...
I'm fairly confident that at one time, Margaret absolutely would have considered herself to be a chessmistress, even as people like Lord Raith and Heaven only knows who else were pulling her strings and pushing her buttons ...
I dunno, I think she saw herself more in the "loner" role, rebelling against the "system."
Not a
player in the game, which would have made her
part of the system.
Later, I think she came to the realization that she just didn't have enough power, a lone WCWizard, to make the changes she wanted... so she started making alliances, started "playing the game." Even then, I don't think she saw herself as a master-manipulator "chessmistress" sort of player.
Trying to become the mother of the Starbabe was, I think, her Big Move.
Ironically, the "main" effort (with Lord Raith + Arianna Ortega + likely others (so far AFAIK unnamed)) didn't work out; at least, I've been presuming the "Starbabe" plan was what Maggie was trying to recruit Ebenezer for, that fateful party where Arianna noticed Eb & Maggie "fighting like family."
But then she abandoned that plan & those allies, ran away, fell in love with Malcolm Dresden... and
then had a Starbabe. I'm sure that part of her was cursing the ironies of Fate-or-whatever.