Trivia: The Queen in Chess

For as long as I can remember, I felt it awkward to have a Queen piece in chess. Not only is she the only piece with the connotation of being female, it just doesn't feel "right" that she is the most powerful. Add to that the connotation that she is "the queen" leads to the question: then what is the King?

I don't know how much others are preoccupied with this, but I found a site that actually toyed with the idea of having more than one queen! There's actually such a thing as a "Queen Quest". The idea is to put 8 Queens in a regular chessboard, and none of them should be attacking the other. It says there are actually 92 solutions to it. What I am wondering is why they even thought of this puzzle. In any case, this is simply a testament to the power of the queen in the game.

A little history search shows that chess pieces are originally masculine in connotation, with the current queen actually being a General or Minister of sorts. Clearly somebody that the King trusts as an able right man, not really the connotation that a "Queen" brings to mind. One book actually takes the idea that the change from the "male" general to the Queen coincided with the rise in power of women in Europe. Makes plausible sense. But it begs the idea of why they didn't actually made a variant of it, where the Queen is the flag piece.

Whatever the origins, the Queen is here to stay. And I think for a good measure it's good. It keeps a healthy sense of imbalance, making one realize that the greatest threat can come from the most unlikely pieces.