16 - The Tower

Disaster, Hubris

Death is bad, of course, but it's both inevitable and final. It doesn't capture the full spectrum of possible human catastrophe. For everything else, there's the Tower, a more general symbol of "oh, shit". It's a real Critical Fail of a card.

Statistically, someone must have drawn this card in a reading on September 10, 2001, and then just had the wierdest day, afterwards. I bet they're very convinced of the efficacy of Tarot readings.

While "shit hits fan in a big way" is the primary meaning of this card, it's intended to be a depiction of the Tower of Babel, somewhat, and so the card takes on the second meaning: hubris, struck down. The Tower was too tall, it never should have been built, and now this folly is collapsing back down to Earth.

This is a stock market crash card, a Titanic sinking card.