The Game

The phrase "the Game" has two principal layers of meaning in The Eight, one perhaps more obvious than the other, both of which underline the action in both narrative lines. The first is the game played by the various members of the White and Black Sides for control of the pieces of the Montglane Service. On this level, the Game is defined in terms similar to that of a chess game. The Queens (Mireille and the Woman from India in the past, Minnie/Catherine and Blanche in the present) are the most powerful, but there are several other powerful pieces (the Bishop and the Abbess in the past, Lily and Solarin in the present). There are also a number of relatively weak pawns sacrificed so that other, more powerful pieces might gain more power and freedom (Corday, Robespierre, and Valentine in the past, Valerie and Therese, Fiske...