InsaneJournal

why yes, I am obsessed, why do you ask?
So in contemplating my Luna/Snape ficlet in progress this morning on my commute, I had a brainstorm of epic proportion regarding the HP Tarot Deck.

But I have a doubt. 

(I also watched The Fifth Element this weekend. If you don't get the reference, just press on.)

I am obsessed with Snape as Temperance.

This is not the card he was assigned in the initial layout of Major Arcana as debated and dissected and eventually agreed upon by me and several of my friends.  (Those whose interests intersected in a tiny HP and Tarot space.)  But the first place I assigned Snape, when I was just jotting my first notes on the subject, was Temperance.  He was assigned to Death later, after several friends and tarotists weighed in on the matter. I then placed Luna as Temperance (which also makes a lot of sense).

Now I have this image of Luna as Death, which would let me put Snape back as Temperance. I am torn.

There are some great points for and against both assignments, but I am finally seeing how Luna could potentially work in the Death card, especially the Death card in a more pagan-oriented deck (Hey, it's me.) where the emphasis is on transformation and initiation rather than actual physical demise or even the cycle of endings.

Luna hears voices beyond the Veil. She sees and befriends Thestrals. She appears to live with one foot in reality and one in a different plane of existence. She cuts through all of the chaff of social interactions and speaks uncomfortable truths. It could work...  But those are essentially the same reasons I placed her as Temperance, just seen from slightly different angles.

I'm wondering who else could be Death if I take Snape out and decide that Luna is better placed elsewhere.  I don't want Voldemort because he is really not a good representation of the card. Besides, I used Tom already as The Devil and that's really where he belongs.

I really want Luna in the Major Arcana, though.  Maybe she'd work as The Star, although that would mean re-doing a card I've already finished.  (Except that it was the first one and one of the first things I did on my tablet and wow can you tell.)

I feel Snape in Temperance because of his balancing act as a spy, plus all of his conflicted loyalties, and the sense of transforming his evil acts into a larger pattern of good. Plus Temperance is the Alchemist, and that is just so Potions Master.  Argh!

I had a really good concept for Snape as Death, though (silver sickle, cutting mistletoe in the Forest, with a Thestral visible in the background). Maybe I'll keep it.


I have these brain bubbles all the time.  Luckily I have no plans to draw Death or Temperance any time soon.  Next up, actually, are Justice (McGonagall) and Strength (Neville).   Plus there are cards (The Wheel of Fortune, Judgment) that don't actually have people in them.  Those will keep me busy enough for a while while the gears squeak.