A figure dances inside a wreath, with a man, an eagle, a bull and a lion at the corners — the same four from the Wheel, returning here. The circle has come round.
The World usually marks something genuinely finishing. Where Death is an ending that cuts, this is an ending that completes: a graduation, a race run, a long piece of work delivered, or the moment after a long stretch when you feel this is your place now.
What makes it good is not that the result was good but that it is tied off. It does not mean everything worked. It means everything is done, and done things have a next attached. The wreath is round for a reason — completion here is a lap, not a terminus.
Reversed, you are nearly there and not there. One last step has been outstanding for months, or it is formally over and you have not left it. Writing down what actually remains usually reveals a smaller list than expected. More often than not the blocker is not size — it is that finishing would mean deciding what comes next.
Reading the World purely as an ending sells it short. It is completion, but in this deck the card after the last one is the Fool again. It means a full turn has been made, not that there is nowhere left to go. So when it appears, what matters is not what you finished but what that finish is the start of.
Beside the Fool, the ending and the beginning are joined and the next round has already opened. With Death the closing is irreversible. The World is the last card and still does not mean stopping.