King of Staves

The Nightmare Demon

Significance: The tarot card image itself, at first glance, doesn’t look like any of the other tarot cards that exist outside this deck.  However, it has the colours of the Fade and looks like a drawing tarot card-esque version of the Nightmare demon from the Fade.  Not just any fear demon, not the small fear demon that is master of the fear type demons, but the big fat one, the fat part of that one demon, the Nightmare demon, the one that oozes and is master, and thus King of all demons.

The card itself represents: Men aged 36 and younger, assertiveness, a mentor, honest, learnèd, conscientious, able to bring ideas to fruition, future-oriented, ambitious, self-oriented, charming, friendly, refined, self-assured, a compelling spirit, etc.

It’s an interesting turn of phrase perhaps that a demon is always first a spirit.  And his fear is certainly compelling.  A compelling spirit that becomes a compelling demon.

Reversed: being austere, narcissism, lack of enthusiasm, being dogmatic, critical, thoughtless actions, shallowness, low energy, pessimism, fear of failure, blockages, sabotage, selfishness, difficult deliberations, etc.

As if great lights shining, extended by tendrils, it glows grey and faded green; it is sickly and it lives in the Fade.  As though smoke rises from it, a deep black reflects its fat power, the darkness that will engulf its prey and torment them to their death.  Multiple spirals swirl upon it, akin of the symbols of Uighur, it is of comings and goings, indicating that much, if not everything, is caused by or derived by it; events, actions, beliefs that come from its mere existence, and that much if not everything goes back to it, returning to its very primal nature, that much if not all leads to it.  And it is the epitome of all fear.

What I think this means for the Nightmare Demon: I’d like to think Hawke, or whomever was left in the Fade, succeeds in destroying it, but I believe it will use them.  We may learn its fate in the next game.

What I think this means for DA: We may learn what it is, and what it was before, and how it got there and became what it is now: Nightmare.

Links to the Tarot Decks Used in the Comparison, the DAI Tarot Deck, and the Books used to determine what the cards actually represent:

Dragon Age: Inquisition Tarot Deck
Rider-Waite Tarot Deck
Miniture Tarot Deck
“The Green Witch Tarot” (Ann Moura) Deck & Book
“The Path of the Fool” (Michael Tsarion) Book