(The Queen’s Gambit, B gyerek munkája)
| Aspect of analysis | your thoughts | other sources |
| Season arc (potentially multiple plotlines that evolve throughout the season. Can include but not limited to event/plot, characters, mood, relationships, world-situation, mystery unfolding) | attitudes of top chess players towards Beth playing, media attention, Beth’s foster mom’s attitude, Beth’s mental state and addiction catching up with her, pursuers and romance, becoming willing to ask for help, the buildup towards the ultimate chess game | Beth transition between circumstantial loneliness, voluntary loneliness, perceived loneliness, and her final arrival to satisfaction and community |
| Explicit messages | the characters actually verbally tell Beth not to do drugs, the series highlights the horrible conditions of orphanages and showcases the discrimination in the chess world againts female players | |
| Implicit messages | 1)events and scenes that demonstrates how much her addiction controls her life, and even though it might feel like they maintain her performance, they are actually limiting her potential in the long term. For example (in her adult life and chess carrier) she turns more and more pale, reclusive, cold, closed off, mean, and loses interest. | many signs intend to communicate the message “never forgetting your roots/where you come from”: when Beth imagine games, seh always play with first set she ever played with, and at the end, she plays with the first set she ever bought with her own money. This message also appears more explicitly (for example, Beth ends up returning to the place she learned to play, as a means of paying homage) but it is never directly mentioned |
| Plot | We follow an orphaned girl’s life from childhood, to her young-adult years, as she goes through the trials and tribulations of pursuing success in chess. | |
| Themes | chess, sexism, romance, addiction (to drugs, alcohol, winning), grief, coming of age, tension, pursuit of victory and success, mental illness, chasing control | another, more minor theme is appearance of KARMA. The girl who bullies Beth, and says she “wouldn’t be caught dead” in a certain store appears in that exact store a few episodes later. In addition, generally the characters who act the most stuck up, or egotistical, end up getting the worst results. FAMILY specifically chosen family, as Beth after losing her mother (her only family member) subsequently looks people to trust and rely on, we learn what finding a support system and community really means, when you buildit from the ground up THE COST OF GENIOUS, having a gift, but, contradictingly, having that gift also be a detriment, as it isolates you |
| Factors that influence interpretation | previous knowledge of chess, experience with sexism, age |