Chessmaster Hex

‎This article contains some content involving a mature subject or situation and may not be suitable for younger viewers. If you are 18 years or older or are comfortable with graphic material, you are free to view this page.

## Magnificent Baddie

### Alias

Hex
Chessmaster Hex
The Mastermind

### Allies

The Gate Company (formerly)
Countless recruits
His pet birds
Inhabitants of the Bohemian Junkheap
Antonio, Carlos and Jobim
Edward Wong (rival)

### Powers/Skills

High intellect
Expertise in technology
Mastery of chess

### Goals

Fixing the Astral Gate's flaws. (failed)
Have his revenge by sabotaging the Gate Corporation the day of the Gate's automatic update. (succeeded)
Enjoy his plan's success. (failed)
Win one last chess game. (suceeded)

### Crimes

Conspiracy
Leaking sensitive information
Engineering mass hacking and cyber-theft
Tax evasion

### Type of MB

Vengeful Saboteur

**Chessmaster Hex** was the main antagonist of the *Cowboy Bebop* episode "Bohemian Rhapsody".

A prodigy from a young age and an undefeated chess champion, Hex would join the Hyperspace Space Project to develop an Astral Gate for faster space travel, eventually designing the central control system. When voicing concerns about potential defects in the programming of the Gate, the Gate Corporation fired Hex, who was then proven right by a malfunction in the Astral Gates that devastated the Earth, slaughtering billions.

Seeking vengeance for the catastrophe caused by his superiors greedily ignoring his warnings, Hex devised a plan to financially damage and publicly humiliate the Gate Corporation 50 years from then, on the prescheduled date of the Astral Gate's automatic update. He moved to an unregulated Bohemian Junkheap, recruited countless criminals online and filled them in on defects in the Central Control System to hijack the Gates' toll booth.

In those 50 years, however, Hex would go senile and simply spend his days playing chess, eventually starting a game with "Radical" Ed, the hacker of the Bebop bounty hunters.

He was voiced by the late Takeshi Watabe in Japanese and by Michael McCarty in the English Dub.

## What Makes Him Magnificent?

* He was always a genius and especially keen of mind when it came to chess. He was an undefeated champion at the CosmoNet Chess tournaments and, even after going senile, he is clearly a master at the game, keeping the capable Ed - who was proficient enough to almost beat him - on her toes for entire days before eventually pulling a checkmate on her.
* With incredible technological know-how, he was instrumental in programming the Astral Gates that became an essential instrument in *Cowboy Bebop'*s society and even was able to detect possible design flaws in them.
* After the corrupt Gate Corporation fired him over his concerns, and after said worries were proven correct by the Astral Gate Earth disaster, a vengeful Hex deviced a plan to sabotage the Corporation 50 years into the future, when an automatic update was scheduled, and reveal their corruption:
	+ He recruited countless "Wannabe criminals" through a website and, as his accomplices all came from different backgrounds, a nexus between the members of this endeavor was almost impossible to find.
	+ He informed his accomplishes of defects in the Central Control System of the Astral Gate that they could use to hijack the toll booth and steal great amounts of money.
	+ He instructed them to carry chess pieces with them so that the Gate Corporation would know just who it was that rained on their parade.
		- The chess pieces also chips within them to play chess games with him in case someone smart enough to figure out came around, as was the case with Ed.
* While his badass outfit is somewhat played for laughs, as it's meant to build him up as a threatening mastermind and further surprise the audience when he turns out to be a senile hermit by the time of the story, it is still a very cool-looking outfit.
* Although he didn't take into consideration that, 50 years into the future, one's brain can really deteriorate and had gone senile by the time his plan came to fruition, there's little to nothing he could have done to prevent himself from getting dementia (except maybe pull off his heist much sooner before it hit him) and, in the end, his scheme still went off without a hitch and his senility only prevented him from enjoying his success, as he had forgotten all about his revenge.
* He is likely to be rooted for by the audience, as not only is he one of the least dangerous "villains" in the whole show and is even affable in his friendly rivalry with Ed, but he is also fully justified in his revenge against the Gate Corporation, who are greedy, corrupt and doomed billions of innocents by unheeding Hex's warnings, only being worried about covering up their catastrophic mistake after the fact.
* In the end, he gets the last laugh as, after entire days of the best chess match either of them have ever had, he pulls a final checkmate against Ed and, happy about this last victory, he allows himself to drift away and dies a peaceful death.
* Although, by the time of the story, he has become a senile, harmless old man living in a junkheap who prioritizes a chess game over a firearm being pointed directly at him, he is overall not played to be pathetic and moreso comes off as a former criminal mastermind who succeeded in all his goals, became untouchable in his senility (on top of charming in his affability) and, with his surviving mastery of chess, had one last, satisfying victory before dying a good death.

## What Makes Him a Baddie?

* He conspired and shared sensitive info on the Astral Gates' Central Control System so that criminals could hijack the toll booths en masse and steal immense amounts of money from the Corporation, with collateral damage also financially damaging people outside of the Corporation, such as the bounty hunter Jonathan, who went broke after Hex's sting and even went insane because of it.

## Trivia

* He is the only *Cowboy Bebop* MB to have died of natural causes.

## External Links

* Chessmaster Hex at the *Cowboy Bebop* wiki

## Navigation

Anime
Vincent Volaju
Netflix
Whitney Haggis Matsumoto
Fanon
Vicious