Why is stalemate a draw?

@INeedABetterUsername said in #1:

Why is stalemate a draw and not a win? Does anyone know the history behind it and why the creators of chess made it so that a completely winning position for one player could result in a draw just because the other player has no moves?

Remarkable, that the wiki says in tschaturanga, delivering stalemate was a loss, while in shatranj, it became a win.
What did tschaturanga have in mind?

With the short range pieces elephant and vizier, which are replaced by long range pieces bishop and queen today, and the pawns only promoting to a vizier, attacking and mating was harder. The game could be won by mate and by winning all pieces at that time, but it seems shatranj tried to give more credit to the attacker by allowing stalemate as win.

But why not so in the earlier version tschaturanga? If the game is 'going against the king', it seems very logical, that stalemate should be among the winning positions.

I'd suggest, in tschaturanga the rules were saying: Stalemate is a loss! because they wanted to have a game that shows in a game, it can be different than in the world. In a game, we can have it both: we can play against one another and, unlike in a real fight, we can play for the attack instead of for the kill. It is a game, anyways, so why not show it is a game?

'The kings may not be taken' is not it, the rule sets in one step earlier: the kings may not be left takeable. Note that the king may not be left simply en prise, either. Unlike in a real fight, we can not lose by a most capital carelessness like blundering our king.

But the king can be attacked in a way that it would be attacked whatever move it tried. So being checkmated you are not takeable, and you are under attack, that is a way to lose. Being stripped of your complete army, you are not takeable, that is a way to lose. Being takeable and taken off the board, that is no way to lose a game, it is cruel, you'd have to remind yourself it is just a game.

Whereas having gotten stalemated, in tschaturanga you could say: I won, because my opponent could not win that way but went that way. But why not a draw, why the whole point? It is, again, making a point of being a game, not a real fight. Losing the whole point for stalemating, you learn it is the whole point to mate or disarm. Stalemating is mislead, going through a motion of playing for takeability of the adverse king, which would be a crude and not a game-like end. So the rules of tschaturanga make stalemate a game-like end by awarding the price to the innocent. Not being takeable and saving the game as a game, that is a way to lose.

There is no Check

It would be a different game. Probably not less interesting, but uncommon.
An advantage of one pawn would almost always lead to a win. So you have to watch other things in order to defend. Needs skiills, too, but other kind of skills.
It is a historical decision, just like some day the game was considered more interesting if you allow the pawns a double step from their initial position. Why not triple steps? You can invent a lot of rules that would change the game more or less. Maybe for the better - but what is the point of finding "the most interesting rules ever" - if you don't find an opponent?

well i mean i like to think of it as, if you botch it so bad the other player literally cant move how is it a win

Why would stalemate be a draw instead of anything else? It's just a decision made.

Stalemate is possibility by the rules as they stand. Well thought out rules would not have it.

I always considered that the rule that needs to be abolished is the 'can't move into check' rule. If you do that stalemate results in capture and therefore loss. However, in 1-0 or ultrabullet capture-instead-of-mate-chess you could swindle out of checkmate, imagine that.

Also the rule always felt like a rule that is there to hold your hand as if to say 'no no you can't do that because he will take your king, see?'.