The Queen's Gambit: 7 things we can learn from the series 🆙

"The Queen's Gambit" is the name of a miniseries produced by Netflix, the most popular to date, based on a book of the same name, written by Walter Trevis in 1983. With seven episodes of 50 minutes in length, we know the story of Elisabeth Harmon, a young girl who grew up in an orphanage and became a chess prodigy.

What could be a tedious story turns out to be an engaging plot that addresses numerous topics that deserve more attention in society. From the fictional life of the chess player, we know a little more about the role of women in games whose predominant athletes are men, about addiction to alcohol and tranquilizers, and about the influence of maternal presence on a person's life, among other topics.

There are two issues that are not addressed by the miniseries or the book itself, but which must be considered before we continue to understand this work and all the interpretations it encourages. Both questions concern the way Beth Harmon is constructed and represented on screen.

Although Walter Trevis presents the character of Beth in an understanding and empathetic way, his portrayal of her remains a man's view of a woman, even if she is an invented woman. This question is already something relevant about the way society develops narratives about women. Can we say that “The Queen's Gambit” is really a woman's vision of the game of chess? Or is it how a man imagines a woman to think?

Another point that stands out in the miniseries is Beth's appearance, which is different from how she looks in the book. On screen, Beth is a young woman who is constantly referred to as someone who grew up beautiful and attracted the eyes of many men. In the original story, however, she is described as a person who causes revulsion wherever she goes. From this, we can reflect on the need to choose women who fit a standard of beauty to star in television productions.

Although this discussion is important, the focus of this article is on the lessons that the miniseries discusses throughout the plot. So keep the questions presented earlier in your thoughts, but be open to understanding, too, what are the seven lessons that this chess player brings us!

who was never present

Throughout Beth's life, even before the orphanage, we observe the paternal abandonment towards the young woman. Her biological father had another family and didn't want to take responsibility for taking care of Beth, even though her mother was suffering from a serious mental illness.

After being adopted, the adoptive father of the young woman does not even speak to her, as if the young woman is not present in the house, or as if she is a nuisance to him. In one passage, he justifies this behavior towards Beth by saying that he only adopted her because his wife missed having a daughter, since theirs had passed away.

The Queen's Gambit: 7 things we can learn from the series — **Michal Jarmoluk / Pixabay**

The only man who could approach a father for the chess player was the orphanage caretaker, Mr. Shaibel, who taught him chess. Their relationship wasn't the most affectionate, and the conversations they had were limited to the game. Still, he supported Beth in her dream of becoming a recognized and important player. And isn't that what a father would do?

Beth is not a better or worse person for not having a father present, but it is possible to identify how she shaped her relationship with the janitor based on this absence. Many other people, unfortunately, grow up dealing with this absence, but they can still find love, encouragement, and nurturing in other types of relationships.

The one who left too soon

If the father figures that Beth knew were always absent, this was not the case with the mother figures that were part of her life. The chess player's biological mother committed suicide and could have murdered her daughter in the process, but Beth survived. But she kept the image of a mother who was no longer able to take care of her and who was involved in a tragic accident.

As Beth's biological mother appears a few times throughout the miniseries, since she passed away, it is not possible to say precisely what reasons led her to take her own life. However, we watch the moment when she tries to ask Beth's father for help, and he mistreats her.

Certainly the decision that the chess player's mother took – to cause an accident to die and, probably, kill her own daughter – was not an easy one. It was the way she found to free herself from what she was feeling and to prevent her daughter from having a miserable life by her side.

Although her mother's suicide was a pivotal point in Beth's life, as it was what led her to the orphanage, we realized that the young woman understood what had led her mother to make the decision that culminated in the accident.

the first house

Although the young chess player had a life before going to the orphanage, the miniseries does not present this phase. So we have the impression that Beth's first home was this institution. There she grew up, learned to play chess and made a lifelong friendship.

As not everything is rosy, however, it was precisely at the orphanage that Beth came into contact with tranquilizing pills, which made her dependent on substances. While she was there, after some time drugs were banned, which caused her to take morally unacceptable steps to obtain them, even though she was still very young.

Beth's relationship with tranquilizers is, in some ways, the most negative point in her life. The orphanage should have taken more responsibility for the substances it gave to the children, and that would have avoided the problem. But it was also at the orphanage that Beth discovered love and the importance of friendship, as we'll see shortly.

the mother at heart

Upon being adopted, Beth met a woman, Alma, who did not seem like her ideal mother. Little worried about the girl and still traumatized by the death of her biological daughter, Alma gave herself to addictions.

As soon as she learned of the girl's ability to play chess, she gave the impression that she was more interested in the money Beth would make from the sport. Fortunately, after many trips to compete, the two formed a true and important love relationship.

Like the caretaker of the orphanage, Beth's adoptive mother supported her dream of becoming a chess player, even though she didn't quite understand how the sport worked. A negative point of this relationship was that, from the mother, the young woman began to ingest alcoholic beverages in an uncontrolled way, which caused later problems.

Chemical dependency and decay

Drug addiction is a public health issue that can affect anyone. At the orphanage, Beth had her first contact with tranquilizing pills, which the institution used so that the children would not cause problems. However, on the advice of a friend, Beth changed the time she took the pills and started to hallucinate about chess games.

From there, the chess player was able to study the games and moves she would make, coming to depend on this instrument to win each round. What seemed like a banal and harmless thing, however, became a major problem for Beth as she reached her teens.

As Beth's adoptive mother took the same type of pill, the young woman stole some pills for herself. This made the chemical dependency worse, as the product was always available to her and was often mixed with alcohol.

In the course of the plot, we observe how drug addiction leads Beth to a process of decay, in which she is unable to leave the house, keep the place clean, fulfill the commitments she has accepted and, of course, play chess.

The young woman's recovery takes place when she finds the support of friends who have accompanied her throughout her growth and who encourage her to give up drugs and do what she has always loved. Still, it's essential to understand that pills and alcohol could have ended a wonder girl's future.

good old friends

At the orphanage, the first person Beth makes contact with is a young woman named Jolene. Older than the others, she seems to be someone who gives work to the employees. It is she who suggests that Beth change the time of taking the pill so that she hallucinates, although she has warned about the risk of relying on this type of product.

After Beth is adopted, it's like Jolene is no longer a part of her life, and for many episodes, she's been slow to show up again. The reunion takes place when Mr. Shaibel passes away, and Jolene goes to Beth's house to warn her. So they resume the relationship they had when they were young and the chess player's friend encourages her to continue playing, freeing herself from her addiction to tranquilizers and alcohol.

But Jolene isn't Beth's only friend. Throughout the series, we see that the young woman attracts the attention and admiration of other chess players. They are: Townes, Benny and Harry. Although there is a romantic interest on the part of some of them in Beth, she is not carried away by it, always putting chess as a priority.

However, in Beth's worst moments, it was Benny and Harry who helped her recover and get back to playing with quality, including training the girl, introducing her to new techniques and styles of play. Even though their main subject was chess, we were able to identify the affection and friendship that exist between each one.

In this way, we understand that friendships and the other types of relationships we build are a fundamental part of building and maintaining who we are. If Beth didn't have friends and was rejected by everyone, she probably wouldn't have a chance to overcome the decay brought on by alcohol and pills.

The woman in a male dominated game

At the beginning of the article, we started to reflect on how Beth is a female character built by a man. It is presented in an understanding and empathetic way, but there is one point that the miniseries fails to address with more intensity: machismo in chess.

As in any male-dominated sport, the presence of an athlete is a nuisance. Men don't want to go through the supposed humiliation of losing to a woman, and they can become aggressive when that happens.

At the time the plot takes place – in the 50s –, machismo was even more pronounced in society, and Beth would hardly be treated so well by her opponents, from whom she easily won. The prevailing mentality at that time was that women should be housewives, wives and mothers, not better chess players than men.

It is evident that in some moments “The Queen's Gambit” gives brushstrokes on the subject. People always seem to be impressed that Beth is such a skilled woman, and at many points the character is annoyed by the attention her good looks receive in articles about her as a chess player.

In the book, even Beth's out-of-the-ordinary appearance is one of the central points of the way she is seen by other characters. However, by concentrating all the machismo in this approach, the two representations of the story fail to explore an issue that would be enriching for the plot and for society.

Thinking about the role of women in society – and in sports – cannot be reduced to how they look. Machismo is constituted as a limitation, as something that can prevent women from occupying certain spaces. It is not just a nuisance or an exaltation of the feminine look. What would Beth's life be like if she was rejected wherever she went? If chess players reacted aggressively to her victories? Think about it.