Decks with Interconnected Subjects

Le Fanu

Aeric said:
Another person might be the subject of all the cards in one suit, ace through ten or ace through King, so that each card you pull from that suit is looking at a stage in a process or a chapter in a story. If there is a different person in each suit, you're looking at the lives of four people. And what happens when you mix the cards? How do the people "interact" with each other based on what stages they're at in the cards you pick?
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But they say the Rider Waite Smith deck is exactly that. According to Stuart Kaplan - for example - the swords suit tells the story of a brother and sister. And at the end she has a premonition/nightmare that her brother has been stabbed (see 9 and 10 of Swords etc etc). There has long been an argument that this is the case through all the RWS suits.
 

Debra

Le Fanu said:
According to Stuart Kaplan - for example - the swords suit tells the story of a brother and sister.
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Really? Where does he say that, do you recall?
 

Aerin

Tarot of the Elves - and I'd always recommend getting the version with the novel, because then the deck makes sense. The Minors are one Elven myth per suit; the Majors are all part of a story in which a tarot reader takes part. I've found that you can make up more stories with it - although different characters appear the thing is connected together.

The Ludy Lescot leaves you with the sense that it IS a story but you have to figure it out on your own. The same people seem to appear across the deck.
 

Debra

Chronata's Midnight Masquerade has a story line w/ interconnected characters, too.

( Lee, thanks for the link! )
 

Aeric

Lee said:
Envyclopedia of Tarot Vol. 1:

http://www.tarotforum.net/showpost.php?p=3468546&postcount=31
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This is fascinating! It hadn't occurred to me to work backwards. It seems to me like she mourns, makes plans, steals the swords, commits the deed somewhere between 5 and 4, and then spends 3 to 1 reconciling her emotions.

Are these interpretations Kaplan's own, or were they worked into the deck on advice by Waite to Pam? My understanding was that they were individual disconnected images based on their "Lord of" titles from the Liberi and aren't related.
 

Morwenna

LRichard said:
That must be the Grail Tarot (Matthews-Caselli). The 22 majors line up to form a continuous frieze.
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Not only the majors; each suit does the same thing, starting with the courts.
 

Lee

Aeric said:
This is fascinating! It hadn't occurred to me to work backwards. It seems to me like she mourns, makes plans, steals the swords, commits the deed somewhere between 5 and 4, and then spends 3 to 1 reconciling her emotions.

Are these interpretations Kaplan's own, or were they worked into the deck on advice by Waite to Pam? My understanding was that they were individual disconnected images based on their "Lord of" titles from the Liberi and aren't related.
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That's the big mystery. :) It's not clear whether the storylines are Kaplan's own interpretation, or whether they're someone else's, or whether he has some reason for believing that Waite and Smith meant it that way. My personal feeling is that it could go either way -- the images are ambiguous enough that it's possible but not definitive.
 

Debra

I'm recalling the idea that swords and pents go from high to low? Which is why the 8 of pents is an apprentice and the 3 is a master?
 

tarotbear

Debra said:
I'm recalling the idea that swords and pents go from high to low? Which is why the 8 of pents is an apprentice and the 3 is a master?
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In some decks (such as the Connolly) it is not - 3 Pents is apprentice (although they have him in the Master's setting) and 8 Pents in the master builder.
 
Surrealist Tarot Shamanic deck?