Cosmic Chess Game: Difference between revisions

{{trope}}

[[File:GodChessSmallJ 7963.jpg|link=Discworld|frame|The gods don't [[Cosmic Plaything|toy with humanity]]; [[Manipulative Bastard|they play it]].]]

 

An extension of [[Cosmic Plaything]], where two or more gods (or similarly powered entities) are effectively using the entire world as a game board. Often [[Black and White Morality|one god is portrayed as actually caring about his pawns while his opponent is pure evil]]. May lead to a [[Rage Against the Heavens]] when the heroes find out they've been used. Often a god acts specifically through one mortal or a small group, sometimes an entire species.

 

Contrast [[Chess with Death]]. [[Human Chess]] is this on a much lower scale.

{{examples}}

== [[Anime]] and [[Manga]] ==

* For much of ''[[Bleach]]'', the antagonists were being used as tools by [[The Chessmaster|Sosuke Aizen]], while the protagonists were manipulated as surrogates by [[Guile Hero|Kisuke Urahara]].

* In ''[[Thor]]'', Thor once saw all Asgard asleep, except for his father who was playing chess with a foe. He goes off to the foe's realm to cause trouble and disrupt the game. Sif stops him, and he learns that if he had succeeded, Odin would have forfeited the game—he has acted as the enemy's piece. Fortunately, the game ended in a draw.

 

* The idea of an immortal game is thrown around several times in ''[[Ponies Make War]]'', even in the very beginning, where Celestia refers to {{spoiler|her weakened self}} and the corrupted Twilight Sparkle as nothing more than pieces on the board. [[Big Bad|Titan,]] on the other hand, views it very differently, instead seeing it as a game he has already won.

* In the ''[[Drunkard's Walk]]'' series, Doug Sangnoir's conviction that all god-mortal interaction amounts to this trope (coupled with his experience of more than a few [[Jerkass Gods]]) is one of the reasons why he's a [[Nay Theist]].

* ''[[Fafhrd and The Gray Mouser]]'' have their lives often controlled by their sorcerous advisors, Ningauble of the Seven Eyes and Sheelba of the Eyeless Face. Interestingly, Ningauble and Shellba have more of a friendly rivalry then being enemies of each other.

* The early novels in the ''[[Night Watch (novel)|Night Watch]]'' series were all about this: as their [[Power Levels]] approach godhood, Others lose the ability to influence events directly without causing a reality warp. When that happens, they start relying on convoluted plans involving multiple [[Unwitting Pawn]]s to continue the eternal struggle between Light and Darkness. The protagonists of the books usually find themselves either in the middle of this clash or in the shoes of said unwitting pawns. {{spoiler|And then, there is the Inquisition that constantly plays the Night and Day Watches for utter fools.}}

* Often happens in ''[[Xanth]]'' with the Demons. In fact, it gets to the point where there's fairly even chance that any [[The Reveal|reveal]] will be a Demon wager on the actions of mortals.

* In the ''[[Book of Swords]]'' fantasy series by [[Fred Saberhagen]], the gods produced a number of incredibly powerful artifact swords with fantastic magical powers, with the intent of giving them to a number of humans as part of some kind of cosmic chess game between the gods.

** Unfortunately, the swords were so powerful that they allowed the people holding them to become players in their own right. By the end of the third book (of eleven), the gods had lost.

 

* ''[[Babylon 5]]'', the young races to the Shadows and the Vorlons.

* ''[[Doctor Who]]'': In ''The Armageddon Factor'' (the finale of the Key To Time [[Story Arc]]) the Doctor - who was sent on a [[Plot Coupon]] mission to get the parts of the Key To Time by the White Guardian - is opposed by the Shadow, who was sent by the Black Guardian to get the pieces of the Key.

 

{{reflist}}

[[Category:Speculative Fiction Tropes]]