“Castle” as a synonym for rook is old-fashioned and slangy. Think of how Mr. Burns speaks—referring to a rook as a “castle” evokes about the same effect.
The term “castling” comes from that old slang for “rook” and is, in fact, the correct term for the move. “Castle” is not an acceptable synonym for “rook” in modern chess.
That website doesn’t seem to be working.
This one has Sauron and Aragorn as kings;
Shelob and Galadriel as Queens;
Balrog, Saruman, Gimli and Gandalf as Bishops;
Orthanc, Barad-Dur, House of Elrond and an unlabeled tower which was probably Minas Tirith as Castles;
Eowyn, Legolas, “Lord of the Naz’Gul” and “Black Rider” as knights,
Hobbit and Orc Warrior as Pawns.
Who were the other side in that Star Trek set, I wonder?
Which is really kind of weird, because the original term was rukh, apparently. So it went rukh, then renamed into tower/castle, then for some reason everybody went back to rook and decided the newer term was old-fashioned.
Actually, that’s fair.
Kirk is King, certainly. The Enterprise is Queen.
He may fuck around with the green chicks, but he’s married to his ship.
Yep, that was the point. One of the few things I know about Star Trek.
I like your line up. Though I might take Meduseld or better yet Helm’s Deep over Rivendell. But that is a minor matter of opinion.
What was “castling” called before “castle” as the slangy term for rook came on the scene, then?
Rook has nothing to do with the bird. As keeganst94 said, that piece was originally called ‘rukh’ (Persian for ‘chariot’, I believe) and it seems reasonable that Western Europeans simply overheard the word and used an English ‘equivalent’.
Similarly ‘shah mat’ (Persian for ‘the King is dead’) probably mutated into ‘checkmate’.
+1
Well the castling move only came in as one of a number of rule amendments (including new Queen, Bishop and Pawn moves) in the Middle Ages.
I don’t know how the name arose, but perhaps as a description of the King moving into the safety of a castle?
Some other languages do call them “towers”, but that’s not the point: English-speaking chessplayers (and really, once glee has weighed in it fits the rest of us to resign) call them “rooks” and calling it a “castle” is the hallmark of a n00b. End of.
IIRC castling was introduced in a country where they do call Rooks towers, so the name followed naturally.
If you made a Firefly chess set, who would you leave off? I’d go with Simon.
K - Mal
Q - Inara
B - Kaylee, Wash
N - Zoe, Jayne
R - River, Book
Dunno what you do for pawns, or the black pieces.
Why on Earth wouldn’t you make Zoe Queen? She’s second-in-command and the most useful/versatile, Mal excepted. Inara isn’t even a crew member.
Because Zoe and Jayne have similar skills - other than Mal, they’re the warriors of the crew. Hence knights.
Now that I think about it, we should have the matched pair of Book and River be the bishops, not the rooks. They’re a matched pair in that they’re both mystics with unusual real-world skills.
Mystics –> religion –> bishops. Even if River corrects Book’s Bible. 
And Kaylee and Wash have similar properties in that they’re the ones who keep Serenity flying: Wash by piloting it, and Kaylee by keeping it running. So they should be the same kind of piece. Looks like rooks are what’s left, so they’re rooks.