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Combinations · Rider–Waite–Smith Tarot
The Fool combinations
The Fool describes potential more than an outcome, so its partner decides where the leap lands. Here is how card 0 reads beside each of the other cards in the deck, upright and reversed.
Card meaning: The FoolCombinations are common patterns, not rules
The readings here describe how a pair most often reads. Check each one against two things before you apply it. The first is the question: the same pair says one thing about a relationship and another about a job offer, and the question decides which side of the pair matters. The second is the background, meaning what the querent already knows about the situation, the position each card holds in the spread, and the cards around the pair. When the question or the background points another way, go with them over the general reading. Each pair page lists the exceptions that come up most often.
The Fool takes more of its meaning from its neighbour than almost any other card, because it names a beginning and leaves the destination open. Beside a grounded, practical card the leap has somewhere to land: the Magician gives it tools, the Emperor gives it structure, the Ace of Pentacles gives it money. Beside an anxious or deceptive card, such as the Moon or the Seven of Cups, the same openness reads as the naive step that ignores a real drop.
When both cards are upright, nearly every pairing leans hopeful; The Devil is the one partner that turns the Fool's innocence into a walk toward a trap. Reverse the Fool and the tone changes fast, since his reversed side brings recklessness, fear of the new and no plan. The element relation follows the suits. The Fool is Air, so Wands and the Fire majors speed him up, Swords double his thinking for good and ill, Cups sit beside him neutrally, and Pentacles slow him down while giving him ground. Because his number is 0, the quintessence of any numbered pair lands on the partner's own number.
The Fool beside other cards in a spread
Beside Major Arcana cards
With the trumps the Fool usually supplies the impulse and the other card shapes it. The Magician, Lovers, Justice and The Star share his Air and amplify him; the Fire majors, from The Emperor to Judgment, speed him up; The Empress, The Hermit and The World slow him. Death and The Tower clear the road before he steps onto it, while The Moon hides that road and The Devil lures him off it.
Beside Wands
Air feeds Fire, so every Wands pair runs fast and warm. The Ace, Two and Three turn the Fool's leap into a venture with a direction, and the Eight launches it within days, often as a trip. Three cards complicate the start: the Five drops him into a contest already under way, the Nine asks him to finish a long effort first, and the Ten puts a heavy load beside his small bundle.
Beside Cups
Air beside Water is neutral, so in Cups the Fool and his partner keep their own voices. Upright, the suit makes his beginning an emotional one: a first feeling with the Ace, a meeting with the Two, a new circle with the Three. The Four, Five and Seven of Cups set apathy, grief and illusion in his path, and the Eight shows him walking away from cups that still stand.
Beside Swords
The Swords share the Fool's Air, so each pair works through thought, news and conversation, and both the clarity and the confusion get louder. The Ace gives his leap a clear idea, the Six carries him across calmer water, and the Four asks for rest first. From the Five to the Ten the Swords card usually leads, and the question becomes whether his trust is the cure for the fear or a target for it.
Beside Pentacles
Earth is contrary to Air, so the coins slow the Fool down while giving his leap ground to land on. Upright, they turn a fresh start into a job, an apprenticeship, seed money or a new trade learned piece by piece. Two Pentacles pull against him: the Four guards what it owns, and the Five shows a cold, lean season. Both turn into a fresh start once reversed.
Beside court cards
Court cards carry no number, so these pairs have no quintessence and the reading rests on rank. The Pages double the Fool's youth and curiosity. The Knights set his speed, from the Knight of Wands at full gallop to the Knight of Pentacles standing still. Queens and Kings often appear as real people beside him: a mentor, an investor, a partner, or a judge whose logic his plan has to survive.
Beside a card of the same number
No other card shares the Fool's zero, so the only true same-number pair is the Fool with himself, possible when the significator comes from a second deck. Zero is the void, the circle with no beginning and no end, and it adds nothing to a sum: with any numbered partner the quintessence lands on that partner's own number. Numbered 0 and also counted as XXII, he stands both before the Magician and after The World.
Beside reversed cards
With the Fool upright, a reversed partner often reads better than its own upright face. Where the reversal lifts a weight, as with The Hermit, The Hanged Man, The Devil or most of the Swords from the Two to the Ten, his openness turns the release into a new start. Where it spoils skill, information or authority, as with the Magician, The Moon, Justice or the King of Swords, his trust becomes easy to exploit. Most other pairs sit in between.
The Fool with every card
Each row gives the outlook in all four states, read from The Fool's side: The Fool first, then its partner.
Harmonious
Mixed
Challenging
↑ ↑
↑ ↓
↓ ↑
↓ ↓
Page of Wands
Double the beginner's spark: a strong green light to start the thing that excites you.
Two of Pentacles
A new venture fits beside existing duties because the juggler keeps both in motion.
Knight of Pentacles
A fresh start is carried forward by patient, reliable effort over the long term.
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