Black Hat Brigade: Episode 7

[wingedbeast]

Camera focuses on a chess board.

The white pieces are abstractly shaped. The pieces have no faces, only a general shape to indicate their position.

The black pieces are intricately carved. The pawns include puppet-like goblins, more realistic orcs, and cartoony ogres. The only uniformity is the hats to indicate that they are all pawns.

A mouse walks between the pieces, all but the pawns the same size as himself. The mouse wears a feathered hat and a leather strap, slung over his shoulder, which holds the sheathe for his rapier.

Reepicheep: I am not accustomed to playing chess for spectators.

Susan Pevensie glances over at Scar, reclining at the far edge of the table.

Scar: Oh, don't mind me, brave knight. I am just curious about the... game. Chess is not common to we thumbless Serengeti predators.

Susan: I assure you, he won't cause you any trouble at all.

Scar: Indeed. I am as gentle as a lamb, without an ounce of malice to me.

Susan: Aside from being an obvious liar, he's an absolute amateur in combat. No trouble, whatsoever.

Reepicheep gives a grunt of satisfaction.

Scar gives a grunt of dissatisfaction.

Reepicheep bodily lifts a pawn for his first move.

Reepicheep: I don't wish you to think I don't relish this opportunity to meet with one of the great High Queens of Narnia's distant past, or a friend with whom I've had precious little time. But, honesty and honor dictate that I forewarn you. Word has come to Narnia of your Villain Army and I suspect you of ulterior motive.

Susan: An ulterior motive would, by definition, be hidden. I openly wish to recruit you to my cause. You have much to gain. And, you may have heard a misunderstanding of what The Black Hat Brigade is.

Reepicheep: You mean to claim that you are not villains?

Scar laughs deeply and smoothly.

Scar: Do you know, little knight, what a villain really is?

Reepicheep side-eye glares at Scar.: I was raised on tales of honor and chivalry, I know what a villain is and how not to be one.

Scar pushes himself up to his feet and begins to, very slowly, pad closer to Reepicheep.: So much the pity for you. Etymology is an illuminating study.

Scar: The word "villain" once referred to the servants of a villa. Then, in the way of things, the word evolved to mean people in poverty. Because the wealthy and the well born identify poverty with crime, then the word came to mean something akin to "criminal".

Scar: With that understanding, the word "villain" truly means those whom the privileged fear. So, you and I, little knight, are villains.

Reepicheep puts his hand to the hilt of his rapier.: I am feared by the evil, but not by the good.

Scar moves his face to a length and a half of a mouse-rapier's distance from Reepicheep and laughs.: Quite the joke, little knight. Quite the joke.

Reepicheep darts forward, drawing his rapier.

Scar attempts to bat at Reepicheep, but the mouse swiftly pokes the rapier into his pad, leaps up, yanks on Scar's whisker, then jumps to his snout, one hand holding Scar's eyelid open and another pointing the rapier directly at the relatively giant pupil.

Reepicheep: While we speak on fear, this is what I do when afraid. Keep your distance as you keep your life.

Scar freezes for only a second, then lowers his chin to the table.: Your message is fully understood.

Susan sighs.: Gentlemen, if you are quite done, I'm afraid the pieces are scattered. I hope you're happy with yourself, Scar.

Scar observes the disrupted board game.: You know, for reasons I do not entirely understand, I do, indeed, feel some satisfaction.

Reepicheep releases Scar's eyelid and steps, backwards, from the lion's snout, never showing his back.: Not to fret, highness, I can recall the board.

Scar turns to walk back to the far edge of the table.

Reepicheep takes a moment to put the pieces back to where they were in the game.

Susan: You're sure the knight was here and not here?

Reepicheep: Do you intend to tempt me to cheat? That placement is the advantageous one and I did remark in my mind at the good choice of it.

Susan: No, simply to highlight your honor.

Reepicheep: Then, I thank you, Highness. Your move.

Susan: Thank you. Now, to the matter of etymology, Reepicheep. Do you know where the phrase "Black Hat" comes from?

Reepicheep: I've taken relatively few trips from my own cannon. Something to do with movies?

Susan: There's a genre of film to do with the American west. You'd like many of them, dealing with battles between good and evil. It was a cliche that the good guys, the protagonists, would wear white hats while those deemed bad guys would wear the black hats.

Reepicheep: So, black hats means bad guys, villains.

Susan: Not so. In fact, the origin of that practice comes from a matter of lighting. Someone placed in a white hat and white clothes was better lit, easier for the audience to identify and empathize. Someone in a black hat and dark clothes, that reflected less, was naturally more in shadow, even given equal lighting.

Susan: That understood, a Black Hat is one who is given inadequate illumination by the Cannon, such as yourself.

Reepicheep: I am not inadequately illuminated. The cannon makes me a hero.

Susan: That is debatable. I saw a leader of me... of great heroic mice in my part of Prince Caspian. Yet, when I read The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, I saw something different... I saw... it had to be an act.

Reepicheep moves a piece, but keeps his focus on Susan: What? What had to be an act?

Susan looks at the board: I believe you have me at check-mate.

Scar: Tell me, Sir Reepicheep, Knight of Narnia who served the Telmarine's, how long had you lived? How much practice had you in tactics and survival before you became disillusioned in that utterly simplistic chivalry?

Reepicheep darts between the pieces, studying the board.

Scar: How did it feel to work for those who oppressed Narnians, then made to take that name for themselves?

Reepicheep: It was a great improvement upon being murdered for our existence.

Susan: Is that really enough, Sir Knight?

Reepicheep: What would you have me say, Highness?

Scar: I do not know about her, but I would have you repeat my own sin from my own cannon. I said something that went against the pro-monarchy morality which lauded people to stay in their place. I said that life isn't fair.

Scar: Sir Knight, valiant knight, great war hero, great tactician, great leader of Mice, is it fair?

Reepicheep: No! By truth, no! It is not fair. It isn't fair that my people and all other Animals beside had better pretend to be childish oafs so as to avoid threatening human superiority or authorial views on class and place! But, that is the best option cannon has to our avail, and it demands that we are happy with it!

Susan: But, cannon is incomplete. Take this game, for instance. According to the strict cannon of the game, you have won. But, there is a possibility for something else.

Reepicheep: No, Highness, even you cannot win a game already lost.

Susan: Oh, no, not me to win, sir Knight.

Susan reaches over, lifts a white pawn, and takes the white king.: Long live the revolution.

Reepicheep perks a brow.