A friend just presented me with a follow-up question to this entry: But who should Loki become?

I’m reminded of Nietzsche despising the “last men,” who come before his fabled ubermensch. (Dewey –contra Nietzsche– would call them the only men worth keeping around.)

The image of the arch also comes to mind. Without irony’s purposeful opposition, the two opposing walls cannot meet. But without the keystone, irony has produced nothing but a wreck of fallen stones. And what is the keystone? Lacan, Zizek, and Bataille would say it is an inaccessible excess, but what can the stone mason do with that? Rorty, Nietzsche, and Dewey would say it is whichever stone fits, but what if no stone fits and there is no stone mason?

The Trickster cycle plays itself out in the Major Arcana of the Tarot. The Fool starts the journey ill prepared except for his high ideals. As a young novice Magician, Trickster travels to and fro using his mastery of crossroads and contradictions (for a buck, if he can). But reversal eventually comes and Trickster as successful desperado becomes Trickster as the Hanged Man. If he can open himself to his own crossroads and contradictions, he can grow to encompass the World. Thus the movement from one to all is completed.

But what is the Hanged Man’s reversal? And if he fails, must he become the Hierophant? Or the Hermit?