Have we had a fairytale yet? I don’t think we have. Let’s have a fairytale. Our subject comes from an American anthology series of fairytales presented by Shelley Duvall and it deals with Andersen’s classic fairy tale about Thumbelina, a girl the size of a thumb, her attempts to not get married, and, after those, her attempts to get married after all. Naturally, Thumbelina and her fiancé spent the time waiting for the wedding at the chessboard.
Unnaturally, they have glued butterflies to some of the pieces.1 Even more unnaturally, the director focuses on the fairies instead of the chessboard. This has made it very hard to reconstruct the position. But one thing that’s abundantly clear is that h1 is a black square which is unacceptable.
If they think that anything goes just because it’s a fairytale, I’m just going to make something up, too. Here it is:2
Obviously, many pieces — and many butterflies, too — are missing on the queen’s side. What we do know is that black — that’s Thumbelina — takes the queen on f6 with her knight and that white then moves the f1 bishop, presumably to b5, and announces checkmate. It might even be checkmate, although even white doesn’t seem sure of it.
Thumbelina definitely doesn’t challenge his claim, but she seems preoccupied. Perhaps about the wedding? But surely that wouldn’t take your eyes of a game of chess?
Realism: 2/5 That’s essentially a made up number. I took an average grade and subtracted half a point because I was annoyed by the lack of detail.
Probable winner: White, I guess, since it’s probably checkmate.
1. [Maybe it’s Nabokov’s set?] ↩
2. [All hail to whoever came up with this diagram editor.] ↩