Court Cards: Kings and Queens

Court cards trip people up. I get asked about them more than almost anything else, and the question is always some version of the same thing: how the fuck do I read these? There are different ways to approach them, and if you’ve done the Simply Tarot course or you’re thinking about it, we cover them properly in level two when we get into the minor arcana. But this is a good starting point, and it’s the approach that actually works for me.

There are eight kings and queens across the four suits. King and queen of pentacles, cups, wands, swords. Each suit gets one of each. There are obviously pages and knights too, but we’re focusing on the kings and queens here. And the way most of us inherited these cards is, honestly, a bit limiting.

The Traditional Approach

Arthur Edward Waite, the person who commissioned the Rider-Waite-Smith deck and got all the credit until fairly recently, very much saw the court cards as literal people. They were tied to how individuals physically looked, their marital status, their social role. The Queen of Cups, for example, Waite described as “a fair woman, honest and devoted.” That’s the tradition a lot of us inherited.

A lot of readers still read the court cards as literal people. Not necessarily matching them to physical appearance anymore, but matching them to the energies they bring. Pull the Queen of Pentacles and someone might say you’re looking for a maternal figure who’s providing for you. And I think when most of us start reading tarot, that’s where we’re drawn. We’re desperately trying to figure out who this card represents in the reading. Does it have to be someone of the gender shown on the card? Could it be someone of a different gender?

I just think that’s really complicated, if I’m honest. Very quickly when I started learning tarot and looking at the court cards, people were saying “read it as another person coming into your life” or “read it as this energy that’s going on.” I didn’t vibe with that. And the more I looked into the cards themselves, the less I felt like it was the best way for me to read them. If you really relate to reading them as literal people, though, fucking go ahead. It’s about figuring out how you relate to them.

What Pamela Colman Smith Put Into These Cards

One thing worth knowing is that when Pamela Colman Smith illustrated these cards, she based them on people she actually knew. The Queen of Wands is thought to be based on Edith Craig, Ellen Terry’s daughter, a suffragette and theatre director who Smith knew through the Lyceum Theatre group. There’s loads of really interesting, quirky stuff hidden in these cards. They’re not as cis and straight as you might be led to believe.

There’s been a lot of whitewashing in the way they’ve been illustrated over the years, and also queer-washing within the tradition of tarot. We’re going to be looking at the Rider-Waite-Smith deck in a lot more detail in a couple of weeks, exploring both Pamela Colman Smith and Arthur Edward Waite, which I’m really excited about. There’s a lot to talk about with both of them.

An Elemental Approach

So here’s how I actually think about the court cards. Elements. If you’re not familiar, elements are a way of understanding the universe through four different energies. Water links to emotion. Air links to thought. Fire links to instinct. Earth links to groundedness and the material world.

These four elements map onto the four suits. Pentacles are earth. Cups are water. Wands are fire. Swords are air. But they also map onto the court card ranks. Pages are earth. Knights are fire. Queens are water. Kings are air.

So when you’re looking at a court card, a useful starting point is to think about both elements at play. What element belongs to the rank, and what element belongs to the suit? The Queen of Pentacles, for instance, is earth and water. That makes sense when you look at the card. There’s a lot of greenery, a lot of life and growth. Plants grow from the ground and need water to live. How are those energies intersecting? That’s your reading.

The King of Pentacles is air and earth. So it’s more about how you’re thinking, planning, and strategising around material matters, rather than the nurturing, growing energy of the queen.

Queens Lead from the Heart

I like to think of the queens as leading from the heart. Nurture, relational connection, emotional intelligence, holding space, understanding what people need and leading through connection. That’s queen energy. And it plays out differently depending on the suit.

The Queen of Wands is fire and water. Holding those passions and nurturing them, within the self and in other people. Really fucking intuitive, because the fire element is all about your instincts. That watery, nurturing energy mixing with fire creates passion, excitement, things boiling up and turning into something passionate and maybe a bit steamy.

The Queen of Swords is air and water. Your thoughts, but with emotional intelligence behind them. I always think of the Queen of Swords as having your head and your heart in line with one another. That really strong connection between thinking and feeling.

The Queen of Cups. Water on water, baby. A deep well of emotion, love, and care. Holding space for people, being that shoulder to cry on, carrying their emotional energy and really being there for them.

Kings Lead from the Mind

The kings are air energy. Leading from the head. And a lot of the kings are very good at communication, because what is the most realised form of thought if not being able to communicate it?

The King of Cups is emotions led from the head. Not just empathising but understanding. Able to hold space from a grounded point of view because the thinking is clear. I often think of the King of Cups as the therapist of the tarot. Deeply connected to their emotions, but in a really grounded and clear way.

The King of Wands is air and fire. Connected to your passions but clear on how you’re talking about them. Strategic, directed, forward-thinking. Someone who knows the whole picture and can move the pieces strategically.

The King of Swords. Air on air. Fucking zeroing in on something. CEO energy. And the King of Pentacles is someone who can hold space and make good financial decisions, good decisions around property and the material world.

None of these are gendered, by the way. Although king and queen are traditionally gendered ranks in our understanding, these energies can show up in any of us. Any of us can be a king, any of us can be a queen, if we’re embodying that energy.

How They Show Up in a Reading

Pulling the King of Pentacles doesn’t automatically mean you’re in control. Sometimes a court card shows up as a sign that this is an energy you need to bring into your life. Whether that comes from within you or from another person is context dependent.

It could be an energy you need to step into. If the Queen of Swords comes up, maybe you know what you’re doing, but emotionally, how are you communicating that in a way that actually sits with people? Not the directness of the King of Swords, but something with a bit more heart behind it. Or it might be an aspect of yourself that you don’t recognise is there. Not something to step into, but something to let come up within you. Something to sit with.

What I find most helpful in a reading, whether I’m using my Fifth Spirit deck or anything else, is to ask: where is this energy showing up for you right now? Where is this growth happening? What can you do to identify areas where it might be weak? Is this energy in sync, or are you out of sync with it? Once you’ve explained what the card’s energy means, it’s much easier for a client to go, “Oh, that’s my dad” or “That’s something I’ve been wanting to do for ages but haven’t had the confidence.”

Don’t be afraid of asking the question. And if you’re pulling these cards for yourself, question that energy too. Do you need to embody it yourself, or is someone else bringing it into your life? Is it an energy you want, or an energy you need?

When these cards come up in reverse, it can be a sign that this energy is blocked or distorted. An unhealthy version of it. A lot of the time when kings show up reversed, I feel like it points to really bad leadership. Corrupt leadership. But as with everything, it’s about figuring out what works for you and what’s right in the context of the reading you’re doing.

So what’s your instinct when you pull one of these cards? What immediately goes through your mind? Where do you think the card is drawing you? And what happens if you challenge that?