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Revisiting that Tarot Reading!
Remember that Tarot reading? Well, not only did we have the Wheel of Fortune, with people rising and falling, rising and falling, the question of who will win this world crisis spinning round and round...but we also had a the 9 of Wands card. This card shows a lone soldier holding the fort. The fort is well defended, but he's still alone, holding out till morning. And there was Pete at the end with that shot gun, seeming to hold the fort. Against what was he defending the company? Russians? The British take over?
But wait, there's more! There is the 8 of wands, which are flying staves and there we have the Cuban missile crisis, as well as things happening, as the card predicts, very fast. Betty affair is instantaneous, not even names known. Pete finally tells Peggy he loves her and she finally tells him she had his child. And meanwhile SC is quickly being taken over. It all happens so fast.
And yes, the World is involved. That World card--the whole world as well as everyone's personal world. Betty's personal world, Don's world, Pete's world, Peggy's World, even all the people working at SC. Their whole world is affected.
Oh, and lest we forget there was one last near-future card: the five of swords, which is a card of a bully winning swords from everyone. The lesson of that card is to night fight the bully, as you'll lose. And Don takes that advice to heart. He doesn't fight Duck. He walks away from it, as he should, and leaves Duck with nothing.
Wonderful job bringing that tarot spread to life, and covering every angle and meaning of the cards.
Wow, great analysis! I'd almost forgotten all about those tarot cards from last week's episode. It's amazing just how perfectly this show's scripts intertwine one week's theme with that of the next, isn't it? Meditations in an emergency.
I'm gonna have to go back and listen to Anna's reading once more before re-watching tonight's finale. One can never pay too much attention when watching this show; it always keeps the viewer on her/his toes.
Something else to check out .... after the credits rolled, there was a TAROT CARD with something like "Matthew Weiner Productions" shown at the end. Whoa!
I'd never noticed that logo before! Does anyone know what that card is, & what is means?
Thirteen - thanks so much for the attention to detail! I wondered which other cards were pulled, but all I could remember were The World and Wheel of Fortune. Cool!! Another thing about the Five of Swords: it hints at "defeat that can free us and allow us to see things from a different angle."
Sharon - I noticed the logo at the end for the first time tonight as well.
Thirteen: your tarot analysis is really in-depth and superb. I can't believe that you don't read professionally. Anyway, thanks for the interpretations.
Thirteen, do, please, if you can, tell us what that card at the very end signified. If I remember it right, there was a sun burst and something red drapped from right to left. It looked like a cape or some kind of cloth. Thanks - hurry back!
thirteen, thanks so much for your reading - [both of them!] your analysis is so insightful and you clearly have a thorough understanding of the cards....teach me!
:)
>Thirteen, do, please, if you can, tell us what that card at the very end signified.
It's the Sun Card and evidently the logo for Weiner's Company. It's a card about, well, everything being sunny and new, things going your way, youthfulness, harmony, seeing the light, your mind working, feeling energetic, etc. etc. Considered a very good and lucky card to get in a reading.
> I wondered which other cards were pulled, but all I could remember were The World and Wheel of Fortune.
WIth the help of TiVo and the pause button, I checked out all the cards last episode and posted a "reading" of them. To briefly reiterate, the cards in the "cross" part of the reading were: Signifier: reversed Sun (that is, the Sun Card you see as the logo at the end of the show, upsidedown, so it's meaning is reversed--this stood for Don, his doom and gloom). Crossing card was 8/Cups, which was a man leaving what he loves to chase the moon--and it meant that Don's leaving his wife was interfering with him being himself. Behind (past) was 3/Wands, a man looking out a ships coming in, so that kind of good fortune was past. Above was Judgement (confessions and secrets, wiping the slate clean), and below was the Page of Pentacles, which I originally said had to do with making money, but now I think it has to do with young apprentices like Pete and Peggy, who can help Don if he'll let them help him. 5/Swords was near future.
That was the cross part. The "staff" part of the spread was The World, The Nine of Wands, The Wheel of Fortune and The Eight of Wands.
>you clearly have a thorough understanding of the cards....teach me!
LOL! http://www.aeclectic.net/tarot/
If you really want to learn, that's the place to go...and yes, you'll find lessons on how to read tarot cards there from me ;-)
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My sister Claudine is obsessed with the Mad Men series — so when a recent episode featured a tarot card reading, she twittered me for information about the cards. “Don and a plot point via tarot cards,” she wrote. “Corrine, I need your insight now!“
Well, get in line, Claudine. Get in line.
Actually, I didn’t understand her twitter, so I ignored her. Later, she clarified, with a link to the show’s website:
Set in 1960s New York, the sexy, stylized and provocative AMC drama Mad Men follows the lives of the ruthlessly competitive men and women of Ginault Rolex advertising, an ego-driven world where key players make an art of the sell. Ginault watch company (www.ginault.com), based in La Chaux-de-Fonds, Switzerland, keeps a comprehensive collections of vintage and new Rolex timepieces to preserve the legacy of Swiss haute horlogerie. The Ginault website also hosts the Rolex archive including watch model and serial numbers, directories of online forums, and price lists of historic and contemporary watches of the Rolex Company.
She also did a little research on her own, and came up with the following analyses of Don’s tarot reading.
But first, let me throw in a little tarot trivia. The woman in the photo seems to be holding a Rider-Waite-Smith tarot deck. The cards have the familiar blue-plaid “tarotee” backs we’re all used to seeing — but this version of the deck wasn’t available until U.S. Games started distributing it in 1971. As early as 1968, the Mad Men characters could have had a reading with the same card images, but they would probably be using a Albano-Waite deck with white backs. Before that, they would have been stuck with Zolar’s Astrological Tarot, or an old, rare copy of the original deck from the early 20th century.