The Emperor Upright: Zeus makes a good emperor, and not just because he was king of the gods. The emperor card stands for strength, assertiveness and all around macho-like-behavior, and Zeus was a take-charge kind of guy. Take Zeus’ father Kronos, for instance. Never heard of him? There’s a reason for that. Kronos heard a prophesy that said he was doomed to be overthrown by one of his kids. His answer: snack on the infant gods before they could grow up to bite him instead. Only Rhea, his longsuffering wife, got a little tired of his eating habits. After Zeus was born, she gave Kronos a stone wrapped in a blanket for lunch instead of the baby, who was quickly hidden. Zeus, as you might expect, grew up with some serious daddy issues. He eventually returned to force Kronos to regurgitate his brothers and sisters, then banished him. The moral of the story: if you don’t take charge of your own life, someone else will do it for you–and you may not like where you end up.
The Emperor Reversed: Zeus, king of the Olympian gods and our emperor, had a lot of stress. His wife, Hera, gave a whole new meaning to the term “high maintenance” and his truly appalling children didn’t help matters. So old Zeus decided to get himself a nice, relaxing hobby. Unfortunately, it involved pursuing a lot of women, and a few pretty young men, many of whom were not thrilled at being given a ‘divine blessing.’ As king of the gods, Zeus wasn’t accustomed to hearing the words “hell, no!” and didn’t take them well. Instead, he seduced his would-be lovers by a long list of highly manipulative if not downright deceptive schemes involving swans, bulls and showers of gold (trust me, you don’t want to know). These liaisons rarely turned out well. The Greeks might not have known about karma, but it certainly bit old Zeus more than once. Moral is, using bullying or deceptive tactics may get you what you want, but they rarely make you happy.