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From: judith@proper.UUCP (Judith Abrahms)
Newsgroups: net.puzzle
Subject: Re: Nim Game in Marienbad  *  SPOILER  *
Message-ID: <317@proper.UUCP>
Date: Sun, 22-Sep-85 07:02:34 EDT
Article-I.D.: proper.317
Posted: Sun Sep 22 07:02:34 1985
Date-Received: Thu, 26-Sep-85 07:06:27 EDT
References: <280@proper.UUCP> <>
Reply-To: judith@proper.UUCP (judith)
Organization: Proper UNIX, Oakland CA
Lines: 54

Before I quibble about a non-net.puzzle-related point, I want to thank everyone
who sent me mail explaining Nim strategy.  I'd also like to ask Bob Cralle
(sp.?), who offered me an article he'd written about it, to get in touch with
me, since mail I sent to him bounced & I'd love to see his discussion.

Special thanks to Mitchell Marks for his article, especially the "combinations"
discussed at the end.  I will now take issue with him about the Nim games in
the film, so anyone not interested in literary speculation should press 'n'.

In article <> mmar@sphinx.UChicago.UUCP (Mitchell Marks) writes:
>
>Before getting down to the solution, some miscellaneous points:
>
>1.  It's not really fair to say that the makers of _Marienbad_ (the two 
>Alains) "didn't know" the method.  You could as easily say that the
>character was portrayed as not knowing the method.

The character who always won announced, at least once, "I always win."  Yet
at several points in the games, he made moves that produced "unsafe"
configurations.  It seemed clear that up to the point at which anyone could
"read out" all the possible moves to the end, the moves made by the two 
players (the invariable winner & loser) were pretty much random.  If the winner
was portrayed as not knowing the method, then he was portrayed as having some
supernatural (or at least super-logical) power, for as he predicted, and
despite his blunders (and even when he played first!) he never lost a game.

>						Or, given the way the
>film accepts a confused version of reality, perhaps the characters were
>obeying all the rules but the fundamental one: try to reach a win.

This sounds very Marienbadish indeed, and I wish I could accept it.  However,
the loser showed a tremendous desire to win, and appeared thunderstruck every
time he lost.  And if the winner wasn't intended to be trying to win, why have
him announce that he always wins?

The two main players (I think there may have been other challenger/losers)
were rivals outside the game.  The man who invariably lost was trying to seduce
the wife of the man who invariably won.  It seemed pretty clear that the
repeated Nim scenes were intended as some sort of commentary on the real-world
situation, in which the seducer moves slowly but monotonically toward a win
(he takes off with the wife at the end).  I'm sure the husband's invincibility
at Nim is meant to be connected with his knowledge of the seducer's campaign,
which he makes no serious attempt to block.  (I think he even stays out of the
way deliberately on the night they're to leave -- the wife hangs back,
expressing some hope he'll appear & try to stop her.  He does show up, but not
till she's gone.)

I don't think it possible to assign a meaning to this motif -- man always wins
Nim games against man to whom he loses wife -- but these two characters seemed
deadly serious when they played.  They didn't act or speak as if they were
making random moves.  Yet that's what they were doing.

Judith Abrahms
{ucbvax,ihnp4}!dual!proper!judith


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