's 1910 Pictorial Key to the Tarot
• Sir James Frazer The Golden Bough
• Hajo Banzhaf, Tarot and the Journey of the Hero (2000)
• Most works by Joseph Campbell
• The Book of Thoth (Crowley) by Aleister Crowley
• G. Ronald Murphy, S.J., The Owl, The Raven, and The Dove: Religious Meaning of the Grimm's Magic Fairy Tales (2000)
• Riane Eisler, The Chalice and the Blade (1987)
• Mary Greer, The Women of the Golden Dawn (1994)
• Merlin Stone, When God Was A Woman (1976)
• Robert Graves, Greek Mythology (1955)
• Joan Bunning, Learning the Tarot
• Juliette Wood, Folklore 109 (1998):15–24, The Celtic Tarot and the Secret Tradition: A Study in Modern Legend Making (1998)