Why Do Villains Play Chess? History, Motifs, and Messages

Chess, the game of strategy and intellect, has found its way into the heart of popular culture. From books to movies, villains have often been portrayed as avid chess players.

But what’s the deal with this enduring trope? Why do villains play chess?

Villains often play chess in the media because it helps portray them as intelligent and dangerous, presenting them as a powerful force opposing the hero. Chess requires strategic thinking to outsmart opponents and psychological warfare which can be portrayed as manipulation as well.

This trope has created the impression that chess players are smart, and that you need to be smart to play chess, and it’s a self-feeding loop of sorts.

However, there are some serious problems with this trope, so in this article, we are going to dive deep into how this trope started and why it affects all of us today, as well as what to do about it.

Keep reading, I promise it’s worth it…

Chess Media Tropes

Chess is one of the oldest and most well-known strategy games in the Western world, and as such, chess games are frequently depicted in the media as symbols for war, intellectual conflicts, and similar pictures the authors want to paint. That is the primary goal of media tropes in general.

Media tropes are literary conventions used to convey metaphorical meaning to an audience. They may take the form of a straightforward object with symbolic meaning or a sophisticated action with contextual significance.

Sometimes the author does this explicitly, and other times the characters mention it in the dialogue. For example, they can discuss war implications during a chess match. They can use chess terminology such as checkmate to refer to wins and losses.

By the way, this specific trope is why a lot of people believe you “have” to say check and checkmate, but this is not entirely true. I explain when you have to say check and when you don’t here, so take a minute to check it.

How Did The Chess Villain Trope Start?

Even though this trope has been going on for a while, it’s hard to trace the first author who used chess as a symbol in the hands of the villain. However, some trace it back to the early Sherlock Holmes stories.

Arthur Conan Doyle created the character of Professor James Moriarty to be the arch-nemesis of the famous Sherlock Holmes. In “The Final Problem,” Moriarty is depicted to be tremendously smart. In order for Sir Doyle to make that clear, in addition to his hatred for Sherlock Holmes, a scene of a chess game between the two mega minds takes place. 

There is evidence that this game was based on a real game in 1966 between Bent Larsen, one of the greatest grandmasters during the Soviet era, and the World Chess Champion Tigran Petrosian.

Here’s the game, it’s a pleasure to go through it:

Books, television shows, and movies based on the original books featured the epic match between the two old rivals. It might be familiar to you from “A Game of Shadows.” A balcony in the winter at night was where Sherlock Holmes and his nemesis Moriarty decided to sit down and play a 5-minute blitz game.

The white pieces belonged to Moriarty. Unfortunately, not much of the board position was visible because the camera only focused on a small portion of the board and was more concerned with the performers’ facial expressions.

Nevertheless, it revealed their genuine rivalry.

What it clearly showed without saying much about it is how intelligent Moriarty is. Sir Doyle made the right choice by giving Professor Moriarty the halo of intelligence and wit through a simple game of chess which didn’t take much of the main plot. 

Chess Players Are Portrayed as “Smart”

Lots of authors and directors give their characters a chessboard for the audience to automatically perceive them as smart. 

Chess had one of its earliest movie representations in the 1920s in a dramatization of a true story involving the global duping of the nobility, furthering its reputation as an aristocratic game. “The Chess Player” by Raymond Bernard tells the tale of an inventor who builds a robot that hides a Polish nobleman. Pretty impressive. 

After that, playing chess was a convenient shorthand for having a high IQ. If you’re a smart person, you probably have a chessboard lying around somewhere in your house, whether you ever get to play chess on camera or not.

John Nash, a genius, and another extremely intelligent character are seen playing Go in the movie “A Beautiful Mind.” When he loses to his opponent, John has a negative emotional response, saying he “shouldn’t have won.” Even though that could be misinterpreted as being a sore loser, it’s actually the start of a discovery that will earn him a Nobel Prize. No spoilers!

Chess Players Are Portrayed as “Evil”

In his 1952 film “Angel Face,” Otto Preminger tells the tale of Diane Jessup, a wealthy young woman who is loyal to her father and so hates her stepmother that she is manipulating her laid-back chauffeur in her murderous schemes.

Early in the movie, there’s a remarkable scene of Jessup playing chess with her father and doing a decent job of it, so we know she is intelligent. However, in this case, chess stands for something more.

When she picks up the queen and deliberately and detachedly analyzes it, we realize that to her, murder is nothing more than a game. She is getting ready to make a series of plays that will remove the “queen.”

Another example is the start of “Superman II,” where Lex Luthor plays a game in jail against his helper. He even creates a hologram of the game to trick the guards and make his escape. Extremely intelligent, huh?

In “From Russia With Love,” Kronsteen served as the SMERSH’s planning chief and was a Grandmaster. It seems like, in Hollywood, manipulative brainy villains and a burning passion for smart board games go in tandem.

Numerous more movies employ the same chess clichés; we can’t blame them, though. A simple chessboard around the corner gives the clear message of “I’m able to think strategically,” which can lead to well-crafted evil schemes.

Chess Players Are Portrayed as “Mad”

According to Hollywood, if you’re exceptionally intelligent and/or evil, you’re also likely to be crazy. Be prepared for cinematic scenes featuring rants alleging conspiracies against the player, odd, borderline-OCD match conduct, and, in rare instances, unexpected violent wrath or complete melancholy.

It can also be used to highlight the psychopathy of the character, which is typically a villain, by showing how they treat individuals like pieces on a chessboard. 

You might recall Magneto and Professor X playing chess at the end of “X-Men” There are also some spooky weirdos at Josh’s chess club in “Searching for Bobby Fischer.” Making sure Josh doesn’t end up like the Waitzkin family is one of their goals.

This trope, while not always true, does have some controversy about it even in the chess world, as we do have some examples of chess players that had some tragic stories due to their mental health problems. I explain what actually happened in their lives in this post on the 12 chess players that went insane here.

Conclusion: Why Do Villains Play Chess?

As a kind of release, the stereotypical manipulative/scheming villain frequently engages in some intelligence-demanding activity. What’s more intelligent than chess? Personally, I think writers don’t put chess in the equation to make a person look evil rather than incredibly smart, manipulative, and maybe crazy.

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