Thanks again for all the support, guys! And "thank you" to the admin / mod who deleted the extra comments, they were really bothering me, haha!
I'm still working on the cards, but I'm just generally slow... Sorry! It pretty much took me from March to now to make the ones I have so far, so... yeah. Slow.
Since the latest update I've planned my court cards and sketched out the Wands courts. I'll post them when I have a version with clean outlines, which should be in a few days
. However, I should probably explain my choice in working with the courts...
In the readings I've done so far, I always find myself in a bit of a tight spot when I have to interpret Court Cards. I get their structure and the elemental side to them, but personally I can't help but get a certain "same-y" feel from most decks. All four kings and all four queens sitting down on their thrones, all four knights riding their horses, all four pages carrying their suite symbol. So... in trying to make it a bit less "same-y" for myself (and others who may have the same problem), I decided to go with an MBTI approach. Not original or new, I know. I didn't use any of the systems presented by tarot book authors, though I have no doubt some of them may be the same or near what I've done... And I'm not even sure that objectively speaking, these fit well with one another. But more or less, I'm comfortable with the associations I've organized.
To organize this, I went a bit against the traditional RW system and made the Pages women. Again, not original. It just bothered me that out of 16 court cards, 12 were men and 4 were women - when it can comfortably and without much stretch of the imagination, spread down the middle. So now my courts are each an "elemental" family: King, Queen, Prince, Princess.
Analysts are Swords. Explorers are Wands. Sentinels are Coins. Diplomats are Cups. Princesses and Queens get "Perceiving", and "Feeling", whereas Princes and Kings get "Judging" and "Thinking" (depending on the differences within the group). Kings and Queens get "introversion" ("older" personality), and Princes and Princesses get "extroversion" ("younger personalities"). To represent each personality type, I chose a job / occupation / hobby that works - in one way or another - with both the element and the MBTI personality. And so I have...
Princess of Wands - ESFP - Cheerleader
Prince of Wands - ESTP - Athlete
Queen of Wands - ISFP - Painter
King of Wands - ISTP - Mechanic
Princess of Swords - ENTP - Lawyer
Prince of Swords - ENTJ - Corporate Leader
Queen of Swords - INTP - Architect
King of Swords - INTJ - Scientist
Princess of Coins - ESFJ - Housewife
Prince of Coins - ESTJ - Soldier / Military Man
Queen of Coins - ISFJ - Nurse
King of Coins - ISTJ - Accountant
Princess of Cups - ENFP - Teacher
Prince of Cups - ENFJ - Actor
Queen of Cups - INFP - Writer
King of Cups - INFJ - Priest / Religious Figure
There should be some interesting parallels here and there... For example the Queen of Wands is a painter and the Queen of Swords is an architect. These two sometimes stem from the same creative instinct, but one is passionate and fiery and visceral, while the other is calculated and organized and intellectually orchestrated. The Princess of Coins is a housewife, but the Queen of Coins (the more "advanced" version, let's say) is a straight-up nurse. Both caring and responsible, but the nurse is a professional... Also, I admit I had to think things through quite a bit before deciding to make the King of Cups a religious figure... I'm not a big fan of organized religion. Which is why my Hierophant is so weird. But, at the end of the day... this is also an occupation, and it works very well for the King of Cups - authority, but led by emotion instead of rationality. It doesn't mean I like the occupation or the domain - it just represents that person.
It's probably not a perfect list of associations, but at least it gives me some sort of structure to base some non-same-y courts on. I know many don't like the MBTI and think it's becoming far too popular without much merit... But on the other hand, it sure beats the zodiac as far as probability goes (people having certain personality types based on their interests and their most-often-displayed reactions, as opposed to people having a certain personality based on their date and hour of birth), and it does give me an excuse for a more varied set of courts
And... now that I've written an essay on what I PLAN on doing... I should probably actually DO these things and see how they look/work outside of theory!
Just wanted to give people a heads' up that some weird Courts were coming to this thread... and to explain my logic (or lack thereof?) in the choices made here