syllabaries as tables

One of the things that I find intriguing about syllabaries is that, whereas we usually think of alphabets in terms of a list (a, b, c, etc, α, β, γ, etc), syllabaries are usually presented as tables. So this is the Japanese katakana syllabary:



And this is the Cree syllabary:



This isn't a scholarly linguistic comment at all - just a personal reaction - but these diagrams make me think of cards laid out on a table like a game of patience or a tarot reading.