Chess: Aesthetics and then some

And so we come to the finale, the Aesthetics of Chess and the inevitable Deconstructionist novel herein. Goddamnit. I should have less to say.

From what I've come to understand personally, every Game uses every single Aesthetic tactic, obviously in varying degrees (some only nominally, but the concept applicable nonetheless), with roughly two to four of them with particular prominence. And for Chess (now the albatross around my neck), I think I'll argue...just in general.

• Sensory - This is not a major feature of Chess, but I do think there is something to be said for it. The checkerboard layout is visually pleasing, as is the simplicity of the rules, which I find especially agreeable with my sense of understanding. The strategy and mechanics are like a small weight in my hand, with enough mass to have a satisfy pull towards the ground but light enough that I can toss it from hand to hand, or twirl it between my fingers. There's infinite depth to the Game that one can get lost in, but none of it is in anyway beyond the realm of one Player.
• Fantasy - Again, I wouldn't call Chess a Fantastical Game, but the Game does use the idea of commanding regiments to its advantage. Each side is an intricate machine, and it's important to remember that the Player is sitting behind the controls in the head of the Gundam. But this is a minor point and a similar topic will be broached in the next bullet.
• Narrative - This might seem odd, but I do consider Narrative to be a core Aesthetic. Chess has always been and will always be a War-simulation Game. And while I don't wish to dwell on the fact that the reality of what War is, is flux, and while at one point War may have bared more resemblance to the board game, but that definition is archaic at best, I will capitulate only in nomenclature and offer Battle-simulation Game. As different from the Competition point I'll argue in a few, Chess is about maneuvering and striking and defending. I've already made my Chess as Boxing analogy point before, but I will add that its the reason Chess Boxing makes so much sense in its own odd way. Boxing is a Sport about wagering one's own brain, life, health, declaring that one can deal more damage with their body than can be inflicted upon it. In the same sense, Chess weighs the sacrifices of one's own forces and agency in the Game to the possible victory of stamping out opposition. The genius of Chess Boxing is that the Player's primary weapon in Chess (the brain, consciousness, awareness), the tip of the sword the Chess player drives into the opponent is the same part that the Boxer is hiding most guardedly behind his shield.
• Challenge - This, Narrative, and Competition, I wager, are all going to appear to converge in the distance, but I'm going to do my best to not cross the streams. While interpersonal Competition is an important consideration, Chess offers other tests, be it an optional 'Speed Chess' slant to the Game, or the way Chess Mechanics can be used to reverse-engineer strategy in Chess puzzles. This does tangentially hit on a point that'll be made in Discovery and Expression, but I think distinct elements of Challenge thrive in the idea that Chess, as a Game, cannot be solved, or at least by any algorithm yet.  
• Fellowship - Chess is not a exactly a cooperative Game and I'm not about to argue to the contrary. I would say that around Games there exist communities and cultures, which in-and-of-itself is prosocial behavior, but the Game of Chess is a separate entity than the context it exists in (or at least it is in the context of this discussion), thus not applicable. And I will note, for completeness' sake, Fellowship and Competition are but two halves of the save whole, and that Fellowship is Competition/Competition is Fellowship.
• Competition - If I had to pick one and only one defining characteristic of Chess, I think I would eventually settle on Competition. I know that hitting a ball against a wall can't be Tennis, but the gears of Chess grind without the interplay of two intelligences. Or perhaps a better comparison would be the futility of shadowboxing to kill. Chess is an interpersonal relationship, expressed in turns in a bounded Cartesian plane, and I'll conclude the matter by revising the analogy of one player Chess to the absurdity of enacting a romantic date by oneself.
• Discovery - Just a cursory thought to the possibilities of the range of possible Chess Games would obviously point to a number in the range of Infinitely Sublime, but apparently there does exist the Shannon number, which attempts to quantify this amount- the game tree complexity estimate being 10^123, a number so absurdly large it's essentially meaningless. A single Chess Game does not swim in an ocean of possibilities, it is lost in currents around Laniakea (to understate the matter).
• Expression - In a related sense, the Discovery element may have introduced virtually infinite possibility, but travel through this space is not random in any sense. Even with few games under their belt, a new Player can feel themselves finding preferences in pieces, strategies, even a disposition to White or Black. Because there's so much room, Players can spread out and find a place all their own.
• Abnegation - And at long last, the Game of Chess is also a game. And a crux of such is the absence of vital physical sacrifice in pursuit of entertainment. There's nothing inherent in the Mechanics or Dynamics of the Game that makes it anything more than bits of stone being shuffled around a grid, as contrasted to something more like Mumblypeg, where most the concept lies in a knife possibly lodged in a foot.

Now that I'm mostly done with my projectile-prognostication, I'll take a step back and say that there really are only a couple core Aesthetic facets that all nine dispositions play part in.