Pokemon In-Universe Tarot

[axolotl]

So I was driving back from bringing my partner to the airport at 4:30 AM (ughhhhhhhhhhhhhh) and listening to the album that goes with the fic with the Lyra on Mount Silver that I'll probably never finish because at around 6000 words it completely started getting away from me and I realized: In-Universe Pokemon Tarot would probably be quite different from ours.

Brief history lesson, synthesizing from Wikipedia and a couple of tarot books and conversations I've had and that one Tarot class I took: Tarot cards were essentially rich people playing cards in the 1400s, with the trump cards (what we now call major arcana) emphasizing various archetypes/mythical figures of cultural importance, and the numbered cards (minor arcana) just having repeated pictures of whatever the suit was, much like modern American (and I think British/Canadian/other-English-speaking places?) playing cards. (Apparently in Europe it's still common to play various card games, mostly trick-taking I think, with Tarot-like decks. I want to try one of these sometime, but I came up in the This Is A Mystical Object And You Must Treat It With Respect school of Tarot, so it's always felt too weird.) The divinatory aspects came later, because the things were already rife with symbolism, and because you could make a vague argument that maybe their origin was connected to Egypt somehow, possibly, and 19th century occultists were crazy over Egyptology. Around that time I believe, although I can't find a 100% certain citation for this, occultists filled in the minor arcana with images relevant to the symbol-space developed around the majors, and with symbolism that works for them --- so a bunch of mystic Christian things, Greek and Hebrew letters hidden in things, further references to astrology, &c. (More recent Tarot decks are fascinating conversations between symbol-spaces and image-libraries, but that's neither here nor there.)

The Pokemon universe doesn't have mystic Christianity, doesn't seem to put much stock in astrology or necessarily do it the way we do, or even necessarily to have had a medieval Italy for Tarot to originate in. Let's assume that enough things are similar that a deck-based divination could still evolve, though --- what would it look like? Would cups, wands, swords, and coins still have enough mythological currency, or is there something else? How would the Major Arcana look, given that their religion is focused more on Pokemon, which clearly actually exist even if most people don't get to interact with the divine ones? I don't know, but I have some ideas, and I'm curious to see if anyone else does.

• Minor suits: Given the combined canon of Pokemon Conquest and Lucario and the Mystery of Mew, I think it's pretty safe to say that swords as symbols of authority/power and of violence would still be present, although card imagery might focus on Pokemon who also have sword-like abilities (Secret Sword, Sacred Sword, Swords Dance...) as much as humans and literal swords. Swords might not necessarily be the suit of technology in the same way, though. In the Lucario movie, Sir Aaron (the historical Ash-alike who sacrifices himself to get Mew to deus ex machina away a terrible war) is able to store Lucario inside of a staff. If this was not a unique occurrence, it's possible that wands could be more about technology where swords are about history? There's also some argument to put your fishing rods in Wands, which would connect it to water, which is traditionally the element of Cups. BUT. Pokemon doesn't have a four-element system anyway! (And neither does much of Earth, although the folks who play with Tarot mostly do.) Pokemon has a sixteen-element system, where it's common for sets of two to pair reasonably well together. We know there are three major elements --- Fire, Water, Grass --- the ones that everyone who isn't in a wackadoo side game gets to pick from, pretty much. Maybe you get three different minor arcana, one for each of those, with the Ace being the type alone, and the other cards being that type combined with another? So the numbers of the minors are each associated with a type (numerology!) and each of the three suits is both a type and a symbol? That gives you 16 cards per suit, or maybe only 14 if you don't have Fire/Water, Water/Grass, &c. combos. 14 gives you A-10 and then four court cards... What would the courts be? And if Grass is Wands, would Water be Swords, or would Fire? What would the other one be?
• Major arcana: One of the major ways the arcana are understood is as "the Fool's Journey," a progression that the Tarot reader goes through represented by the card "The Fool." If that shouldn't be "The Trainer," I will eat my hat. One of them, I don't know which. It doesn't matter, because the Trainer's Journey makes so much sense archetypically here. I'm not sure what to do with the other roles though. Some of the archetypes we see in the modern Pokemon world seem like they'd exist further back --- the Professor, for example, might be "The Scholar" or maybe even just The Professor; "The One Who Put Together The PC System" surely has some historical analogue although I don't know what it would be. (I think it goes in the Magician slot though, and Magician isn't the worst card name.) We don't know too much about Pokemon governmental structure, though, to name political or religious positions like Emperor/Empress or High Priest/Priestess. (Also, does anyone really care that much if you are a boy or a girl?) I imagine there's a great schism about whether you put Mew or Arceus on the final card. Also, "The Lovers?" Pshaw. THE RIVALS.
• If this is something that's developed over hundreds of years, how do you make that fit with the idea that Oak knew about only 151 at the beginning of RBY? If it's me, I just don't --- I retcon that and assume that, as demonstrated by HGSS, all of the non-Unovan pokemon were known to Kanto/Johto, it's just that some are not native and others are quite rare. Heck, perhaps they used to be more common and are now only findable in Hoenn --- or maybe Zubat starved out all of the non-Unovan Woobat population and they only survive in Unova because there's such an ocean gap. There are reasonable justifications to put any Pokemon on a card, except maybe some of the late-appearing legendaries like Deoxys or Kyurem. (And even then I am sure you could make it work.)
• What would the original game have looked like? It could have been trick-taking, certainly, although numerical doesn't seem right; it seems like the basis of winning a hand would probably be type advantage, such that as a parlor amusement or children's game it helps one memorize the 16x16 type advantage chart. How would the majors work, then? Perhaps they just "win," but perhaps they influence the way numerical cards are calculated... like Supporter cards in the actual, extant TCG... which also evolved from medieval Poke-Tarot... which explains why all of the cards have numeric values and are suited by type. YES, I WENT THERE.

There's still a lot to do here, and also the question "how is this useful for anything?" Help? :D

Comments

[pseudogeek]

If The Fool's equivalent is The Trainer, I can assume that the pokemon world Tarot is created after the humans become the dominant species? As it's hinted that the Pokemon were considered as the rulers or comrade or pawn depending on the species in the far past, then as equal (if common) or gods (if legendary)in closer past and finally stuck as something between friends and tools in "modern" pokemon world society.

And type advantage is kind of tricky seeing how many pokemon have moves that kill pokemon that have type advantage over them. Like how many poison type mons have dark moves and can strike fast than most psychic type. Water type tend to know ice moves to KO grass type. Fire type tend to know Solarbeam to KO water type. Grass type tend to know Earthquake to KO fire type, and may have chlorophyll or Trick Room to make up for the speed. And even when they don't have the type advantage move, they may brute-force through by attacking the weaker defense. Say, a Gyarados may still KO an Electric type via superior attack stat.

So I'm thinking, maybe the system of 4 can show that? The 4 suits can be representing High Attack, High Defense, High Special Attack and High Special Defense. Instead of numbers, we have the 16 elements. So we can win a round either by having the type advantage or the advantageous attack-defense match. Like, a High Defense can block a High Attack, but a High Special Defense or an Attack card cannot block a High Attack and the Attacker win the round if there is no type advantage in play.

Examples:
I have a High Defense Water. You have a High Attack Grass. My card block half, but you have type advantage, so you win half the points.

I have a High Special Attack Fire. You have a High Defense Grass. Yours cannot block mine and mine has type advantage, I win full points.

I have a High Attack Fighting. You have a High Special Attack Flying. You get full points.

High Attack can be Sword, High Special Attack can be Staff, High Defense can be Coin and High Special Defense can be Cup?

So we'll have Fire Cup and Flying Cup and Fighting Cup and Grass Coin and Dark Coin and Flying Coin and Water Staff and Ground Staff and Fire Staff and the like.

Then it evolved into having numbers and stuff.

[axolotl]

Ooh, I like that, too. That actually seems like a more interesting and realistic game. It might also be harder, though? Honestly both this and the system I thought of may be too complex, or at least complext in the wrong ways, for a 1400s trick-taking game. Maybe the suits started as single types, and then someone switched the suits to stats to make it a better teaching aid, and then someone else took the type distribution across numbers from the AtDefSpAtkSpDef Tarot and applied it back to the Old Tarot to get the Double-Type Tarot, and not only do you play different games with each of them, but there are different divination methods you might use each for. The one you've described is definitely what I would want to talk to about a Pokemon battle, since the natural "language" of it would make a lot more sense for that --- or, indeed, if I were a trainer who focused on battling, I'd probably want to ask that deck questions about everything. :) A historian might prefer a more "traditional" deck, though, just like some people now prefer 1JJ even though there's no real art on the number cards which makes it feel like trying to read a blank piece of paper to me.

...dangit. I should not spend my time designing Pokemon Tarot decks. :(