The Devil Wears Consent: The Study Of Tarot's Most Daunting Card
Studying the Devil Card Through the Lens of Desire, Manipulation & Willing Captivity
Once upon a time, before he was The Devil, he was just a man.
A man with hunger in his heart. A man who wanted more.
More wealth. More power. More admiration.
His name was Orin, and he was born into nothing. Dirt floors, empty pockets, nights spent listening to his stomach growl. He swore, as a child staring up at the night sky, that he would never be powerless again.
So when the stranger in the black coat approached him at the crossroads and whispered of a deal, Orin barely hesitated.
“Everything you desire,” the stranger said, “for a simple trade.”
“What trade?” Orin asked, though he already knew the answer.
The stranger smiled.
“Your freedom.”
But Orin laughed. Because freedom meant nothing when you had nothing. He signed without reading the fine print, without asking what the chains looked like.
And at first? It was glorious.
Gold in his hands. Cities at his feet. People who once spat at him now bowed in his presence. Everything he touched turned to his.
But with each year, the hunger grew sharper.
The more he had, the more he needed. He was never full.
The wealth wasn’t enough. The victories weren’t enough. The indulgences—women, wine, luxuries that should have satisfied—only left him emptier.
Every time he felt the gnawing void inside him, he fed it more. More gold. More pleasure. More excess.
He told himself that the next thing would be the thing that filled him.
The next conquest.
The next empire.
The next sip of wine, the next rush of power, the next night of mindless pleasure.
But The Devil never gives without taking.
And one night, Orin woke up to find chains wrapped around his wrists. Heavy, suffocating, invisible to all but him.
“What is this?” he demanded.
The stranger only smiled.
“You have everything, and yet, you are still empty. The more you consume, the hungrier you become. That is the nature of the contract. That is the nature of attachment.”
Orin tried to run, but no matter where he went, the chains followed.
The food he ate turned to ash in his mouth. The gold lost its shine. The pleasure became hollow, the laughter around him empty. He was surrounded by everything he had ever wanted but he was trapped. Enslaved to his own hunger.
And that is how The Devil works.
Not with force.
With illusion.
With the lie that you are in control, when in truth, you are shackled to your own desires.
Because addiction doesn’t always look like ruin.
Sometimes, it looks like success.
Sometimes, it looks like everything you ever wanted until you realize that what owns you… isn’t yours at all.
And the worst part?
You are the one holding the key.
But if there is a key, then there is always the possibility of escape.
And yes, you know what’s next. Let’s flip the script.
Because Orin could have stayed that way forever.
Chained to his hunger. Devouring the world and still starving.
But then, one day, he met a girl by the river.
She was dying. He could see it in her eyes—the acceptance. The peace.
“What is it like?” he asked. “To know it’s all ending?”
She smiled.
“Freeing,” she said.
Orin didn’t understand. How could she be free? She had nothing.
But as he watched her close her eyes for the last time, something inside him shifted.
For the first time, he understood:
To release is to be free.
So that night, Orin walked into his grand hall, surrounded by mountains of wealth, and set fire to everything.
He burned his riches.
He burned his throne.
He burned the contract that had bound him to The Devil.
And as the flames licked at his heels, he finally let go.
But he did not step into the fire.
He watched it burn.
He stood in the center of the grand hall, flames dancing in his eyes, and for the first time in years, he felt something other than hunger.
He felt rage.
Not at The Devil.
Not at the contract.
Not at the hunger that had grown inside him like a parasite.
He was angry at himself.
Angry that he had been fooled. Angry that he had believed the lie of more.
The girl by the river had looked at death and called it freedom. But Orin—Orin saw through the illusion. She wasn’t free. She was gone.
And what is the point of freedom if it ends in nothing?
Orin stepped away from the fire.
“Let it burn,” he thought. Let it consume everything but me.
And as the flames ate away at his past, he built something new.
Not as Death. Not as a savior. But as a god of chains.
A god who did not beg for freedom.
A god who did not kneel to hunger.
A god who became the master of all those who thought they could escape their own desires.
Orin did not become Death that night.
He became The Devil.
And when the fire finally died, and the ashes of his old self settled at his feet, he picked up the chains that once bound him… And he began forging them for others.
Because freedom?
Freedom was an illusion. People didn’t want freedom. They wanted the comfort of their attachments. They wanted the seduction of their addictions. They wanted to feel full, even if it meant feeding on something that would never satisfy them.
And Orin would give it to them.
He would offer them the same deal he once took.
He would whisper at the edges of their vices, where their indulgences turned to dependencies, where their cravings became their cages.
“You don’t have to suffer anymore.”
The question isn’t whether he’s lying.
It’s whether you are foolish enough to take his hand.
Because even The Devil was once a man who could have chosen differently.
And if he escaped… So can you.
The Devil Card’s Truth
Upright, The Devil is temptation—the slow descent into chains disguised as freedom, the illusion that control and indulgence will set you free. The seduction of addiction, of attachment, of believing that the next thing, the next hit, the next high will finally fill the void.
Reversed, The Devil is realizing you’re trapped, seeing the bars of your own prison, understanding that the thing you thought you controlled… now controls you.
But no matter what?
The choice is always yours.
You can say no.
Or you can take his hand.
Jade thought it was love at first.