Chess with Death: Difference between revisions

{{deathtrope}}

 

* Used in one issue of ''[[Marvel Adventures]]: Avengers''; the Avengers end up playing [[Human Chess]] with [[Planet Eater|Galactus]] over the fate of an alien world. Hulk screws up and it's [http://img222.imageshack.us/img222/8554/maavengers26017tt6.jpg a stalemate], so they try [http://i159.photobucket.com/albums/t142/robertroberts_2007/Capture-Copy-9.jpg in a human-scaled stadium baseball.] Ant-Man [http://img222.imageshack.us/img222/630/maavengers26019zk6.jpg screws it up], so they play [http://img222.imageshack.us/img222/6718/maavengers26020is5.jpg poker]. Hulk screws up again, and then [[Spider-Man]] mentions that he's hungry and they end up in an [http://img222.imageshack.us/img222/4813/maavengers26021se2.jpg infinite-star restaurant.]

* The [[Marvel Comics]] cosmic villain, The Grandmaster, is obsessed with games, especially using humans as pawns. In one occasion, he challenged [[Death]] herself, in order to get back his dead brother. He won, but [[Balancing Death's Books|had to die in his place]]. This turned out, however, to be part of a larger [[Xanatos Gambit]] of his.

* In [[Top Ten]] spin-off ''[[Smax]]'', there is actually a specific Death responsible for playing chess with "wily peasants". His name is Lionel. Naturally, he even looks like the [[Grim Reaper]] in ''[[The Seventh Seal]]''. Just as naturally, he isn't very good at chess (that's why the peasants always win).

 

 

* Famously occurs in Ingmar Bergman's ''[[The Seventh Seal]]'', pictured above. This is the origin of the "chess with the reaper" form of this trope.

** Not specifically the origin: The Knight mentions that he has seen Death play chess on paintings; this is true, the motif of death playing chess exists [http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/0/0b/Taby_kyrka_Death_playing_chess.jpg/450px-Taby_kyrka_Death_playing_chess.jpg as a motif in a Swedish church] (although whether or not the game is chess or checkers or some other game is hard to make out)

 

 

* In Thomas Bontly's ''Celestial Chess'', the monk Gervaise played conventional chess against [[Satan]] and ''won'' the first two matches. Unfortunately, he then played the eponymous game in a [[Deal with the Devil]]. The twist is that [[Satan]]'s pieces were indicated by planetary or stellar bodies in this variation; Gervaise knew enough astronomy that he thought he could predict all the possible responses to any given move. He didn't expect a supernova...

* In [[Teresa Edgerton]]'s ''[[Celydonn|The Grail and the Ring]]'', Tryffin plays a series of chess matches with the king of [[The Fair Folk]] for the freedom of his party (not realizing, upon entering the series, that the local rules of the game are different from those with which he is familiar).

 

 

* The opening to ''[[The Colbert Report]]'''s "Cheating Death" segment shows Stephen Colbert tricking Death into looking away, then rearranging the pieces.

* ''[[Red Dwarf]]'''s Holly challenges the usurper [[Scary Black Man|Queeg]] for the right to be the control computer aboard ship.

 

 

* [[Starflyer 59]]'s [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SDuQhga4iSk "No New Kinda Story"] music video is a very clear [[Shout-Out]] to Bergman's chess match. (Although the hooded figure could be interpreted as [[God]] instead of Death; the video is something of a [[Mind Screw]].)

* Russian band "King and Jester" has a song called "Henry and Death" in which Henry the King, a chess prodigy, defeated every worthy opponent in his kingdom and decided to challenge the Death itself. He loses due to death knowing each his move in advance.

 

 

* One of the 50 game scenarios, called Haunts, in ''[[Betrayal at House on the Hill]]'', has players attempting this trope. Players can cheat though, as one player can stay for the game, and others can run around the board finding items that help the chess-player cheat and hopefully defeat Death.

* One ''Duel of the Magi'' or some such book (one of the few gamebooks ever designed for PVP) featured the player being able to help out a potential ally in a chess game for an extra year of life. If she survives, you get a place to rest, and some special equipment.

 

 

* The player in ''[[A Fine Day for Reaping]]'' must win a chess game (or otherwise convince the person to move on) to reap one soul.

** Except the player doesn't play any chess, this being [[Interactive Fiction]], and your character isn't very good at it. You have to read an encyclopedia to beat the person at chess, in fact.

 

 

* In ''[[Casey and Andy]]'', beat the devil at chess to undo selling his soul was part of [[The Ace|Quantum Cop]]'s [[Gambit Roulette]] to defeat Quantum Crook in one [[Story Arc]].

* Parodied in the webcomic ''[http://www.webcomicsnation.com/captaineli/captianeli/series.php?view=archive&chapter=41097 Life and Death]'', in which nothing is at stake but Death still wins every game. He does, however, have [http://www.webcomicsnation.com/captaineli/captianeli/series.php?view=archive&chapter=41174 one weakness].

 

 

* ''[[Earthworm Jim (animation)|Earthworm Jim]]'':

{{quote|'''Professor Monkey-For-A-Head:''' I challenge you to a game of ''chess''!

 

 

* In the [[Hentai]] OVA ''[[Ane Haramix]]'', a female shinigami comes for the protagonist's life but reveals out of pity that shinigamis have a secret rule: if a human sires a child, his lifespan is extended by several years. Thus, he sets out to impregnate the only girl he knows well, who turns out to be [[Brother-Sister Incest|his sister]], so things get complicated. [[One Thing Led to Another]], and in the end both his sister ''and'' the shinigami end up pregnant, at which point the ''other'' rule is revealed: if a human sires a child with a shinigami, his lifespan is extend way beyond natural one.

* At the climax of ''[[Summer Wars]]'', Natsuki takes advantage of the fact that [[AI Is a Crapshoot|Love Machine]] treats everything as a game and played several matchs of Koi-Koi with it. Several [[Crowning Moment of Awesome]]/[[Crowning Moment of Heartwarming|Heart Warming]] later, she managed to [[What Do You Mean It's Not Awesome?|make a mere card game look epic]] and won back the millions of stolen accounts. If she lost? A missile-powered satellite will crash into a nuclear power station around the world and... yeah.

 

 

* In one issue of ''[[Ghost Rider]]'', Ghost Rider races against Death for the lives of a man, a little girl, and himself.

* Jack from ''[[Fables]]'' played cards in a louisiana swamp with the devil in disguise. At first it seemed like the devil had the upper hand and when Jack had nothing left to bet he offered up his soul, but only if the devil would give him his [[Bag of Holding]] the devil agreed and Jack won, having had four of a kind the entire time and simply waiting til the devil was cocky enough to bet the sack.

 

 

* Parodied in ''[[Bill and Teds Bogus Journey]]''. They don't play [[The Grim Reaper]] at chess... [[Best Out of Infinity|instead they beat him at ''Clue, Battleships, Twister''...]] Eventually the Reaper gives up [[Defeat Equals Friendship|and joins them]].

* The climax of the 1986 film ''[[Crossroads]]'' is a guitar battle between Eugene and [[Steve Vai|Jack Butler]] (the Devil's chosen one) for Willie Brown's soul. Eugene wins.

 

 

* In [[Samuel Taylor Coleridge]]'s ''[[The Rime of the Ancient Mariner]]'', Death and Life In Death gamble with dice, and Death wins the crew, while Life In Death wins the Mariner, and gives him a [[Fate Worse Than Death]].

* In the ''[[Discworld]]'' series, Death is often challenged to these. Again, with the twist that he can't lose (unless he wants to). For example:

 

 

* ''[[Scrubs]]'' once featured J.D. playing Connect Four with Death in an [[Imagine Spot]], and Death wins on the diagonal, prompting J.D. to say "Very sneaky, Death!"

* In ''[[The Twilight Zone]]'' episode "One For the Angels" a salesman talks death into letting him stay alive until he can make the sales pitch of a lifetime, e.g. "one for the angels." Death agrees, whereupon the salesman smugly quits his job. Unfortunately, Death [[Balancing Death's Books|still has to take a soul]], and chooses a little girl who lives in the same building. To save her life, the former salesman distracts Death with a series of enthralling sales pitches, keeping Death occupied until after the appointed time - and willingly sacrificing his life in the process, since now that he's made his sales pitch of a lifetime, his bargain with Death is now complete.

 

 

* The Charles Daniels band's "The Devil Went Down to Georgia" describes a fiddle-playing contest between Johnny and [[Satan]].

** ''Wigu'' parodied this. Satan challenges Topato Potato to a fiddling contest for custody of Sheriff Pony's soul. Topato wins by pointing out that Satan failed to explicitly define "fiddle" and the terms of victory, then proceeding to play the fiddle of the Butter Dimension Cubed, a tuba-like instrument whose only measure for proficiency is that one play it ''loudly''.

 

 

* Played with in the story of Sisyphus. The game was not a formal institution, but nevertheless he played it. Among his more popular exploits, he once evaded his fate by tying Charon to a tree and running off.

* [[Greek Mythology]]: Arachne entered a weaving contest with Athena; in the end, Athena turned her into a spider. There seem to be a few variations on the tale.

 

 

* [[Dilbert|Dogbert]] once escaped death by walking away from the game (Scrabble in this case) on his turn and leaving the issue unresolved. Death should've specified a time limit beforehand.

 

 

* ''The Seventh Seal'''s "challenge Death for more time" trope is cleverly spoofed in [[Woody Allen]]'s short play "Death Knocks", where the protagonist plays gin rummy with [[The Grim Reaper]] for the right to stay alive one more day ''and'' a tenth of a cent a point "to make it interesting".

* In [[Igor Stravinsky]]'s opera ''The Rake's Progress'', Tom plays cards with [[Satan|Nick Shadow]] for his soul. The odds are horribly stacked against Tom, because he has to correctly guess three randomly-drawn cards from an entire deck—but he wins thanks the [[The Power of Love]]. (Except Nick vengefully inflicts Tom with insanity as he leaves.)

 

 

* ''[[Dante's Inferno (video game)|Dantes Inferno]]'' begins with the eponymous character getting murdered and the Reaper coming to take his soul. The game's first battle cum tutorial is the fight between Dante and the Reaper, which ends with Dante ''crushing'' the Reaper and taking his scythe.

* In ''[[The Sims]] 2'', if a Sim dies one of their loved ones can bargin for the dead Sims soul in some cases. If Death accepts, he plays a game of "Which hand is their soul in?" with the living Sim, success or failure is based on the relationship points between the two Sims.

 

 

* ''[[Irregular Webcomic]]'' had an early running gag where the various Deaths would admit that they had to accept ''any'' game as a challenge, whereupon the recently-departed would find some game their Death had never even heard of. Challenges have included poker, [[Harry Potter|Quidditch]], [[Star Wars|pod-racing]], and [[Myth Busters|Myth-busting]], which ended up being the origin of Hitler's brain in a jar. "Pirate Slang" was deemed too humiliating by the Deaths, who let the pirates return to life.

** It is also stated that chess is no longer an option, since in the 1970s, no Russians had died for about a decade. Apparently an earlier strip where chess was used was forgotten.

 

 

* In "<s>Death</s> Meatballs or Consequences", an ''[[Animaniacs]]'' pastiche of ''Seventh Seal'', they play checkers (as Dot and Yakko say that chess is unknown to them) for Wakko's life with Death. They play to stay together, which [[Exact Words|Death interprets as taking all three]], but Death finds them [[Too Spicy for Yog-Sothoth|too annoying]] to keep dead.

* The entire reason ''[[The Grim Adventures of Billy and Mandy]]'' exists. Billy & Mandy played a game of limbo with Grim for the soul of their dead hamster. Grim lost thanks to Mandy's cheating and now he is stuck being their <s>best friend</s> slave forever. Cue the rest of the series with [[Hilarity Ensues|hilarious results]].