Little Baron
gregory said:
Yes, it does look like a rip-off .. I was just trying to choose my words carefully, lol
LB
What a horrible deck!
Yes, it does look like a rip-off .. I was just trying to choose my words carefully, lol
LB
Little Baron
Bean Feasa said:
I think I unerstand where the artist is coming from but I agree whole-heartedly with what you say. This is why I don't like the card here - because it is not general enough and applies only to a certain and very individual set of circumstances.
LB
truelighth
Bean Feasa said:
That was exactly my reaction when I read what the Death card was about and that was also the reason I included it in the review (yes, that is my review you referred to). I don't really like to cut down decks and I really applaud self-publishing. But like you, I also see suicide as a failure and not release. I could never explain a card like that in a reading.
In defense of the deck I can say that the author definately has put some thought in it. But again, much is left to be desired, especially in the production, and as others have said, the balance is missing. It is just not for me.
ViridianMoth
Well, from what I've seen it's really beutiful (in a dark, bleak way), though perhaps not always useful. It would be good to have another, more "cheerful" deck as a back up, I think.
jujubee
Ugh not a fan at all of this deck. I'm also not a big gothic fan so my feelings are biased. I agree- that this deck is too one-sided and dark.
Ace
Gross! and mostly, I don't think the pictures are that good. I like the Queen of Pentacles, but on the whole, these are cards with little understanding of tarot and no grace in the art either.
I looked at the Vertigo tarot, since you guys mention it, and that on the other hand, has very good art indeed.
Some one was asking for a REALLY Dark deck, maybe he would like this one.
Ace
I looked at the Vertigo tarot, since you guys mention it, and that on the other hand, has very good art indeed.
Some one was asking for a REALLY Dark deck, maybe he would like this one.
Ace
la-luna
Well there are many dark decks that I like and even posses (Baphomet, gothic tarot of the vampires, tarot of the origins,.....)but this one........it doesn't do it for me it even doesn't do ANYTHING at al I looked at them and as always tried to "get into them" but nothing at all just cold flat ugly (my opinion sorry if that offends the artist if he/she is here.....
Little Baron
Ace said:
Yes. People have asked in other threads in the past. Now we can send them straight to this one in the future, lol.
The Vertigo has some lovely cards - beautiful lush fruits in one card, if I remember rightly. The only simularities, as far as I mentioned, were that this artist had used the same font and little cut away sections on the inner border.
Off to play with my 'happy little dancing Buddha' tarot, with nice colours and no scenes of suicide and bondage.
LB
hedgecub
Right, I'm going to stick my neck out and say I like this deck.
It's certainly not a deck for everyone; if I owned a copy, I probably wouldn't use it to read for anyone else. As it is depressingly, almost hopelessly bleak, I feel it would only be useful in very specific situations with very specific people.
Fortunately (or perhaps unfortunately) I am one of those people; I suppose a lifetime of clinical depression will do that to you.
The world that MichelleX presents in her deck is a world I am very familiar with: darkness pervades everything, hemming in the light, slowly strangling it, snuffing it out. Walking in that world, seeing all the carefree people frolicking around you, you start to wonder if everyone else has rose-coloured glasses bolted onto their face, or if it's your glasses that are defective, smudged and dirty. It's a rather lonely world to live in, and being able to hold a deck of cards in your hand, having physical evidence that somewhere out there, there's an artist who sees the same things, feels the same way, and cared enough to pour it all out onto paper, can be incredibly cathartic.
I would happily buy this deck, were it not for two factors: one, the leather book cover (I'm vegetarian and hence not keen on bits of dead animal sitting on my shelf); two, the apparently flimsy cardstock. I shall anxiously await this deck being snapped up by Llewellyn and reprinted with glossy laminate and a dead-animal-free accompanying book.
Edit: Ooh, I just remembered something I meant to say but forgot about by the time I hit the "post" button. (Don't you hate it when that happens?) Aside from the extreme bleakness of this deck, most of the criticisms revolve around its lack of balance. Now I don't know the artist and I can't speak for her, but I suspect she wasn't aiming for balance; from what I've seen and read, she was aiming to turn the world over and expose its dark underbelly, which I personally think she did very well. Again, it's not going to appeal to everyone (or perhaps almost no-one), but I think this is a deck that the target audience is going to understand and appreciate.
It's certainly not a deck for everyone; if I owned a copy, I probably wouldn't use it to read for anyone else. As it is depressingly, almost hopelessly bleak, I feel it would only be useful in very specific situations with very specific people.
Fortunately (or perhaps unfortunately) I am one of those people; I suppose a lifetime of clinical depression will do that to you.
The world that MichelleX presents in her deck is a world I am very familiar with: darkness pervades everything, hemming in the light, slowly strangling it, snuffing it out. Walking in that world, seeing all the carefree people frolicking around you, you start to wonder if everyone else has rose-coloured glasses bolted onto their face, or if it's your glasses that are defective, smudged and dirty. It's a rather lonely world to live in, and being able to hold a deck of cards in your hand, having physical evidence that somewhere out there, there's an artist who sees the same things, feels the same way, and cared enough to pour it all out onto paper, can be incredibly cathartic.I would happily buy this deck, were it not for two factors: one, the leather book cover (I'm vegetarian and hence not keen on bits of dead animal sitting on my shelf); two, the apparently flimsy cardstock. I shall anxiously await this deck being snapped up by Llewellyn and reprinted with glossy laminate and a dead-animal-free accompanying book.
Edit: Ooh, I just remembered something I meant to say but forgot about by the time I hit the "post" button. (Don't you hate it when that happens?
) Aside from the extreme bleakness of this deck, most of the criticisms revolve around its lack of balance. Now I don't know the artist and I can't speak for her, but I suspect she wasn't aiming for balance; from what I've seen and read, she was aiming to turn the world over and expose its dark underbelly, which I personally think she did very well. Again, it's not going to appeal to everyone (or perhaps almost no-one), but I think this is a deck that the target audience is going to understand and appreciate.Sophie
I'm with hedgecub on this one. Not as a reading deck, necessarily - more as a "what can I learn?" deck. I don't think I'd air it often, though I like the photography. That 4 of pentacles reminds me of naughty prints of the 1900s (I own a few of those ) - not at all gruesome! Possibly I would take it out when I wanted to reflect on certain dark themes in a visual way.
To me, the positive is found inside the self. Sometimes, we can find ourselves in worlds so dark that only the light of our souls and our bloody-mindedness can get us through the day. And sometimes even those are not enough. Have you read If This Be A Man? Now, I don't know if this deck reaches the quality of Primo Levi (I doubt it), or the horror of Auschwitz (which is unwatchable), but it has something to offer, a reminder, maybe.
I agree with hedgecub about balance, too: that temperance card says it all - the point of the deck is to present a world out of balance. Quite often it is, you know. A thousand times that deck rather than the unreal Hanson-Roberts view of the world.
I would have to look through the real deck, hold it in my hands, to judge it. But from what I have seen - well, it seems to have some merit. I would still prefer to own the Vertigo, by a mile (please, Tarot gods?!).
And it's expensive. If the quality of the photography and cards warrant it, why not? Again, I'd have to feel them to judge.
) - not at all gruesome! Possibly I would take it out when I wanted to reflect on certain dark themes in a visual way. To me, the positive is found inside the self. Sometimes, we can find ourselves in worlds so dark that only the light of our souls and our bloody-mindedness can get us through the day. And sometimes even those are not enough. Have you read If This Be A Man? Now, I don't know if this deck reaches the quality of Primo Levi (I doubt it), or the horror of Auschwitz (which is unwatchable), but it has something to offer, a reminder, maybe.
I agree with hedgecub about balance, too: that temperance card says it all - the point of the deck is to present a world out of balance. Quite often it is, you know. A thousand times that deck rather than the unreal Hanson-Roberts view of the world.
I would have to look through the real deck, hold it in my hands, to judge it. But from what I have seen - well, it seems to have some merit. I would still prefer to own the Vertigo, by a mile (please, Tarot gods?!).
And it's expensive. If the quality of the photography and cards warrant it, why not? Again, I'd have to feel them to judge.
