It has come to my attention that there is some confusion regarding the High Honors card in Ciro Marchetti’s Fin de Siécle. Some people seem to think that it’s a battle scene, and that the meaning is changed from No. 25 Zu hohen Ehren kommen (“Come to high honors”) in the Original Kipperkarten.
It isn’t. It’s exactly the same thing. This is made clear in the companion PDF, but I know that not everyone reads that before doing an unboxing video, and that it’s currently only available in english, which isn’t everyone’s first language. But there are clues on the card itself.
Let’s look a little more closely. The Original shows a humble little house in the foreground, with a castle on a hill in the background, the implication being that someone has risen from humble beginnings and achieved wealth and power. Kind of a Gatsby card, hopefully without the organized crime. Of course it seldom means you’re going to be THAT rich. It’s a card of recognition, promotion, achievement, and career advancement.
Now let’s look at Ciro’s version:
The soldiers are in spotless dress uniform.
The cannons are lined up perfectly.
Everything is orderly.
This is ceremonial.
This is a gun salute.
Combat is chaos. Soldiers are generally hunkered down firing, or running. They’re dirty and disheveled. There is a hellish atmosphere that isn’t present on the card.
Now, would you say that the card looks like the photos above? Or does it look more like this Royal Gun Salute at Hyde Park?
Here is a wikipedia entry on the 21-gun salute in the UK, the setting for this deck (though the wikipedia entry talks about our own times, not late Victorian/Edwardian, it’s an old tradition). You can see that it’s usually done for Royals. The “people in the castle” shown on No. 25 from the Original Kipperkarten. If you feel like looking over the whole article, you’ll see that it’s done in many parts of the world. In most countries, it’s similar. It’s generally reserved for royals, high officials, and heads of state.
A lot of you may have seen a gun salute firsthand. If you’ve ever gone to a veteran’s funeral, you’ve probably seen rifles fired graveside. In the US, this is a three-volley salute. My dad got that for his service in WWII. It’s not 21 shots with cannons, but it’s still an honor.
So this card is showing cannons fired to honor someone of very high rank. A high honor, and still a card of recognition, promotion, achievement, and career advancement.
A castle on a hill, a 21-gun salute. Two ways of saying the same thing.
Do take time to read the PDF if you can. (And not just because I got to contribute. It’s seriously helpful.) And, because I haven’t ended a blog post with a song in awhile, I leave you this 21-gun salute for the rest of us. :D
