i realize that the tarot cards the og horsemen get are very like, surface level shit (ohh daniel was mid hookup when he found his and it's the lovers oohhhh get it??? we're watching you!!! ohhh jack's gonna fake his death!!! get it???? ohhhh!!!! etc lol) but like. i do like how at first glance, daniel's card is kind of a weird choice, right? like merritt and henley's cards really fit their whole vibe/archetype, and jack's is just a blatant foreshadowing thing, so they work on both a surface scan and a deeper level.
but daniel's seems... odd, in contrast to that. he's this very off-putting arrogant control freak (i say it so affectionately lol) who can be charming but only when he's performing. we only see him be a "lover" with two people: henley (utterly failed relationship and they mostly argue lol im so sorry danley shippers--im not saying there's no love there but like, you get what i mean right?) and like, i guess in the more literal sense, the girl he hooks up with (he literally shoves her off and stops caring the second he gets a mystery, though he hilariously is like "i will conjure your phone number up, because i'm magic, and then call you" but like, does he??? probably not, no??).
so it's like. how is he a "lover"? and it's easy to be like "well it's just a symbolic thing bc it's how the card found him, it doesn't really matter" but i think it actually does fit him. and not just in the "well he is secretly a squishier person under his arrogant facade and he does care" way, although that's true also. more i'm thinking that the lovers card represents what daniel needs, or maybe who he needs to become: daniel needs connections, relationships, harmony, to feel valued and be balanced, both for his own sake and for the sake of people around him. he's so self-reliant and desperate for control that it ends up doing him a lot of good to form close relationships he otherwise wouldn't have, which force him to compromise and also allow people close enough to care about him (and temper him a bit). he needs partnership, connection, union--and in the end, he's the one who holds on the hardest, the tightest, the one who doesn't want the horsemen to break up, the one who tries to keep them all together no matter what (and, more than once, fails). connection to the others becomes a huge priority for him.
this all does apply to a lesser degree to the others also, i think--jack, especially, who when he gets the card, desperately needs a new beginning (which is what the death card means, not literal death), as he's the one who's struggling the most at the beginning of canon. for henley and merritt, though, i think it more represents who they are now rather than who they need to be/what they need--merritt's a hermit, and while that's not necessarily a bad thing (he is enlightened and very very knowledgeable in matters of the mind and arguably soul, lol) it's also not exactly a goal he's trying to meet. similarly, henley's already the high priestess, a powerful and independent woman who trusts her own intuition and talent and has a thirst for knowledge and mystery and thrill, etc. she doesn't need to learn to trust her own intuition or to be unattainable and desirable and awesome because she already does and already can be when she wants. you know. (although i guess she does end up leaving the horsemen to trust her own path and... getting a masters and also married? i guess? so kind of?) so it's not perfect across the board, but i particularly like this idea with daniel's card simply because it seems to be most ill-fitting at first glance.
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izzy806
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