Tarot Deck Review: Funko Pop Disney Villains
I’m blogging - about Tarot! How original [insert eye-roll emoji].
But I do want to talk about new and/or important decks when they come through for me, and there’s one I want to talk about today; the new Funko Pop Disney Villains Tarot Deck!
I wouldn’t say I’m a Disney Princess, but I do enjoy a camp villain; Ursula, Scar, Lucifer the cat etc - so of course I already have the standard Disney Villains Tarot Deck.
And I love Funkos! We have about 300 of them in the house from Golden Girls to Daria to Justice League to Bill & Ted, and I recently visited the Funko mothership in LA and spent way more than planned.
So this deck is ideal for me, right?
Sadly, not so.
OK; so it’s bright, it’s colourful and it does cover a lot of the basic symbolism with some truly iconic and timeless characters.
But the real issue for me is the similarity to the first Disney Villains deck. Literally every card is the same. Every. Single. Card. Just reworked to show more Funko Pop style imagery. And most of the choices still work but… it seems like a missed opportunity to try something different. And definitely a missed opportunity to give some more ooomph to some of the, frankly lacklustre, minor arcana cards.
Lets look at the “big three” cards:
The Fool. Magician and High Priestess from the Funko Pop Disney Villains Tarot Deck.
Here we have Kronk from The Emperor’s New Groove in the role of The Fool, Dr Facilier from The Princess and the Frog as our Magician and Maleficent being the High Priestess.
From my POV the Fool and Magician cards could start the deck with stronger, more iconic characters - but I respect that hardcore Disney fans could argue these are a better fit to traditional tarot symbology and tropes. Maybe I’m just a little too old to have really connected with these characters.
But when we compare these cards to the original Disney Villains deck (below) they just seem a little lifeless and flat. Funko imagery can, and should be fun. But this feels a little lacking to me.
The "big three" cards from the Disney Villains decks for comparison.
Now for some other cards:
The Hanged Man (Kaa from The Jungle Book) and the Three of Cups just seem too alike to the previous deck. The Nine of Pents/Coins (vaguely represented by King John from Robin Hood) also just really feels like it could have been a better, bigger design (Jafar from Aladin complete with Iago maybe?) with more symbolism that the first deck, but we see the same weaknesses bleed through to the new deck.
I have 6 Ursula Funkos IRL so I appreciate the Queen of Cups but it just feels likes it could be more… and does this really best represent the Queen of Cups?
The Hanged Man, The Queen of Cups, The Three of Cups and The Nine of Pentacles from both decks.
Across this deck it just seems that the minors weren’t given the same care and attention as the majors. Sometimes that can work if you lean in to it , Marseille-style, but otherwise to me it just dilutes the appeal and usability of a deck. Pamela Colman Smith is a hard act to follow and we’re not asking for that every time - but many other decks manage to find a happier medium than what I see here.
Even the deck’s box is a like-for-like recreation! And I suppose that is kind of what Funko Pops are… a vinyl recreation of a beloved icon… but that didn’t need to be the case here.
Spot the difference.
IMHO this could have been a great-looking, fun, usable deck (and I have no doubt that for some people it will be) but if you already have the Disney Villains deck, my advice is to only add this to your collection if you’re a hardcore Funkophile.
My final scores:
Art: ★★★
Fun: ★★
Creativity: ★
Usability: ★★
Tarotyness: ★★