The victims of the Red Knight 

Arthur Rackham presents us with "The Victims of the Red Knight," a chilling illustration rendered in ink. Here, the forest is not a place of refuge but a macabre stage. Knights in full armor hang lifelessly from gnarled branches. This evokes the ancient motif of the "Uprooted Tree," a symbol found across cultures, representing destruction and the collapse of order. Notice how the knights' heavy armor, meant to protect, now becomes their burden, sealing their fate. Consider the Hanged Man in Tarot, suspended by one foot, symbolizing sacrifice and a turning point. Could this image reflect a similar psychic tension, a moment of reckoning? The forest itself, often a symbol of the unconscious, here becomes a landscape of collective trauma, the repetition compulsion playing out in the visual horror of the scene. The image, with its stark contrast and haunting symbolism, reaches into the depths of our shared cultural memory. It reminds us that even in fantasy, the echoes of human suffering and the cyclical nature of violence persist.