A man lies face down on the ground with ten swords in his back, a red cloth draped over him. The sky is black, but at the horizon it is turning yellow, and the water in front is still. It is the heaviest image in the suit. Not one blade but ten — there is nowhere further down to go.
When this card appears, hurts have usually piled on top of each other. Work went wrong, the relationship wobbled, and your body gave out on top of it. One at a time you would have coped; all at once, it feels like the end. The card does not argue; it agrees this is the bottom.
But there is something else in the picture. The horizon is getting lighter. Being at the bottom also means there is not much further to fall. What has ended is that particular thing; what comes after it is still there.
Reversed, it is usually the turn after the worst point, slowly getting up. Enough strength comes back to start again. The other direction is not accepting that something is over, and staying on the ground long after it ended.
What this card asks you to check is what drove you here. If the ten swords did not all land at once, some of them could have been avoided. Knowing which ones keeps you from ending up in the same place next time.
It often gets read as 'the worst' and left there. The card speaks of an ending as much as a bottom, and it is frequently a sign that a long, drawn-out pain has finally finished.
With Death a page really is turning and there is nothing left to hold onto. With the Star recovery has already begun. If the card after the bottom is the Star, the bottom does not last long.