The Puzzling Ethics of Chutes and Ladders

Here’s how Chutes and Ladders works (just in case you’ve been living your entire life hidden away in some place where you have not had an opportunity to play the board game Chutes and Ladders): The objective is to make it to the last space on the board, and along the way, you’re hindered by slides (“chutes”) and aided by ladders (“ladders”).

But the real point of the game is to teach you lessons.

The “lessons” part makes a lot more sense if you play Snakes and Ladders (which I used to think was a third-party knock-off of Chutes and Ladders, but — according to leading scientists and Wikipedia — Snakes and Ladders was played in ancient India, a period that, in my opinion, predates 1943 America).

Snakes makes more sense than chutes because climbing a ladder will always be kind of a drag, but it’s a whole lot better than being gobbled up and pooped out by a giant, neon-blue python.

Chutes and Ladders, on the other hand, sends mixed messages. This is evident while playing with The Princess, who, like most four-year-olds, is a world-class cheater. She moves to whatever space she desires, regardless of what the spinner says.

This, I can handle. But the problem is, she “cheats” by landing on as many chutes as possible because going down slides is fun.

THE PRINCESS (spinning the spinner): Three!

She zig-zags her pawn two rows down and four spaces over so she can land on top of the longest slide on the board.

ME: No, no, you have to go up. Don’t you want to go up so you can win the game?

THE PRINCESS: Wheeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!

The problem is further complicated by the final space, which, in Chutes and Ladders, isn’t all that enticing. In the original, Indian version of Snakes and Ladders, the final space (“100”) represents Moksha — eternal union with God or the highest perfection of existence.

In Chutes and Ladders, the final space is a blue ribbon that says “winner.”

The next best thing to the highest perfection of existence

But, more than anything, it is the lessons themselves that makes the ethics of Chutes and Ladders so confusing.

In Snakes and Ladders, each ladder represents a different virtue (Faith, Generosity, Knowledge, etc.), and each snake represents a different vice (Theft, Lying, Murder, etc.). This leaves little room for ambiguity. (Murder is bad. Go back 30 spaces.)

There are no such labels, however, in Chutes and Ladders. Rather, the lessons are graphically depicted — each chute or ladder a two-act morality play. For instance, one chute begins with a boy who is reading a comic book instead of doing his homework. At the bottom of the slide is his punishment — he is forced to sit through a mind-numbingly boring birthday party.

Only a dunce would go to such a lame party

Not every chute or ladder, though, is this clear-cut. Indeed, in most cases, there seems to be no rhyme or reason regarding the degree of consequnces or even whether or act should be considered a virtue or a vice.

For instance, one chute shows a girl eating a box of chocolates and becoming sick. So sweets are bad for you. It goes against everything this blog stands for, but fair enough — I can see where they’re coming from. But then, what’s the reward at the top of two separate ladders? A heaping vanilla/chocolate/strawberry ice cream sundae and an entire freaking cake. WTF, 1979 Milton Bradley Co. Version of Chutes and Ladders?

All for ME!

What follows is a breakdown of all the chutes in Chutes in Ladders (1979 ed.) from shortest to longest. One would think that the longer the chute, the more dastardly the deed, but as you’ll see, that’s far from the case.

Chutes

Act	Consequence	Spaces Lost
Stomping barefoot in a puddle	A cold	3
Screwing around on a bike	A broken arm	4
Reading comics instead of studying	Wear an awesome, pointy hat	10
Coloring on a wall	Wash the wall	20
Breaking a window while playing baseball	Pay for the window	20
Grabbing a cat by the tail	Get clawed on the arms and face	20
Skating on thin ice	Death	21
Eating a box of chocolates	A tummy ache	38
Putting away too many dishes at once	Broken dishes	43
Sneaking into a cookie jar on a shelf	Falling down and breaking the jar	63

So, according to Chutes and Ladders, breaking a cookie jar is three times worse than (literally) skating on thin ice and crashing through to a watery grave.

(What’s that — we don’t know for sure the kid drowned? Yeah, great point — you win. Okay, kids, next thaw, find the nearest lake and skate away! Strawman says it’s all right!)

I also find it curious that the two longest slides both revolve around broken dishes. Apparently, broken kitchenware is worse than a broken arm, pneumonia, and death.

I would analyze all the ladders next, but I already discussed a couple of the dubious rewards, and the rest are pretty boring (things like, if you plant flowers, then you will get flowers and if you eat food, then you will become at least as tall as a yard-stick).

It is worth commenting, though, on the longest ladder in the game (56 spaces). Those familiar with the game know that, in just about every version, the longest chute and longest ladder are positioned close together on the same rows, so that it’s possible to enter into an endless loop of climbing and falling, sometimes even in consecutive turns.

And in the 1979 version, they are linked thematically as well — namely, by when it is and isn’t okay to climb something. Compare.

Longest Chute

Spaces Lost: 63

Act: Climbing up on a four-foot shelf to sneak a cookie from a cookie jar

Consequence: Falling down and breaking the jar

Longest Ladder

Spaces Gained: 56

Act: Climbing up a thirty-foot tree to “rescue” a feral cat

Reward: Rabies

* * *

Okay, that’s all. Next up in Ranting About Specific Versions of Board Games: The castration of Gloopy and the occasionally ambiguous connection between Middle East and East Africa.

— Reinman