We recently watched The Queen's Gambit, the Netflix mini-series that has been nominated for four Golden Globe awards. It tells the coming-of-age story of Beth Harmon, a Kentucky orphan. Taught to play chess by the janitor at her orphanage, Harmon proves to be a chess prodigy, competing in international tournaments while still a teenager.

The series is extremely well-acted, and directed in such a way that you can appreciate the tension and suspense of the tournaments even if you don't understand chess. It gripped us enough to prompt these reflections.

“A friend loves at all times.” – Proverbs 17:17

Beth Harmon is a troubled genius. Orphaned while a young girl, she spends several years in an orphanage. When she is a teenager, a childless couple adopts her, but her adoptive father soon deserts the family, leaving her and her adoptive mother alone. In response to this abandonment, the mother turns to drink. Before Beth is out of her teens, her adoptive mother also dies.

Doubly orphaned, and abandoned by the father who adopted her, it is not surprising that Beth finds it hard to trust, to rely on others. She finds her solace in pills and alcohol – as well in her exceptional skill at chess. The few friends she has are mostly men – mostly men whom she has met, and defeated, at chess tournaments.

As her addictions start getting the better of her, several of these friends reach out to help. Not surprisingly, as someone struggling with substance abuse is apt to do, Beth rejects their offers of help. Sometimes quite rudely. Often, she seems to reject not only their help, but the friends themselves.

To their great credit, the friends persist. At a time of great stress, during an adjournment of Harmon’s championship match at an international tournament, when the demons of addiction are especially tempting, a group of these chess-playing friends place a lengthy, expensive, trans-Atlantic phone call to encourage her, to offer advice, and to cheer her on.

In the end, The Queen’s Gambit is not only a fascinating portrait of a gifted, but troubled, human being. It is also a tribute to the power of human friendship. As the deutero-canonical book of Ecclesiasticus (Sirach) puts it, “Faithful friends are life-saving medicine” (6:16). For Beth Harmon, that was certainly true.

Celebrate your friendships. Reach out to your friends. In these troubled times, you, too, could be life-saving medicine.

  --by Bill

From the very first scene of The Queen’s Gambit, I felt like I was entering the Inner Sanctum. Unlike the radio mystery shows of the 1950’s, there was no creaky iron door opening to the mystery. But just as suspenseful as those classic mysteries, as each episode unfolded, I was transported into Beth Harmon’s interior Inner Sanctum, her place of safety.

I know nothing about chess, but the suspense swelled from first, Beth being orphaned, to the end chess match. Beth is portrayed as a complex character, one I quickly cared about. Okay, I do have a degree in psychology and Enneagram Professional Certification. People like us are fascinated with people like Beth Harmon.

Being abandoned multiple times as a child, she immediately appeared to me as an Enneagram Type 2. Before long, she took on characteristics of a Type 5: a child not being safe in the family, looking for a way to feel secure, and retreating into their own internal private space, open to no one. I’ll call this space her Inner Sanctum. There, through a friendship with the school janitor, Beth learned chess and got lost in the landscape of chess boards she imagined on the ceiling. Her genius blazed at chess tables with experts and champions well beyond her age. While Harmon shunned those who tried to help her, she fell deeper into her underground reservoir of untapped feelings.

No Spoiler Alert here; just a description of denouement in the life of a Type 5. The redeemed or liberated Type 5s are awed by the majesty of reality, clear-minded, and trusting of the universe. They are enraptured by what they see rather than being scared to death. They become truly visionary, potentially bringing revolutionary change to their field of endeavor.

If you have seen The Queen’s Gambit, or plan to, what do you think about Beth as a Type 5? What about her ability to balance her inner and outer worlds? Did the iron door open to Beth's Inner Sanctum? If no, why not? If so, how was it opened; by whom?

What about G. K. Chesterson’s statement: “At the back of our brains, so to speak, there is a forgotten blaze or burst of astonishment, at our own existence.”—does it apply to Beth Harmon?

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