Him knocking over the go game rather than lose is also what he does with his death. The important difference though is that he’s willing to nuke a nonserious game to not let Marta win, but willing to nuke a serious situation and his own life to protect Marta and let her “win.”
That is also what literally kills him, too. Had he simply allowed Martha to call the ambulance and do her thing, he would absolutely have survived (as is revealed later in the movie). But he had to win the game, and he had to make things unfold as he intended to, even to the point of covering up what he thought was a manslaughter.
Since Go doesn't have set starting sides on a board like some other boardgames I don't know whether it matters but from a visual storytelling perspective I find it relevant that she sits beside Harlan, not opposite him. She's playing with him, not against him.
go is a game of conflict but since it starts empty and both players make constant decisions on where to play, it slowly becomes as some sort of canvas where both players draw their thoughts on how to build their structures, so there are a lot of games where the players could be like "ill take left, you take the right" without much confrontation
@@sebastianbal1008 as a go player I've heard it described in some of the first tutorials I watched as "a game about sharing", which is how I play. Winning involves making strategic choices of how to give your opponent some region or group that they want, and think you want, when really you were using it to buy time for something more important to you. I tell my dad "it's a game about sharing, and I make sure to share so that I win" when we play :)
I also really liked that. Very few games are able to be played that way, and it looked great on film. In a conceptual movie like this, nothing can be considered totally accidental.
19x19 board = grand epic, a multi-decade war 13x13 board = single battle between two opposing armies, like a game of chess 9x9 board = knife fight in a telephone booth
I love Marta and Harlan's friendship. Despite the gap in age, in power, they treat each other as equals and you can tell they're important to each other and I love it so, so dearly.
I love how you only really see Harlan being himself when he's with her in his study, theres no pretense, no fear of offending each other, they are both very comfortable in each others presence, which is probably really refreshing for Harlan because everyone else in his family seem to be present and nice because they want a share of his empire, Marta was the only one that didn't want his empire which is why she deserved it
I honestly think that friendship with Marta is what Harlan thought his entire family needed. He told Marta how he should've been kinder to his family, basically telling her that he can't do what she can. (also represented by their Go rivalry)
I’m sure someone else has said this, but the fact that Marta’s second move is to go “behind enemy lines” is also an incredible parallel to her actions later in the film; working to keep her family safe while working WITH Blanc (even though he essentially functions as a potential “enemy”) instead of taking the safer move to stay out of the investigation as much as possible and stick to “her side.”
Yes good point! Also, Marta (when realising she 'messed up') said that by 5 minutes good ol grandpa should experience symptomps of the overdose: 'sweats, headaches and confusion'. Yet, he himself said 8 minutes have passed BUT he wasnt sweating at all and he could think clearly, indicating that he in fact did not get the wrong medication. He could be 2 minutes away from death and he looked just fine. 3 minutes have passed after the indicated time for symptomps, without any.... that was a pretty big hole in the doughnut too
TBF Blanc didn't give her much choice about that - she's not manipulative enough to find an easy way to get out of helping him, especially as he knows she can't lie without vomiting.. But yes, she's one of the ones with the most to lose/fear from the police but she treats them (and everyone!) far nicer than the family do, who like the entitled (formerly) rich people they are expect the police to work to the family's convenience/orders, rather than deferring to them. Another way of showing us she's a better person than the Thromby clan
The Go motif is something that I don't think I've seen anyone else talk about in this movie, so I'm glad to see someone talk about it. The symbolism the reason for why Marta can win when the Thrombleys can't is a sort of foreshadowing for the qualities that Marta has that the rest lack. Go is a game about support and safety rather than pure aggression.
It also funnily foreshadows the ending, I think. I don't know anything about Go, but I think it's worth noting how as the video put it "You determine if a move is illegal AFTER you determine whether pieces have been removed from the board."
@@ilanpi 😆 - tbh, more likely because you are not used to the constant and relentless aggression and overplays yet 😉. A friend used to (when I was 2-3d myself and raging about how stupid they played and still won ^^) tell me "all you need to do up to 7d is not die!" - I am 8d now and I can confirm 😜.
I just kind of had an epiphany while watching this and now I'm curious what you may think of this. Marta placed that black piece at the center of a round shape (well diamond, but it's go so a circle) with a hole in the center. You know, like a donut... It's a donut. She's the hole in the hole.
My absolutely favourite thing about this film is that Marta comes out on top *because she's a good person*. She genuinely wants to help others, while everyone else wants to help themselves. It's a trait I rarely see rewarded in film (outside of children's "power of friendship" cartoons) when so many "clever" characters are treated as clever because they're a conniving asshole who screwed over every other character. Marta is such a refreshing take from that - she's genuine and kind, and sticking to her values is what wins her the fortune. I see this reflected pretty nicely in the game of go. She sticks to her values of creating a beautiful pattern, rather than taking Harlan's aggressive bait. No matter how much the other family members try and threaten her, she still sticks to her values, because she has so much integrity. The above is the reason why I adore Knives Out's writing. It has so much nuance, and is easily one of the best written films from the last few years. Although I still really enjoyed Glass Onion, and it had all the cleverness and sleuthing of the first film, I did find that it somewhat lacked the moral core that made Knives Out one of my favourite films. Anyway, great video!!
Yeah, the way she plays reminds me of how I play with my niece and nephew. Leaving enough open to give them a fighting chance and let them learn, but not so much that you can't take back control. How Harlan plays doesn't make as much sense if he's been playing as long as it's implied that he has unless he just doesn't "get" the game.
I did enjoy Knives out more than Glass onion but Glass Onion has an entirely different theme. Knives out centers around clever selfish people playing games to win which gets unraveled when someone doesn’t play by their game while Glass Onion is about a bunch of stupid billionaires who have built a cult of personality around themselves trying to hide that they’re not smarter than everyone else and it all burns down when someone sees right through them. Just like Knives out is themed around Go, Glass Onion is themed around the puzzle box. In both cases the winner is the one that refuses to play their opponent’s game
I like both i think it just have different moral value to teach, glass onion shows us what we looked like if we let go of our moral to follow money and power, the shitheads have miles' leases around their necks but they can't stop licking his shoe even if they know it fulls of shit. Helen, like martha, is the carrier of the moral values. The sacrifice, the courage and the drive to do the unthinkable to stop greater damage. A girl who live an ordinary life and looked plain compared to the rest of the characters did the thing they wish they did themselve: flip a bird or two to an asshole tyrant and showed him "No. This ends now."
I think it's good, though, that Helen is a very different character than Marta, as it's less repetitive that way. Both have a virtue not shared by the rest of the cast. For Marta, it's obviously her kindness, but for Helen, it's her courage. She tells Benoit that she's scared, and she is well aware of the danger, but she goes to the island anyway to get justice for her sister. Meanwhile, much like the Thrombeys lacked compassion for anyone other than themselves, the Disruptors/Shitheads (save Andi) didn't have enough courage to stop Miles no matter how bad he got. Even after they know he killed two of them! But Helen proves herself to be the real disruptor when she breaks the system itself - that is to say, Miles and his hold over everyone. And with his "golden titties" dried up, the others are free to testify against him and get Andi justice. So yeah, she's not the same as Marta - but that's a good thing.
The final move Marta makes is also filling the hole that was created by this situation. As Benoît Blanc later mentions, the whole case is a doughnut as the center is missing, and even when you think you've explained it, the mystery still remains. But Marta is the key to the mystery, her playing according to her own rules and following her moral values is what allows the truth to finally come out. I see it as a foreshadowing that she is the central, and missing piece of the mystery/doughnut.
I came here to say this, and I was surprised that the video didn’t mention it and that your comment wasn’t the top one. “A donut-shaped hole” It expect that they consulted a very good go player to reverse engineered a smart way for an elegant win to occur using that move.
This is not a mysterious move. it's one of the few moves that just made sense in that game. The three stones were in atari and she connected them to prevent them from being captured. And Harlan didn't need to play that connection before that because cutting there would have been self-atari so he could have just captured instantly.
Another thing I love about this scene is how we see Marta being completely at ease with Harlan. The rest of the movie, she’s nervous either being watched over by the press or people who see themselves as superior to her. But here she’s with someone she loves and is completely comfortable with. They laugh and smile and play argue. So beautiful. ❤
MASSIVE additional point: it's traditional for the stronger player to use white. This might suggest that Harland still thinks he's a stronger player than Marta. Or more likely they don't play with others much. Either way, the first move advantage is worth at least 5 points even on a 9x9 board (depending on the players), so he's giving up a lot!
I'd be surprised if they're not playing with the standard modern handicap though, which makes the sides considerably more balanced (white gets 6.5 points for free is the usual amount these days).
Could also be a social commentary. Like socially he’s just innately more powerful than her. He’s a white man with an insane amount of wealth and her boss at the end of the day. Yet he can never seem to truly best her despite the fact he has every at advantage.
I read it as ego. He doesn't just want to win, he wants to win from the harder position. But he doesn't simply want to win, or he'd take the first move advantage... He wants to assert dominance.
There's some more really clever ideas in the game I spotted too! Harlan's long chain of stones is called a "Dragon" in go terms. He's got a single huge white dragon without roots. This shape has a lot of what's called, "Influence" in go strategy - it makes its presence felt all over the board, influencing every other stone. It's possible he's what's known as a "fighting" player - someone who looks to kill enemy stones and win with sheer numbers. The movie also ends on the shot of the mug "my house, my rules" which is all about "taking territory" (the game Go is about taking territory). Marta is a territorial player that focuses on shape. Shape isn't just aesthetics in go, it's one of the three prime strategic dimensions (Territory, Influence, Shape). Shape in go represents not just beauty but efficiency and strength. Good shape has capacity to form eyes, which make stones immortal. There's a saying in go rich with metaphor for a murder mystery: "Two Eyes = Life, One Eye = Death"
@@JeffErickson also, the eyes watching over the shoulders in the office? All of the clutter that somehow has eyes that are locked on to one or two important characters?
@@andrewp6738 go with that instinct. It’s a fascinating game, utterly mesmerizing. If you want to dip your toe in, check out “Dan level showdown” on RUclips (it’s not me it’s two go teachers playing and explaining their moves- Dan is a rank). You won’t understand what they’re saying right away but they’ll give you a sense for the type of strategy in the game. Also, Hikaru no go is a delightful anime that repopularized the game.
I also noticed that they weren't holding the Go stones "correctly" during the scene. However, I thought this was primarily an oversight. Thinking about it, it might be that Harlan knows how to do it, but since it's only a game between friends and he didn't want to offend Marta or try to be stuffy about it he wasn't going to enforce the formalism of it. It could also be used to illustrate that Marta comes from a working class background and is therefore not as well versed in the superficial "ceremony" of the game but is still an excellent opponent despite that for a game that, like chess, does have an association with the upper reaches of society and those accompanying mannerisms.
Yes, that's what I assumed too when I noticed it. It gave me the impression that Harlan taught her this game to entertain himself, but she picked it up quickly (demonstrating her intelligence and adaptability), earned his respect and thus why it was such an important tradition for him that he was willing to be a brat about it and demand to play it. It made him notice and appreciate Marta as the gem she is. It reminded him he wasn't perfect and he found a true-blue friend through it.
i didn’t think about that but that makes total sense! that really does add to the genuineness of harlan and marta’s friendship, thanks for your observation.
to the point of Knives Out being endlessly rewatchable even once you know the ending- I actually never got to experience this movie blind to the killer. It got spoiled to me months in advance to my first watch through a reposted tumblr meme, so I watched the entire film trying to figure out _how_ the ending would come about rather than the _who_ of it all. It still, instantly, became one of my favourite movies
Same, but honestly that's why I'm not as averse to spoilers as most people are. Good media should be able to keep you enthralled and entertained more than once, and knowing spoilers effectively just makes you view the media from the perspective of a second, third, etc experience. Knives Out is a good movie, so it means knowing the destination doesn't ruin the journey; you continue to take the trip and see and appreciate new things even though it's the same roads, same place.
That’s the Columbo structure: we know who did it from the beginning. We’re just watching to see how the detective figures it out. And that detective structure still works, as evidenced by how great Columbo was.
My favorite part of this is that the movie doesn’t exonerate Harlan, even though he is nice to Marta. The fact that he too is condemned as in some way responsible for the family’s dysfunction is so cool
There's a big difference between the mentality of people who play Chess vs people who play Go. Chess is about sacrificing your "lesser" pieces to achieve a tactical advantage over their opponent, whereas Go is about pieces coming together to surround your opponent. There are no greater or lesser pieces in Go, no pieces that are more valuable than others, but their power comes in how they're positioned. It leads to two very different mentalities. It's very telling that Marta and Harlan play Go, while I'm almost positive the rest of the family plays chess.
The rest of the family plays checkers, where you start out with no greater or lesser pieces, but the entire point is to take enough pieces that you get promoted into a "king" status to lord it over everyone else and wipe the board of your enemies.
That is a pretty cool take, but chess can also be about pieces coming together to surround the enemy king, and Go can be about sacrificing stones for other advantages. The mentalities of the players of these games are diverse.
I think that doesn't describe chess very well. Greater pieces are sacrificed too. I would say the larger difference is that chess is more tactical and calculating, while Go is more strategic. Chess is a metaphor of battle, coordination of force. Go is a metaphor of empire, coordination of influence.
You're right about the different mentality, but the 'sacrifice' part is not what make it different. I'm playing chess for about 6 years now and started playing go from a few months ago. The biggest difference is in how the player see the playing field. Go player will have more understanding on the big picture, how each piece contribute to the team, without even looking like they did anything at all. Chess is more tactically oriented than Go. Chess player can more easily adapt to the smaller part of go playing, like life and death, where you should defend/attack a corner or sides of the board. While Go doesn't have a sacrifice concept like chess. For each moves in Go, you choose something and forsaking something else. "I choose the right top corner over the center, because it's more stable, but giving my opponent a chance to stabilize their position in the center" is one of the example of the decision you make playing Go
His desperate need for tactical control, versus Marta's compassionate strategic thinking, is also why he ends up dead. If he had just done what she said, he'd have lived. She "wins" because she's better at Harlan's life than Harlan is. He doesn't even think through the results of his death correctly. Of course there was going to be a tox report, and that would have ruined his whole plan. Too busy not thinking, just "controlling" even at that point. So she lives, she takes the house, the fortune, and even considers helping his family. She's him, but smarter and better.
As you were just going about how Marta wasn't actually playing go, I was just trying to shut my head saying "n-no, is actually a very valid move and a good one" because I knew it had to go somewhere, it had to. And it did! Glad to see it described as a very elegant move. ❤
It's so perfect because it mirrors the movie. The reveal that Marta is "not the murderer" was the twist reveal halfway through the movie, the donut hole inside the donut, but in reality, there was a smaller donut hole *inside* that donut hole.
This point bothered me about this video. To much time is spent with Lord being baffled by this very basic move which is just the correct response to an Atari. It made the middle portion of the video hard to watch for me.
My favorite way to describe Go is that there's one objective, get territory, and one rule, fully surrounded pieces get captured, and anything beyond that is clarifying that rule. The rest of the game follows. It really is beautiful.
actually you dont even need the territory part, because territory is acquired only through the applied capturing rule (where if you played in a spot its basically suicide so its pointless ergo that area is the opposing player's territory.)
Actually, that's incorrect. Go is about influence, shape, territory comes with good play. Except if you're a very strong territorial player, but they are exceptional.
honestly, knowing the relationship between harlan and marta, and the context of the situation, it makes sense that the pieces are played out of order. they're good friends who play go together often, presumably every time they meet (since it's an important tradition to harlan). the decision to play in a nine by nine grid is decided by marta, who initially tries to leave because she's had a drink and she wants to go home after the party, so it's a purposefully faster game. the fact that they're not using the typical hand position also illustrates the casualness of the game, since they don't care if they jostle the pieces around. they've also played together so much that the game goes by super quickly, an effect achieved with all the time skips. while the skipped pieces could be a mistake of the filming or the edit, it can also reflect their relationship and how casual they are that, at this point, they can play games out of order, because they know each other that well. another thing it might reflect is the fact that harlan overthinks. maybe he's passing because he's taking up too much time thinking of how to beat her, while she's just following her instinct and knowledge. similarly, he becomes so consumed with the idea of the suicide plan to protect marta that he doesn't stop to note whether or not he's experiencing any symptoms. she lists out how long it'll take for symptoms to appear, and if they had waited those five, ten, fifteen minutes it would've taken for the overdose to start, even if they didn't call 911, they would've realized that it wasn't happening. the fact that he overthinks so much in order to try and win that he passes up opportunities to do so is reflective of the fact that he is willing to end his own life and give up everything he could do with what remains of it (he's only 85, and he's relatively healthy and very well off, so he has a decent chance of making it to 100) in order to complete a plot that came to his head, fully formed.
I’m sure this was a coincidence, but in Korea, the empty space that you capture with your stones is called a “house.” With how many times the motif as the Thrombey house comes up as the symbolic object of Harlan’s wealth, Harlan’s comment that Marta is better at Go than Ransom is kept feeling like a nod to the fact that Marta will be getting the house over Ransom.
Today I learned that Cathedral, the one board game I grew up playing, was Go with buildings. Ironically, I used to drive my older siblings nuts by playing to build a "nice city" rather than to win. (My family was pretty toxic and, as both the youngest and the only girl, I wasn't supposed to be able to beat anyone else. I did not like the nasty consequences of winning, so I found other goals. I guess that's part of why I love Knives Out.)
That reminds me of Data in Star Trek next gen. His goal was to beat someone in a board game but felt inferior for being a robot but not being able to beat a human (a very emotional reaction it turns out). He found while he couldn't beat the guy as he could play nonsensically forever while the opponent would get impatient and straight up forfeit. Annoying the opponent into submission is a great strategy. I hope you're doing OK now.
Re: the reasons they're fighting (27:30) Most of the family is fighting because they're realizing that what they have to lose is something that was never really theirs in the first place. They're fighting to keep a lifestyle they were lucky to be born into, that they were given for no good reason. And they're VERY upset at the idea that it could be taken away just as easily. Marta is fighting just to keep what she has. She doesn't even want the inheritance, she just wants to be left alone.
Also I think where Ransom comes into this is that he, like Harlan is very skilled at the game of control. The rest of the family lack foresight and act impulsively while Ransom is very collected and comes up with a clever and sound plan to defeat Harlan. He was the only one clever enough to fight back and he was evenly matched with Harlan. Ultimately the person who defeats him is Marta for the same reason she constantly beat Harlan.
I saw him saying 'it's basically over' as a last ditch effort to try to lower her defenses into thinking she's got nothing to worry about, even though he knew she would probably still be smart enough to put that black piece there anyways. His tone was playful, but even at that point he came across as pretty cutthroat and that seemed exactly the kind of things someone like him would do.
Nice video. I know it's fairly standard to think of the competing territories in Go as empires, but I regard them more as communities. There is no entrenched hierarchy as there is in say, chess, and each stone has equal value in the bowl. It is how they connect and support each other on the board that makes them strong. Additionally, Go will punish a player for being too greedy or aggressively expansionist, rather than being satisfied with a smaller victory.
There is much more entrenched hierarchy in Go: between the player (emperor) and the faceless, interchangeable, pieces. In chess, the player has an avatar of themselves on the board (king).
@@ricobarth That is an interesting perspective, though not one I think I agree with. In both games the player has absolute power over their pieces, but cannot change the nature of the game. From the perspective of the pieces, the player is more like a force of nature or law of physics than another piece, so can't rightly be seen as part of the hierarchy. Additionally, though it's tempting to see the King as an avatar of the player, the player suffers no damage when checkmated and imparts nothing of themselves to the power and nature of the King. However, even assuming the King is such an avatar, that doesn't change the fact that it is at the top of the hierarchy by declaration of the rules, not because it is particularly valuable. Consider a position where a player could, if play continued after checkmate, sacrifice their King in order to capture the entire opposing force. The King is a slow-moving piece and this seems like a very good deal, but you can't do it because the rules say that the King is infinitely valuable. In Go, no such inequalities between pieces exist. If one can sacrifice one stone or ten stones or a hundred in order to capture a greater territory, nothing about which particular stones are on the board will change that.
20:30 I want to point out that stones can not be diagonally connected and the spaces diagonally adjacent to the stones dont count as liberty,so that group was in "atari"(atari means its about to be captured-it had only 1 liberty)so Marta basically saved the group before it got captured.That move makes sense because if she wants to capture the white group ,she has to save her own group first
Yes, this. It is actually the most obviously sensible move- otherwise, black's group is captured and white's split groups connect. I almost stopped watching this video when he started saying they weren't playing go. That was a very very long tangent for something that was completely wrong.
Also I don’t believe Harlan even allows her to finish the game properly, he intercepts based on his diagnosis an leaps of logic of the games trajectory; a wonderful depiction of his short comings and Marta’s strengths. While both are pragmatic and sensible people, Harlan often makes baseless assumptions, approaching each event with the intention to capture as much territory as possible that he assumes the idea he has already claimed “territory” and so he loses sight of what’s directly in front of him (his lack of overdose symptoms, Ransom’s rage, that his family would thank him), meanwhile Marta approaches each moved with the choices already laid before her. She does not act beyond her existing options, and always chooses the most sure footed route, the most honest route. Instead of spiralling into the potential consequences of Harlan’s dying on her watch, instead of self preserving, she moves to protect her territory, instead of thinking about how it looks like she killed Fran she stays to help her. Because the board wasn’t a territory, and Harlan’s pieces weren’t her enemy - they were weavings into her larger pattern. She essentially included his moves in her own. She worked with the choices presented to her. This also comments on her working class status vs his wealthy one.
6:33 The territory in the right of the board is "mutual death". who controls this space depends on who's turn it is. If it's black's turn, they capture the bottom 3 white stones. If it's white's turn, they capture the big group. A real game would probably not finish like this or the automatic scoring on an online thing might arbitrarily decide one group is dead.
Thank you. I was hoping someone pointed out that the scored board in the demonstration was not great. It had the basic concepts, but it did not do well with the details (as large as they might be to anyone who plays the game). I do hope that and encourage people to try playing the game. It's a beautiful game. The rules are pretty simple ( I believe there is a version of the rules where there is only three rules), but the game itself is complex. It's quick to learn and a lifetime to master.
@@MoonRock-ij8ni so, technically, all is well and the example is perfect, ;) it just means that two players playing for a first time made both the suboptimal move of passing ;) the game ended in a legal position that would be rare for players that played a few times more ;)
I just love Marta as a character, a protagonist, and an underdog so much. I wish more media celebrated humble and intelligent characters like her and put them in the spotlight.
Harlan: I don't know how you beat me at this every time. Marta: I'm not trying to beat you. I'm creating a beautiful pattern. She wins by being herself. Even when she doesn’t realize it or isn’t trying to… that’s how Marta will win. She leaves too much a presence on the right side of the scale
another part for her ending play is that in the same way Harlon doesn't see it coming, Ransom didn't think Marta would stays to try and save Fran even if it could put herself in danger
Hey ! I came here from the go community. Didn't see the movie beforehand, so I did exactly as you said, I paused the video, watched the movie tonight, then finished the video. The movie was really cool, and your video is very nice. Thank you very much for the time and attention that you put into it, and seeing Ryan Li featured was so great, this guy is a jewel with such a great energy. ps : loved the gomoku part even if the move in question makes absolute total sense ^^
Another symbolic point to note is that Marta fills in the donut hole on the go board. Just how she fills in the missing narrative that blanc is trying to figure out. Foreshadowing as well as showing the difference in character
Very interesting video! I hadn't noticed just how much of an allegory their match was to how they lived their lives. Also, I'm a little perturbed that I was taught Gomoku as Go. I spent four years playing the game under the wrong name and had no idea! So thanks for correcting that old error in my life 😂
Since you can place stones anywhere in gomoku, it actually used a lot of the same shape tricks as Go! You might be better at Go than you expect! It's also a travesty that clubhouse 51 games on switch has gomoku but not Go!
@@andriypredmyrskyy7791 Not going to lie, I do want to try rope a couple of friends into learning how to play Go so we can have a few matches. I think I probably lost more often than I won back at the club where we played Gomoku as Go. So I'm probably not all that good. That said, on My Time at Portia, there's a Gomoku mini game, I can usually win that. It doesn't seem right that Gomoku is available on some of these games when Go isn't. They use the exact same assets!
@andriypredmyrskyy7791 i was super disappointed about that too. I imagine itd be relatively easy to have both go and gomoku as an option but ig my only way to play go now is either find a different version of it online or try and rope an unsuspecting friend into learning with me lol.
Always loved that board game scene and immediately noticed how much it explored Martha and Harlan’s styles both in the game and in life. But i never understood go so couldn’t really confirm.
My favorite minor detail in the movie was the fact that none of the family members could get Marta's country of origin right. They all said different countries each time
also, the japanese rules for scoring don’t count the pieces you have on the board (only the enclosed empty spaces), while the chinese rules do count the stones as points
I love this niche series you have going on at your channel. Explaining game scenes from movies. The video essay on film genre has become pretty popular on youtube over the past few years, but you have still managed to keep your's unique and distinct from the crowd.
Martha needs to play on F8, and she does, because her three stones only have one liberty less. Remember that strings aren't connected diagonal. She isn't playing Pente or Alea Evangelii. That would've been an awful move in either of those two games but it's a vital move in Go.
yes, thats exactly what I was thinking! Not playing there would have let him not only capture, but connect his two structures and winning wouldn't be too hard after that
@Sand CJW well... yeah, that was what the video said. Are you usually commenting something before watching all the way, and then _not going back to edit_ after finding out you really added nothing that might've been missing? :p
@@irrelevant_noob I got caught by that as well. The part of the game that occurs at is called "yosei" or basically endgame, and it's the most mechanical part of the game. The scene is filmed that way as well -- neither player spends any time thinking about those moves -- so the entire line of analysis just seems really silly. I get what he's trying to do, with the bait and switch, but it's not very satisfying because the full analysis ("he respects her intelligence") is such a stretch. It's like saying "now a normal person would think this knight is blocked, but in actuality the knight can jump over other pieces, so what appears to the uninitiated to be a safe position is actually checkmate!" Nobody who'd actually played the game would reach that conclusion, so it doesn't even make sense to consider meaningful. The entire discussion is just so bizarre that I was tempted to comment before finishing the video, as was Sand CJW.
As soon as I heard him say that a play by Martha I knew he wasn't just a novice at go, he was a noob! F8 is the ONLY move Martha could make OR she will LOSE THE GAME! The previous move was not only strengthening the line of white stone, it was attacking Matha's 3 stones. With out the move at F8 not only will matra lose those three stones below it, but the 4 white stones beyond would be saved, and swing the game completely to whites favor. It is the ONLY move, and has to be played. --- It turned me off the video! for a few days before I calmed down enough to watch the rest! -- Later he says... perhaps I got a little carried away there. --- Under statement!
At 6:26 when you show an example board, neither the black or white groups in the lower right are actually alive. They are both in atari (meaning with only one liberty left and able to be captured) with a single eye and the next player to play could kill their opponent's group and win the entire bottom right area and the game.
That moment when you had worked out that alternate theory about what game they're playing, and went cherry-picking through the film to support it, only to realize it was all in your head and had to let it go, I think that was the best RUclips video moment I've seen all year. The internet community needs more people demonstrating that, instead of dying on the hill of half-baked fan theories.
12:07, Marta holding the stones could show how she’s not one for the flashy forms that traditionally come with learning how to properly play this game. She plays how she wants with her own comfort.
I just realised at 22 seconds when shows the scene when Beniot Blanc and Marta first meet and Blanc looks down, he sees the blood on her shoes. Later at the end when Marta asks him since when did he know she was part of the death, he says from the first time I met you. I think that kind of little attention to detail is so awesome.
The play by black at F8 is extremely logical in Go. When white played at G6 the black stones at E6,F6, and F7 are basically under attack - that group only has one liberty - at F8. By playing at F8 it connects that group to the stones at E8,F9, and G8 bringing the total group to 3 liberties. If Black had not played at F8, white could have played there next capturing the three stones and rejoining his two sides.
Marta's move in between her own stones is a classic move. I played go for years, and it is just a defense of the 3 L shaped stones that he could have captured. It is possible there are different versions of go, but the way I learned was that a stone can be placed surrounded if it captures immediately that turn.
yeah but its just wrong. She literally names the game as Go while she is being asked questions by Benoit in the beginning of the movie. There is no way they were NOT playing Go.
Wow, this video taught me that the game I used to know as "Go" is actually "Gomoku" (for some reason thats how my chess buddies who taught me to play it long time ago called it). So I was strongly confused by the movie, the same way you pointed that Harlan could win the game at 22:20. Also, the rules of "Go" as you described them are the same for what we call "Dots" (though we shamefully disrespect the game as a casual pastime during boring lectures, we just draw dots on a grid of notebook papers)
I'm glad to see that someone spoke on this. I play Go, myself, however I am still quite a beginner at the game. I've been wanting to talk about this scene in "Knives Out" since I saw it, but never quite knew how. I'm glad that someone like you was able to make this video. I find it's quite a good video and a good explanation of what is going on both in the game and throughout the movie.
This really made my Christmas. I love for in-depth analysis like this, and I sincerely empathize with making an assumption and running with it the way you did when you thought they were playing Gomoku. I was on board the whole time.
This really had me worked up. He goes on and on about how her move doesn't make sense and it's a terrible move unless she's playing a completely different game and I'm just screaming, "it's literally her only move." Why gaslight us for a joke?
One thing I liked is how they got what looks like a traditional Japanese set of stones for the game. You can get plastic and glass stones a bunch of places, but the clamshell(white) and slate(black) stones in the movie are quite nice and depending on the origin of the clamshell can be quite rare. It seems like the kind of set a successful author would pick up. Though the little bags he's got them in are a bit lame.
@@laurysong131 Japan has its own traditions around Go boards, pieces, and playing etiquette too. Go traditions aren't exclusively Chinese. The shell & slate stones from the movie are totally Japanese. But I guess you'd be right if you consider about 2000 years of playing Go to be venerable tradition and about 1200-1500 years to be newfangled and unconventional.
This video hit my nerd nerve like nothing else I've watched in a while. Probably like a lot of people I thought Go was the same as Othello, and I had no idea about the other games using the same board. Shout out to Ryan too!
I'll be honest my entire knowledge of Go is "That one game they play in movies to make metaphors" so 30 minutes of analysis for 20 seconds of game basically sums up my experience with it.
This is one of my favorite movie video essays that Ive ever seen. Really well-thought out, and features a better explanation of playing Go than other tutorials Ive read/watched. On top of that, the presentation was gripping. I really wanted to see where you were going with this and was not disappointed. Great video!
I have a 19x19 Go board that I got in high school and rarely find people to play with, but I love it. I don’t think I’ve ever won a single game of chess, but I can hold my own against other amateur Go players pretty well, and I think it has a lot to do with the artistry of it. It’s more intuitive to me in a way chess never was.
@@irrelevant_noob I'm aware! I've used them before, but I get unnerved by the impersonal barrier of online gaming and I never play as well. If I can't physically sit across from someone, I just get anxious and overthink.
@@RealLukeWilson oh, true, it might be a little different when playing face-to-face, but not too noticeable IMO. Unless they're not into it, then they might get bored and start to shuffle around in their seat, but IMO any decent player will just take the time to analyze the board themselves. But really, all i was trying to do was to get you _exposed_ to more matches, in a highly inconsequential way ( there's really nothing bad that would come out of losing a bunch of online games, or out of running out of time in them :-) ). Another alternative would be to just do some problems, i found them enjoyable, before i got to more complex ones that would need too much branching and appraisal of situations. I knew i already sucked at chess, why would i drown myself in something with an even broader tree? 🤪
As a side note, I like how the game they played shows each of their perspectives on what a family means, as well. Harlan is "playing family" to "win", as is the rest of the Thrombey family. Marta just wants to protect her family because that is the whole point. Edit: Actually, that makes Ransoms comment more interesting as well, since he's basically saying: "Huh, I thought I was the only one who could defeat him at the game of "Family".
I have not finished the video yet so ignore me if this has been addressed, but the penultimate move (G6) threatens her entire position because he could take a way three stones (at E6 F6 F7) and play where black plays it's last move (F8). If that was to happen, white would be able to win the game again. If I was in that position I would have had to play into my own territory as well. 22:56 so this looks like GO to me alright.
That's correct. When Marta self fills, her chain only has 3 liberties against Harland's 2 liberties, with Harland to move. You'd have to read it out, but it's prime material for a capturing race. Just like his suicide, Harland throws in the towel early. E: Harland should lose the race, he was correct to give up. Harland can extend to c8 to have 3 liberties, but a cap at c9 is enough to maintain the advantage for black.
I loved the slow burn/transition into the 'Blanc Style' Commentary, this whole video a pleasant stroll to the terminus of gravity's rainbow if i do say so myself.
Go reminds me a lot of the Art of War in that it’s less about destruction/capture and more about controlling territory but also the opponent. It’s a very different mindset to other games. It’s fascinating how such a “simple” game actually requires very good strategic thinking and long term planning.
The first video I saw of yours was explaining to die seen in pirates of the caribbean. Even your old content is very watchable. Here's a new subscription for you.
14:22 this might be a mistake, but I thought that that stone was on f3, not g3, since the stone that was placed was 1 intersection away from the string.
At 15:21 you say it's impossible unless Harlan passed on a turn. So he did. He lets her win, just like he lets Random win. It's his little game he plays with them both to say they are his favorite. Ransom is like he was, and he wanted Ransom to be his successor. But after being with Marta, he realized the things he should have done to have been a better father, and none of that is who he is. In other words, who Ransom is. He plays Go with Marta because he plans to give it all to who he is striving to be. The game is how he communicates.
The Sonic the Hedgehog underwater panic sound when the size of the Go board starts to be appreciated was an amazing Easter egg and a fitting tribute to the movie's ability to do the same. Nice!
I've played Go competitively for over a decade. I believe that there are 2 reasons that Marta began the game by slamming the stone with her thumb and index finger: 1. Contextually, she is frustrated and playing with Harlan reluctantly so she wants to express this with her body language and also wants to play quickly to get him to sleep. 2. Honestly most of the casual/noncompetitive games are played with thumb & index, at least where I'm from. It's usually when you want to show respect or want to play more seriously/formally that we'd use 2 fingers.
Marta smashes down the first stone, fed up with Harlan's childish nonsense - why should she daintily hold the pieces? Fantastic video by the way, the Go scene has always been my favourite and now I know why. Great work!
holy shit! when i first started watching this video, i saw the go board and immediately tried to recall the game me and my friends used to play on the graphed blackboard in high school. it wasn't go, because the rules were different, but i couldn't remember any specifics. and then you said "gomoku" and i just shot up. where i'm from it's called omok (오목) and it's a super common game. anyway as someone who's interested in both game design and storytelling, this was a wonderful video.
The scene from 20:10 to 24:00 perplexed me for quite some time too. I couldn't figure out why you thought the move was so strange to the point of believing that she was playing an entirely separate game. It's literally the simplest most obvious move she could play in reaction to Harlan's move. It's no stranger than moving your king out of danger in chess, if your opponent checks you. Fortunately you explain that in the next section of the video!
I love what you did with the chess scene in Sherlock Holmes. I found another scene in interview with the vampire, the series, episode 6. I'm not a chess player so it may not work out as the other one but I thought I'd mention it. Keep up the amazing work!
I'd like to point out that during the scene when they discover the morphine overdose, we see Harlan get a notebook and write something down as he's talking about how this would be an interesting method of murder. Earlier he had mentioned, regarding ransom, "there's so much of me in that kid". We presume he's doing as he said, but wouldn't it be curious if Harlan had figured out what was going on, as he is a great mystery writer after all, and wrote down ransom's name in the notebook. Ransom, on the other hand, may not be a great mystery writer but he is certainly familiar with ways to murder and potentially get away. Purely speculation, as it's never touched upon later in the film and I'm sure Rian Johnson would have been clever enough to do that if that had been his intention.
Regarding the discussion at 15:21 about the extra stone Marta plays, it is actually an impossible situation by the standard rules. There's no way any stones could have been captured at that point because there's no fully surrounded areas on the board.
While that bit about capturing is correct, that's not the only way it could've happened, "by the standard rules". There's absolutely no reason why white couldn't have just made a random pass move before this position. :-B
@@irrelevant_noob That's true, but like Eric, I just can't see Harlan ever choosing to pass when he never wins. You might pass out of arrogance, but while Harlan does stupid things, he's not stupid overall.
@@tavoreparan8091 true, but "doesn't make literary sense" isn't quite enough to warrant Glenn's statement that "it is actually an impossible situation by the standard rules". :-B
You want to talk about Harlan playing short-sightedly? How about when at the end it's revealed that if he had just been willing to trust Marta and wait for an ambulance, he would still be alive? But no. He needed to be in control of the situation. He didn't want to play the game out and lose, he wanted to flip the board and go out with a bang.
This makes me wanna get my big ol' Go board out again. Such a cool game! Also, gods, time to watch this movie again, too. Maybe I can do both at once! 😋 Anyway- Wicked rad analysis!! You really had me hook-line-and-sinker with the claim that it's not really Go. 😂
Someone once tried to explain to me the difference in the victory philosophy between Go and Chess. I only played Chess and thus had no concept on the game of Go. But she simplified it enough to make me appreciate the difference in approach to a victory. Chess - Victory is achieved with strategic aggression to trap/capture one key piece. Go - Victory is achieved by building, expanding, and supporting your empire while limiting your opponents territorial empire expansion. Ever since, I've had desires to play more Go and I don't know why.
It's pretty likely the scene is also making a manga reference to Vagabond. In chapter 50, a young woman beats an old man at go and he flips the board while she calls him a sore loser. The characters even have similar hairstyles.
![Lethal Company Music Video 🎵 "Follow The Orders" [VERSION A]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/QeooZB4Z7RA/mqdefault.jpg)
Him knocking over the go game rather than lose is also what he does with his death. The important difference though is that he’s willing to nuke a nonserious game to not let Marta win, but willing to nuke a serious situation and his own life to protect Marta and let her “win.”
That is also what literally kills him, too. Had he simply allowed Martha to call the ambulance and do her thing, he would absolutely have survived (as is revealed later in the movie). But he had to win the game, and he had to make things unfold as he intended to, even to the point of covering up what he thought was a manslaughter.
not only that, but Random also does this in the end. He is willing to destroy the game (= kill Martha) in order to ensure she doesn't win
Since Go doesn't have set starting sides on a board like some other boardgames I don't know whether it matters but from a visual storytelling perspective I find it relevant that she sits beside Harlan, not opposite him. She's playing with him, not against him.
Love that point
go is a game of conflict but since it starts empty and both players make constant decisions on where to play, it slowly becomes as some sort of canvas where both players draw their thoughts on how to build their structures, so there are a lot of games where the players could be like "ill take left, you take the right" without much confrontation
@@sebastianbal1008 as a go player I've heard it described in some of the first tutorials I watched as "a game about sharing", which is how I play. Winning involves making strategic choices of how to give your opponent some region or group that they want, and think you want, when really you were using it to buy time for something more important to you. I tell my dad "it's a game about sharing, and I make sure to share so that I win" when we play :)
I also really liked that.
Very few games are able to be played that way, and it looked great on film.
In a conceptual movie like this, nothing can be considered totally accidental.
Production houses don't like to not see the face of actors, they pay a lot to have a pretty face on screen and the want theirs money's worth
19x19 board = grand epic, a multi-decade war
13x13 board = single battle between two opposing armies, like a game of chess
9x9 board = knife fight in a telephone booth
"knife fight in a telephone booth" I bust out laughing
9x9 = alleyway knife fight
@@TheSamuelCish zero room to maneuver and it's over very quickly. Definitely less space than what's available in an alleyway.
I thought of the 9x9 like sparring but that’s pretty funny🤣
@@Swingingbells I think you should google "Capt. Raoul de Vere vs Col. Barbier-Dufai, of Paris."
I love Marta and Harlan's friendship. Despite the gap in age, in power, they treat each other as equals and you can tell they're important to each other and I love it so, so dearly.
I love how you only really see Harlan being himself when he's with her in his study, theres no pretense, no fear of offending each other, they are both very comfortable in each others presence, which is probably really refreshing for Harlan because everyone else in his family seem to be present and nice because they want a share of his empire, Marta was the only one that didn't want his empire which is why she deserved it
True that!
I honestly think that friendship with Marta is what Harlan thought his entire family needed. He told Marta how he should've been kinder to his family, basically telling her that he can't do what she can. (also represented by their Go rivalry)
I feel so bad for her bc she was tricked into killing her best friend
How did Meg know about Marta's mom?
I’m sure someone else has said this, but the fact that Marta’s second move is to go “behind enemy lines” is also an incredible parallel to her actions later in the film; working to keep her family safe while working WITH Blanc (even though he essentially functions as a potential “enemy”) instead of taking the safer move to stay out of the investigation as much as possible and stick to “her side.”
Yes good point! Also, Marta (when realising she 'messed up') said that by 5 minutes good ol grandpa should experience symptomps of the overdose: 'sweats, headaches and confusion'. Yet, he himself said 8 minutes have passed BUT he wasnt sweating at all and he could think clearly, indicating that he in fact did not get the wrong medication. He could be 2 minutes away from death and he looked just fine. 3 minutes have passed after the indicated time for symptomps, without any.... that was a pretty big hole in the doughnut too
@@user-wz5py9kf7i except it's not a hole. It's a clue for the truth
@@user-wz5py9kf7iI believe that when he said the 8 minutes line, he meant he had 8 minutes LEFT, meaning only 2 minutes had passed
And blanc means white! Ermagherddd :o
TBF Blanc didn't give her much choice about that - she's not manipulative enough to find an easy way to get out of helping him, especially as he knows she can't lie without vomiting.. But yes, she's one of the ones with the most to lose/fear from the police but she treats them (and everyone!) far nicer than the family do, who like the entitled (formerly) rich people they are expect the police to work to the family's convenience/orders, rather than deferring to them. Another way of showing us she's a better person than the Thromby clan
The Go motif is something that I don't think I've seen anyone else talk about in this movie, so I'm glad to see someone talk about it. The symbolism the reason for why Marta can win when the Thrombleys can't is a sort of foreshadowing for the qualities that Marta has that the rest lack. Go is a game about support and safety rather than pure aggression.
I think it's funny they show Ransem holding chess pieces in the game, definitely seems like more of a chess kind of guy
"Go is a game about support and safety rather than pure aggression." - Clearly you don't play on fox or tygem 😜
It also funnily foreshadows the ending, I think. I don't know anything about Go, but I think it's worth noting how as the video put it "You determine if a move is illegal AFTER you determine whether pieces have been removed from the board."
@@godave8934 I'm only 2d on Tygem, probably because I'm not aggressive enough...
@@ilanpi 😆 - tbh, more likely because you are not used to the constant and relentless aggression and overplays yet 😉.
A friend used to (when I was 2-3d myself and raging about how stupid they played and still won ^^) tell me "all you need to do up to 7d is not die!" - I am 8d now and I can confirm 😜.
I just kind of had an epiphany while watching this and now I'm curious what you may think of this. Marta placed that black piece at the center of a round shape (well diamond, but it's go so a circle) with a hole in the center. You know, like a donut... It's a donut. She's the hole in the hole.
HOLY SHIT
NO WAY
You fkn did. You blanc mf, you fkn did it!!
She filled the hole in the center of the donut ahhhh brilliant
Whoa
My absolutely favourite thing about this film is that Marta comes out on top *because she's a good person*. She genuinely wants to help others, while everyone else wants to help themselves. It's a trait I rarely see rewarded in film (outside of children's "power of friendship" cartoons) when so many "clever" characters are treated as clever because they're a conniving asshole who screwed over every other character. Marta is such a refreshing take from that - she's genuine and kind, and sticking to her values is what wins her the fortune. I see this reflected pretty nicely in the game of go. She sticks to her values of creating a beautiful pattern, rather than taking Harlan's aggressive bait. No matter how much the other family members try and threaten her, she still sticks to her values, because she has so much integrity.
The above is the reason why I adore Knives Out's writing. It has so much nuance, and is easily one of the best written films from the last few years. Although I still really enjoyed Glass Onion, and it had all the cleverness and sleuthing of the first film, I did find that it somewhat lacked the moral core that made Knives Out one of my favourite films.
Anyway, great video!!
Yeah, the way she plays reminds me of how I play with my niece and nephew. Leaving enough open to give them a fighting chance and let them learn, but not so much that you can't take back control. How Harlan plays doesn't make as much sense if he's been playing as long as it's implied that he has unless he just doesn't "get" the game.
I did enjoy Knives out more than Glass onion but Glass Onion has an entirely different theme. Knives out centers around clever selfish people playing games to win which gets unraveled when someone doesn’t play by their game while Glass Onion is about a bunch of stupid billionaires who have built a cult of personality around themselves trying to hide that they’re not smarter than everyone else and it all burns down when someone sees right through them.
Just like Knives out is themed around Go, Glass Onion is themed around the puzzle box. In both cases the winner is the one that refuses to play their opponent’s game
I like both i think it just have different moral value to teach, glass onion shows us what we looked like if we let go of our moral to follow money and power, the shitheads have miles' leases around their necks but they can't stop licking his shoe even if they know it fulls of shit. Helen, like martha, is the carrier of the moral values. The sacrifice, the courage and the drive to do the unthinkable to stop greater damage. A girl who live an ordinary life and looked plain compared to the rest of the characters did the thing they wish they did themselve: flip a bird or two to an asshole tyrant and showed him "No. This ends now."
Actually I think she planned the whole thing to take all the inheritance.
I think it's good, though, that Helen is a very different character than Marta, as it's less repetitive that way. Both have a virtue not shared by the rest of the cast. For Marta, it's obviously her kindness, but for Helen, it's her courage. She tells Benoit that she's scared, and she is well aware of the danger, but she goes to the island anyway to get justice for her sister. Meanwhile, much like the Thrombeys lacked compassion for anyone other than themselves, the Disruptors/Shitheads (save Andi) didn't have enough courage to stop Miles no matter how bad he got. Even after they know he killed two of them! But Helen proves herself to be the real disruptor when she breaks the system itself - that is to say, Miles and his hold over everyone. And with his "golden titties" dried up, the others are free to testify against him and get Andi justice.
So yeah, she's not the same as Marta - but that's a good thing.
The final move Marta makes is also filling the hole that was created by this situation. As Benoît Blanc later mentions, the whole case is a doughnut as the center is missing, and even when you think you've explained it, the mystery still remains. But Marta is the key to the mystery, her playing according to her own rules and following her moral values is what allows the truth to finally come out. I see it as a foreshadowing that she is the central, and missing piece of the mystery/doughnut.
I love this comment
So you're saying it's a... Go-nut hole.
omg stop this is an amazing catch!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I came here to say this, and I was surprised that the video didn’t mention it and that your comment wasn’t the top one.
“A donut-shaped hole”
It expect that they consulted a very good go player to reverse engineered a smart way for an elegant win to occur using that move.
This is not a mysterious move. it's one of the few moves that just made sense in that game. The three stones were in atari and she connected them to prevent them from being captured.
And Harlan didn't need to play that connection before that because cutting there would have been self-atari so he could have just captured instantly.
Another thing I love about this scene is how we see Marta being completely at ease with Harlan. The rest of the movie, she’s nervous either being watched over by the press or people who see themselves as superior to her. But here she’s with someone she loves and is completely comfortable with. They laugh and smile and play argue. So beautiful. ❤
MASSIVE additional point: it's traditional for the stronger player to use white. This might suggest that Harland still thinks he's a stronger player than Marta. Or more likely they don't play with others much. Either way, the first move advantage is worth at least 5 points even on a 9x9 board (depending on the players), so he's giving up a lot!
I'd be surprised if they're not playing with the standard modern handicap though, which makes the sides considerably more balanced (white gets 6.5 points for free is the usual amount these days).
at this point in the movie, even if she doesn't know it, he has already given her the advantage.
Could also be a social commentary. Like socially he’s just innately more powerful than her. He’s a white man with an insane amount of wealth and her boss at the end of the day. Yet he can never seem to truly best her despite the fact he has every at advantage.
I read it as ego. He doesn't just want to win, he wants to win from the harder position. But he doesn't simply want to win, or he'd take the first move advantage... He wants to assert dominance.
So you have to arm wrestle to decide who is white. Got it
There's some more really clever ideas in the game I spotted too! Harlan's long chain of stones is called a "Dragon" in go terms. He's got a single huge white dragon without roots. This shape has a lot of what's called, "Influence" in go strategy - it makes its presence felt all over the board, influencing every other stone. It's possible he's what's known as a "fighting" player - someone who looks to kill enemy stones and win with sheer numbers. The movie also ends on the shot of the mug "my house, my rules" which is all about "taking territory" (the game Go is about taking territory). Marta is a territorial player that focuses on shape. Shape isn't just aesthetics in go, it's one of the three prime strategic dimensions (Territory, Influence, Shape). Shape in go represents not just beauty but efficiency and strength. Good shape has capacity to form eyes, which make stones immortal. There's a saying in go rich with metaphor for a murder mystery: "Two Eyes = Life, One Eye = Death"
There are other references to “two eyes” in the movie. “A donut hole in a donut hole”!
Thanks for the analysis, I'm suddenly very interested in Go
Even in this video you can see a clip of Harlan at his desk, he has two huge eye sculptures behind him, maybe a reference to this concept too!
@@JeffErickson also, the eyes watching over the shoulders in the office? All of the clutter that somehow has eyes that are locked on to one or two important characters?
@@andrewp6738 go with that instinct. It’s a fascinating game, utterly mesmerizing. If you want to dip your toe in, check out “Dan level showdown” on RUclips (it’s not me it’s two go teachers playing and explaining their moves- Dan is a rank). You won’t understand what they’re saying right away but they’ll give you a sense for the type of strategy in the game. Also, Hikaru no go is a delightful anime that repopularized the game.
I also noticed that they weren't holding the Go stones "correctly" during the scene. However, I thought this was primarily an oversight. Thinking about it, it might be that Harlan knows how to do it, but since it's only a game between friends and he didn't want to offend Marta or try to be stuffy about it he wasn't going to enforce the formalism of it. It could also be used to illustrate that Marta comes from a working class background and is therefore not as well versed in the superficial "ceremony" of the game but is still an excellent opponent despite that for a game that, like chess, does have an association with the upper reaches of society and those accompanying mannerisms.
Yes, that's what I assumed too when I noticed it. It gave me the impression that Harlan taught her this game to entertain himself, but she picked it up quickly (demonstrating her intelligence and adaptability), earned his respect and thus why it was such an important tradition for him that he was willing to be a brat about it and demand to play it. It made him notice and appreciate Marta as the gem she is. It reminded him he wasn't perfect and he found a true-blue friend through it.
i didn’t think about that but that makes total sense! that really does add to the genuineness of harlan and marta’s friendship, thanks for your observation.
Yes, I assumed it was because she was self taught, probably only playing with him.
to the point of Knives Out being endlessly rewatchable even once you know the ending- I actually never got to experience this movie blind to the killer. It got spoiled to me months in advance to my first watch through a reposted tumblr meme, so I watched the entire film trying to figure out _how_ the ending would come about rather than the _who_ of it all.
It still, instantly, became one of my favourite movies
Same, but honestly that's why I'm not as averse to spoilers as most people are. Good media should be able to keep you enthralled and entertained more than once, and knowing spoilers effectively just makes you view the media from the perspective of a second, third, etc experience. Knives Out is a good movie, so it means knowing the destination doesn't ruin the journey; you continue to take the trip and see and appreciate new things even though it's the same roads, same place.
That’s the Columbo structure: we know who did it from the beginning. We’re just watching to see how the detective figures it out. And that detective structure still works, as evidenced by how great Columbo was.
I didn't even NOTICE they played Go in the movie
It’s great to know my favorite creator watches my favorite hidden gem creator!
Heyyoo Harris
I love hbomb. I wish he was real.
lol Ryan said the EXACT same thing to me
@@matthiasmccormack3213 true
My favorite part of this is that the movie doesn’t exonerate Harlan, even though he is nice to Marta. The fact that he too is condemned as in some way responsible for the family’s dysfunction is so cool
There's a big difference between the mentality of people who play Chess vs people who play Go. Chess is about sacrificing your "lesser" pieces to achieve a tactical advantage over their opponent, whereas Go is about pieces coming together to surround your opponent. There are no greater or lesser pieces in Go, no pieces that are more valuable than others, but their power comes in how they're positioned. It leads to two very different mentalities. It's very telling that Marta and Harlan play Go, while I'm almost positive the rest of the family plays chess.
The rest of the family plays checkers, where you start out with no greater or lesser pieces, but the entire point is to take enough pieces that you get promoted into a "king" status to lord it over everyone else and wipe the board of your enemies.
That is a pretty cool take, but chess can also be about pieces coming together to surround the enemy king, and Go can be about sacrificing stones for other advantages. The mentalities of the players of these games are diverse.
I think that doesn't describe chess very well. Greater pieces are sacrificed too. I would say the larger difference is that chess is more tactical and calculating, while Go is more strategic. Chess is a metaphor of battle, coordination of force. Go is a metaphor of empire, coordination of influence.
You're right about the different mentality, but the 'sacrifice' part is not what make it different. I'm playing chess for about 6 years now and started playing go from a few months ago.
The biggest difference is in how the player see the playing field. Go player will have more understanding on the big picture, how each piece contribute to the team, without even looking like they did anything at all.
Chess is more tactically oriented than Go. Chess player can more easily adapt to the smaller part of go playing, like life and death, where you should defend/attack a corner or sides of the board.
While Go doesn't have a sacrifice concept like chess. For each moves in Go, you choose something and forsaking something else. "I choose the right top corner over the center, because it's more stable, but giving my opponent a chance to stabilize their position in the center" is one of the example of the decision you make playing Go
The chess vs go thing is actually explicit. I can't remember which characters appear in such shots, but the chessboard is definitely there a lot.
His desperate need for tactical control, versus Marta's compassionate strategic thinking, is also why he ends up dead. If he had just done what she said, he'd have lived. She "wins" because she's better at Harlan's life than Harlan is. He doesn't even think through the results of his death correctly. Of course there was going to be a tox report, and that would have ruined his whole plan. Too busy not thinking, just "controlling" even at that point. So she lives, she takes the house, the fortune, and even considers helping his family. She's him, but smarter and better.
Incredible that he was *just* acknowledging Marta was right about so many things, right before refusing her advice that would have saved her life.
As you were just going about how Marta wasn't actually playing go, I was just trying to shut my head saying "n-no, is actually a very valid move and a good one" because I knew it had to go somewhere, it had to. And it did! Glad to see it described as a very elegant move. ❤
I was looking at that like "I would be more surprised if she *didn't* play that"
I was very relieved by the cut to Ryan.
I actually thought Harlan's move at that point was pretty bad.
@23:40 is the timestamp to avoid it in the future and just get back to Go
It's so perfect because it mirrors the movie. The reveal that Marta is "not the murderer" was the twist reveal halfway through the movie, the donut hole inside the donut, but in reality, there was a smaller donut hole *inside* that donut hole.
This point bothered me about this video. To much time is spent with Lord being baffled by this very basic move which is just the correct response to an Atari. It made the middle portion of the video hard to watch for me.
My favorite way to describe Go is that there's one objective, get territory, and one rule, fully surrounded pieces get captured, and anything beyond that is clarifying that rule. The rest of the game follows. It really is beautiful.
actually you dont even need the territory part, because territory is acquired only through the applied capturing rule (where if you played in a spot its basically suicide so its pointless ergo that area is the opposing player's territory.)
Forgot the KO RULE
@@NaihanchinKempo my point exactly, ko clarifies a nuance of capturing.
You forgot the Ko rule but yes.
That's why I love it too
Actually, that's incorrect. Go is about influence, shape, territory comes with good play. Except if you're a very strong territorial player, but they are exceptional.
honestly, knowing the relationship between harlan and marta, and the context of the situation, it makes sense that the pieces are played out of order. they're good friends who play go together often, presumably every time they meet (since it's an important tradition to harlan). the decision to play in a nine by nine grid is decided by marta, who initially tries to leave because she's had a drink and she wants to go home after the party, so it's a purposefully faster game. the fact that they're not using the typical hand position also illustrates the casualness of the game, since they don't care if they jostle the pieces around. they've also played together so much that the game goes by super quickly, an effect achieved with all the time skips. while the skipped pieces could be a mistake of the filming or the edit, it can also reflect their relationship and how casual they are that, at this point, they can play games out of order, because they know each other that well. another thing it might reflect is the fact that harlan overthinks. maybe he's passing because he's taking up too much time thinking of how to beat her, while she's just following her instinct and knowledge. similarly, he becomes so consumed with the idea of the suicide plan to protect marta that he doesn't stop to note whether or not he's experiencing any symptoms. she lists out how long it'll take for symptoms to appear, and if they had waited those five, ten, fifteen minutes it would've taken for the overdose to start, even if they didn't call 911, they would've realized that it wasn't happening. the fact that he overthinks so much in order to try and win that he passes up opportunities to do so is reflective of the fact that he is willing to end his own life and give up everything he could do with what remains of it (he's only 85, and he's relatively healthy and very well off, so he has a decent chance of making it to 100) in order to complete a plot that came to his head, fully formed.
I’m sure this was a coincidence, but in Korea, the empty space that you capture with your stones is called a “house.” With how many times the motif as the Thrombey house comes up as the symbolic object of Harlan’s wealth, Harlan’s comment that Marta is better at Go than Ransom is kept feeling like a nod to the fact that Marta will be getting the house over Ransom.
Today I learned that Cathedral, the one board game I grew up playing, was Go with buildings.
Ironically, I used to drive my older siblings nuts by playing to build a "nice city" rather than to win. (My family was pretty toxic and, as both the youngest and the only girl, I wasn't supposed to be able to beat anyone else. I did not like the nasty consequences of winning, so I found other goals. I guess that's part of why I love Knives Out.)
That reminds me of Data in Star Trek next gen. His goal was to beat someone in a board game but felt inferior for being a robot but not being able to beat a human (a very emotional reaction it turns out). He found while he couldn't beat the guy as he could play nonsensically forever while the opponent would get impatient and straight up forfeit. Annoying the opponent into submission is a great strategy. I hope you're doing OK now.
Cathedral is such a great game!!! If you enjoyed it you should definitely check out go! There are wonderful friendly beginner-focused communities
Re: the reasons they're fighting (27:30)
Most of the family is fighting because they're realizing that what they have to lose is something that was never really theirs in the first place. They're fighting to keep a lifestyle they were lucky to be born into, that they were given for no good reason. And they're VERY upset at the idea that it could be taken away just as easily.
Marta is fighting just to keep what she has. She doesn't even want the inheritance, she just wants to be left alone.
Also I think where Ransom comes into this is that he, like Harlan is very skilled at the game of control. The rest of the family lack foresight and act impulsively while Ransom is very collected and comes up with a clever and sound plan to defeat Harlan. He was the only one clever enough to fight back and he was evenly matched with Harlan. Ultimately the person who defeats him is Marta for the same reason she constantly beat Harlan.
Your descent into a Blanc monologue was excellently done.
I saw him saying 'it's basically over' as a last ditch effort to try to lower her defenses into thinking she's got nothing to worry about, even though he knew she would probably still be smart enough to put that black piece there anyways. His tone was playful, but even at that point he came across as pretty cutthroat and that seemed exactly the kind of things someone like him would do.
"cut throat" no pun intented, im guessing??
@@leyab230 no 🤣 I wish I did that intentionally
@@VultRoos "I wish I did that intentionally"
Freud would say that you did.
Nice video. I know it's fairly standard to think of the competing territories in Go as empires, but I regard them more as communities. There is no entrenched hierarchy as there is in say, chess, and each stone has equal value in the bowl. It is how they connect and support each other on the board that makes them strong. Additionally, Go will punish a player for being too greedy or aggressively expansionist, rather than being satisfied with a smaller victory.
There is much more entrenched hierarchy in Go: between the player (emperor) and the faceless, interchangeable, pieces. In chess, the player has an avatar of themselves on the board (king).
@@ricobarth That is an interesting perspective, though not one I think I agree with. In both games the player has absolute power over their pieces, but cannot change the nature of the game. From the perspective of the pieces, the player is more like a force of nature or law of physics than another piece, so can't rightly be seen as part of the hierarchy. Additionally, though it's tempting to see the King as an avatar of the player, the player suffers no damage when checkmated and imparts nothing of themselves to the power and nature of the King.
However, even assuming the King is such an avatar, that doesn't change the fact that it is at the top of the hierarchy by declaration of the rules, not because it is particularly valuable. Consider a position where a player could, if play continued after checkmate, sacrifice their King in order to capture the entire opposing force. The King is a slow-moving piece and this seems like a very good deal, but you can't do it because the rules say that the King is infinitely valuable. In Go, no such inequalities between pieces exist. If one can sacrifice one stone or ten stones or a hundred in order to capture a greater territory, nothing about which particular stones are on the board will change that.
20:30 I want to point out that stones can not be diagonally connected and the spaces diagonally adjacent to the stones dont count as liberty,so that group was in "atari"(atari means its about to be captured-it had only 1 liberty)so Marta basically saved the group before it got captured.That move makes sense because if she wants to capture the white group ,she has to save her own group first
Yes, this. It is actually the most obviously sensible move- otherwise, black's group is captured and white's split groups connect. I almost stopped watching this video when he started saying they weren't playing go. That was a very very long tangent for something that was completely wrong.
@@NM-tm4dz You missed the rest of the video :p
Also I don’t believe Harlan even allows her to finish the game properly, he intercepts based on his diagnosis an leaps of logic of the games trajectory; a wonderful depiction of his short comings and Marta’s strengths. While both are pragmatic and sensible people, Harlan often makes baseless assumptions, approaching each event with the intention to capture as much territory as possible that he assumes the idea he has already claimed “territory” and so he loses sight of what’s directly in front of him (his lack of overdose symptoms, Ransom’s rage, that his family would thank him), meanwhile Marta approaches each moved with the choices already laid before her. She does not act beyond her existing options, and always chooses the most sure footed route, the most honest route. Instead of spiralling into the potential consequences of Harlan’s dying on her watch, instead of self preserving, she moves to protect her territory, instead of thinking about how it looks like she killed Fran she stays to help her. Because the board wasn’t a territory, and Harlan’s pieces weren’t her enemy - they were weavings into her larger pattern. She essentially included his moves in her own. She worked with the choices presented to her.
This also comments on her working class status vs his wealthy one.
6:33 The territory in the right of the board is "mutual death". who controls this space depends on who's turn it is. If it's black's turn, they capture the bottom 3 white stones. If it's white's turn, they capture the big group. A real game would probably not finish like this or the automatic scoring on an online thing might arbitrarily decide one group is dead.
Thank you. I was hoping someone pointed out that the scored board in the demonstration was not great. It had the basic concepts, but it did not do well with the details (as large as they might be to anyone who plays the game).
I do hope that and encourage people to try playing the game. It's a beautiful game. The rules are pretty simple ( I believe there is a version of the rules where there is only three rules), but the game itself is complex. It's quick to learn and a lifetime to master.
Yeah. I decided I would skim the comments before mentioning this myself. It is a shame that he set up a position that is invalid.
@@JeddHampton I see this on reddit a bunch. "why did I lose here? Shouldn't I get points for all these pieces."
@@TerriSchurter it's not invalid. It's just one of the players passed when someone should have captured. It happens all the time with beginners.
@@MoonRock-ij8ni so, technically, all is well and the example is perfect, ;) it just means that two players playing for a first time made both the suboptimal move of passing ;) the game ended in a legal position that would be rare for players that played a few times more ;)
I just love Marta as a character, a protagonist, and an underdog so much. I wish more media celebrated humble and intelligent characters like her and put them in the spotlight.
I lost it when you dropped that Blanc line "it makes no dame sense! It compels me though." lol great video!
Subscribed!
Harlan: I don't know how you beat me at this every time.
Marta: I'm not trying to beat you. I'm creating a beautiful pattern.
She wins by being herself. Even when she doesn’t realize it or isn’t trying to… that’s how Marta will win. She leaves too much a presence on the right side of the scale
Marta's final move was just filling in the hole of the donut.
another part for her ending play is that in the same way Harlon doesn't see it coming, Ransom didn't think Marta would stays to try and save Fran even if it could put herself in danger
Hey ! I came here from the go community. Didn't see the movie beforehand, so I did exactly as you said, I paused the video, watched the movie tonight, then finished the video.
The movie was really cool, and your video is very nice. Thank you very much for the time and attention that you put into it, and seeing Ryan Li featured was so great, this guy is a jewel with such a great energy.
ps : loved the gomoku part even if the move in question makes absolute total sense ^^
Another symbolic point to note is that Marta fills in the donut hole on the go board. Just how she fills in the missing narrative that blanc is trying to figure out. Foreshadowing as well as showing the difference in character
Very interesting video! I hadn't noticed just how much of an allegory their match was to how they lived their lives.
Also, I'm a little perturbed that I was taught Gomoku as Go. I spent four years playing the game under the wrong name and had no idea! So thanks for correcting that old error in my life 😂
Since you can place stones anywhere in gomoku, it actually used a lot of the same shape tricks as Go! You might be better at Go than you expect! It's also a travesty that clubhouse 51 games on switch has gomoku but not Go!
@@andriypredmyrskyy7791 Not going to lie, I do want to try rope a couple of friends into learning how to play Go so we can have a few matches.
I think I probably lost more often than I won back at the club where we played Gomoku as Go. So I'm probably not all that good.
That said, on My Time at Portia, there's a Gomoku mini game, I can usually win that.
It doesn't seem right that Gomoku is available on some of these games when Go isn't. They use the exact same assets!
@andriypredmyrskyy7791 i was super disappointed about that too. I imagine itd be relatively easy to have both go and gomoku as an option but ig my only way to play go now is either find a different version of it online or try and rope an unsuspecting friend into learning with me lol.
Always loved that board game scene and immediately noticed how much it explored Martha and Harlan’s styles both in the game and in life. But i never understood go so couldn’t really confirm.
My favorite minor detail in the movie was the fact that none of the family members could get Marta's country of origin right. They all said different countries each time
You channeled detective Blanc very well in your Gomoku monologue.
also, the japanese rules for scoring don’t count the pieces you have on the board (only the enclosed empty spaces), while the chinese rules do count the stones as points
Putting a black piece in the center of a ring of black pieces is also kind of like putting a donut hole in a donut, so maybe that means something 🤔
I love this niche series you have going on at your channel. Explaining game scenes from movies. The video essay on film genre has become pretty popular on youtube over the past few years, but you have still managed to keep your's unique and distinct from the crowd.
Martha needs to play on F8, and she does, because her three stones only have one liberty less. Remember that strings aren't connected diagonal. She isn't playing Pente or Alea Evangelii.
That would've been an awful move in either of those two games but it's a vital move in Go.
yes, thats exactly what I was thinking! Not playing there would have let him not only capture, but connect his two structures and winning wouldn't be too hard after that
@Sand CJW well... yeah, that was what the video said. Are you usually commenting something before watching all the way, and then _not going back to edit_ after finding out you really added nothing that might've been missing? :p
@@irrelevant_noob I got caught by that as well. The part of the game that occurs at is called "yosei" or basically endgame, and it's the most mechanical part of the game. The scene is filmed that way as well -- neither player spends any time thinking about those moves -- so the entire line of analysis just seems really silly. I get what he's trying to do, with the bait and switch, but it's not very satisfying because the full analysis ("he respects her intelligence") is such a stretch. It's like saying "now a normal person would think this knight is blocked, but in actuality the knight can jump over other pieces, so what appears to the uninitiated to be a safe position is actually checkmate!" Nobody who'd actually played the game would reach that conclusion, so it doesn't even make sense to consider meaningful.
The entire discussion is just so bizarre that I was tempted to comment before finishing the video, as was Sand CJW.
As soon as I heard him say that a play by Martha I knew he wasn't just a novice at go, he was a noob! F8 is the ONLY move Martha could make OR she will LOSE THE GAME! The previous move was not only strengthening the line of white stone, it was attacking Matha's 3 stones. With out the move at F8 not only will matra lose those three stones below it, but the 4 white stones beyond would be saved, and swing the game completely to whites favor. It is the ONLY move, and has to be played. --- It turned me off the video! for a few days before I calmed down enough to watch the rest! -- Later he says... perhaps I got a little carried away there. --- Under statement!
@@AntOfThy and what's more, it's not even a sincere attack by white. It's just settling the borders now that the fighting's all done.
At 6:26 when you show an example board, neither the black or white groups in the lower right are actually alive. They are both in atari (meaning with only one liberty left and able to be captured) with a single eye and the next player to play could kill their opponent's group and win the entire bottom right area and the game.
This board state is driving me up the wall.
Can't for the life of me figure out who was dumb enough to fill the last inside liberty.
That moment when you had worked out that alternate theory about what game they're playing, and went cherry-picking through the film to support it, only to realize it was all in your head and had to let it go, I think that was the best RUclips video moment I've seen all year. The internet community needs more people demonstrating that, instead of dying on the hill of half-baked fan theories.
12:07, Marta holding the stones could show how she’s not one for the flashy forms that traditionally come with learning how to properly play this game. She plays how she wants with her own comfort.
I just realised at 22 seconds when shows the scene when Beniot Blanc and Marta first meet and Blanc looks down, he sees the blood on her shoes. Later at the end when Marta asks him since when did he know she was part of the death, he says from the first time I met you. I think that kind of little attention to detail is so awesome.
First time I've laughed at a spoiler gate lol
You also managed to put a red herring in the explanation of a board game from a mystery movie?
Which?
Funny seeing you here, glad to see one of my favorite youtubers also likes a good media analysis
@@horserage The jokey rant about "they're not actually playing Go."
@@tortis6342 I meant the red herring part.
@@horserage yeah that IS the red herring. It’s an incorrect conclusion that draws our “detective” down the wrong trail for a while.
The play by black at F8 is extremely logical in Go. When white played at G6 the black stones at E6,F6, and F7 are basically under attack - that group only has one liberty - at F8. By playing at F8 it connects that group to the stones at E8,F9, and G8 bringing the total group to 3 liberties.
If Black had not played at F8, white could have played there next capturing the three stones and rejoining his two sides.
He explains this in the video, it's just showing his thought process
@@Nice__vibes my god, so it's just mostly fluff...
Marta's move in between her own stones is a classic move. I played go for years, and it is just a defense of the 3 L shaped stones that he could have captured. It is possible there are different versions of go, but the way I learned was that a stone can be placed surrounded if it captures immediately that turn.
I thoroughly enjoyed every second of this video especially the gomoku section and the conclusion.
yeah but its just wrong. She literally names the game as Go while she is being asked questions by Benoit in the beginning of the movie. There is no way they were NOT playing Go.
@@olivierbajet8851 we will split the difference and say they were playing house rules that made the game similar to gomoku.
@@olivierbajet8851 did you even watch this video all the way through?! o.O
As a Go player, when you went on your gomoku rant I started fuming. You raised and lowered my blood pressure in a matter of seconds, thanks.
Wow, this video taught me that the game I used to know as "Go" is actually "Gomoku" (for some reason thats how my chess buddies who taught me to play it long time ago called it). So I was strongly confused by the movie, the same way you pointed that Harlan could win the game at 22:20. Also, the rules of "Go" as you described them are the same for what we call "Dots" (though we shamefully disrespect the game as a casual pastime during boring lectures, we just draw dots on a grid of notebook papers)
I'm glad to see that someone spoke on this. I play Go, myself, however I am still quite a beginner at the game. I've been wanting to talk about this scene in "Knives Out" since I saw it, but never quite knew how. I'm glad that someone like you was able to make this video. I find it's quite a good video and a good explanation of what is going on both in the game and throughout the movie.
This really made my Christmas. I love for in-depth analysis like this, and I sincerely empathize with making an assumption and running with it the way you did when you thought they were playing Gomoku. I was on board the whole time.
For the weebs among us, Hikaru no Go is a fun shounen anime about Go that'll pump anybody up for mankind's greatest game.
This really had me worked up. He goes on and on about how her move doesn't make sense and it's a terrible move unless she's playing a completely different game and I'm just screaming, "it's literally her only move." Why gaslight us for a joke?
24:30 You had me until this moment. All the while, I was utterly confused because I was thinking "Isn't she just defending her 3 pieces or am I dumb"
One thing I liked is how they got what looks like a traditional Japanese set of stones for the game. You can get plastic and glass stones a bunch of places, but the clamshell(white) and slate(black) stones in the movie are quite nice and depending on the origin of the clamshell can be quite rare. It seems like the kind of set a successful author would pick up. Though the little bags he's got them in are a bit lame.
The traditional stones are Chinese, but yes
@@laurysong131 Japan has its own traditions around Go boards, pieces, and playing etiquette too. Go traditions aren't exclusively Chinese. The shell & slate stones from the movie are totally Japanese. But I guess you'd be right if you consider about 2000 years of playing Go to be venerable tradition and about 1200-1500 years to be newfangled and unconventional.
This video hit my nerd nerve like nothing else I've watched in a while. Probably like a lot of people I thought Go was the same as Othello, and I had no idea about the other games using the same board. Shout out to Ryan too!
Marta does actually say "We played our nightly game of Go" when she gives her recap of the night of Harlan's death.
dude it was super sick that you ascertained the truth of this matter
I'll be honest my entire knowledge of Go is "That one game they play in movies to make metaphors" so 30 minutes of analysis for 20 seconds of game basically sums up my experience with it.
This is one of my favorite movie video essays that Ive ever seen. Really well-thought out, and features a better explanation of playing Go than other tutorials Ive read/watched. On top of that, the presentation was gripping. I really wanted to see where you were going with this and was not disappointed. Great video!
Gosh I miss the thoughtful way you introduce and break down stuff!
I have a 19x19 Go board that I got in high school and rarely find people to play with, but I love it. I don’t think I’ve ever won a single game of chess, but I can hold my own against other amateur Go players pretty well, and I think it has a lot to do with the artistry of it. It’s more intuitive to me in a way chess never was.
There are online options where you can play go. Maybe not as many as there are for chess, but they're there. :-)
@@irrelevant_noob I'm aware! I've used them before, but I get unnerved by the impersonal barrier of online gaming and I never play as well. If I can't physically sit across from someone, I just get anxious and overthink.
@@RealLukeWilson oh, true, it might be a little different when playing face-to-face, but not too noticeable IMO. Unless they're not into it, then they might get bored and start to shuffle around in their seat, but IMO any decent player will just take the time to analyze the board themselves.
But really, all i was trying to do was to get you _exposed_ to more matches, in a highly inconsequential way ( there's really nothing bad that would come out of losing a bunch of online games, or out of running out of time in them :-) ). Another alternative would be to just do some problems, i found them enjoyable, before i got to more complex ones that would need too much branching and appraisal of situations. I knew i already sucked at chess, why would i drown myself in something with an even broader tree? 🤪
@@RealLukeWilson complete opposite from me, i'm almost 1 dan and i've never played on real life because of anxiety
@@irrelevant_noob You seem to be trying to solve a problem that doesn’t exist
As a side note, I like how the game they played shows each of their perspectives on what a family means, as well. Harlan is "playing family" to "win", as is the rest of the Thrombey family. Marta just wants to protect her family because that is the whole point.
Edit: Actually, that makes Ransoms comment more interesting as well, since he's basically saying: "Huh, I thought I was the only one who could defeat him at the game of "Family".
6 frames, 20 seconds in the whole movie and you can pull out a new side to the story? Madly Respect to you, Sir!
This is cool. Just a few days ago, I was wondering what had happened to the Animorphs guy who had explained the Pirates game
I have not finished the video yet so ignore me if this has been addressed, but the penultimate move (G6) threatens her entire position because he could take a way three stones (at E6 F6 F7) and play where black plays it's last move (F8). If that was to happen, white would be able to win the game again. If I was in that position I would have had to play into my own territory as well. 22:56 so this looks like GO to me alright.
That's correct. When Marta self fills, her chain only has 3 liberties against Harland's 2 liberties, with Harland to move. You'd have to read it out, but it's prime material for a capturing race.
Just like his suicide, Harland throws in the towel early.
E: Harland should lose the race, he was correct to give up. Harland can extend to c8 to have 3 liberties, but a cap at c9 is enough to maintain the advantage for black.
I loved the slow burn/transition into the 'Blanc Style' Commentary, this whole video a pleasant stroll to the terminus of gravity's rainbow if i do say so myself.
Go reminds me a lot of the Art of War in that it’s less about destruction/capture and more about controlling territory but also the opponent. It’s a very different mindset to other games. It’s fascinating how such a “simple” game actually requires very good strategic thinking and long term planning.
Sun Tzu played go.
The first video I saw of yours was explaining to die seen in pirates of the caribbean.
Even your old content is very watchable.
Here's a new subscription for you.
14:22 this might be a mistake, but I thought that that stone was on f3, not g3, since the stone that was placed was 1 intersection away from the string.
thank you, this is the first time anyone has explained Go that has made any sence to me.
At 15:21 you say it's impossible unless Harlan passed on a turn. So he did. He lets her win, just like he lets Random win. It's his little game he plays with them both to say they are his favorite. Ransom is like he was, and he wanted Ransom to be his successor. But after being with Marta, he realized the things he should have done to have been a better father, and none of that is who he is. In other words, who Ransom is. He plays Go with Marta because he plans to give it all to who he is striving to be.
The game is how he communicates.
Wait... The Tennesee-ification of your accent as you laid out what you thought was happening was _on purpose_ to invoke Blanc? Well played, sir.
The Sonic the Hedgehog underwater panic sound when the size of the Go board starts to be appreciated was an amazing Easter egg and a fitting tribute to the movie's ability to do the same. Nice!
Okay - you got me with that switcheroo. I was like 'omg his whole thesis is based on a misunderstanding of the game.' well played.
I've played Go competitively for over a decade. I believe that there are 2 reasons that Marta began the game by slamming the stone with her thumb and index finger:
1. Contextually, she is frustrated and playing with Harlan reluctantly so she wants to express this with her body language and also wants to play quickly to get him to sleep.
2. Honestly most of the casual/noncompetitive games are played with thumb & index, at least where I'm from. It's usually when you want to show respect or want to play more seriously/formally that we'd use 2 fingers.
Marta smashes down the first stone, fed up with Harlan's childish nonsense - why should she daintily hold the pieces?
Fantastic video by the way, the Go scene has always been my favourite and now I know why. Great work!
Always a pleasure to see you, sir. A wonderful Christmas present!
Another great one. I always love seeing another entry in this series!
holy shit! when i first started watching this video, i saw the go board and immediately tried to recall the game me and my friends used to play on the graphed blackboard in high school. it wasn't go, because the rules were different, but i couldn't remember any specifics. and then you said "gomoku" and i just shot up. where i'm from it's called omok (오목) and it's a super common game. anyway as someone who's interested in both game design and storytelling, this was a wonderful video.
The scene from 20:10 to 24:00 perplexed me for quite some time too. I couldn't figure out why you thought the move was so strange to the point of believing that she was playing an entirely separate game. It's literally the simplest most obvious move she could play in reaction to Harlan's move. It's no stranger than moving your king out of danger in chess, if your opponent checks you.
Fortunately you explain that in the next section of the video!
It's always nice to see go pop up -- same for your videos. Thanks for this one, I enjoyed it.
I love what you did with the chess scene in Sherlock Holmes. I found another scene in interview with the vampire, the series, episode 6. I'm not a chess player so it may not work out as the other one but I thought I'd mention it. Keep up the amazing work!
I'd like to point out that during the scene when they discover the morphine overdose, we see Harlan get a notebook and write something down as he's talking about how this would be an interesting method of murder. Earlier he had mentioned, regarding ransom, "there's so much of me in that kid". We presume he's doing as he said, but wouldn't it be curious if Harlan had figured out what was going on, as he is a great mystery writer after all, and wrote down ransom's name in the notebook. Ransom, on the other hand, may not be a great mystery writer but he is certainly familiar with ways to murder and potentially get away. Purely speculation, as it's never touched upon later in the film and I'm sure Rian Johnson would have been clever enough to do that if that had been his intention.
LMAO that twist with the different games had me laughing so much... amazing channel, love the content!
Dang its genuinely cool how like, low vs high level Go acts as a kinda perfect synopsis of the movie itself
Regarding the discussion at 15:21 about the extra stone Marta plays, it is actually an impossible situation by the standard rules. There's no way any stones could have been captured at that point because there's no fully surrounded areas on the board.
While that bit about capturing is correct, that's not the only way it could've happened, "by the standard rules". There's absolutely no reason why white couldn't have just made a random pass move before this position. :-B
@@irrelevant_noob That's true, but like Eric, I just can't see Harlan ever choosing to pass when he never wins. You might pass out of arrogance, but while Harlan does stupid things, he's not stupid overall.
@@tavoreparan8091 true, but "doesn't make literary sense" isn't quite enough to warrant Glenn's statement that "it is actually an impossible situation by the standard rules". :-B
You want to talk about Harlan playing short-sightedly? How about when at the end it's revealed that if he had just been willing to trust Marta and wait for an ambulance, he would still be alive? But no. He needed to be in control of the situation. He didn't want to play the game out and lose, he wanted to flip the board and go out with a bang.
Where've you been? I need more game scenes explained in depth :D
This makes me wanna get my big ol' Go board out again. Such a cool game!
Also, gods, time to watch this movie again, too. Maybe I can do both at once! 😋
Anyway- Wicked rad analysis!! You really had me hook-line-and-sinker with the claim that it's not really Go. 😂
This was a very well written explanation. Thank you for making it!
Someone once tried to explain to me the difference in the victory philosophy between Go and Chess. I only played Chess and thus had no concept on the game of Go. But she simplified it enough to make me appreciate the difference in approach to a victory.
Chess - Victory is achieved with strategic aggression to trap/capture one key piece.
Go - Victory is achieved by building, expanding, and supporting your empire while limiting your opponents territorial empire expansion.
Ever since, I've had desires to play more Go and I don't know why.
It's pretty likely the scene is also making a manga reference to Vagabond. In chapter 50, a young woman beats an old man at go and he flips the board while she calls him a sore loser. The characters even have similar hairstyles.