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Cards & Characters Series: Tybalt Capulet

Shannon Gausepohl

Welcome, dear friends, to the Card & Character Series, where we discuss characters in pop culture and the archetypes they most resemble in the tarot. This series is meant to be fun and a tool for learning tarot, understanding literature, and yourself! Join me as I explore pop culture, including movies, books, reality TV, music, and more. 


This character series references Baz Luhrmann’s 1996 film Romeo + Juliet, which starred Leonardo DiCaprio, Claire Danes, John Leguizamo, Harold Perrineau, Paul Servino, Brian Dennehy, and Paul Rudd. This series discusses a character and how they relate to a tarot card. 


Tybalt Capulet, Prince of Cats

Romeo & Juliet by William Shakespeare is one of the most-taught pieces of literature (can we call it that? It’s a drama!). I was introduced to the ill-fated horny teenagers in my eighth-grade English class. 


It doesn’t matter what else we learned about that year—to celebrate a bunch of pre-teens dryly reading lines from the play, Ms. Cooper treated us to Baz Luhrmann’s 1996 film Romeo + Juliet, starring my favorite actor, Leonardo DiCaprio. It immediately became one of my favorite movies, which I still watch regularly. The colors, the music, the emotions, and the experience are unforgettable. Ask anyone about Harold Perrineau’s performance; I’m sure they’ll gush to you about the movie-stealing performance. (Don’t worry; our mercurial Mercutio will get a breakdown soon.)


Not only was I introduced to Baz Luhrmann (who would release another favorite of mine, Moulin Rouge, in 2001), it began my love affair with William Shakespeare. 


In this installment of Cards & Characters, we’ll discuss the troubled Tybalt Capulet and his fiery temper. It was challenging to decide who to start with, but why not at the beginning with one of the first characters we meet? 


This discussion can be applied to the original text, as the character is contextually the same. Note that not all film adaptions are 1:1 to the book. That being said, Lurhmann’s work is one of the best modern adaptations of Shakespeare’s intention. 


Troubled Tybalt

Romeo + Juliet, at its core, is a story about how hate can manifest into lifelong pain, with the Capulets and Montague's blood feud lasting longer than the families even know why. We jump into the story of Romeo + Juliet, not with our Star-Crossed Lovers but with the feuding families’ kin. The first characters we meet are Romeo Montague’s cousin Benvolio and his set and Juliet Capulet’s cousin Tybalt and his crew. 


The gangs clash, exchanging insults when we’re introduced to Tybalt, Prince of Cats (named so for his exceptional sword skills and his ability to slay a lady in bed). Tybalt (played by John Leguizamo) is heavily clad in skin-tight Catholic imagery (seen throughout the movie–a nod to Italy, the location of the source material, and Mexico, where the film was shot). 


Tybalt lights a cigarette before slowly opening his jacket, crooning with a smile, “Turn thee Benvolio, and look upon thy death,” while flashing two beautifully plated swords—in this case, guns. All of our sexy characters are strapped in nearly every scene. 


Benvolio, voice tight, asks for peace. But dearest Tybalt rejects the joke of an idea. He hates the word itself, hell, all Montagues, and thee, which he delivers to Benvolio through an evil, sexy smile—before falling to his knees, removing his jacket, and kissing his sword before starting the physical fray. 



A few of Tybalt's scenes for your pleasure.


This scene is unforgettable if you’re a millennial of a certain age. Leguizamo delivers every line dripping in gritty sexual energy in the tightest clothes imaginable before causing absolute chaos. It has to be noted that this scene (and movie) was an unexpected sexual awakening for many. 


He Really Hates Peace

Tybalt is unique in showing you exactly who he is when introduced, not a word or action minced. There are several instances in which someone else asks Tybalt to stand down. Each time, he downright refuses and engages. 


When we meet Tybalt again at Sycamore Grove, he spots Romeo, his sworn blood enemy, at his uncle’s invite-only party—his blood pressure rising with the threat level he’s about to inflict. Juliet’s father, Lord Capulet, insists on leaving it be, especially after having it out with Benvolio and upsetting the Prince. But Tybalt refuses; he wants to cut a bitch in no uncertain terms. 


Lord Capulet angrily sends Tybalt away during the celebration. This is the only time in the film we see Tybalt forced into choosing momentary peace, albeit reluctantly and at the insistence of his family's patriarchal leader.


The Tower Moment

The Tower represents intense and sudden upheaval in your life. It’s unavoidable because the universe is taking this life-changing opportunity (good or bad) to force you to shed the illusion you’re living. The crumbling of your structure leaves you with the basics of who you are, causing you to rebuild a more genuine version. 


It’s not unlikely you’ll be exhausted and tested by the shaking of your foundation. It demands you to look in the mirror and ask if it was all worth it. It doesn’t mean you can’t do it. You must. Your refocus is dependent on this experience. 


We all have Tower Moments, the collective experiences Tower Moments; it’s a rite of passage to dismantle and change the world around us and within ourselves for the better


Tybalt is the Tower

On an individual level, Tybalt is an excellent representation of The Devil, unfocused and unwilling to get out of his way at the expense of others and himself. For the sake of this conversation on a collective level, his actions lead to revelations only a Tower Moment can enforce. 


The Tower in the Tarot is representative of Mars, the planet of aggression, war, and energy. Mars has bursts of firey energy--intense and potent. The battle planet represents aggressive and assertive male energy, encapsulated perfectly by our angry Tybalt.


The timeline is sped up the day after the Capulet’s massive party. Romeo secretly marries Juliet at Friar Laurence’s, changing Romeo's perspective on Tybalt and the Capulets as a clan. But Tybalt’s resistance to peace has betrayed his sensibilities, engaging again with the Montague’s crew, this time successfully violent. 


The quarrel escalates to Tybalt vs. Mercutio, where Tybalt unfortunately murders Mercutio. The hex a plague on both your houses! materializes at the speed of light. 


Romeo flies into a rage: Mercutio’s soul is but a little way above our heads. Romeo gets in Tybalt’s face, spitting either thou or I, or both or must go with him! his incantation complete with the conclusion of Tybalt’s life. Romeo and Juliet’s lives quickly follow the same fate days later. 


Like many villains, Tybalt is an exceptional plot device highlighting deeply rooted introspection. Why did this needless violence need to happen? The warring families won’t achieve those changes unless they confront the truth of what must be solved. In this case, the deceased are indeed fortune’s fool. All are victims of the circumstances of unmovable patriarchal pride. 


The families had several opportunities to plant the seeds of peace but chose not to. Friar Laurence intended to sow peace with the divine holy union. The teens, while horny and that being a reason for marriage in and of itself in a profoundly Catholic country (another post for another time), wanted their love to open doors and offer a pathway to peace, a shared dream.


Tybalt believed more in the hate he was raised with than anything else. He wasn't shy about that. By the end, Tybalt's actions caused the patriarchal leaders of both the Montagues and the Capulets to look in the mirror, the blood of their children on their hands, lives they will never get back. 


The Tower Aftermath

For never was a story of more woe, than this of Juliet and her Romeo.


While we’re left with guessing what the future of the Montagues and the Capulets looks like, we can contemplate the aftermath of The Tower in our own lives. Look, Tower Moments absolutely suck, they’re awful. Unfortunately, it is incredibly necessary for our personal growth and to reaffirm our strengths in the face of tragedy or profound challenges. 


Life is tragic. It always has been, and it always will be. Shakespeare wrote this at the end of the 1500s and we’re still discussing it today. We are surrounded by personal and global tragedy, yet here we are. Persisting. It seems callous, but we don’t always get to choose our circumstances. We will experience pain, and the best way to learn and overcome our pain is by attending to it. 


We learn from Tower Moments because we have to. We don’t have a choice. The universe will force our introspection; if the lesson is not learned, we are doomed to repeat it cycle after cycle, generation after generation, in Montague and Capulet's case, until we learn and break the chain. We have a choice not to live like this, whatever this is in your case. The whole structure you’ve been following needs reevaluation and restructuring with immediacy. 


Fear not, dear reader, while the Tower is an unsettling card to receive, it could also mean incredibly positive life changes. Maybe you’ve been working and have built a new life, and this iteration in a reading for you is reassurance you’ll see the life-changing upheaval and fruits of your labor. This change is coming, but the outcome will have positive implications. All you can do is understand what’s next, which will change how you view your world, and trust you got this. 


Life will always test you. It will always have some level of mess, so accept it. Understand you can control the cleanup of the mess, be hopeful for a bright, beautiful future, and be more prepared than ever for the next set of messy life lessons ahead. 


For a personal Tarot reading from The Siren, click here or Book a Service above. 






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