Hope you all enjoyed this different style of video where it’s more theory mixed with lore. Do let me know if you’d like any more like this!

Honestly, I see more Johnny playing the role as “The Fools” dog. He’s a companion who follows V, throughout the journey. Whether he becomes loyal or wants to bite you, is up to “The Fools” decisions. Also Samurai’s song, Black Dog.

Rogue actually has a son, a fact that is revealed during the Sun ending and strengthens the correlation between her and the Empress card.

Lizzie's Bar is a place of rebirth for V, if you play the Corpo lifetpath especially. It's where V loses everything, pays the price of corpo life, then gets back up through Jackie's help. Later on it's there where V gets info about the chip that will quite literally bring V back to life.

In the Lovers one of them having snakes (could he Johnny's tattoo, but) seems to imply how Rogue's made a deal with corps to be able to live and thrive ad a fixer.

Another thought about the chariot: the interaction you get with johnny in the diner is the first meaningful interaction in game after Johnny tries to gain control and even kill V in V's pad. So it is also a commitment of johnny to the ride as the passenger/guide, with V as the chariot, ending the hostility between the two, which in turn enables them to go forward on their journey.
A really good guide to the tarot archetypes, explained by the story we all love, by a very wise couple of fish :).
If they'd sell this deck as merchandise, I'd buy it in a heartbeat.

Honestly, I'm not too versed in tarot cards, but the fool card being near V's appartement is a fun touch.

To add to the Death card, technically you can still go through Embers and have that convo with Hanako and still get the Tower ending as now you have the option to call Reed after leaving Vik’s clinic with Misty

Side note about the Star ending - there is just such a cure for V's condition, if you pay attention during the game there are news reports about a breakthrough development that can prevent neural deterioration from MS, and I don't believe that was put in just a fluff text, too much of a coincidence.

Treatment is expensive, sure, but it's not like a whole clan with V at their peak wouldn't be able to afford it... or steal. Also in my playthrough I had something like 4M in a week, once you stop sinking it all into cyberware, so yeah star is one and only good ending.

I think The Magician symbolizes Evelyn. It's description states that the Magician is a schemer, like how she schemed the entire heist, and how she schemed to cut Dexter out of the equation.

I tried to get Misty to read my character's tarot cards, but I think she glitched out and is now praying to Buddha 24/7. My save file may have problems...

There is a important difference between the real King of Cups and the one from the game: In the actual card, the king holds in his right hand the cup representing the emotions, and his left has a sceptre, showing power and control. In the game version, the king is holding ONLY the cup, with his left hand clearly being empty. It could mean that Songbird is lead only by her emotions and doesn't have any real Control. No balance. No power over her fate. Only a illusionary sense of it.

I love an underrated Theory that the Tarot was because Jackie slotted the Chip 1st and thus was guiding V via Tarots he and Misty know very well.

Prop why his engram in the ending was just fragments of his final moments as a good majority of his persona is already in the chip.

But thats just a theory! A game theory!

the fool also referenced in the "going to school" scenes with David from CP Edgerunners, as David literally walked & leaped into garbage.
The moon tarot also referenced in the ED footage (Let You Down) for CP Edgerunners with Lucy gazing at the moon at the end scene. So I think it also represent the unattainable dreams that so close yet so far within our grasps.

I think the magician is more representative of Evelyn Parker. She was the one who instigated the heist to get the bio-chip. In turn she was the cause of the transformation of V in the first place. She also had many faces, Yorinobu’s girl, Voodoo boys tool, Judy’s friend, she is confident that she can trick everyone to make the impossible happen for her goals, getting the biochip and running away. You also meet her at Lizzie’s, and go back there to find her through Judy. The Lizzie idea is cool, but I think it’s a little out of place.

You are correct about the cards representing people, of course, and situations... but I do think you miss the mark a bit. At last for me... which is how Tarot is meant to work I suppose. Subjectivity. It is after all V seeing these symbols, and whether Mitsy or Viktor are right, it is V's mind that is placing and interpreting their import.

While the Fool is the universal symbol for beginnings, and both Jackie and V can be seen here, I am not convinced that ach has a separate role. Nor who each is. In many ways, it is Jackie who is so blinded by hope that he cannot see the oncoming cliff, or has the most full belief in their ability to handle anything that comes. Remember the conversation in the Delemain... V 's options revolve around ideas like keeping steady and paying attention, while Jackie can get mad at being pulled from his vision of success having already been achieved, while V seems more the dog... Already having met the world's cruelties (regardless of lifepath, V has already been screwed)  V wants him to pay attention to reality.

Another that I think you missed the mark on is the Magician. Of course the cards all have many meanings, but here I think the crucial one is representing Judy herself. She is a wizard with tech (and what is tech in this world but its magic?) and V is travelling to them in their quest, seeking their arcane knowledge. Yes, she has most of her tools at her disposal. But she lacks her wand... a focus. She dithers and drifts, working one thing after another, with deftness and skill but always knowing something is missing.

The lovers is on its side in Cyberpunk for a reason. the visual is striking, and very reminiscent of one specific scene. Johnny is the one on the bottom, and Rogue the one on top, holding him from death with but the faintest touch... Note the snake. Woven all through Rogue, the one who, at a glance to Adam Smasher didn't tighten her grip, but let go. Closer to the original cards indeed, Rogue is often hinted at having done something underhanded involving Johnny's death, and this is yet another hint. One of the lovers as tempted away by evil. What deals did Rogue cut when she was seen there on top of the tower, that changed her so drastically? Or how much before that moment had she been already corrupted? Even Johnny decides not to pursue that knowledge despite his own questions, raised at the drive in.

As for the chariot... being pulled in many ways is being used a bit more on the nose than you paint it. V wants very heavily to know how to save themselves, and is quite literally being pulled in many directions at once; ie choices to make, paths to take (and quests to choose between, so many by this point, main and side) that will only split exponentially before they ever narrow down again.

Strength.. only a minor thing here, but... look at that animal's tail again... that, like the original card, is a lion. But it is in shadow, and so grey and black. Because of course Panam's strength isn't hers, at the moment, though she will always choose her family over anything, she is not with them. For now.

I think there is more to the Wheel of Fortune. Spot on, as far as you took it, so many changes happen in this place for V. But the one thing it might also be showing is contextual from the first time we would see it. The clans live and die by their wheels. And yet this is Cyberpunk. Night City. Ups and downs aside, no one ever gets out of it alive. And that wheel will always run you over in the end.

As for Justice, I think you missed something similar to the tone with the Wheel. Yes, they seek justice, a righteous striving for Evelyn. For V. For Judy's hopes. But... notice the scales. Held by a skeletal frame, both sides of the scales are skulls. Death. No matter how righteous, this is Night City. Good endings are hard to come by. Both sides of an ending lead to that skull... for everyone involved. Even should Judy not be romanced, and she lives, her heart will be broken, no matter what choices are made. Literally "all things being equal".

I definitely have some ideas about the Hanged Man. Yes, Johnny made some sacrifices. Yes, he does like to talk about them (He is a sufferer of Main Character syndrome for sure. In the tabletop or here he is always an NPC, never the player...). But there are more meanings here too. Because this is the one conversation that can make Johnny like you, or not. Will you be someone he is dedicated to forever, like Rogue or Kerry (regardless of what they did) or will he keep thinking his charm has worked on V as it did on so many others? Because the ONE way to get Johnny's true allegiance is not to be nice to him as many may think, but to stop coddling him. To tell him how it actually is. To tell him he fucked up everything with you too... and then even and especially knowing that, V will still be his friend. That someone who truly knows him can somehow still accept him flaws and all. Sacrifice.

The image of Death here... I only have one phrase to add to your summaries that struck me when I saw it the first time, and never really went away. "Time to cut the cord."

I quite admire the efforts you took with this video, and the lore dip into this version of the Tarot. While I may not agree with your interpretations completely, that is also how Tarot works. It isn't about magic and tapping into powers beyond (by one basis) but about starting a  conversation, a debate, and an investigation. Ending on a card with so many potential interpretations is the best way, I feel, since that is the essence of Tarot. They are just cards. But in examining possibilities, we come to understand more.

"The unexamined life is not worth living." -Socrates

(edit) Oh, and a sub/like combo for the effort and depth of this video. Excellent work.

As someone who started with Cyberpunk when it launched, recently started learning about Tarot, then circled back to try to synthesize the two: this video is absolutely brilliant and really helped clarify a coherent interpretation of the cards both in and out of the game's context.

Big thanks to you and your wife!

"both our passions and reasonable restrictions can exist in order to have a balanced life"

something far too many folks can't seem to recognize

Couple of notes for myself. I feel like the Magician missing the wand makes this card more about Judy in this instance, and her failings. She wants to replicate what the Mox did with their own club at Clouds, but ultimately, no matter what you do, that attempt fizzles out because she lacks the spark necessary to kick that off. She tried a techie's approach, but couldn't set a fire in the lights of common people, so she fails unlike the Mox.

Also noting that Strength has cybernetic body like other cards, but specifically covered by a facial frame that mirrors that on Nomad cars or certain cockpits, implying how important Panam's wheels are to her identity.

I plan to get a tattoo of the death card. I died twice after a motorcycle accident on may 1st, stage 4 interal bleeding, severe compounding of my femur, and 2 strokes leaving me in a coma for a month. The journey isn't remotely over thoigh, can't legally drive still, can't really look people in the eye anymore, serious confidence issues with being seriously imasculated. Driving and riding was everything to me...... only way to escape and meditate

King of Swords could also quite possibly be Mr. Hands, a to the point, fair and analytical man, the positioning also makes sense as during one of the meetings at the bar, Reed and Alex ask you to use your connections to a fixer you can trust (Hands).