kingtycoon | #16 Ruin. Ruined Forever

I don't know how much I have to say about this one, let's find out.

Okay - so this is my version of XVI - The Tower - unlike a lot of the cards this one is unambiguously baleful. The idea is that this is ruin, danger, catastrophe, it's the end of the world. That's what it is supposed to show. Well, no. That will be the Judgement/Aeon which is a ways down the road still. But the Tower - it means, if you get it, that your shit is about to be fucked. Your shit is about to be fucked in a way that will make you curse out loud and say: "This shit is fucked!" And you will despair.

I mention this because - hey, for all I know you've gotten this card in your experience in life, someone's drawn it for you and you've been like - "hey, what's that? The tower? What is it?" And the reader probably charged you some money and so... They'll lie to you and pretend it doesn't portend disaster. But it does.

Now in my paradigm - disaster could be ambiguous - and really I think perhaps there is some ambiguity in the concept of ruin. So here's a breakdown of the image and the thought behind it. First of all - you will note that I got some metallic paints and that I used the heck out of them, you're right. That happened. Next you're going to notice what I did with them - painted a big stack of crowns, and there's that guy who looks a little like the Salesman - he's weeping, weep-weep. Is he ruined? His giant mound of crowns is destroyed by lightning and fire! It's ruin for him! The poorhouse! But see- what the heck is ruin? It's losing the giant amount of stuff you previously had? So how do you get ruined if you have nothing? I don't think you can.

Here I could also insert my famously unpopular opinions about say another tower or two that were destroyed- but you know... Those opinions are famously unpopular and so I will refrain - suffice it to say - we lament what we lose, that's ruin, regret, and loss. But who is celebrating hugely about the stuff they already do have?

And you know, because I'm an inveterate optimist I have to put in something kind of optimistic. See this second run of 9 - is all about attainment in the world. Concentration, Danger, the Fall and so on - I'll define it more thoroughly come #18 - but the Tower, Ruin, here - it means that you lose what you gained, that there is a fatal setback, there is the final failure - the unrecoverable defeat. But it's only #16 - on the path of nine cards it's toward the end, but not the end - so it means something. Waking up and Competing, and trying - they can end here, at the end, at ruin. Where the bolt of the sky ignites ones attainment, ruin, destruction and the damning power of futility.