THE ROGUELITE REALITY, OR WHY THE FOOL’S JOURNEY IS JUST HADES
Image of Zagreus as Depicted in Hades 2 (Copyright Supergiant Games)
The biggest lie the traditional tarot community tells you is that the Fool’s Journey is a straight line.
Every outdated guidebook treats the Major Arcana like a graceful, spiritual staircase. You start as The Fool at zero. You learn a few lessons, you meet some wise teachers, and eventually, you ascend to card 21, The World, as a perfectly enlightened being.
That is complete garbage. Life does not operate on a straight line, and neither does the tarot.
If you want to understand how the Fool's Journey actually works in the real world, you have to look at the video game genre known as the roguelite. Specifically, you need to look at the masterpiece that is Hades and its sequel, Hades II.
The Major Arcana is not a spiritual staircase. It is a brutal, repetitive dungeon crawler.
The Blood Pool (Back to Zero)
In Hades, when you die, you do not just respawn right where you fell. You wash back up in a pool of blood at the very beginning of the game. You lose your weapons, your temporary buffs, and your momentum. You are back at zero.
That is The Fool. The Fool is not just the start of your life; it is the start of a new run.
You might reach the top of your career (The Chariot) and feel unstoppable. Then the company downsizes. The universe drops The Tower on your head. You die in the boss room, and on Monday morning, you wake up right back at zero. You are The Fool again. You have to pick a new weapon and walk out the front door.
The Boons and the Bosses
As you move through the deck, you are just clearing rooms.
You meet The Magician, who gives you your starting weapon and tells you to get to work. You run into characters who offer you powerful boons and temporary upgrades. The Empress gives you a sanctuary to heal. The Hierophant teaches you the rules of the system.
But you also hit the massive, unavoidable boss fights. You cannot bypass The Devil or The Tower. They are mandatory skill checks. They test whether or not you actually learned how to use the tools you picked up in the previous rooms. Sometimes you clear the room, and sometimes they absolutely destroy you.
Olympus and the Underworld
Hades II introduces a brilliant mechanic that perfectly mirrors the complexity of the deck. You can choose to fight your way deep down into the Underworld, or you can fight your way up to the surface toward Olympus.
The tarot forces you to do both. You have to travel up to Olympus and deal with the conscious, structured reality of the Emperor, Justice, and The Sun. But you also have to go deep into the Underworld. You have to fight through the murky, psychological depths of The Moon and face your absolute worst anxieties in Death.
You cannot get the true ending until you have mastered both paths.
Permanent Upgrades
Here is the secret of the roguelite, and the secret of the tarot.
When you die and get sent back to The Fool, you lose the current situation, but you keep the core experience. In the game, you gather resources to permanently upgrade your base stats. You might start back at the beginning, but you are starting with a larger health pool, better reflexes, and a deeper understanding of the enemy attack patterns.
If a toxic relationship ends, you wash up in the blood pool. It hurts. But you are not the same naive Fool you were on the first run. You leveled up your boundaries. You upgraded your emotional intelligence. You recognize the red flags now. You are a Level 20 Fool, and the next run is going to be different.
Closing the Loop
Eventually, you clear the final room. You reach The World. You get the true ending. You finish the massive project, you marry the right person, or you finally heal the trauma.
You get to take a breath, look at what you accomplished, and enjoy the victory screen.
But the game is never actually over. The credits roll, the screen fades to black, and the universe drops you right back at the crossroads with an empty inventory, ready for the next run.
