Chess Motifs: Difference between revisions

 

{{examples}}

* ''[[Code Geass]]'': actually pretty much all of it. Rather tellingly, the King and Queen pieces in the show's chess set were explicitly modeled on [[Magnificent Bastard|Lelouch]] and [[Mysterious Waif|C.C.]] respectively.

** Lelouch specifically identifies as the Black King, symbolizing his acceptance of corruption and evil in order to bring good.

* This is how the master-servant devil relationships work in ''[[High School DxD]]''. The protagonist, Issei, is the [[Almighty Janitor|Pawn]],<ref>All eight of them.</ref> Rias is [[Crutch Character|the King]], Akeno is the Queen, Kiba is the Knight, Asia is the Bishop, and Koneko is the Rook. Other characters then join Rias later on to become the other pieces.

 

* The spy organization Checkmate in [[The DCU]], which classifies their agents by chess pieces and uses the White and Black sides to counteract each other.

* In ''[[X-Men (Comic Book)|X-Men]]'' the Inner Circle of the Hellfire Club has chess piece-based titles for its members (such as Sebastian Shaw, the Black King, and Emma Frost, the former White Queen). See below for [[The Movie]].

** More recently{{when}}, Doom used the Prime Mover against the [[Fantastic Four]] in Grant Morrison's ''Fantastic Four: 1234'', manipulating their histories and relationships to tear them apart from within. [[Reed Richards Is Useless|Going against trope]], Reed realized what Doom was up to and developed machines to counter Doom's moves. He realized that Doom's moves were rigid and inflexible, and in order to defeat him, he used his stretching powers to temporarily create new structures in his own brain, thus expanding his already prodigious intellect.

 

* In ''[[Windows of the Soul]]'', Shizuru once describes herself as a rook, and recounting the incident in which {{spoiler|Yukino}}, a pawn, tried and failed to stand in her way to protect {{spoiler|Haruka}} despite her lack of combat abilities, as almost essentially suicidal but somewhat courageous.

* In ''Vanguard'', the Paladins are all modeled after chess pieces, in appearance, attributes and role. Notably, the Paladins' individual armor vary in color.

* The ''[[Elemental Chess Trilogy]]'' takes the [[Chess Motif]] originally present in ''[[Fullmetal Alchemist]]'' and turns it [[Up to Eleven]]. The second story in the series, "Brilliancy," uses actual chess terms for the story title and all chapter titles; the third story, "The Game of Three Generals," does the same thing with terms from shogi (Japanese chess). The members of Mustang's unit still use the chess nicknames he gave them in the canon, and often make references to Riza's position as their queen, even dubbing themselves "all the queen's men" when they are officially made her personal security detail in the third story.

 

* Lawrence III in ''[[Pokémon: The Movie 2000|Pokémon 2000]]'' movie had his map set up like a chessboard. The plot was indeed quite chess-like in that he captured the three Legendary Birds to bring out the bigger prize, Lugia...or so he thought. In reality, the "Beast of the Sea" was an underwater current that had been causing the storm.

* The 2002 movie version of ''[[The Count of Monte Cristo (film)|The Count of Monte Cristo]]''. Edmond and Fernand have a chess king that they trade back and forth when the other has a victory, recognizing the other as "King of the Moment". Edmond explains this to Napoleon Bonaparte, who observes that "In life, we are all either Kings or Pawns."

* In ''[[Dragonheart]]'', Queen Aislinn is playing chess by herself in a scene where Einon and his men are having a rowdy feast. In the novelization, she spent a lot more time playing it, and only Bowen had seen any value in the game, realizing that it taught strategy.

 

* In "Liberty's Crusade", a ''[[StarCraft]]'' novel, Mengsk discusses over a Chess match how he prefers Chess to real war- in Chess both sides are equal at the start, and you don't have to worry about [[Zerg Rush|a massive wave of green pieces coming in from the side to suddenly wipe everyone out]].

* ''[[Alice in Wonderland|Through the Looking-Glass]]'' takes this rather farther than most, to the point of having all the events represented by actual chess moves. It also has an interesting variant, in that the two sides are called White and Red. It's not merely that the pieces are white and red (which is not unknown); by convention, the two sides in chess are referred to as White and Black even if the physical pieces used are other colors.

* Poul Anderson's ''A Circus of Hells'' has a chapter involving killer robots that defend squares of terrain — an abandoned "live" chess game.

 

* Parodied in ''[[Slings and Arrows]]'', which has a hysterically awful production of ''[[Romeo and Juliet]]'' in which all the characters wear chess piece hats:

{{quote|'''[[Those Two Guys|Cyril]]''': It's a chessboard, ducky.

* In the ''Winds of War'' miniseries Captain Henry the American naval atache in Berlin before the US enters WWII is talking shop with Von Roon a German staff officer while playing chess. When the conversation turns to the Lend-lease bill the German asks for an explanation. The American goes into a complicated legal diatribe whereupon Von Roon interrupts him saying, "It's [[Double-Speak|poppycock]]". [[The Chessmaster|Captain Henry]] rather gloatingly replies, "it's politics." And then says, [[Symbolism|"check"]].

 

* "I've Seen All Good People", by Yes starts out with the section called "Your Move". The song features lyrics like:

{{quote|"Don't surround yourself with yourself. Move me on to any black square."}}

* [[Fiona Apple]]'s second album featured [[Long Title|an eight-line poem as its title]]. The first line of the poem reads, "When the pawn hits the conflicts he thinks like a king..."

 

* A ''[[Dilbert]]'' strip has the [[Pointy-Haired Boss]] giving chess pieces to his underlings, symbolizing that they're "all on the same team". Unfortunately, he gives them all ''pawns''. He later quips, "I'm saving the rooks for bonus day."

** Another comic had Dilbert complain to his boss about being moved to a different cubicle with 'I bet another manager wants that cubicle. I bet we are all just pawn in your game.' It ended with the boss doing it anyway, and enforcing a new dresscode: Pawn-costumes. The dialogue at the end suggest that the PHB and another manager were playing an actual game of chess, using the cubicles as fields, and moving the employees as chesspieces by assigning them to new cubicles.

 

* ''[[Dungeons & Dragons]]''

** Forgotten Realms campaign setting has the deity "Red Knight", whose portfolio is strategy and whose symbol is [[Exactly What It Says on the Tin|a red knight piece]].

* [[GURPS]] has an optional "cinematic" rule that skill in chess can substitute for the Strategy skill used to plan actual battles.

 

* The 80s rock musical ''[[Chess (theatre)|Chess]]'' is pretty much all about this.

** In particular, ''Prologue (The Story of Chess)'' has what it describes as a "vague report"—and then goes into detail about a prince whose advisers had no clue about how a mother's mind works.

* In ''[[Man of La Mancha]]'', Cervantes, repositioning Antonia, the Housekeeper and the Padre to the corners of the stage, calls them the queen, the castle and the bishop, respectively. "And now--the problem of the knight!"

 

* It's been proposed that all the personalities in ''Killer7'' correspond to different chess pieces. Kun Lan and Harman are definitely playing a literal chess game, and possibly a figurative one as well. [http://www.gamefaqs.com/console/gamecube/file/562551/38193 Read this] for more details.

* Used in the opening of ''[[Age of Empires II]]''. Two kings are playing a game of chess, and the pieces fade in and out from "real" military events, each represented by different pieces till it all comes into a big castle siege. And then the last soldier standing (or kneeling, rather), drops a chess piece - a king - out of his hands.

* Cortana from halo's first words in her life were "The king and the pawn go in the same box" in french.

 

* Mark Shallow does this in ''[[Antihero for Hire]]''.

** Parodied [https://web.archive.org/web/20090720091011/http://antiheroforhire.com/d/20070402.html here], by way of [[Metaphorgotten]].

'''Raz''': "Ha! You're a queen."

'''Akira''': "Now you're a queen." }}

 

== [[Web Original]] ==

* ''[[D8]]'' ''is'' this. The entire story is pretty much one big Chess Motif.

 

* ''[[The Simpsons (animation)|The Simpsons]]'' has this exchange:

{{quote|'''Bart''': Hey Lisa, what do you call those guys in chess that don't matter?

* The ''[[Fillmore!]]'' episode "Of Slain Kings on Checkered Fields" centers around chess-playing Bad Boy Check Matey receiving death threats.

* In a ''[[Batman: The Animated Series]]'' episode, the Riddler trapped Batman in a [[Cyberspace|virtual reality]] simulator. At one point, Riddler had Batman chase him across a giant chessboard, only to have the squares slowly disappear beneath Batman's feet. Robin deduced that Riddler was playing with Batman's nickname [[Superhero Sobriquets|The Dark Knight]], and that in order to avoid disappearing squares, Batman had to move like a knight; two forward, one to the side.

 

== [[Real Life]] ==

 

{{reflist}}

[[Category:Older Than Print]]

[[Category:Motifs]]