#who gave rook the right to look like THAT in those first screenshots with the inquisitor?

[zieroses]

enda “rook” de riva // the eve before we face a god p.1

[goodguyjean]

Reiner and Bertolt as Chess Players

I originally joked that there were very important spoilers here, but the reality is not really xD. Under the cut because it does discuss the most recent episode and it’s long. 

Bertolt pondering his next move in episode 26.

I was watching a cool gif of Reiner and Bert playing chess in the opening episode of season two, when I realized two things. First, that Bertolt appears to give up his rook and then pushes a pawn to attack Reiner’s bishop (which is defended and worth less than a rook) like it’s an “aha!” move, and secondly that they’re playing with the board backwards (the square furthest to the player’s right is supposed to be white: the queen always goes on her own color and the white bishop is always on the right side). But the board being backwards gave me an idea: what if--like the sun rising in the west and the map looking like our own world turned upside down--chess in Attack on Titan is played with a black square furthest to the player’s right??

(I’ll give you a minute to finish laughing at me because I know this is a tiny and weird detail to think about xD Ok . . . minute up!)

My careful research has revealed that no, chess is not played backwards in the Walled World. It’s just wrong in this scene-- and this mistake is very common in “movie chess”! In all other scenes involving chess where the squares on the board are clearly visible, the board is set up correctly by our world’s standards.

Eren and Reiner playing chess in a promotional picture. The quality is a little low for me to tell exactly what is happening, but the board is correct.

Chapter 34. The furthest square to Bert’s left is black, so the board is correct in this version of the scene.

Chapter 35. It’s right in this panel too. 

So it’s just an animation glitch, alas lol. 

But then all this research got me thinking again: what kind of chess players are Bert and Reiner, really? Since Isayama actually gave us a viable position to look at, we can potentially analyze the strength and strategies of both teens as chess players. The anime’s position is a little wonky because of the backwards board, but I tried to recreate it as best I could, so I could compare the manga and the anime’s presentations of these two chess aficionados going at it. 

I am only a mediocre chess player myself, but I did risk my pride to run my analysis of these positions by a person in my life who is a FIDE chess master. I will cop to thinking that both Reiner and Bert were a bit amateurish when I looked over these positions by myself, but my resident expert says that--in the manga at least--both of them are actually pretty good. They come off a bit more amateurish in the anime, but most of that, according to my expert, is because the board is set up incorrectly. Here’s a breakdown. 

The Manga Game:

So, it was a little difficult for me to make out exactly what was happening on Bert’s side, but I’m pretty sure this is the position. A few things are immediately obvious: Reiner (white) has control of the center while Bert (black) has taken a more defensive approach. Who is winning depends entirely on who’s turn it is. If it is Reiner’s turn he can move his white bishop (the bishop who is on the white square) to check the king on the H-file (the one furthest to the left). I think the king’s only option then will be to move one square to the left, and then Reiner can move his queen to the open G-file and check the king again. Bert can block the check with his right-hand knight, but it’ll wreak havoc with his position, he’ll lose whatever piece he blocks the check with, and he’ll be even more on the defensive. 

If it is Bertolt’s move, he can take either Reiner’s knight (which is positioned a little unhelpfully on the rightmost file) or his white bishop without repercussion. Doing so would widen the piece-gap between the two of them (Bertolt is currently up a bishop, meaning he has taken one of Reiner’s bishops without losing a bishop or knight of his own) and give him a foothold in the center. 

My chess master consultant says that he thinks it’s probably white’s move and that white will win, while I was inclined to read it as black’s move, meaning that Reiner had hung pieces. According to my consultant, the fact that white has aggressively taken up so much of the center and that a several pieces have already been exchanged implies not only that it is white’s move, but that neither player is particularly amateurish. While black appears to be a bit more defensive, he had to do something to pop out and take one of white’s bishops. They’ve also opened up files and created room to maneuver. To quote my chess consultant, “This looks like a real position.”

So, based on this one game, Bertolt and Reiner are both pretty good and have opposing techniques (or at least have taken opposite approaches to this particular game): Bertolt is playing defensively and occasionally popping out to strike while Reiner is aggressively overtaking the center. One of them is about to gain a serious advantage depending on who is going next: this suggests to me that they are taking each other seriously and both playing to win. Possibly their unique tactics indicate that Reiner is a more outgoing and aggressive person than the introverted Bertolt. 

The Anime Game:

So, I tired to mimic the incorrect board in the anime while drafting this position. Everything is flipped from what you see in the screenshot above to preserve this mistake. Hopefully I’ve gotten everything right! It was occasionally difficult to tell which pieces were which, but I think I’ve got it. Bert is white and Reiner is black in this version of their game.

In this game they’re both kind of in the center. Nothing is hanging. They’ve apparently swapped a few pieces: white is up a knight. The only move we see in the show is the one where Bertolt loses a rook:

Thanks to Fudayk for this gif!

The way Bertolt moves quickly makes it seem like he’s been planning this move for a while; what he appears to be doing (if you look at the diagram above) is putting extra pressure on Reiner’s bishop. Presumably he took Reiner’s rook before Reiner took his (since Reiner is also missing a rook), so they traded those pieces (which is contrary to my initial reading of the situation, before looking at their full position--I thought Bert had hung his rook and then randomly pushed a pawn xD oh me of little faith). 

It’s a little harder to tell who’s winning here, even though we know it’s Reiner’s move. Reiner has more pawns, but is down a knight. Bertolt has pulled out a lot of pieces, as has Reiner, and they’re both competing for the center. Although he is down an important piece, Reiner’s queen has access to an open file and he could try to crack open the center with some of his pawns. Nobody’s planning anything as fancy as Reiner apparently is in the manga’s version of their game and the wall of pawns strikes me as a little weird, but my chess consultant friend says this could be a real position . . . if the board wasn’t backwards! xD 

From a meta perspective, they both seem to be playing similarly: vying for the center, trading lots of pieces. Bert has a slight advantage, but neither of them appear to be playing terribly . . . besides the fact that their board is backwards.

So, I’m not sure this is the meta anyone asked for or even that anyone needed, but I got curious enough to spend the morning blowing up screen captures of this game so I could enter it into a diagram and I felt compelled to be so thorough as to take it to a chess master so . . . here you go lol!