Can a pinned piece protect another one?

Hi all

I was doing some puzzles and came along something like this:

https://www.chess.com/a/2798XcEWSib8J

It says to take the rook with the queen. But technically the queen is't protected by the knight, because it's pinned by the black bishop. What do you think?

Many thanks & kind regards

It's still protected. 

But when white has to make a move. It's best to take the rook with the queen. Then i find it hard to understand why the queen is protected by the knight. Because the knight is pinned by the black bishop.

Irrelevant.

Imagine it like this: The pieces can't move without the king being on the board. In your example the king can't take the queen because then the knight would take it. Even though that leaves the white king hanging, the bishop can't do anything because the king is lost. 

no

Many thanks for this well explained answer. Now it makes sense again :-D

I think in this particular case a pinned piece can protect another one, because otherwise the king is lost and the game is over.

This question comes up often. Yes, an absolutely pinned piece can't move, but it can still deliver check. So, it can protect another piece only from being taken by the King.

A pinned piece cant move because to allow the monarch to die is an unthinkable sin.  Here, the pinned piece could kill the enemy king first if the queen was captured, resulting in checkmate.  Accordingly, the enemy monarch is forced to kneel, and all his forces submit with no counter-attack.  As such, the pin is irrelevant, as the pinned soldier could do its duty without exposing the Monarch to death.  

Thank you everyone for the good answers! It helped me a lot to understand the game a little bit better.

The easiest answer is a pinned piece can protect against the king because the king is not allowed to move into a check.