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In the weekly magazine of the Resolute Guide! column, we take a look at a crucial pop culture question you’ve been dying to know the answer to – and let’s sort it out, once and for all
After September’s No Time to Die, there will have been 25 official James Bond films (15 based on the Ian Fleming novels). In all, one rule prevails: our tuxedo-clad hero Vesper-martini-swigging escapes an overly complicated death scenario while the villain ends up getting pierced (Elliot Carver from Tomorrow Never Dies), boiling alive (Dr No) or ejected. in outer space (Hugo Drax of Moonraker). So how is it that Bond always escapes?
For example, Live and Let Die’s Dr. Kananga hangs Roger Moore over a pit of man-eating crocodiles and – oops! – Bond runs away. Goldfinger ties Sean Connery to a testicular splicing laser and – oh! – Bond survives. The spy who loved me Karl Stromberg takes unnecessary time asking Jaws to “wait until they get ashore, then kill them” and – what do you know? – Bond escapes. At no point does any of these evil “geniuses” manage to finish the job. As Scott Evil says in Spy Who Loved Me parody Austin Powers: “Why don’t you shoot him? What are you waiting for? ”“ I have a better idea, ”explains Dr. Evil,“ I’m going to put him in an easily avoidable situation involving an overly elaborate and exotic death. ”
So – ignoring the fact that he has to survive to continue the franchise – why do Bond villains favor these convoluted deaths? We all know Bond villains are homicidal paranoid egotists with a hidden inferiority complex who have to make Bond’s death a masterpiece. Auric Goldfinger (a plutocrat), Karl Stromberg (an oil baron) and License to Kill’s Franz Sanchez (a drug lord) each have CVs full of criminal experience. They’ll score a lot more kudos in their industry for something elaborate like lowering Bond into a shark pit with crazy laser beams strapped to their heads.
Blofeld lives in a hollowed out volcano, Stromberg lives in an underwater base, and Gustav Graves from Die Another Day lives in an ice palace. They must be dying for a guest to try out their expensive death traps. Shark food, winch rope and trap door varnish: the expense of maintaining a shark pit is endless. Goldfinger lasers can’t be cheap. “Do you expect me to speak?” “No, Mr. Bond, at 24.9% APR I expect you would die… slowly.”
In the novel, Goldfinger stops cutting Bond in half with a chainsaw as he realizes that Bond is worth more to him alive and might be able to help him with a heist. It’s a convoluted setup that ends with Goldfinger bizarrely letting Bond do a bit of typing instead. So there is another reason not to kill Bond: you can have him do your administration. Additionally, Scaramanga from The Man With the Golden Gun is Spanish, Blofeld is German, and Franz Sanchez is Mexican, so the longer Bond is alive, the more he will continue to give free oral lessons in English from the Queen.
It’s not like the bad guys aren’t pissed off either. “Why can’t you be a good boy and die?” urges 006 turned Russian agent Alec Trevelyan in GoldenEye. “You first,” Bond insists. Meanwhile, Hugo Drax laments: “Mr. Bond. You defy all my attempts to plan a fun death for you. Perhaps this is where the answer lies: not just shooting Bond is the result of good old-fashioned British politeness.
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