Myself, I wouldn't use the traditional Major Arcana. Which kind of defeats the purpose, I know, but I like to be contrarian.

Going with the 'story' motif to the Tarot that satyreyes introduced earlier in this thread, let's create 22 arcana unique to Utena itself:

0: The Prince. The prologue to the story, establishing the beginning of Utena's character arc.

1: The Rose Bride. A new player appears to draw the protagonist into a new and magical world.

2: The Rose Signet. The protagonist attempts to escape, but her most treasured memories tie her to the world she wants no part in.

3: The Choice. Represented by Saionji. The protagonist crosses the threshold willingly, showing her determination by fighting.

4: The Test. Represented by Miki. As the protagonist is drawn deeper, she is forced to fight a less clear-cut battle to show her commitment.

5: The Pest. Represented by Nanami. A lesser evil strikes the protagonist, causing more annoyance than dread.

6: The Hand of Providence. Represented by the sword falling during Juri's duel. When the protagonist finds herself utterly lost, divine force intervenes to guide and protect her.

7: The Scarlet Man. Represented by Touga. The protagonist meets a powerful man, one who threatens to lure her away from her lofty goals.

8: The Rescue. Represented by Touga leaping in front of Utena when Saionji is about to kill her. The protagonist is unable to save herself, forcing another to save her.

9: The Pestilence. Represented by Duelist-Nanami. What was once considered harmless now threatens the protagonist directly, going beyond the restraints of her typical conflict to harm her.

10: The Reveal. Represented by a shirtless Touga. The 'Scarlet Man' is now shown to be nothing that he claimed to be - betraying the protagonist in the process.

11: The Victory. Represented by Utena-in-a-girl's-uniform-with-Juri's-sword - you know, this image. The protagonist conquers her former flaws and becomes all she said she was.

After this point, I might not know what to put on any of these cards.

12: Reminiscence. Having achieved worldly success, our protagonist now turns to introjection.

13: Eternity. The protagonist begins to examine ladders to success. One is to hold on to the past or present forever, by any means one has.

14: Conquest. Another path is the abandonment of all inhibitions in favor of selfish appeasement.

15: Longing. Yet another path, possibly the most futile: pointless dreaming of what can never be.

16: Sacrifice. A more hopeful path: giving up on oneself for the sake of one person, to give them happiness.

17: Destruction. Frustration leads some to blind anger and violence. There is no end goal here.

18: Growth. The protagonist decides that the only way to find a 'true path' is to have experiences - experiences which, although painful, can ultimately lead to progress.

19: Apocalypse. Having seen the world, some see destruction and rebirth as the only path to change.

20: Agape. I used a Greek word because I don't think there's any similarly quick English equivalent. Unconditional love in the face of betrayal.

21: Revolution. Kabbalah teaches that human will has the ability to affect the state of Creation, and that's what I'd like this card to emphasize. Just not sure how.

Any thoughts? I'm sure this was nearly incoherent.

Welcome back, Atropos

13: Eternity. The protagonist begins to examine ladders to success. One is to hold on to the past or present forever, by any means one has.

Me thinks this one is a toss up between Saionji and Mikage, though I personally think Mikage is more fitting.

waifu wrote:

I was thinking of fitting [Mikage and Utena] on one card. Mikage is basically rule63'd Utena, after all.

I'll reiterate from earlier in the thread:

I wrote:

I don't see Mikage as the Fool at all.  The Fool is optimistic and carefree.  He is NEVER cynical and wouldn't have the first idea how to manipulate anybody.  True, Mikage is walking off a cliff because he isn't watching where he's going, but the Fool doesn't watch because the Fool doesn't understand the concept of danger; Mikage doesn't watch because Mikage wallows in self-deceit.  Utena is a wonderful fit.  Chu Chu is okay.  Mikage... honestly, I really don't see it.

I stand by all that -- and I'll add that Mikage just plain isn't the main character.  Mikage could feature on some imagining of the Tower, or the Moon, or the Devil, or the Hierophant, or even Justice, but not the Fool.

Atropos, I like your idea of adapting the whole Major Arcana to suit SKU's story   I'm not sure whether it's still a Tarot deck at that point, but that's semantics.  It's tempting to just go all-out and say, fuck it, there's gonna be 39 trumps, one for each episode.  But I think I like your approach better.  I admire how you've used Choice -- the canon name of one of Saionji's duels -- as the name of a card featuring that duel, and I like how you didn't use the names of the other duels, which aren't such good thematic fits.  I love "The Scarlet Man" -- what a fantastic name for a Tarot card.  I'm less fond of some of the other names, which get pretty abstract.  I like the way that traditional Tarot decks use concrete symbols for most of the ideas they represent.  So I would try to examine what symbols SKU uses for these story ideas, and name the cards after those symbols.  If there is no symbol for some of the ideas, maybe they should be other ideas instead.

Personally, I think Nemuro is The Hanged Man.