{"id":8747,"date":"2013-07-23T12:45:45","date_gmt":"2013-07-23T18:45:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/?p=8747"},"modified":"2013-07-23T12:48:20","modified_gmt":"2013-07-23T18:48:20","slug":"trope-tuesday-smart-people-play-chess","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/trope-tuesday-smart-people-play-chess\/","title":{"rendered":"Trope Tuesday: Smart People Play Chess"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Why?<\/a>
And if you’re Anastasia Gavrilova, chess gives you +10 charisma as well.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Want a fast and easy way to show that your characters are smart?\u00a0 Not bookish<\/a>, necessarily, or nerdy<\/a>, or even the designated smart guy<\/a> in the five-man band<\/a>, but intellectually adept no matter what else their role in the story?\u00a0 Well, you could indicate that through inordinate loquaciousness<\/a>, but too much of that tends to make your dialog unreadable (not to mention, it’s way overdone).\u00a0 You could have them rock a chalkboard<\/a>, but not every story takes place in high school, and finding a chalkboard outside of academia is a bit of a challenge.\u00a0 So what else can you do to indicate a high level of intelligence?<\/p>\n

Show them playing chess<\/a>.<\/p>\n

It’s true.\u00a0 Stereotypes aside<\/a>, one of the most effective ways to indicate that your characters are intelligent is to show them playing chess.\u00a0 From Star Trek to Discworld, Independence day to Doctor Who, Big Bang Theory to Harry Potter to Command & Conquer, chess is a fast, dirty, and effective way to show intelligence.\u00a0 And while popular conceptions of chess nerds give the game a bit of baggage, it’s not as bad as you might think.\u00a0 Sure, Sheldon might fit the stereotype, but Cain and Spock certainly don’t.\u00a0 Even David Levinson from Independence Day turns out to be something of a badass in the end.<\/p>\n

So why is chess such an effective way to show that a character is smart?\u00a0 Probably because of all the other tropes associated with chess.\u00a0 As one of the oldest and deepest strategy games of all time, chess is thoroughly embedded into our cultural consciousness.\u00a0 Chess motifs<\/a> are common in all sorts of stories, and the chess master<\/a> is a significant character archetype.\u00a0 There’s a reason we call the most complicated gambit pileup Xanatos Speed Chess<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Besides all the archetypal reasons for this trope, there are quite a few real-world reasons as well.\u00a0 Playing chess<\/a> can potentially do all sorts of interesting things to your brain, like stave off Alzheimer’s and improve your concentration and problem-solving skills.\u00a0 All over the world, people associate chess skills with intellectual prowess, and after you’ve played a few games, it’s not hard to see why.\u00a0 According to Carl Sagan, the game requires “strategy, foresight, analytical powers, and the ability to cross-correlate large numbers of variables and learn from experience.” If you’ve got all of those, chances are you’re at least above average.<\/p>\n

Of course, this trope can be inverted in some clever and interesting ways.\u00a0 In Bill and Ted’s Bogus Journey, for example, the ditzy<\/a> main characters challenge Death to games of Battleship, Clue, Twister … basically, a whole host of non-cerebral games, in lieu of the expected trope<\/a>.\u00a0 In Foxtrot, the only character who loves chess is the Dad, who is rather dumb compared to his kids (maybe they all got bored of it?).\u00a0 The classic example, though, has got to be Star Wars, where Chewbacca’s emotional impulsiveness is lampshaded<\/a> over a game of <X> chess<\/a>:<\/p>\n