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James Bond--A Bad Double-O?

RevelatorRevelator
edited November 2013 in Literary 007 Posts: 2,896

James Bond is a Double-O, a government assassin. Yes throughout the James Bond saga, Bond (and Fleming) show an increasing unease with this. In Casino Royale Bond is clearly established as an assassin, having performed two cold-blooded kills to gain Double-O status, yet we do not see him on another assassination mission until For Your Eyes Only, and after that, only The Living Daylights and The Man With the Golden Gun. What gives?

In CR Bond is relatively comfortable with being a cold-blooded killer, though in conversation with Vesper he goes out of his way to divest being a OO of any glamor. Yet by the time of From Russia With Love, Bond and Fleming have developed a great distaste for cold-blooded murder. "Bond had never killed in cold blood" writes Fleming, flagrantly contradicting his own books!

In FYEO, Bond undertakes M's private mission of revenge (which even a staunch Bond-fan like Kingsley Amis found distasteful) after being told of Von Hammerstein's crimes, yet when it comes time to pull the trigger, Bond's nerves act up. It's only when Von Hammerstein reminds Bond of his cruelty by shooting a bird that Bond can bring himself to try killing him. In TLD Bond's decay as a OO proceeds further--he cannot even bring himself to kill Trigger (and unlike the movie, Bond knows she's a professional killer)!
Despite being reborn in TMWTGG, Bond's unease with cold-blooded killing reaches its zenith in the final book: presented with the ideal opportunity to kill Scaramanga, he cannot bring himself to shoot him in the back. And when Bond finally has Scaramanga at his mercy, he ludicrously, intentionally, delays the execution, allowing the thoroughly immoral Scaramanga a prayer break!

It's clear: James Bond has become uncomfortable with being a OO and lost his nerve. His job is to kill in cold blood, yet he can no longer so--a fact has eluded the educated idiots who tell us that Fleming's Bond is a murderous sociopath. In FRWL Fleming tells us the following:

"Executioners have a short 'life.' They get tired of their work. The soul sickens of it. After ten, twenty, a hundred death rattles, the human being, however sub-human he may be, acquires, perhaps by a process of osmosis with death itself, a germ of death which enters his body and eats into him like a canker. Melancholy and drink take him, and a dreadful lassitude which which brings a glaze to his eyes and slows up movements and destroys accuracy. When the employer sees these signs he has no alternative but to execute the executioner and find another one."

If Bond worked for the Soviets, they would have executed him. If I were M, I would fire him, or at the very least strip him of Double-O status. He's clearly lost the nerve for it.

Comments

  • chrisisallchrisisall Brosnan Defender Of The Realm
    Posts: 17,692
    If Bond were just a cold blooded killer, we Bond fans would have no extended use for him, I conjure. If he were a warm & fuzzy do-gooder, his books and movies would be for kids. Treading the thin line between conscientious sociopath and dark humanitarian is what makes him interesting IMO.
  • SirHenryLeeChaChingSirHenryLeeChaChing
    Posts: 3,494
    I'm laughing at all this psychobabble. It looked like Bond was ready and raring to crush some more bad guys at the end of SF, and was sober too- on to BOND24, I've got better things to talk about than worry about his psychological state :))
  • pachazopachazo Make Your Choice
    Posts: 7,314
    Revelator wrote:
    If Bond worked for the Soviets, they would have executed him. If I were M, I would fire him, or at the very least strip him of Double-O status. He's clearly lost the nerve for it.
    M was thinking of doing just that in You Only Live Twice. He gave him another chance though and it turned out that Bond hadn't lost his nerve. He just needed the proper motivation.
  • TrishTrish Banned
    Posts: 20
    He can be a ruthless killer or a beautiful gentleman. This is what makes James Bond so unique to me!
  • LudovicoLudovico
    Posts: 14,846
    A 00 agent can kill in service, at his discretion, that does not mean that is his only function and that he enjoys it. In fact, his disdain for killing is what makes Bond human and no sociopath. A psycho with a 00 status would be a danger to the UK more than an effective tool. Silva was not an operative and his mental instability made him dangerous.
  • chrisisallchrisisall Brosnan Defender Of The Realm
    Posts: 17,692
    @Ludovico, yes, that's what I was attempting to say.
  • LudovicoLudovico
    Posts: 14,846
    And if anything, it is better to have an operative who hesitates before killing than a trigger happy one. I don't think Bond is a bad 00, in fact I think he is very good, because he knows the burden of his job.
  • chrisisallchrisisall Brosnan Defender Of The Realm
    Posts: 17,692
    Quite.
    "Stuff my orders! I only kill professionals. That girl didn't know one end of a rifle from the other. Go ahead. Tell M what you want. If he fires me, I'll thank him for it. Whoever she was, it must've scared the living daylights out of her."
  • SaintMarkSaintMark
    Posts: 7,653
    Revelator wrote:
    James Bond is a Double-O, a government assassin. Yes throughout the James Bond saga, Bond (and Fleming) show an increasing unease with this. In Casino Royale Bond is clearly established as an assassin, having performed two cold-blooded kills to gain Double-O status, yet we do not see him on another assassination mission until For Your Eyes Only, and after that, only The Living Daylights and The Man With the Golden Gun. What gives?

    In CR Bond is relatively comfortable with being a cold-blooded killer, though in conversation with Vesper he goes out of his way to divest being a OO of any glamor. Yet by the time of From Russia With Love, Bond and Fleming have developed a great distaste for cold-blooded murder. "Bond had never killed in cold blood" writes Fleming, flagrantly contradicting his own books!

    In FYEO, Bond undertakes M's private mission of revenge (which even a staunch Bond-fan like Kingsley Amis found distasteful) after being told of Von Hammerstein's crimes, yet when it comes time to pull the trigger, Bond's nerves act up. It's only when Von Hammerstein reminds Bond of his cruelty by shooting a bird that Bond can bring himself to try killing him. In TLD Bond's decay as a OO proceeds further--he cannot even bring himself to kill Trigger (and unlike the movie, Bond knows she's a professional killer)!
    Despite being reborn in TMWTGG, Bond's unease with cold-blooded killing reaches its zenith in the final book: presented with the ideal opportunity to kill Scaramanga, he cannot bring himself to shoot him in the back. And when Bond finally has Scaramanga at his mercy, he ludicrously, intentionally, delays the execution, allowing the thoroughly immoral Scaramanga a prayer break!

    It's clear: James Bond has become uncomfortable with being a OO and lost his nerve. His job is to kill in cold blood, yet he can no longer so--a fact has eluded the educated idiots who tell us that Fleming's Bond is a murderous sociopath. In FRWL Fleming tells us the following:

    "Executioners have a short 'life.' They get tired of their work. The soul sickens of it. After ten, twenty, a hundred death rattles, the human being, however sub-human he may be, acquires, perhaps by a process of osmosis with death itself, a germ of death which enters his body and eats into him like a canker. Melancholy and drink take him, and a dreadful lassitude which which brings a glaze to his eyes and slows up movements and destroys accuracy. When the employer sees these signs he has no alternative but to execute the executioner and find another one."

    If Bond worked for the Soviets, they would have executed him. If I were M, I would fire him, or at the very least strip him of Double-O status. He's clearly lost the nerve for it.

    You just gave a great argument against the judgement that 007 is a one dimensional character of no depth.

    Thank You. :D
  • LicencedToKilt69007LicencedToKilt69007 Belgium, Wallonia
    Posts: 523
    I agree with @Ludovico. @Trish is right too. I'd even say "a ruthless killer AND a beautiful gentleman"
  • RevelatorRevelator
    Posts: 2,896
    SirHenryLeeChaChing wrote:
    I'm laughing at all this psychobabble. It looked like Bond was ready and raring to crush some more bad guys at the end of SF, and was sober too- on to BOND24, I've got better things to talk about than worry about his psychological state :))

    You seem unable to distinguish the literary Bond from his much different movie counterpart. We are talking about the former. The literary Bond is established as a government assassin meant to kill in cold blood, yet as the series progresses, Bond grows steadily more squeamish and incompetent at doing so--by the time of TMWTGG, Bond goes to laughable extremes to avoid shooting Scaramanga and almost dies for it. This is not behavior one wants from a double-O. The conclusion is that Bond is no longer worthy of being in that section. He is still an effective agent, but he's no longer good at doing what a double-O should.
  • RevelatorRevelator
    Posts: 2,896
    chrisisall wrote:
    Quite.
    "Stuff my orders! I only kill professionals. That girl didn't know one end of a rifle from the other. Go ahead. Tell M what you want. If he fires me, I'll thank him for it. Whoever she was, it must've scared the living daylights out of her."

    Remember that these lines were an invention of the movie. In the original story, Trigger IS a professional--a professional assassin. This makes Bond's failure of nerve more damning. Granted, Bond suspects that the Russians will liquidate Trigger for her failure, and he suspects that he wounded Trigger badly enough to ruin her gun hand, but these are only wishful thoughts on Bond's part, and are unconfirmed by the story.
  • SirHenryLeeChaChingSirHenryLeeChaChing
    edited November 2013 Posts: 3,494
    @Revelator- Wrong. I am intimately familiar with both mediums and have been for, say, 40 years or so. But if we excuse the posthumously released stories and go strictly with TMWTGG, who's to say what Fleming would have done next had he lived?

    Your argument, while I don't disagree with technically, is based on realism vs fiction. And this is where we get into the endless mental exercises that become tedious "What would you have done if you were Fleming?", or "Where was Fleming going next?", as your statement of what you would have done if you were M indicates. My feeling is that Fleming had far too much of a sense of the dramatic to simply have M fire him for being a "bad 00" and end the series at that, especially after it was clear that if anything, he simply needed to be "reprogrammed" to resume his duties.

    Quite frankly, no offense, but we've got Fleming purists here crying every other minute about the cinematic version and you are already starting to go in that direction with your "educated idiot" argument. So I'll be a good sport and bow out so as not to cause any fuss.



  • RevelatorRevelator
    Posts: 2,896
    Good, since you added little to the discussion.
    Why discuss a strictly literary matter by bringing in non-literary examples? Even an "educated idiot" like me knows better.
    Stating what I would have done if I were M is hardly indicative of asking "Where was Fleming going next?" I have no more idea than anybody else, and what I would do has nothing to do with what Fleming would do. I simply pointed out an increasing tendency on Bond and Fleming's part to grow more squeamish over a task Bond had once done without many qualms.
  • LudovicoLudovico
    Posts: 14,846
    But a 00 is not a paid assassin, although this is how the opposition may see them. A 00 is an operative, with a license to kill that he uses at his discretion, when the mission requires it. This is a huge difference. In CR his mission is not to kill Le Chiffre, it is to ruin and humiliate him, in FRWL it is not to kill SMERSH executives, it is to retrieve the Lektor, etc. In OHMSS, we learn that Bond thinks hunting down Blofeld is not a 00 job, but a police job, something he does not consider himself to be. So even if he is a lousy killer (which he is not), he would not be a bad 00. Bond succeeded in every mission of every novel, including the killing of undesirables. And yes, sometimes for dramatic reasons Fleming makes him take longer. And for understandable reasons, Bond takes his time before the kill. Because he is not an assassin, he is an operative.
  • RevelatorRevelator
    Posts: 2,896
    I'd say he's both. In CR, he had to perform two assassinations to get OO-status. In FYEO he acts as M's hitman. In TLD he is told to assassinate Trigger. In TMWTGG, he is told to kill Scaramanga, and M would have likely preferred for Bond to have shot Scaramanga in the back instead of chickening out. So Bond's job includes cold-blooded murder, but he's grown steadily less capable of it throughout the series. As an operative he's a great success. But being a double-OO also means being an assassin--that's how he got the job in the first place.
  • LudovicoLudovico
    edited November 2013 Posts: 14,846
    Revelator wrote:
    I'd say he's both. In CR, he had to perform two assassinations to get OO-status. In FYEO he acts as M's hitman. In TLD he is told to assassinate Trigger. In TMWTGG, he is told to kill Scaramanga, and M would have likely preferred for Bond to have shot Scaramanga in the back instead of chickening out. So Bond's job includes cold-blooded murder, but he's grown steadily less capable of it throughout the series. As an operative he's a great success. But being a double-OO also means being an assassin--that's how he got the job in the first place.

    Bond's job can include murder, but does not necessarily, at any time, for every occasion, include murder. Some of his missions, not all, will be to kill someone, but not that many. Even in TLD, killing Trigger is only part of the mission and the mission remains a success. I think the way Fleming treats assassination is fairly realistic and Bond seems to go through the stress of it quite well. In the series Queen & Country, Tara Chace has a nervous breakdown after the events of her first assasination mission (it is true that there was a bounty on her head), she vomits after killing in self-defence, etc. And we are talking here about one of the most realistic spy fiction there ever was.
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