With big, pointy teeth.

The final card in the Harrow of the Week series, The Fiend, is also one of the most demanding in many ways. The card shows a horrific, demonic being with blood red eyes and a gigantic mouth encircled with razor-sharp teeth. In one of its hands, it dangles a person over its open mouth, where we can see that several other people are already falling down its cavernous depths.

The Fiend, being aligned Lawful Evil, is the embodiment of the forces of tyranny, restriction, and strife. As it is part of the suit of Hammers, which corresponds to Strength, that indicates that these forces act in a very physical and tangible way instead of a mental, emotional, or metaphorical one. The Fiend is something which causes us to experience loss and confinement, often in an overwhelming way. It can represent a catastrophe of massive proportions as much as it can represent the after-effects of such a thing.

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What hides behind that smile?

The Harrow is not afraid of life’s unpleasantries, and this week’s card, The Betrayal, is proof of that. The card itself features a beautiful women adorned with jewelry and tattoos, wearing a feathered headdress. Her left hand holds a ripe bunch of grapes…which are being fed blood from the severed head in her right hand.

The Betrayal is aligned Neutral Evil, making it a card of selfishness and envy. It comes from the suit of Crowns, which governs Charisma. Charisma is not only our ability to project ourselves into the world but also measures our sense of self and personal power. The truth of the Harrow is found in the intersections of the suits and the alignments, and The Betrayal is an excellent example of this principle.

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