There are many game analogies in Pretty Little Liars. The torture of the girls by A is known as the A Game. When Marlene talks about the show she refers to Endgame frequently. It is evident that A views his/her psychological torture of the liars as a game.
There have been many instances where A, as well as other characters, have referenced a game.
When CeCe reveals herself as A (although I don’t think she was A, but was taking the fall for someone else) she says, “Game Over.”
Have you ever noticed that a chess board is prominently displayed on the table in Ezra’s apartment?
Aria and Ezra play chess in 5x04 and a few episodes later Spencer gets a text from A that says “Check mate.”
We know A likes games, there were several in the Dollhouse playroom.
Chess pieces in order of strength/value:
In chess, the king is the most important piece. The object of the game is to threaten the opponent’s king in such a way that escape is not possible (checkmate). If a player’s king is threatened with capture, it is in check and the player must remove the threat of capture on the next move. If this cannot be done, the king is said to be in checkmate, resulting in a loss for that player.
I don’t believe that Mona or CeCe was ever Uber A/A.D. Their King was in check so they took the fall by taking the King out of check. How did they do that? Mona said she was A and was admitted to Radley and CeCe said she was A and was admitted to Welby.
In both of these instances, the cops stopped looking for A, because they thought there was no longer a threat. In order for the game to continue, they sacrificed themselves to protect the King.
So who is the King? = A.D / Uber A.
I believe this has been the same person throughout the entire show.
The two people I believe could be represented as the King are:
The chess board is in is apartment
He was spying on the girls for YEARS (I have written in great lengths about why I think Ezra is A in other posts so I am not going into details here)
Charles wore a tuxedo in the Dollhouse. Uber A is a MAN. If it was CeCe, who claims she always wanted to be a girl, she would not have dressed as a man.
In chess, although the king is the most important piece, it is usually the weakest piece in the game until a later phase, the endgame. Players cannot make any move that places the king in check.
A is the most important, but because he needs to protect his identity at all costs, he is the weakest.
The queen is the most powerful piece in the game of chess, able to move any number of squares vertically, horizontally or diagonally. Each player starts the game with one queen, placed next to the king. Because of the value of a queen, it is sometimes used as bait to lure an opponent into a trap by a queen sacrifice. Another tactic is to use the queen to threaten the opponent’s queen, to either retreat or to exchange the queen (losing both of them) to reduce the game to less powerful pieces. The queen is often used in conjunction with another piece, such as teamed with a bishop or rook, where the pieces could guard each other while threatening the opponent pieces.
So who is the Queen? = Red Coat
The Queen is the King’s right hand
The two people I believe could be represented as the Queen are:
Melissa Hastings (if the King is Wren)
She is Red Coat, Wren was coloring a picture of her. This is his dream of his future family.
I think she was the one in the Queen of Hearts costume
And she is most likely Black Veil/Widow ((Her husband Ian died, she is actually a widow))
But my #1 pick for the Queen is Aria Montgomery (if the King is Ezra)
We have seen Aria in a Red Coat:
The Queen is the most powerful piece because it can move anywhere on the board. Aria is fooling everyone by making herself look like a victim. But in fact she is the Queen. The analogy can be used that Aria can “move anywhere on the board” because she is best friends with the Liars and always knows what they are planning/thinking. She has infiltrated the ‘enemy.’ She can see everything first hand, go anywhere and it won’t look suspicious, because the Liars think she is on their side.
In chess, one team has White pieces, and the other has Black pieces. For this situation, Ezra and Aria are the evil black pieces (A), and Ali & the Liars are the good white pieces (B).
Ezra is using his Queen, Aria, to threaten the opponents Queen, Ali.
Look at this A message to Ali that was written in the newspaper:
Aria can be seen as the Black -evil- Queen (A), while Ali can be seen as the White -good- Queen, (B).
In the Christmas episode, when Mona is ‘murdered,’ Marlene tweeted:
In Chess, sometimes the Queen is sacrificed. Ezra wanted the White Queen Ali in the Dollhouse, but he decided to settle for Mona. He had Mona dress up as Ali and pretend to be her in the Dollhouse.
Mona is the newborn white PROM queen.
Meanwhile, what is our Evil Queen Aria wearing?
Castling is an important goal in Chess, because it serves two valuable purposes: it moves the king into a safer position away from the center of the board, and it moves the rook to a more active position in the center of the board. There are 2 Rooks.
Who are the Rooks? = CeCe Drake & Mona Vanderwaal
As I explained earlier, they both took the fall to protect the King.
Mona pretended to be A to and was put into Radley and CeCe pretended to be Charles and was institutionalized into Welby for 5 years.
Each player begins the game with two bishops. One starts between the king’s knight and the king, the other between the queen’s knight and the queen. The bishop has no restrictions in distance for each move, but is limited to diagonal movement. Bishops, like all other pieces except the knight, cannot jump over other pieces. A bishop captures by occupying the square on which an enemy piece sits. As a consequence of its diagonal movement, each bishop always remains on either the white or black squares, and so it is also common to refer to them as light-squared or dark-squared bishops.
Who are the Bishops? = Jenna Marshall & Noel Kahn
While they aren’t as powerful in the A Game as the others, they have significant roles.
Noel and Jenna are working together.
Him and Mona dated and worked together
It’s possible he murdered Sara Harvey
Maya was last seen at his Lake House
He has snooped on the Liars many times
Noel helped psychologically torture the girls in the Dollhouse
He had Mary’s Radley file in a lockbox in the hotel.
Jenna has plenty of reasons to hate the Liars and work against them
They blinded her by throwing the smoke bomb into her shed
Ali blackmailed her with her knowledge of Jenna and Toby’s weird relationship
Had something to do with the Cabin Fire
She was working with CeCe and Archer in Welby
A knight is resented by a horse’s head and neck. Each player starts with two knights. The knight move is unusual among chess pieces. When it moves, it can move to a square that is two squares horizontally and one square vertically, or two squares vertically and one square horizontally. The complete move therefore looks like the letter L. Unlike all other standard chess pieces, the knight can ‘jump over’ all other pieces (of either color) to its destination square. A knight should always be close to where the action is, meaning it is best used on areas of the board where the opponent’s pieces are clustered or close together.
It is interesting to note that the finale of Season 7 next week is titled “The Darkest Knight.”
Who are the Knights? = Lucas Gottesman and Darren Wilden
We know Lucas has been part of the game.
Ali bullied him constantly, calling him Hermie.
He was the one wearing the gloves who gave Emily the massage.
Emily and Hanna are conveniently living in his ‘smart’ apartment.
There was always something up with Darren Wilden
He was on the Halloween train dressed as the second Queen of Hearts
He was always hounding the girls for information on Ali. He really wanted to find her, and I think it is because he was working for A.
He had a connection with CeCe
The pawn is the most numerous piece in the game of chess, and in most circumstances, also the weakest. Unlike the other pieces, pawns may not move backwards. Normally a pawn moves by advancing a single square, but the first time a pawn is moved, it has the option of advancing two squares. Pawns may not use the initial two-square advance to jump over an occupied square, or to capture. Any piece directly in front of a pawn, friend or foe, blocks its advance.
Who are the White (good) Pawns? Emily, Spencer, Hannah, Caleb, & Toby, with Ali as the White Queen B.
This next pic is hard to see. It says: “Once you know what someone cares about it’s easy to beat them, to separate them. Just like in chess. I lure each one and I isolate each of them, and knock them off the board. I’m almost grateful that Mona so unwittingly attempted to play me, because now all the pieces are mine. And when I crush them, and I will, that’s checkmate for all of them.”
Absolute favorite theory I have written!!! Thanks for reading! xox
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