Nerevarine
Portrait of Nerevarine based on both The Fool and The Universe Cards. The Fool is the fir

Nerevarine
Portrait of Nerevarine based on both The Fool and The Universe Cards. The Fool is the first trump of Major Arcana. In fact it is considered a zero trump because it represents not the beginning of the journey but the moment before the birth where everything is possible. Formless possibility of everything is the essence of The Fool. The Fool has yet no restrictions set by society and circumstance, and The Fool has no fear. The Fool is nothing that may become anything. There is persistent archetype of The Fool in fairy tales. It’s the main hero who is often youngest son in the family and therefore not burdened much by societal expectations. This hero is considered simple, but ultimately he outwits the evil because of his relative disinterest in temporary material concerns. For example Ivan the Fool is the main hero of many Russian folk tales. He does not pursue material benefit but goes on the adventure for the sake of it. The quality of the Fool is the thirst for the unknown. Another type of the Fool is the court Jester. The court jester is the only person who dares saying whatever he wants to the king. There is truth hidden in the jester’s play. The Universe or The World is the last card of the Major Arcana. It symbolises completion of the journey and incorporation of all of the Major Arcana’s lessons. The World is the mastery of physical and spiritual worlds. Some decks show Dancer of the World as hermaphrodite because this card represents unity of the opposites. Most of the time people tend to see the world around us as dualistic: good and evil, light and darkness, plus and minus, order and chaos, male and female, et cetera. Most of the cards of Major Arcana have certain aspects of dualistic interplay in them. Both The Fool and The Universe however are beyond and above the duality. The Fool is beyond duality as the fool is, in a sense, nothing. The Universe is unity of everything. “The Fool is a perfect state before duality, and the World giving us a glimpse of the exhilarating sense of freedom possible if only we can reconcile the opposites buried in our psyches.” My illustration shows the Nerevarine both as the Fool and the Universe. This is the Nerevarine not fixed in time, both before the beginning and at the end of their journey. This picture represents the potential of the Nerevarine: not a particular Nerevarine, but the idea of Nerevarine. In the beginning of their journey, when the protagonist steps out of the prison ship to the shores of a new alien land they are The Fool. This land holds multitude of trials and opportunities for our hero. In the very beginning the hero has no name and no face. In the beginning the hero may become anyone. This is an instance of The Fool: nothing in the beginning that is capable of becoming everything. The face of the Nerevarine is hidden behind the golden mask with face of Nerevar. The Nerevarine’s body is both male and female. It’s not specified in the prophesy whether Nerevar should incarnate into male or female and player can choose the gender of their hero. The archetype of The Fool, though often depicted as male, is actually not feminine or masculine in its nature because the instance of the Fool is before the concept of duality is introduced. As the Fool, the Nerevarine has no definite gender and as the Universe they incorporate both. The body of the Nerevarine belongs to every race simultaneously. It is human in its overall shape, its skin has no definite colour that could characterise its race; it has scales and a reptilian belly like humanoid lizard-like Argonias have, and it has a feline tail like the Khajiit, the cat people, have. When Tribunal killed Nerevar, they removed his feet from the body, Nerevar’s feet then became a holy relic. In broad sense feet symbolise power and movement. Removing feet means nullifying energy of the body. They probably made all the ritualistic dismemberment of Nerevar’s body to prevent his spirit from coming back, though that obviously did not work. The fact that Nerevar’s feet were separated from the body foreshadow that Nerevarine will be an outlander, or someone not native to Morrowind. The Sea below the Nerevarine shows that they came to Morrowind from another land behind the sea. The sea in The Elder Scrolls lore is also a symbol for all the memory of the world. It is endless and timeless. It resonates with The Fool as formless endless potential and the Universe as containing and incorporating everything that there is in the world. In most Tarot decks, The World card depicts the floating dancer in skies or in boundless space. There is a lightness about the figure that shows that it overcame all boundaries. It floats because the restrictions of physical world do not burden the blissful enlightened dancer. The Nerevarine floats and dances like dancer of the Universe. The usual rules do not apply to them not only because they passed all the trials and achieved great power, but also because they are playable character in a video game. If the player wants, he or she may save and load game, pause it, use console commands, and make or install user modifications that change any aspect of world of game. The Nerevarine is shown dancing atop the Red Mountain, the centre point of the world of Morrowind. This is the place where Nerevar had died. The source of divine power, Heart of Lorkhan, is beating under that mountain. At the Red Mountain, the Nerevarine faced and defeated Dagoth Ur. In their left hand Nerevarine holds the Heart of Lorkhan, the heart of the whole land of Morrowind. The blade Keening gives Nerevarine power over the Heart, and the Nerevarine holds it playfully at the tip of their finger, this careless and lighthearted gesture referring to The Fool. In the Rider-Waite deck, the Fool is shown carrying a wand, a symbol of great magical power carelessly on his shoulder and using it as a stick for his bag. In the case of The Fool the wand does not damage him because he is innocent and does not use it for own profit. The Nerevarine’s hand is protected by the glove Wraithguard, Keening is a powerful and dangerous tool that kills anyone who touches it with bare hands. Even though the Nerevarine is playing with this object of great power, they are aware of its dangers and equipped to handle it playfully. That refers to the mastery and knowledge of the Universe. The Nerevarine is able to handle the most severe aspects of their world with humour because in some sense it is all only a game and must not be taken too seriously. -- source link

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