Five of Cups

Red Templar Archer

Significance: As suspected, another Red Templar minion is in this suit, and slightly more powerful. There really isn’t much else to say.

Cups 05

The card itself represents: A lost love, useless regrets, disappointments, sorrow, stressful relationships, wasted energy, dwelling on past upsets, grief, pain, ignoring the present and its bounties, impotence, attachments, etc.

Reversed: A change in lifestyle, better feelings, difficulties that are overcome, recovery, a hopeful outlook, new alliances, averted pain, a sorrowful time that ends, sharing abundance, gullibility, etc.

Cups 05 O

Surrounded by red lyrium, the archer holds his bow, ready to shoot towards the East, a symbol of looking on into the future. However, once again, he fails to see, as he is blinded to the truth, thus depicted by the helmet atop his head. The arrow is a snake, representative of the loss of wisdom and the forwarding and spreading of corruption. Stars like clubs and spades on his gloves, both black suits, yet both contrasts to each other: Summer and Winter, hot and cold, life’s contrasts and contradictions, opposing each other, yet relying on each other in order to survive, thus a part of the cycle of life. A viper with its jaw wide open floats above the archer, ready to swallow the sky, another symbol of the cycle of life and death, yet spitting out a venom that looks like a growing plant. Death finds all life, yet life strives after death as it always returns. The nature of this life, pure or corrupt, is what remains to be seen.

What I think this means for DA: Okay, so, I got into my predictions a bit in my narrative description of the image. In the future of Thedas lies death; “I walk the Dinan Shiral”. Yet there is also life. The thing is, death for whom? And life for whom? An idea or a person? Old gods? Beliefs? Solas? Elves? Thedas itself? The paradise? It could also be on the symbolic sense, like Solas letting go of the preconceived notion that he could bring up back Arlathan and restore it, maybe it’s the death of that concept, of wanting to restore Arlathan, it would be a loss, a death, so that there could be renewal. The complete death of Arlathan for the complete renewal of Thedas. The compete death of Thedas for the complete renewal of Arlathan. (Endless possibilities) Death or life for any or all those options.