Fairy chess inspirations of WCI arc

Hi guys! CAMUNAI here, this is my first post and theory on this forum (and it won´t be the last). So I am not a specially good chess player but all the information I post here is easily available on the internet. Here we go!

As we all know Big Mom Pirates ranks are inspired by chess pieces. For now we have seen her chess army and the rook, bishop and knight ranks. The four sweet commanders could be based on the four generals a player has in shogi (japanese chess)

But I suspect that Oda took many more ideas from this iconic board game. First thing I noticed was that Capone ( ranked as a rook) was protecting Luffy (future pirate king) using his castle form. I think this is not a coincidence. Any habitual chess player can relate this three concepts (rook, king, castle) into a special chess move called... CASTLING!  When a rook and the king haven´t been used the player can move both of them in the same turn.

Still not convinced? Well, just bear with me. As some of you may know in chess there are some standarized strategies. Do you know how the most popular defense that uses "castling" is called? ....(Drum sound)..... The SICILIAN DEFENSE!

Obviously Capone Bege is based of Al Capone, he is the stereotype of the sicilian mafioso.So he is not only Sicilian in his strategy but also in his looks .

The sicilian defense it not the only strategy with the name of a country. "French defense" and "German defense" are very habitual too. Does it ring a bell?

Apart from "castling" there are other two special moves in chess: Promotion and "en passant". Promotion is a chess rule that requires a pawn that reaches its eighth rank to be immediately replaced by a more poweful piece. Basically it is a power up for a pawn. The Vinsmokes were pawns for Big Mom, they were just pieces that were going to be sacrificed  for her plan. At the start of the wedding the vinsmokes were weak but after wearing their suits they are not at a "pawn level" anymore. We could say they got promoted.

But those Vinsmokes are not the only pawns. Sanji and Pudding have been used as pawn the most. Does another power up await for them? Maybe Sanji will perform a death kick or a galaxy kick? Will Puddings third eye or devil fruit awaken and make everyone black out and forget about the wedding?

As I discovered this I started to research even further and I found more interesting stuff.

One of it being the "Fairy chess". Fairy chess is the area of chess composition in which there are some changes to the rules of chess. Now i want to compare some of the most popular chess variants to what has already happened in the Whole Cake Island Arc:

Beirut Chess

Beirut Chess follows all the rules and conventions of standard chess, with one difference: Before the game begins, each player secretly attaches a red dot to the bottom of one of their pieces. This piece is called a bomb carrier. On any turn, instead of moving, a player may say "Boom!" and overturn their bomb carrier. Beirut Chess bomb carriers can be thought of as wearing suicide vests.

Where have we seen this you ask? In his fight against Tamago (the tamagotchi fruit user) pedro was willing to blow up himself to finish with several enemies. In addition he has being wearing typical outfit from Arabic countries.

Stratomic

The game is played on a 10×10 board with all the standard chess pieces present, and in addition, two nuclea pieces (representing nuclear missiles) and two extra pawns per side.

The game brings the concept of modern warfare weaponry to chess. A player can launch a missile at any time to any board square, occupied or not. The launched missile "destroys all pieces  of either colour on the target square, as well as on all immediately surrounding squares. The missile itself is also destroyed in the launch. The missiles had a chess pattern too.

Alice chess

Alice Chess is a chess variant which employs two chessboards rather than one. The game is named after the main character "Alice" in Lewis Carroll's work Through the Looking-Glass, where transport through the mirror into an alternate world is portrayed on the chessboards by the after-move transfer of chess pieces between boards A and B.

Doesn´t "board b" just sounds as the mirror world from brulees ability? Plus the mirror world looks as  a chess board. Could this mean that somehow some Big Mom pirate that was outside the mirror world will end trapped there?

Atomic chess

This is a chess variant. Standard rules of chess apply, but all captures result in an "explosion" through which all surrounding white and black pieces other than pawns are removed from play.  

As we all know the Tamatebako box may play a very important roll in the wedding. Could it explode as a fighter beats another just like in "atomic chess"? Perhaps a Big Mom pirate fights against Du Feld for it and it ends in a big explosion that tilts the wedding cake.

Fairy Pieces

But that is not all! Fairy chess doesn´t only have different ways of playing it also has different pieces!

"Fairy pieces" are just a combination or modification of standard pieces.

Here comes a heavy speculation. Could it be that Big Mom is hiding an actual fairy in her library? Furthermore, this fairy could fuse, heal or give a power-up to the protagonists.It could be a new creature or one we already saw. Maybe Manshery? There is a theory relating Monet to tincker bell too (and doflamingo to peter pan).

There is even a chess variant ( Billiards chess) in which pieces bounce against the board. Could this confim that we are sgoint to see "Bounceman" in this arc? There is another piece called archbishop, which is a bouncing rook + bishop. Could luffy semi-awaken and give capones castle his rubber properties?

But how does all this theme affect Sanjis role? Whole Cake Island arc , inspired by chess, has been all about strategy, planning and deceiving. Just what Sanjis specialities are and what he has been built up for. I think that Sanji will not just be  a mere piece on the board, I predict he will be the chess player. Remenber this is "Sanjis year". At some point his intellect will be needed and his cunning will shine.

As for his opponent it is very clear to me. The only person that has shown chess player capacities is no other than Charlote Katakuri. His "seeing into the future" observations haki works similar to a chess master predicting the next move of his opponent (some professional players can predict moves even 10 turns ahead). And he has been the only one giving commands and taking intelligent decisions. Remenber that Sanji gave him a death glare too.

I know Sanjis fighting habilities are not at Katakuris level but both have great tactical skills and observation haki. At some point they may command their forces and sanji will win against him even if his pieces (allies) are not as strong as katakuris. So I hope we see an "intellect/strategy battle" between both. Or it could just be that Sanji tricking him into seeing a "fake future" and surprising him to him just after that.

Being sanji from a "german"(and maybe he awakens his special DNA) family I think he could use some german named moves to defeat him:

The zwischenzug ( intermediate move) is a chesstactic in which a player, instead of playing the expected move, first interposes another move posing an immediate threat that the opponent must answer, and only then plays the expected move. Ideally, the zwischenzug changes the situation to the player's advantage.

Zugzwang (compulsion to move) is a situation found in chess and other games wherein one player is put at a disadvantage because they must make a move when they would prefer to pass and not move.

And the big question... Will the Big Mom pirates be defeated? My answer is "probably". In chess the winner takes down the opponents King. Even if the queen is the strongest piece of all the king is vital. And who is the King? The person that created the country along Big Mom and probably had children (perospero) with her, Streudsen. He doesnt seem strong, but if he is defeated all totland islands may lose their food and chaos would reign. Or it could be that the current husband of Big Mom (or Pound) will play an important role.

To conclude: How can Totlands arc end? Well, in chess there are several ways a match can end:

Checkmate: The player whose turn it is to move is in check and has no legal move to escape check.

Resignation: Either player may resign, conceding the game to the opponent

Win on time: In games with a time control, a player wins if the opponent runs out of time, even if the opponent has a much superior position.

Draw by agreement: Draws are most commonly reached by mutual agreement between the players.

So which will it be? Will someone be defeated? Will they make a deal with big mom (David Back Fight)? Will a time limit save the strawhats? The allied forces seem to be in a checkmate position (resisting inside capone) but I think someone may come to save the strawhats.

Who? Marco and Nekomamushi. Why? Well, this is a bit off-topic but Big Mom seems to be based of the queen of hearts (Alice in wonderland) and Voldemort ( Harry potter). Both protagonist were saved by a cat and a phoenix ( Chamber of secrets book). And the phoenix's tears cured Harry just as Manshery's do. Big Mom also mentioned she had a griffin in her library just as the one that saved Harry. And what a greater reference could there be when this summer of 2017 were both series 20th anniversary takes places?? ( Oda loves Harry potter by the way).

Another relevant point is if someone will sacrifice himself. In my opinion it will. Gambit is a common move in chess. It is a chess opening in which a player, more often White, sacrifices material in order to get a better position. Usually pawns are sacrificed, maybe the germa uses his clon army doing a "great wall" with all of his soldiers together?

As an aditional fact, Totland means "deathland" in german and Death has been depicted playing chess in multiple ocassions.

Phewwww!!! That was all! It seemed shorter in my mind! I hope you enjoyed my speculation and even if you don´t agree on everything I am sure you learned some interesting thing about chess!

But this doesn´t end here! You can still make much more predictions based on Chess! Do you know any famous mach between a german and a french player that could suit the wedding ceremony? Any well-known endgame strategy sthat could match the actual situation in the manga so we could know how it could finish?