Which card will you associate to: Justice or Judgment?

[Ann Yu]

Hello everyone, I'm working on a project. My group is creating a Tarot deck. Here is the problem:


Have you ever seen THE JUDGES IN A CONTEST? (it could be a talent show, a singing contest etc).

At first, we were going to illustrate it as JUSTICE. Because the judges must be very fair, justified. That's why when creating the Justice, I think of "the judges" first.

But, after doing some research on the Internet, I found out that: The Judgment card, besides some meanings like recall, reborn... it also means "make a decision, to decide". Well, Judges's responsibility is making decision who won, who lost right?

So, I just don't know which is more suitable whilst the judges include both "justice" and "judgment, decision". It's hard for us to decide how to inlustrate on the cards.

Any idea? I really appreciate! Thank you so much!

 

[firecatpickles]

I would say that the type of judgment you refer to; the one without the "e", not the biblical Judgement with the "e"; is more in the realm of the "courts of Justice," since you refer to a talent show etc.

It seems a bit presumptuous to equate a higher trump with a mundane activity such as this. We are talking about The Final Judgement, after all, with bodies rising up out of their graves and all that.

Just my two cents.

 

[sapienza]

I agree with Fire Cat. I'm not sure either Justice or Judg(e)ment would fit with that imagery. It does seem more a minor arcana thing. I'm not sure that reading keywords off the internet will give enough depth of meaning for both Justice or Judgement to enable you to decide how to portray the imagery. It's a tough one.

Justice for me is the actual virtue of Justice, usually personified as an image of a woman. But the card represents the virtue of justice, which to me doesn't really fit with the image of contestant judges. The card of Judgement stems from the biblical judgement day and so the essence of that is being liberated from death and becoming one with God in heaven, so again, not really a match for contestant judges as it's more a symbol of rebirth or completion, depending on your view of the world.

Maybe the contestant judges could fit with either the six or seven of pentacles, (which represent success and failure respectively) depending on whether the act was a triumph or a travesty!

 

[SunChariot]

Hello everyone, I'm working on a project. My group is creating a Tarot deck. Here is the problem:


Have you ever seen THE JUDGES IN A CONTEST? (it could be a talent show, a singing contest etc).

At first, we were going to illustrate it as JUSTICE. Because the judges must be very fair, justified. That's why when creating the Justice, I think of "the judges" first.

But, after doing some research on the Internet, I found out that: The Judgment card, besides some meanings like recall, reborn... it also means "make a decision, to decide". Well, Judges's responsibility is making decision who won, who lost right?

So, I just don't know which is more suitable whilst the judges include both "justice" and "judgment, decision". It's hard for us to decide how to inlustrate on the cards.

Any idea? I really appreciate! Thank you so much!

I say Judgment. To me Judgmentn is about looking back at the past and deciding what was positive and what was negative, what you keep and what to let go of. Also after your performance has been judged you may be told what to improve upon, so you have that opportunity. Judging a contest is about judging what has already taken place. The judges cannot judge a performance until the performance has been fully completed.
So both are about the past. In a sense just as the traditional image shows someone being judged at the end of their lives, after their lives have been completed and having to account for that. Personally, I can see it here.

Justice to me tends to be more about the future. It's the kind of card for me that says that things will work out fairly,that no matter where things seem to be heading now and no matter how confusing things may feel at the moment that things will somehow or other work out faily in the future and you can trust in that.

Babs

 

[Grizabella]

I think Judgment in the Biblical sense, which seems to be what's on the RWS card, would be better illustrated by God looking in a book. That's what I associate with Biblical judgment.

Biblical judgement is spelled with an E necessarily. Although both spellings seem to be accepted now, the word judgment was correctly spelled without the E originally. The newer Bibles my use the E.

 

[GryffinSong]

I'd go with judgement.

Not all tarot decks will have christian imagery in them, nor should they. Finding another way to express the underlying principle is a part of the fun of designing a new deck.

 

[Thirteen]

Who is doing the Judging?

Have you ever seen THE JUDGES IN A CONTEST? (it could be a talent show, a singing contest etc). At first, we were going to illustrate it as JUSTICE. Because the judges must be very fair, justified. That's why when creating the Justice, I think of "the judges" first.

But, after doing some research on the Internet, I found out that: The Judgment card, besides some meanings like recall, reborn... it also means "make a decision, to decide". Well, Judges's responsibility is making decision who won, who lost right?

The mistake that's being made here regards who is doing the judging. With the Justice card there is the suggestion that someone or something is judging you or the situation. That could be a judge--of any sort, a king, a justice, an arbitrator--or it could be karma. The aim of this judge is to make sure that a fair and just decision is made. The goddess "Justice" is often used for this card to indicate that some blind and quintessential power is going to be taking over the judge and making sure that they are fair and not motivated by personal feelings or bias.

Judgement, on the other hand, is where the you, personally, judge yourself. Yes, the biblical image suggest god passing judgement, but you'll notice that the image is not of god as judge, but of the bodies rising up so that the souls can be released to go where they're supposed to go. The card itself is often about dealing with something that you haven't dealt with and gaining closure on it so that you can move on. You make amends for wrongs, or seek to confront those who have wronged you. You take care of something that you've been putting off. You finally forgive and forget.

The Judgement card has little to nothing to do with god striking someone with a lightning bolt because they've done wrong or giving them a halo because they've done right. The image isn't about "Karma" teaching someone a lesson--it's about what you'll say about yourself, your life, your actions when you're asked to evaluate it. You look back, you look inward, and you account for what you did or did not do. YOU do the judging. And you decide on what to do given what you see.

And once you've decided this, and done what needs to be done, you can move on.

Given all this, I'd say that I'm in agreement that neither of these cards should picture "Idol"-like judges deciding if contests have talent. Those who judge a beauty or talent contest aren't deciding what is fair. They're deciding who, in their opinion, has beauty or talent. Very "unfairly" one person with talent gets the crown, the whole prize, while all the others with almost as much talent get nothing. That's not justice. And it's not judgement either, as they're not judging themselves.

Judges on a talent show, or at the Olympics or a beauty pageant ought to be in the five or six of wands. Those are cards that suggest such contests and a winner-takes-all.

 

[PAMUYA]

I would tend to agree more with 13 on this one. Justice for me is more about Karma, and Judgment is for about one's self and one's forgiveness and spiritual growth. These two cards are not about compairing others for who is "the best" or judging. For me neither Justice or Judgment would associate to someone passing judgement on another for a contest.