This pawn promotion thing...

I like to imagine a chess game as a real war. Like in those epic movies. The two armies march to an open field, all units are lined, just waiting for an order to attack. The king makes a sign and suddenly the soldiers of the infantry start to run towards the blades of the enemy, to run maybe towards the death, ready for a bloody battle from wich they might never return, their loyalty is bigger than their fear. A long struggle proceeds, a struggle where our noble king may lose his queen, his loyal knights and everyone who was dear to him until he finds himself is alone, only his most loyal soldiers are left... And then, amongst those brave pawns, amongst those heroic warriors who managed to survive, maybe one could make it through the enemies' territory, the promised land, the holy 8th rank! Our generous king is eager to aknowledge that accomplishment and he promptly offers that humble soldier a title of nobility. Does he promotes him to duke? No. Does he promote him to marquis? No. Maybe to earl then? Nope. The king  walks towards that pawn, that bearded, manly, brawn warrior, looks him in the eyes and asks "Will you marry me?" and then the pawn becomes a queen and they live happy forever. So, what do you think? Are you a conservative, or as long as it doesn't disturb anybody you don't see any problem with your king being happy with the pawn he fell in love with?

 Why would she have to be 'disguised as a warrior?'  Can a woman not actually be a warrior?

It is turbo odd.

Also, there's no friendly fire in the game and the surest way to safeguard your king is sometimes hiding in front of opposing pawns.  Together with gender-bending field promotions, it might be time for a senate inquiry into chess.

 If this queening thing really bothers you and you're looking for a way to explain it in real warfare terms, try this:

by getting past the enemy forces, the pawn was able to break away from the battle and deliver a message to a neighboring realm, which agreed to send reinforcements in return for a political alliance with your king (hence his new marraige to the Lady of the neighbor castle.  The Queen on the chessboard actually represents her platoon of troops, as all the other pieces stand in for a whole batch of cavalry, a cadry of clerics (for bishops I always like to picture the Spanish Inquisition on horseback), and for rooks (this one's tough) I imagine there's lots of run-down forts and old castles littering the countryside and of those the rooks represent whichever ones are currently infested by encamped troops (that way I don't have to explain why castles are so highly mobile.)  The infantry is then able to range outward from that nearby fortress and wreak the damage that we see from rooks.

For the queen, I picture a separate military unit of "Queen's Men" who came from whatever land the queen was from before she married the king.  These men would naturally be among the finest chivalry that land had to offer, because they're the kind of bravos who travel the world and are out to impress their new king and in so doing augment the honor of their queen.  (That's why they're able to fly around the board and accomplish the amazing feats we're used to seeing from queens, because they're like special forces and they're motivated enough to whip the bejesus out of their steeds.)

I'll stop now. 

@ILLYRIA & BirdBrain

That's a lot of imagination-calories burned to duck the (easier?) task of just imagining the characters as something other than exclusively male. ;-)

 Sean Connery's character in "The Rock" expressed a similar sentiment, "Losers always whine about 'their best', winners go home and [have tea with] the prom queen" (edited for content).

I very much like the creative explanations of the metaphors that I see in this thread. But I think the people who say essentially "chess is wrong because the analogy to warfare is imperfect" need to loosen up a bit. 

This is an interesting way to view the world of chess!!!

ADK