I found something extremely interesting about the part where God comes down and starts playing a game of chess with joan. Since I am an uber chess geek I noticed something that I found both interesting and intriguing, something that only a chess player would notice. Basically the moral that was being taught was, if you’re in the game, play. But as the moral is being dispensed until Joan gets it, they are playing a game. It only got into 3 moves for God, who played the white side, and Joan who was the black side. Before they hit commercial, they showed an upper angle of the chess board. Now here’s the part I find very interesting considering the course of conversation between God and Joan:
God was doing Fool’s Mate. For those who do NOT know what that is, it is a 4 move victory. I’d explain, but those who know it get it and those who don’t, I can’t explain it without confusing the hell out of you. I just found it intriguing that that would be the play God would make while trying to make his point.
On purpose or just blind luck? Beats me, but I still think it’s cool
I was wondering if there was anything special about the chess positions in the episode.
Anyone else think that Joan will become a scientist and find a cure for paralysis/develop artificial nerves? We have her taking AP chem, we have her being a natural chess player, and apparently she will discover a talent for making boats…
Tho to do this properly would take years, which is a longer payoff than most TV series will do.
I, personally, have been very impressed with the series thus far. I’d half-expected AP Chem to disappear in the 3rd episode, but they scored some points with me in keeping that continuity.
Questions about the the last episode: Was the god sitting in the science lab the same god as appeared in the first episode? If so, I wasn’t expecting that.
Also - am I the only one who thinks she’s getting a little too easily accepting of 'random person (such as the ‘chess teacher)’=god? I think I’d be more skeptical.
Then again, Ivylad had to watch Michigan whupping up on Minnesota and get depressed that the Wolverines won.
TWoP is impressed with this show. And I do know about Fool’s Mate, which tells me Joan doesn’t know much chess, otherwise she wouldn’t have made that opening move. (Unless God made it first?)
I think the Fool’s Mate move is intentional, because, after all, the point is you can’t fight Chaos, and never play your opponents game. What better play to demonstrate that is there?
Yes, the psychic told the brother that he would dance at his wedding. Significant because she also said Joan had a special connection with the universe.
ivylass, it was God that started Fool’s Mate. As a chess player you either have to have never seen it done or be a complete novice to chess to be nailed by it.
For me the significance of the move is important to the overall moral of the game Joan is in. Like the events at school, she was making moves and she didn’t know what she was really doing, and she was making some REALLY bad moves. The fact that God was one move away from Fool’s Mate in his game is key. It says to me, “If you don’t play attention to what you’re doing and how you’re playing, you’re a fool.”
Anywho I thought the show was pretty cool, but I’m wondering if at the very end of the series, however far down the road that is, they’ll have a tragedy unfold for her. After all, Joan of Arc may have saved the French, but in the end she was burned at the stake.
One thing I forgot to mention… In last weeks episode, the mother used the word “googled” as a verb when she was showing the ads for the specially rigged cars. I think that’s the first time I’ve heard the term on TV used that way in a fiction drama.
