The chess analogy

[annwyd.livejournal.com]

This is a bit spoilerish, but mostly I'm cutting it so as not to expose everyone to my rambling. I'm probably overthinking this whole thing. XD

One of the things I've been thinking of lately is how the chess metaphor applies to the different characters caught up in the fight. How closely do they correspond to chess pieces, and how many of them fit the correspondences?

(Assume that the rebellion is the black pieces, because Black Knights and all that, and that Britannia is the white pieces.)

Black King: Lelouch (of course)
Black Queen: Kallen (because she's their big fighter in Knightmares, and also because, as the show wears on, there seems to be the implication that she's going to wind up working more closely with Lelouch)
Other than that, though, it seems like all he has is a bunch of pawns. Am I wrong? Does anyone see more pieces for him?

On the other side, though, Britannia has a whole lot more pieces.
White King: King of Britannia
White Queen: Suzaku in Lancelot (...lol, poor Suzaku)
White Rooks: Cornelia and Schneizel
White Bishops: Guilford and Schneizel's equivalent to him?
White Knights: Jeremiah and Viletta

The one I'm least certain about is the bishop association; mostly I've picked Guilford and a potential equivalent on Schneizel's side because I can't think of anyone else. The show might introduce someone new to fill the role, though.

The rook assocation makes somewhat more sense--they're both important, powerful pieces who, thanks to the move of castling, have strong associations with the king, especially the idea of protecting him. So it makes sense that Lelouch would have to go through them first to get to his father.

However, in individual battles as opposed to the overall war, it often seems that Cornelia is the king because she's moving the strings at the moment. I'm not sure how long this will last, or if Schneizel will wind up taking over the role later. Likewise, I'm not sure how long Suzaku, as the queen piece (having the most blatantly powerful Knightmare and all that), will stay on the board. Not that I think he'll get killed quickly, but depending on the direction the show takes, he might wind up swapping sides partway through. I imagine it'll be a while yet, though.

My favorite association is that of Jeremiah and Viletta with the knights. Like the knights, because of Jeremiah's demotion and shame (and in Viletta's case her decision to stick with him), they can't move about freely. However, because they've both already been exposed to the Geass and Viletta has enough information to possibly begin associating the Geass with Lelouch, they can make unusual moves that other pieces would not be able to make.

Thoughts and discussion by other people geeky enough to overthink like this are welcome.

Comments

Two of them?

[(Anonymous)]

Maybe Lelouch has two queens on the board? If a pawn manages to reach the opposite side of the board, it turns into a queen, like in checkers.

Perhaps C.C. is the original queen because she gave Lelouch the Geass and she waits in reserve to make her move; she's a very powerful piece with powers we don't know yet and her main objective right now is to protect Lelouch, the King. (reference to Episode 10)

Kallen could be the pawn turned into a queen. After all, she started out as a pawn who charged into the battlefield and turned into a queen with CL-2. Since she's already in the midst of the enemy ranks, she's the one that does the attacking, compared with C.C. who waits nearby Lelouch and only jumps in to save him if anyone gets too close (i.e. Episode 7)

Really, I like the idea of two queens. Kallen is the queen on the battlefield, but C.C. will probably turn out to be the original queen storywise.

-Kanki (who still doesn't have an account...)