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.
Look, I obviously adore the white knight/black king motif, and it works really well for that very specific discussion of Nateâs 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 youâre going to get it wrong every time if you start from the white knight/black king line.Â
Because in all other situations, Nate is not the king.
Couple important things about kings in chess:
1. They donât 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), itâs 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 doesnât just hide in the office while everybody else carries them out. Heâs almost always right up in there playing the most obnoxious guy youâve ever met or smashing windows or something. And if Nate gets captured, itâs not game over, in fact, it often isnât even a PROBLEM. Letâs look at a few times that happens, just for fun:
- In The King George Job, Nateâs getting beat up and Eliot slightly panics and is about to run to help, when Sophie says âNOPE, donât do that, I can fix this without blowing our coverâ and saunters in at her leisure. The jig isnât up and sheâs 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. Thatâs 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 Nateâs going to secret prison and everyone else is escaping WITH the black book, so they STILL would be losing Nate but winning the job.Â
So if Nate isnât the king, who is?
Letâs look at our points about kings again:
1. Doesnât 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 thatâs 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 â you donât 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 thatâs just from a practical standpoint. Losing Hardison is also a crisis from an emotional standpoint. Heâs our moral compass and our sweet baby brother and when Hardison gets in trouble there is no âwell heâll be fine for a few minutesâ and no âwell he kinda had it coming.â 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 isnât 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 â she can move in any direction, making her the most dangerous piece on the board. Parkerâs whole character arc is about learning all the different roles and how to access the whole playing field. Sheâs 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 â a pawn that crosses the board can become a queen, which Parker mimics by initially being dismissed as âthe crazy oneâ and ultimately becoming the mastermind.
Knight: Sophie. I know, I wanted Eliot to be the horsie too, but this makes more sense. The knightâs deal is that itâs sneaky â itâs the only piece that can turn corners â and it can jump over obstacles. Sophieâs whole philosophy of grifting is that she shouldnât 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 â it goes in a straight line. It also literally represents the castle walls. Itâs also so, so fucking helpful to have around, I fucking hate losing my rooks. Itâs your solid right hand man, basically. Is this a little reductive of Eliot? Absolutely, but Iâm jamming five complex characters into five predetermined boxes, itâs 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. Thatâs where he likes it.Â
Bishop: Finally, hereâs 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 donât 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 isnât necessarily the one making the plans â thatâs the bishop. And finally, apparently the bishop is called lots of different things in other languages, but weâre operating in English, which means it makes Nate a priest, and that makes me happy.
