Nova Daily - 5 July 2025: The dark wolf
Hi!
Originally I had planned to use today to analyse yesterday's game, write a story to it, and spend the rest of the day working on a project that I do outside of chesscom. But two things happened that crossed parts of this plan out.
The first thing is that one of the people on the team had to cancel for today because of more important obligations elsewhere that demanded more time and attention, which is a legitimate reason. My teammate and I had divided the work equally between us, which effectively meant that my workload for todat was doubled.
The second thing that happened was yesterday's game. As you may or may not remember, it ended in a checkmate with knight and bishop. This is an ending that I've studied thoroughly and know well. The response to my question whether I should make the procedure into its own blog entry was received with overwhelming enthusiasm, which means that I'm going to do it. However, it might have to wait for a little bit before it hits the fan, because an evil idea entered my head today as well.
You'll see in time.
The dark wolf
At the beginning of his fifth year at Hogwarts, Harry Potter is faced with some very nasty problems. The summer started with him having just witnessed the return of Lord Voldemort and the death of his fellow student Cedric Diggory. The Ministry for Magic refuses to believe him, the Daily Prophet parrots this anti-Potter stance, and Harry himself is left in the dark as to what is going on in the Wizarding World because everyone categorically refuses to tell him anything.
Before he boards the train at Platform 9¾, he's already had to deal with a Dementor attack, a Howler, the prospect of being expelled from Hogwarts, a disciplinary hearing in front of the highest criminal court, and neglect from the Headmaster Albus Dumbledore. At the Sorting Ceremony, another surprise awaits him in that one Dolores Umbridge (the absolute worst hag in the world) has been appointed professor of Defence Against the Dark Arts. And to top it all off, his classmate Seamus Finnigan profusely declares that he sides with the Daily Prophet. The movie did an okay job putting it to screen:
The next day, Hermione asks Harry what has been going on, and then relays that Lavender Brown also thinks that the Daily Prophet is telling the truth. Harry then explodes: "Been having a nice little chat with her about whether or not I'm a lying, attention-seeing prat, have you?"
"No," said Hermione calmly. "I told her to keep her big fat mouth shut about you, actually. And it would be quite nice if you stopped jumping down our throats, Harry, because in case you haven't noticed, Ron and I are on your side." (Order of the Phoenix, Chapter 12)
One of the things that makes the character of Harry Potter such a relatable figure is that he's flawed. He's not perfect, and he never pretends to be. He can break. The excerpt above is just one of the scenes in which Harry feeds the dark wolf inside him. As Order of the Phoenix progresses, his dark wolf becomes stronger and stronger, until at the end of Order of the Phoenix he's been made to break to such a degree that he shoots an Unforgivable Curse at Bellatrix Lestrange and smashes everything in Dumbledore's office that he can get his hands on.
Nobody is 100% good or 100% bad. Everyone has their bright sides and their dark sides, their excellence and their flaws. And that makes people three-dimensional and interesting.
A variation I'm having difficulty with
So, instead of going over yesterday's game, which I'll be using for the knight and bishop post, I decided to do something that I had to do more often. As it is, bullet is a lot of fun, but its educational potential is fairly limited. Still, occasionally I meet some lines that I find to have trouble with.
I hope that I'll remember these lines next time I'll be playing against My Sister's Crown.
