Writer's Workshop: Chesscourt · 6:44pm Jul 21st, 2017
Hey, all! I'm reading a book right now that just implemented a chess match into its symbolism, so I'm feeling the urge to talk about chess symbolism today. If you don't know how to play chess, this will sort of be a tutorial; if you do, hopefully this will give you some insight into how chess symbolism can be used in stories. Let's begin. Pawn to e4.
Chess is a game of skill, intellect, and forethought... or at least, that's how it's depicted in stories. Truth be told, the start of the game is basically memorizing all the best openings, and the ending is just a long slog pretending one person hasn't already won, b-but the middle requires tactics and thought! The game models itself after an army, and opens with a row of cannon fodder pawns leading the charge. Behind them are a collection of different pieces, each with their own abilities. From the outside, in: 2 rooks, 2 knights, 2 bishops, and the king and queen. The goal of the game is to position your pieces so that the enemy king will die on your next turn (called "checkmate"). But since all information about the board state is visible at any given time, your opponent knows when you're closing in, and will react accordingly. So a major component of chess, and thus chess symbolism, is creating subtle positioning that the opponent doesn't realize until too late is leading to a checkmate.
Another key aspect of chess is forcing your opponent to make bad choices. There are two common terms regarding this: a fork, where the opponent must choose between saving one piece or another, and "zugzwang," where the opponent is forced to make a move, when they would rather wait and do nothing. Regarding forks, let's also talk about "check." If the king is in "check," he's in a position where he could be killed next turn, but the state is escapable. Thus, the player in check must take some action, such as moving their king or taking the attacking piece, which they might not want to, simply because the king is so important. You can see how this symbolism can be effective in storytelling: if one character's survival is much more important, then any other character can be sacrificed to keep them out of "check."
And that's basically it. The board is surprisingly small, which means pieces are constantly threatening one another and getting into pickles. Pieces get trapped in enemy territory, make daring raids, and slip through enemy lines--in that way, it's a pretty effective model of war for something so basic. And as pieces fall and the board thins, the game ends as wars do--with the general trapped and unable to do anything but surrender. With that out of the way, let's talk about the symbolism of each piece:
Pawn: There are eight pawns at the start of the game, one for each file on the board. They're simple pieces, capable only of moving forward one space at a time. The start of the game usually starts with moving the pawns out of the way so that the good pieces get out. But don't think of them as unimportant! Besides gumming up your opponent's plans, pawns have a special ability called "promotion." When they reach the opponent's back line, they immediately transform into whichever piece you like! (Except the king, of course. There's only one king, after all.) If played well, the lowly pawn can become the almighty queen--think on that. (I suppose this would also be the place to talk about en passant, but other than it being a fancy-shmancy French word, I'm not aware of any way to use it symbolically in a story.)
Rook: The rooks start out on the ends of the board, and they can only move horizontally or vertically. They're a little tricky to move out at first, but once they're in play, they can swing across the board and control entire ranks and files. This makes them incredibly effective, particularly when performing the two- or three-rook checkmate: control the row the enemy king is in, as well as both of the rows he might escape to. We also can't talk about rooks without talking about "castling:" an awesome trick where the king is turtled behind a group of pawns, and the rook is pushed out into a more flexible position. This technically makes the king significantly safer, but it can end up trapping him in a corner later in the game. Consider what happens if your antagonist (or hero, for that matter) figuratively "castles."
Knight: Knights are rogue agents. They're weird for two different reasons: first, they move in an L-shape, rather than clean lines; second, they can jump over any piece to get at the piece they want. This makes them great to open the game, since they can jump over that row of pawns, as well as attacking pieces in strange and surprising ways. (For example, attacking a king inside a castle. Whoops, now that safe wall of pawns is a liability!) When you're first learning the game, watch the knights really carefully, or they'll trip you up when they jump out of nowhere. Similarly, for story symbolism, knights are your wild cards, racing out at the start to cause havoc and break things at the least convenient time.
Bishop: Bishops have a curious quirk due to their movement: you start with one on a black space and one on a white space, and since they move diagonally, they can never leave that color. That being said, bishops are the bread and butter of the game. They can slide through rows of pawns, they're great at pinning enemy pieces down, and they can hold down entire diagonals with ease. However, losing one means you lose access to attacking that color via bishop for the rest of the game. (Unless you promote a pawn into a bishop, of course.) The fact that they move and attack via diagonals makes them feel sneaky and backstabby. There's also the curious fact that they're named after a religious figure... you might see how that turns into some interesting symbolism.
Queen: The queen is so powerful, you only get one of her. She has the combined powers of the rook and the bishop: she can move as far horizontally, vertically, and diagonally as she wants. If she's in the center of the board, she threatens huge swathes of the board; once she's in play, she's a force to be reckoned with. But that very power leads itself into two huge dangers: 1) focusing on playing with the queen, to the detriment of board development, and 2) getting too greedy and letting her fall into a trap. Once you don't have your queen, your opponent's queen becomes vastly more powerful, simply by contrast. That being said, there's sort of an unofficial move, called "the queen sacrifice," whereby an expert player willingly sacrifices their queen to further their ends. The opposing player takes the queen, knowing they've removed a major threat, but unbeknownst to them, they've opened up their board in some way so as to allow a swift and sudden checkmate. If you don't remember any chess symbolism, remember this one; I'd say it's probably the most common chess symbolism ever used. Those willing to perform queen sacrifices are monstrous people, capable of destroying anything they value in service to their goal.
King: At last, we get to the king. Despite being the most important piece (or maybe because of it), the king has vastly weaker movement options than any other piece. He can only move one space horizontally, vertically, or diagonally, but he really only needs it if he's in check. Most of the game, he'll sit in one spot, away from the battling. Remember, the king is a utility monster: every other piece is secondary to making sure the king is safe and undamaged. Figuratively speaking, the king is the player, ordering all the other pieces to their death in order to defeat the opponent.
The Players: Actually, now that I mention it, let's make the player a separate "piece." In some stories, you might have characters representing players: high gods, watching all of the events and manipulating them to "win." In these stories, they often sit right across from each other, but they don't carry weapons or fight each other. Why would they? They're not the pieces, fighting each other and shedding blood. They just make sure everything happens according to their whim. At the end of the story, with all of the pieces dead and the king pinned down, the two players shake hands and part ways, friends. (The other option than them sitting together in one room is a scene reminiscent of play-by-mail chess, where each player sits alone, staring at their own version of the board. The symbolism is slightly different in this case: each player must imagine their enemy on the other side of the board.) What is more monstrous than that?
I hope this has been an illuminating look into how chess is used as symbolism in storytelling. Once you've shown a chessboard, or two characters hunched over the pieces, you've signaled to the readers that this story is going to be intelligent, tactical, and full of twists and turns. Characters will be pinned*, queens will be sacrificed, and the main character's predictive ability will be pushed to its limit. And in the end, it'll turn into a hunt for the king, trying to find just the right position to stop him for good. Bishop takes b2, checkmate!
* ...Wait, shoot, dangit, I didn't talk about pins! Pinning is an important aspect of chess, but I couldn't quite find a good place to talk about it. Basically, if a piece is pinned, it's in a position where it's preventing the king from being in check. For example, imagine a knight in between a bishop's diagonal attack and the king. The knight can't move, because if it did, the bishop would be able to "take" the king next turn. The knight must wait until the bishop moves somewhere else; only then can it move again.
I've never been able to get the Chess analogies to work right. It could be because I really, really stink at chess. I mean the TRS-80 Model 1 chess program used to smoke my tail.
4608351
Lol, I'm certainly not an expert, either. I bet a grandmaster could go into the symbolism of each of the individual openings, as well as more in-depth into the value and strategy of each type of piece. Still, I think it's interesting, and I'd love to try incorporating it into a story sometime (even though it's kind of a cliché at this point). If your chess-playing villain doesn't do a queen sacrifice... I think you're doing it wrong.
To be honest I always saw pawns as the front line troops that serve to create chains and limit enemy player movement and not just an obstacle for more valuable pieces. That makes them very important pieces for me as they work in team. This is probably why in some languages they are refereed to as soldiers or infantryman.
Guess the names we use for pieces also change the symbolism from language to language. Like pawn is something you use and discard but a soldier is someone you relay on. Though bishop is rather odd choice, especially since that figure is probably least consistent. Bishop, Hunter, Runner, Officer, Elephant, Camel to name but a few. And was always rather weird to me that queen was the name of the most active figure. I think the other most common vizier makes more sense as someone who has large authority.
But anyway good show, something to think about for sure.
4608409
> "limit enemy player movement"
> "not just an obstacle"
But to be serious, you're right. Pawns do have their uses. They're fantastically annoying positioned in such the right way that your stronger pieces have nowhere to go without being taken. And the naming is also odd, to be sure. I wonder what we'd name them nowadays. Maybe like "fighter, wizard, rogue."
Yeah, "vizier" is good!
4608423
Ooops I mean obstacle for your own better pieces. Guess I derped
Dunno Peon would be G.I, Rook could be a Tank I guess, Knight an Airplane, Bishop um...no idea... Yeah definitely preferring the more medieval feel of rogue, warrior, wizard.
...or Peon would be Spike, Rook could be AJ, Knight Dash, Bishop Rarity, Twilight Queen for she saves the day and Celestia White King for she must be saved. Luna gets to be Black King of the Night of course.
4608382 "Ha!" Hench regarded the chess board with no small amount of glee, seeing a light at the end of the long, dark tunnel. He may have been an incompetent minion and an inadequate gunner (as the heroes who escaped on the airship would be willing to testify), but he did know how to play chess. Lord Slaughter had just moved his queen into an attack against the defenses Hench had spent a half-hour putting together, and although it was fairly obvious what he was planning to do, Hench had planned ahead of the Dark Master by about three moves. Fourteen pieces were going to get captured in this exchange, and then it was checkmate for the black king. He reached out for his white knight with a growing smile, then stopped.
"Um. Master? One question."
"Yes, minion?" The Dark Lord lifted his eyes from the report he was reading, then stamped it with the 'Find them and kill them' stamp before passing it off to another minion of the paperwork variety.
"You said we were going to play for my life, which I kinda-sorta presumed meant I needed to win in order to survive, but you never said so in that many words. What happens if I..." His voice trailed off despite Minion's best efforts when the Dark Lord gave a low chuckle.
"Return to your station, minion," he rumbled. "You will practice with the Death Ray before we meet those inconsiderate pests again, will you not?"
"Every available minute, Your Horribleness." Minion bowed and scrambled back to his chair, thankful that the Dark Lord had not only assigned The Rules of an Evil Overlord as required reading, but had read it himself.
4608462
Nice! 👏
4608565
This takes me back to my chess club days--only better! Didn't have guys letting the clock run out so that the game was technically a "draw" or our chess master giving his son preferential treatment.
In was a nice, in-depth look and I'll reference it again in the future...
...oh! And pawn to D5...