Richard
Excellent reasoning, closrapexa. Thank you!
I would rather call it subterfuge......The cards themselves do, in fact, show this correctly; it is only in the PKT where Waite both lies outright and lies by omission.
So do I go with Knights = fire Queens = water Kings=air Pages=earth. And Wands=fire Cups=water Swords=air Coins=earth. From the above then it seems like Crowley's system makes more sense even if I am using the RWS deck..
'Everyone' wants to put the King first , its our patriarchal conditioning IMO.
In that context it works KIng is supreme and Queen and Knight are subsidiary to him, the page is an extension of them on a 'lower' plane / function.
In AN 'elemental' arrangement it works with Air as King ... as 'Air' - or more correctly pneuma (πνεῦμα) - is the primal element and from it are derived the obvious polarity of fire and water ( the Knight and the Queen ) ... but from this TRIANGULAR relationship of forces (that are actually more like the 3 'gunas' ) 'earth' or 'the manifest' is a result - the image is the three points or sides of a triangle as the three forces and the triangle itself is the manifestation or earth .
But in the tarot it is a '4-square' formula; the actual formula of the courts and the suits is based on a manifestation of fire joining with water, air joining with earth, the interplay of active and passive on two levels - YHVH. So here, in the Tarot, it appears the order should be fire , water, air, earth. And the image is of a square.
Maintaining that and calling the first Court a King doesnt really work , IMO , unless we give the King the fiery qualities
As far as I understand the system, but I absolutely welcome corrections, it's not that Court Cards have two elements: it's just that each element has some qualities in common with the others. Fire of Water does not mean, as I understand it, Fire and Water, but that part of Water that has a fiery quality. In this case, the Knight/King of Cups, says Crowley, is the power of Water to solve things. So when it comes to EDs I do not take the "secondary" element into consideration.
This is why I've decided to adopt the King as fire which I learned through Tarot Decoded because I see the King as the first court and consort to the Queen. For me Knight as fire just doesn't fit the family dynamic I picture in tarot. Although I'm in no way saying one way is right and the other isn't. I believe it has been stated that Waite did not explicitly state the elemental dignities which leaves it open for interpretation. Whatever works best for each of us IMO is the best choice.