Is King of Swords a yes or a no?

This card leans yes. It carries forward movement, and in a straight yes/no draw most readers take it affirmatively.

The King of Swords is intellectual authority: judgement, structure, ethics applied without favour.

The judge, the surgeon, the strategist. He decides on principle and does not revisit it because somebody is upset.

His sword is tilted rather than perfectly upright. That is one of Smith's most discussed details and is generally read as the acknowledgement that no judgement is entirely impartial, including his. Golden Dawn made him airy air, the purest intellect in the deck, and the tilt is the qualification the deck attaches to that.

Yes/no readings are the most popular use of tarot and the one it is worst suited to. A seventy-eight card deck built to describe nuance is being asked for one bit of information, and most of what it knows is discarded in the process.

A more useful version of the same draw: read King of Swords as what shape this takes, not whether it happens. Impartial judgement and clear reasoning. Set the standard and hold to it.

Excellent for legal, ethical and strategic decisions, and for any situation that has been decided several times on the basis of who was most persuasive that day.

In an advice position he says decide on the principle rather than on who is asking, and then apply it to yourself as well. The second half is what separates him from somebody merely inflexible.

Reversed, the lean weakens or inverts. Cold, controlling, using intellect as a weapon. Judgement without compassion.

Also, and this is the sharper reading, reasoning bent to justify a conclusion already reached. He is clever enough to construct an argument for anything, and the reversal is where that capacity is pointed at his own preferences.

It is very difficult to challenge from outside, because every individual step of the argument is sound.