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Tarot court cards explained: Page, Knight, Queen and King
The court cards are the sixteen people of the Minor Arcana: a Page, a Knight, a Queen and a King in each of the four suits. New readers find them the hardest cards in the deck, because unlike the Ten of Swords or the Sun they do not describe an event. They describe a way of being, and they can stand for a person in your life, for a part of yourself, or for how to act.
The trick is to read them on two axes. The suit says what the person is about; the rank says how mature they are at it.
The ranks
Pages are beginners and messengers: young in the suit, curious, learning, often bringing news. Knights are the suit in motion: pursuing something, sometimes too hard, the energy of the suit at full tilt and not yet wise. Queens have the suit fully felt and held: they embody it inwardly and nurture it in others. Kings have the suit mastered and directed: they use it, lead with it, make decisions by it.
So the Page of Cups has just discovered feeling, the Knight of Cups chases it, the Queen of Cups lives it and the King of Cups governs by it. Run the same line through Wands (will), Swords (mind) and Pentacles (the material world) and you have all sixteen.
The suits
Wands court cards are people of energy and ambition: warm, quick, creative, sometimes reckless. Cups court cards are people of feeling: kind, intuitive, romantic, sometimes moody. Swords court cards are people of mind: clear, honest, articulate, sometimes cold. Pentacles court cards are people of the world: practical, reliable, steady, sometimes stuck.
Each court card's page on this site reads the card as a person, as feelings and as timing, which is how the questions usually come.
As a person in your life
The oldest way to read a court card is as someone: the King of Pentacles is the boss, the Queen of Cups is your mother, the Knight of Wands is the new person who turns up with a motorbike. Use the suit and rank to recognise them rather than fixing on age or gender; a King of Swords can be a woman in her thirties, and a Page of Pentacles a grandfather starting a new course.
In a relationship reading, a court card often stands for the other person, and its suit tells you what they are made of.
As a part of yourself
When no outside person fits, the court card is you, in a mode. The Queen of Swords in a “how to approach this” position says be clear, be independent, say the true thing. The Page of Pentacles says be the student. Reading the courts this way turns them from a puzzle into the deck's most useful advice cards.
Reversed court cards
A reversed court card is the person at their worst, or the mode overdone or immature: the King of Wands reversed is a tyrant, the Queen of Cups reversed cannot stop giving, the Knight of Swords reversed cuts people down. It can also be someone who is not stepping into their rank, a Queen behaving like a Page.
Questions
Do court cards always represent a person?
No. They can be a person in your life, a part of yourself, or a way to act. If nobody fits, read the card as advice: be like this.
Do court cards have a gender?
The pictures do; the people they stand for do not. Read the suit and the rank, not the face. A King can be a woman and a Queen a man.
What is the difference between a Knight and a King?
Energy and mastery. The Knight pursues the suit at full speed and is not yet wise with it; the King has mastered the suit and directs it. The Knight of Wands starts the business; the King of Wands runs it.
Which court card is the hardest?
Most readers say the Pages, because they are both a person and a message, and the Knights, because they are the suit in motion rather than a settled character. Reading them as a mode of acting helps with both.
