I suddenly woke up stupid early on my day off with multiple weird random aches and pains and a revelation about the Leverage chess metaphors.
They’re all wrong.
Look, I obviously adore the white knight/black king motif, and it works really well for that very specific discussion of Nate’s shift in morality and position at the opening of the series. But the show as well as I and other fans have then tried to take that equation and apply it to other jobs and to the crew as a whole. This is fun and awesome, but I believe you’re going to get it wrong every time if you start from the white knight/black king line.
Because in all other situations, Nate is not the king.
Couple important things about kings in chess:
1. They don’t move much. They can only move one space at a time, and for most of the game they stay in their own little box, well guarded by other pieces. This is because
2. When the king is checkmated (threatened with capture and no possible escape), it’s game over. There is no more hope. This is the sole requirement for losing the game. No matter who else is in play, if the king is down, you lose.
This is NOT how Nate operates. Yeah, he makes the plans, but he doesn’t just hide in the office while everybody else carries them out. He’s almost always right up in there playing the most obnoxious guy you’ve ever met or smashing windows or something. And if Nate gets captured, it’s not game over, in fact, it often isn’t even a PROBLEM. Let’s look at a few times that happens, just for fun:
- In The King George Job, Nate’s getting beat up and Eliot slightly panics and is about to run to help, when Sophie says “NOPE, don’t do that, I can fix this without blowing our cover” and saunters in at her leisure. The jig isn’t up and she’s not even particularly concerned about him getting punched. I love it.
- In the Maltese Falcon Job, Nate sacrifices himself to save the team. This is a classic thing to do in chess and chess metaphors, but, I cannot stress this enough, you cannot sacrifice your king. That’s just called LOSING.
-In The Long Goodbye Job of course the whole con is structured around Nate getting caught. I guess this one kind of makes sense because the whole point is to look like they HAVE completely lost, but then at the end it appears that Nate’s going to secret prison and everyone else is escaping WITH the black book, so they STILL would be losing Nate but winning the job.
So if Nate isn’t the king, who is?
Hardison.
Let’s look at our points about kings again:
1. Doesn’t move as far or as quickly: Yes, Hardison ALSO gets out there and participates in the cons, everybody does. But Hardison does stay in the background more often, because that’s where his power is. He does the behind the scenes tech stuff and the remote stuff, he can wreck your shop without showing up through the power of the internet. He also does the forgeries of identities and objects, which are also done in his own space. At the same time, he has less physical power and less range -- you don’t want him in a fistfight, or a gunfight, and his grifts are notorious for being a little. . . uh. . . interesting. So he has limited physical range and power but at the same time. . . .
2. The game is over if you lose him. That far-reaching behind the scenes power is absolutely vital for 90% of the jobs. He does the massive amounts of research and hacking legwork needed just to START a job, even before you get to actually completing the job. You are pretty much dead in the water without Hardison. But that’s just from a practical standpoint. Losing Hardison is also a crisis from an emotional standpoint. He’s our moral compass and our sweet baby brother and when Hardison gets in trouble there is no “well he’ll be fine for a few minutes” and no “well he kinda had it coming.” No, when Hardison is in trouble everything else grinds to a halt and everyone comes running. (See: The Experimental Job, The Grave Danger Job, The Long Goodbye Job.)
So like, yes Nate is in charge. But the king isn’t in charge on a chessboard, the king is just a piece with a very unique role, which Hardison fills much better than Nate does. So, now that we have our real king, who are our other pieces?
Queen: Parker. This has nothing to do with her dating Hardison. The thing about the queen is she can do a little bit of everything -- she can move in any direction, making her the most dangerous piece on the board. Parker’s whole character arc is about learning all the different roles and how to access the whole playing field. She’s the only one who plans and executes an entire episode-length job by herself (okay, with a little help from her girlfriend). Plus, the other cool thing about a queen is she has a built-in transformation story -- a pawn that crosses the board can become a queen, which Parker mimics by initially being dismissed as “the crazy one” and ultimately becoming the mastermind.
Knight: Sophie. I know, I wanted Eliot to be the horsie too, but this makes more sense. The knight’s deal is that it’s sneaky -- it’s the only piece that can turn corners -- and it can jump over obstacles. Sophie’s whole philosophy of grifting is that she shouldn’t need to know about safes or security systems, she should be able to bypass (jump over) all that by insinuating herself with the mark (being sneaky by playing a character to get behind enemy lines)
Rook: Eliot. This is the straightforward one -- it goes in a straight line. It also literally represents the castle walls. It’s also so, so fucking helpful to have around, I fucking hate losing my rooks. It’s your solid right hand man, basically. Is this a little reductive of Eliot? Absolutely, but I’m jamming five complex characters into five predetermined boxes, it’s not all gonna be nuanced. And I think Mr. Punchy would like being seen as the fortress that everybody depends on, and to let all the nuance go under the radar. That’s where he likes it.
Bishop: Finally, here’s where Nate is hiding. While the rook can only go straight (lol), the bishop can only go diagonally. Nothing can be straightforward for the bishop, he always has to come at things from an angle. Like, you know, constantly looking at all the different angles of a situation and finding the right angle to come at a mark from. Also, the bishops sit right in the middle right next to the king and queen. I don’t know that this is historically accurate, but when my dad taught me to play he told me that was because the bishops were important councilors to the rulers, they were the ones who had important wisdom that would tell them the best plan of attack. So the king here isn’t necessarily the one making the plans -- that’s the bishop. And finally, apparently the bishop is called lots of different things in other languages, but we’re operating in English, which means it makes Nate a priest, and that makes me happy.
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What do you think would martlet, starlo and ceroba thoughts on finally seeing the surface and on frisk?
anon ily for letting me talk abt this …
i think before the barrier would be broken but after frisk falls in that they definitely get the news that there’s a human around. and i think they all get together and collectively agree to stay as away as possible because they don’t want a repeat of last time; they loved clover and their death took a TOLL on them. they don’t want to go through that again.
and then the barrier is broken. joy.
martlet to start out i think she’d be fairly eager to see the surface. i mean it’s the SURFACE so like that’s cool! and having more room to fly about would also be nice i think. as for frisk…
frisk reminds her of clover— and frisk reminds all of them of clover really but martlet takes it in a sense where she probably accidentally calls frisk ‘clover’ by accident sometimes. she really doesn’t mean to it’s just !! it’s just how it is. and therefore she’s a lot more open to frisk than she would’ve been had clover never came through (and obviously she would’ve been open, but i mean like. moreso.)
starlo is probably disappointed at first that he can’t actually ‘ride into the sun’ but that is VERY quickly overshadowed by the fact that HOLY FUCK THATS THE SUN!!!!!! and its a star!?!?!?? and also i think he’d be shocked that the surface isn’t like the movies. but its alright. he can jsut head over to texas or something.
he’s similar to martlet in the regard that frisk reminds him of clover but he acts different than her. instead he’s more like, hes friendly and all but he isn’t like all up trying to be best friends or anything. he sees the traits clover had in frisk and it’s really bittersweet. probably really lost on how to feel about it entirely though bc come on. who would know??
ceroba is probably the most reluctant to go to the surface— because like, her family never gets to see this but she does? she doesn’t know how fair that is but i think she does go up anyway because you know, she has more life to live and stuff with her friends and whatnot. so that’s the surface
as for frisk…… she’s definitely dead set on they’re going to die at first. and then she’s not. and then she doesn’t know what to do because she doesn’t want to get attatched to this random ass child but then the random ass child frees monsterkind?? it’s definitely confusing and she definitely tries to keep her distance at first but eventually i think she’d warm up to frisk :)
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breaking my silence: arthur does not look like an aardvark. he just doesn't. WHERE IS HIS FUCKING SNOUT. WHERE ARE HIS LONG EARS. WHAT TRULY DESPICABLE GOD DECIDED TO NORMAL GUY-IFY HIS AARDVARK BASED OC TO THE POINT HIS SPECIES IS NO LONGER RECOGNIZABLE???
sure, arthur is a cute little guy, but you're telling me he's supposed to be THAT??? the absence of the snoot is GLARING. and it's not like the LORE of arthur as a whole prevents the ears and snout from existing BECAUSE LOOK AT NIGEL RATBURN.
HIS GEROMINO STILTON ASS HAS A SNOUT. AND LOOK AT BUSTER.
WHY DOES THIS WHITE BOY GET EAR PRIVILEGES BUT ARTHUR READ DOESN'T??? WHY???
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I don’t play games much and I only know a little bit of Unity but
Everything about this sequence is so unmistakably video game like! The booster vial, the steamy particle system, the way he fires immediately, my brain glitched for a hot second
It’s not just me right? Stampede looks and feels like an open world game. Like I can already see Vash and Wolfwood as playable characters with completely different play styles. Vash has high agility/dexterity points with good defensive melee abilities; bullets are few and weak and has to rely on strategy to disarm enemies. Wolfwood has high strength and operates a heavy weapon with unlimited but weak long range ammos and a few close range kill shots, and can handle occasional melee combats with taxing offensive skills. Vash will sometimes trip and fall when running and Wolfwood needs cigarettes to restore HP. And you can tame birds and certain types of worms to be your mount and there are a bunch of random side quests like catching bugs with Tonis and donuts can revive you—
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