When the
human chess match is preparing to start, the chess pieces taking their squares
on the board. I enjoy the incidental music, and the Butler, seen here wearing
his cape inside out, with an administrative official carrying a chessboard, as
well as shading the Butler from the sun by carrying the open umbrella. While
the Butler carries the
box of chess pieces. This makes the Butler look far
more important than his job as manservant to Number 2 would suggest. What is it
about the Butler, in this
instance, that warrants such a privilege, the need for him to be escorted by an
administrative official? It has been suggested, in the past, that it’s the Butler who
controls the moves in the human chess match. That he makes the moves first, and
the players then follow the moves the Butler dictates.
Yet this cannot be right, as the Butler follows the
moves being made by the two chess players. The Butler is a student
of chess, and likes to follow the moves on his own chessboard. But that doesn’t
explain the administration official. Mind you, the Butler is there at
the beginning of ‘Checkmate,’ and he’s there at the end, placing the white
Queen’s pawn back on the chessboard. Is there something symbolically
significant in that, or is it pure coincidence? If anyone would have put that
pawn back on the chessboard, it would have been Number 2. Unless the Butler is Number
1, and in that case, perhaps it’s the Butler controlling
the moves on the metaphorical chessboard that is The Village!
Be seeing you