Tarot: Where Does the Fool Come in the Trumps?

I posted earlier this month about how I've gone back to tarot school with Waite. He has re-raised a question previously raised for me by a wonderfully old-fashioned allegory of the tarot trumps by MacGregor Mathers:
'The Human Will (1) enlightened by Science (2) & manifested by Action (3), should find its realisation (4) in deeds of Mercy & Beneficence (5). The Wise Disposition (6) of this will give him Victory (7) through Equilibrium (8) & Prudence (9), over the fluctuations of Fortune (10). Fortitude (11), sanctified by Sacrifice of Self (12) will triumph over Death (13) itself, & thus a wise Combination (14) will enable him to defy Fate (15). In each Misfortune (16) he will see the Star of Hope (17) shine through the twilight of Deception (18); & ultimate Happiness (19) will be the Result (20). Folly (0) on the other hand, will bring about an evil Reward (21).'
This allegory immediately ushers us into a different age. I was shocked to discover Enid Nesbit, an author I loved as a child, was a member of the Golden Dawn, & this piece brings up the same atmosphere of the Victorian drawing room for me that her books do. We are literally in a different age here, & certainly in the wildly unlikely event of me ever having children I shall make them recite this to me every evening standing on the hearth rug before their Nanny ushers them up the wooden hill to Bedfordshire.
Not only does Mathers have Justice & Strength in their pre-Waite order, but he places the Fool - numbered with a zero - in between trumps 20 & 21. I thought when I first saw this that that was one of the most bizarre things I had ever seen, & have had my interest re-awakened by the fact that this is exactly the order in which Waite places the trumps, without explanation, in his Pictorial Key. I didn't realise that I was stepping into a real tarot controversy.
I have a feeling that most modern books & websites when listing the tarot cards 'in order', as it were, place The Fool at the beginning. He has accrued to himself a zero, & in fact his journey through the trumps is a very helpful way to understand the trumps (this approach is associated with Eden Gray & Barbara Moore, see http://www.llewellyn.com/blog/2013/07/a-study-of-the-fools-journey-1/). This has had the unfortunate effect of fixing the fool at the beginning of the trumps.
If that is the case, the Hebrew letter for the Fool would be Aleph. Crowley gives Aleph for the Fool in Liber 777. I have argued before on this blog for Aleph being attributed to the Magician: I have also argued that when you look at Waite/Smith's Magician in comparison to an actual Aleph, it becomes very obvious that that should be the Golden Dawn attribution, although the Golden Dawn gives Aleph to the Fool (I am indebted to http://tarotelements.com/4703/hebrew-for-tarot-readers-mother-letters/ for much of this information). I can only speculate that he would make the Magician in the deck he himself designed into a mammoth Aleph, rather than sticking to the Golden Dawn letters, as a difference of opinion of his own, or as one of his beloved 'blinds'. In practice he has followed Eliphas Levi & Papus rather than the Golden Dawn.
I have even managed to confuse myself further by seeing what Etteila does about it: be gives the Fool Number 78 in the deck, which I can only call interesting!
I would certainly prefer Levi's approach in that it gives mem to Death, & mem even looks like the figure in the Marseille Death card. And of course it is in the attribution of the three Mother Letters that the explanation comes: Waite, Mathers, & Levi have all placed the Fool just before the World so that it can have the third Mother Letter of Shin. Shin corresponds with Fire, which to my mind would fit Judgement much better than the Fool. In fact I would rather have the Fool as Aleph/Air than here. I have been forced to the conclusion that I do not agree with the placement of the Fool before the World at all. In fact I'm going to contradict myself by saying that if I leave the rest of the trumps aside, I prefer the Fool to be aleph, a la Golden Dawn.
But the problem with that is that it is to pay attention to the Fool & ignore that that messes up the rest of the trumps' Hebrew letters. At this point I'm left with two different systems & I frankly don't like either of them, so I'm forced to another conclusion. I would conclude that the tarot trumps were not intended to be aligned with the Hebrew letters as outlined in sepher yetzirah.
Is it possible there is anyone left in the pagan & magical communities that I haven't offended yet? I've just thrown the entire western kabbalistic tradition out of the window for no better reason than that it doesn't suit me! However in all seriousness the dilemma here seems to me insoluble: there are two competing correspondence systems here, I like parts of both but they're incompatible. To attribute Hebrew letters to the trumps you have to fit them together somehow, but it's insoluble.
There is, however, another way. Have I commented here before that tarot began life as a *game*? In fact the decks before the divinatory crowd got hold of the tarot don't give the Fool a number at all. No really. While I'm on the subject of allegory, it must be possible to understand the game allegorically, & I think it's here I've found a solution to my problem. The Fool isn't one of the trumps at all, it's out on its own:
'In addition to the four standard suits there is a extra suit of twenty-one atouts (trumps) numbered from 21 (high) to 1 (low).
'Finally, there is a special card called the excuse, or the fool, marked with a star in the corner.' (http://www.pagat.com/tarot/frtarot.html)
A further clue is given by the way the Fool behaves in the French tarot game described:
'The excuse is an exception to the above rules. If you hold the excuse you may play it to any trick you choose - irrespective of what was led and whether you have that suit or not. With one rare exception [...], the excuse can never win the trick - the trick is won as usual by the highest trump, or in the absence of trumps by the highest card of the suit led.' (Ibid.)
So to allegorise the game, the Fool isn't in a particular place but can actually go everywhere. I think this is what makes me so uncomfortable about placing the Fool somewhere & leaving him there - it just seems so wrong. I like the Air attribution for him because it means he is free to turn up where nobody expects him. He is everywhere, all the time. That's where I like him placed.
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