From the movie Logan (2017)
A mutant hunter tortures a mutant called Calliban who can track another mutant Laura.
The hunter says
She's not a natural like you. She's a business mistake, a R&D gone
bad. There's liability. They can't have things with patents running
around, hurting people, can they? We need to get her off the board
before she hurts anybody else
What exactly does "get off the board" mean? Does he mean a metaphorical board like a checkerboard or it's just idiomatic like "we need to capture and hide her"?
Best Answer
It's a gaming metaphor. When you "take" a piece in a game like chess, you physically remove it from the chess board. In the same way "get X off the board" means to remove X from the game, or from the situation in general.
Depending on the context, this can imply killing them, disabling them, or simply rendering them powerless and unable to "play". For example: