Elizabeth "Beth" Harmon played by Anya Taylor-Joy

BIOGRAPHY

Sole Survivor

Beth Harmon was born on November 2, 1948 in Winchester, Kentucky, United States to mother Alice, who earned a Ph.D. in mathematics from Cornell University, and father Paul, who is largely absent from Beth's childhood. Alice separates from Paul with Beth in her custody and experiences a severe decline in her mental health, eventually leading to her intentionally causing a car crash. Beth is the sole survivor of the crash and is sent to live at Methuen Home, an exclusively-female Christian orphanage.

Life at Methuen

At Methuen, Beth befriends one of the girls, Jolene, who advises that she take the home's state-mandated tranquilizers at night. While running errands in the home's basement, Beth discovers the home's custodian, Mr. Shaibel, playing chess by himself, and eventually convinces Shaibel to teach her the game. At night, under influence from the drugs, Beth is able to visualize chess games on the ceiling, allowing her to quickly develop an unusual aptitude for the game. Shaibel introduces Beth to a local high school chess club facilitator, who is impressed with her command of the game and invites her to a simultaneous exhibition against the entire high school club. Beth handily defeats all her opponents, and Shaibel gives her a book introducing her to advanced chess theory. Beth develops an increasingly severe dependency on the tranquilizers during her early years at Methuen, and is prohibited from playing chess after an overdose.

The Wheatley's

At age 15, Beth is adopted by Allston and Alma Wheatley of Lexington, Kentucky. Beth begins siphoning her adoptive mother's tranquilizer pills, which aid in her renewed commitment to chess. With financial assistance from Shaibel, Beth enrolls in the local high school chess tournament, where she ultimately defeats state champion Harry Beltik, partially with the aid of the pills. Beth also develops a crush on one of her opponents, an older boy named D.L. Townes. Though Beth's adoptive father Allston leaves the family, she and Alma decide to support themselves via prize money from subsequent chess tournaments.

Tournaments

Starting with Beth's victory at a Cincinnati tournament, she agrees to give 15% of her earnings to Alma as a management commission. The two spend months traveling the country for tournaments, elevating Beth to a national chess icon profiled in major magazines. At the 1966 Las Vegas US Open, Beth reunites with Townes, now a journalist, and the two share an intimate moment before being interrupted by a man Townes is living with; Beth rebuffs Townes before he can offer an explanation. At the tournament, Beth meets Benny Watts, a fellow prodigy who enjoys notoriety in chess circles. She experiences her first loss against him the next day, leading the two of them to finish the tournament in a tie for first place. Around this time, a begins to consume alcohol at an increasing rate, and introduces Beth to beer and liquor.

Beth's next major tournament is in Mexico City, by which point Alma's alcoholism has become severe. Beth competes against various international players, but loses against the Soviet world champion, Vasily Borgov. After the match, she finds that Alma has died of hepatitis owing to her alcohol abuse. Allston leaves the Wheatley estate in Beth's possession for the time being; back in Kentucky, she reconnects with Beltik, who offers to train her. Beth invites Beltik to live in the house with her, and the two spend time training and share a short-lived romance before Beltik amicably parts ways with her, having taught her all he can and knowing that her commitment to chess dashes the possibility of a long-term relationship.

US Championship

In 1967, Beth attends the US championship, where she once again faces off with Benny. The two become closer friends during informal games of speed chess that Beth uses as training despite consistently losing; the following day, she quickly defeats Benny in the final round. Benny invites Beth to live with him in New York to train for the international championship in Paris later that year, where Beth sobers up and begins a sexual relationship ith Benny. The night before her match with Borgov in Paris, Beth has a drunken one-night stand with a woman introduced to her by Benny, and the following morning loses again to Borgov while hungover.

End Game

Beth returns to Lexington and personally buys Allston's house from him; she spends the next several days engaged in an extreme drug and alcohol binge until her childhood friend Jolene visits her for the first time since leaving the orphanage. The two attend Shaibel's funeral, and Beth revisits the orphanage, where she discovers that Shaibel has followed her career all along. Jolene loans Beth the money necessary to cover her participation in the prestigious Moscow invitational. Beth's final match is with Borgov, which is adjourned after 40 moves. Beth rekindles her friendship with Townes, who is covering the match, and receives extensive consultation and support over the phone from Benny, Beltik and other friends she has made from the chess scene, who have assembled a team to help analyze her adjourned game with Borgov. That evening, Beth finally defeats Borgov and wins the tournament.

APPEARANCE

Harmon's most defining feature is likely her unabashed and penetrating looks she gives others—studious, placid, and fierce. Since she was young, Harmon has not been easy to smile or frown, wordlessly absorbing information where others rush to fill in the gaps. What she does say comes off as measured and sharp, as if hand-picked for intimidation.

Harmon's auburn hair has been mentioned once or twice as a highlight of her character as well, noting that this feature may make her more or less attractive to others. As she grew older, her hairstyle had evolved into upwards-facing side curls. She is lithe and moves with determined elegance, as her actress wished to stress in her character.

Her fashion primarily revolves around dark, matte colors with fabrics that are fitted to her body, although she has worn off-white coats and blouses before. She wears trousers only in the winter, opting for skirts and dresses any time else.

In the final scene, as she walks through an urban park, Beth is dressed all in white. Complete with a white domed hat consisting of series of soft peaks and a single huge pompom in the middle of its top. In short, she's dressed as if she’s a white queen chess-piece come to life. The coat's belt even gives the shape of the chess piece’s middle. By this point, we all know the queen’s gambit opening is played by white. One can't help but suspect this is a winking choice by Beth as a character, or one added by the costume designers. In either case, a well chosen final costume to close the series.

The style of makeup and additional cosmetics she chooses may vary depending on her given mental wellbeing, but she generally applies a simple eyeliner without much concern for how what impressions she give off. Harmon desires to be seen as a professional before she is interpreted as a woman, yet she does not have any inherent resentment for her femininity.

Over the course of the series, many characters become attracted to her outside of her chess career, particularly Townes, Harry, her college peers, Benny, and Cleo. Oftentimes, with these romantic interests, Harmon finds herself struggling to balance her desire for intimacy with her passions for chess, highlighted especially through her relationships with Harry and Benny; the former craved intimacy yet disappointed in both areas, whereas the latter satisfied both of her needs but wholly focused on chess. Both of these relationships ended shortly after the climax, yet she appears satisfied with their friendship nonetheless.

PSYCHOLOGY

Beth is a complicated woman and many of the show’s episodes revolves around this. The characters complexity is shown numerous times throughout the series as her destructive nature reaches the surface when she feels as if her past lost games have ruined her reputation. The audience then sees another side to Beth Harmon, as not only an addictive personality with destructive tendencies but also an incredibly competitive player, resulting in a character flaw, as its unknown what she will do and the lengths she will go to in order to win.

Due to the fact that she has been addicted to pills at such a young age the exact same theme of her life is brought up time and time again, which as a viewer is fascinating to see her, as more than just a sharp and intelligent young woman but also as a human being with psychological trauma, and tendencies.