What Can We Learn From The Queen’s Gambit? (how to write a satisfying ending)

A little while ago, I watched The Queen’s Gambit. Going in, I honestly didn’t have high expectations for it. I’d watched it mainly out of peer pressure and because the costumes looked really cool, (priorities) but I wasn’t expecting to get such a good story out of it too. After I finished the show, I paused for a moment and realized Wow. This ending was really good. 

Today, I’m here to tell you why the ending to The Queen’s Gambit worked so well, and how we can use those same principles to write amazing endings in our own stories. 

A Bit of a Summary 

First of all, if you haven’t watched The Queen’s Gambit, I highly recommend watching it before reading this post. There will be spoilers sprinkled throughout the post, and my rambling will make a lot more sense with context.

(Note: The Queen’s Gambit does have a lot of sensitive content.) 

But for you rebels who want to keep reading, I shall briefly summarize The Queen’s Gambit for you:

We follow the main character, Beth Harmon, as she grows up in an orphanage and eventually becomes a chess prodigy. Later, she gets adopted and travels the world while playing chess. When Beth is older, she battles alcohol and drug addictions while trying multiple times to beat the Russian chess champion, Vasily Borgov. 

Expectations 

This show plays with the viewer’s expectations a lot. 

When Beth is growing into a little chess prodigy, we expect to see her win every single chess tournament. But at the same time, we also know that she can’t win every game because then the story would have no conflict and Beth would become a sort of unrealistic superhero. (Think: stories that feature heroes who never mess up are usually pretty boring.) 

Beth eventually gets to the point where she competes against the Russian chess champion, Vasily Borgov. Beth loses to Borgov, and then later finds her adoptive mom dead. From there, we see Beth start to battle alcohol and drug addiction.  

Later on in the show, we don’t really know what to expect from Beth. She’s still extremely skilled at chess but is also fighting against her weaknesses. Still relying heavily on drugs, Beth gets to the point where she can face Borgov again. This time, it seems like she might beat him. We, the audience, get our hopes up for Beth. But she loses once again. 

This is the point that we can clearly see as the hero’s darkest moment. Beth went up against Borgov a second time and lost; she made mistakes and now she is paying for them. In the show, Beth becomes further addicted to alcohol and drugs. It seems like all hope is lost. 

Balance Between Light and Dark 

It was at this point that I expected The Queen’s Gambit to be a sort of “villain origin story” show. The whole show looked like it was going to lead up to a negative character arc for Beth. It was easy to imagine Beth never beating Borgov and becoming more addicted to drugs and alcohol. 

This sort of “negative arc” situation has been a trend in recent movies and stories. (Think Darth Vader in Star Wars, Cruella, Loki from the MCU, etc…) Because this idea has been so trendy, I was expecting Beth to follow the same suit. 

But guess what? 

The show shattered my expectations (and not for the first time!) 

The Best Ending

In the end, all of the people Beth met throughout her life come back. Her old friend, Jolene, who we haven’t seen since maybe the second episode, arrives and helps Beth get her life back together. Old chess friends get together and help coach her. Beth starts to look towards competing against Borgov again and actually having a chance at winning. 

But there needs to be something that makes this chance different from all the others. What’s stopping Beth from going back to alcohol and drugs? 

Jolene increases the stakes by giving Beth her own savings to travel to Russia. This time around is not going to be the same as last time. 

Thanks to the support of her friends, Beth beats Borgov. She does more than that, though. She overcomes the hardships of addiction and finally accomplishes what she set out to do years before. She couldn’t have done it without the help of those around her. 

I think the ending to The Queen’s Gambit is so satisfying because it defies the viewer’s expectations and shows us a hero who overcomes their weaknesses. 

Some Food for Thought 

There are many stories that portray a level of cynicism about the world. Whether it’s a crumbled society because of an apocalypse or broken families, these stories don’t give us a ton of hope. They might give us a grain of reality, but they’re definitely not something you would watch for a “feel good” movie. 

On the flip side, other stories show an unrealistic level of happiness or good luck. The truth is, bad things will happen to us and there isn’t much we can do about it. Life isn’t all sunshine and rainbows, and stories that only show those are unrealistic. 

I think, though, that a balance between these two extremes can make for an uplifting but still realistic story. If The Queen’s Gambit had been purely a “sunshine and rainbows” show, then we would have seen Beth beat Borgov in one try. That victory wouldn’t have been as satisfying because she obtained it so easily. 

If The Queen’s Gambit had been more of a “negative arc” show, it never would have shown us the last round between Beth and Borgov. We would have just seen her fall deeper into darkness. That would be just as unsatisfying as the example above but in a different way. 

The Queen’s Gambit strikes a delicate balance between these two extremes. 

In the show, some of the “sunshine and rainbows” parts of the story come from Beth’s natural talent for chess, or even the ending when she finally beats Borgov. Some of the “negative arc” parts of the story come from when she gets addicted to alcohol and starts to lose at chess. The combination of both of these aspects results in a very satisfying and realistic show. 

What can we learn from this? 

What can we take away from this? How can we use the lessons that come from The Queen’s Gambit to improve our own writing? Well, lucky for you, I decided to summarize this in my favorite way: bullet points. 🙂 

• Mess with the reader’s expectations. 

• Don’t forget the threads you planted earlier in the story. (i.e. Jolene coming back at the end of the show) 
• Most of all, find a balance between the uplifting “light” and realistic “dark” aspects of a story. Make sure there are realistic struggles, but don’t forget hope. 

And that, my friends, concludes this long ramble about a really good show. (If you haven’t watched it by now, go watch it!) 

I’m curious – have you seen The Queen’s Gambit? What did you think of it? What lessons did you learn from it? 

Thanks for reading, have a great day! 

-Hannah 

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