Wizard's Chess

This was exactly like Muggle chess except that the figures were alive, which made it a lot like directing troops in battle. Ron’s set was very old and battered. Like everything else he owned, it had once belonged to someone else in his family in this case, his grandfather. However, old chessmen weren’t a drawback at all. Ron knew them so well he never had trouble getting them to do what he wanted.¹

This particular quote was something I had overlooked. It is actually quite packed if you really think about it. While she backtracks from the full implications in the next paragraph, suggesting that the talking pieces merely cause confusion, I believe that this first paragraph hints very strongly at a fundamental difference between chess as they experience it with these semi-sentient pieces and normal chess.

If the pieces are merely shouting advice, you can learn to ignore them, it becomes a concentration issue. It becomes much like trash-talk in a sports competition, something you learn to tune out. If on the other hand there is an actual element of volition on the part of the pieces, then we have a fundamentally different game. The player is essentially a general marshalling his or her troops. His or her leadership skills becomes perhaps the key aspect of the game, possibly even greater than the actual skill at chess. One can easily see how a player who is, in absolute terms a lesser chess player, but a better leader of these mock troops, can win against a superior chess player who cannot persuade his/her troops.

One can also see how the verbal aspect plays in at another level. If one must persuade one’s pieces, one must reveal within hearing of one’s opponent, why the piece should do something. That reveals not just to the piece, but also to the opponent, key aspects of one’s thought processes. From this we can then understand the essential nature of trust between player and pieces. For the pieces that trust their player will unquestioningly obey, allowing more of the strategy to more closely resemble actual chess, that is, hidden in the players head and revealed only in and by the placement of pieces on the board.

The author of Daphne Greengrass and the Boy Who Lived summarizes some of these dynamics well in chapter 6, “Christmas Miracle.” The way the player and pieces will develop what amounts to a code language consisting of subtle body language on the part of the pieces, so they can kibbutz without giving things away. The way the pieces can simply refuse to play. The necessity of getting your pieces to listen by verbally exerting force of will since you cannot persuade (see above).