Bond and his villainous view

Who is James Bond? Is he the embodiment of hope? Or is he a troublesome figure for man and country? Or is he another human machine like the rest of us?  Or is he Christ?

These questions came to mind as I began delving deeper into Casino Royale. It may be a far fetched idea to see James Bond as a Christlike figure, after all Bond is an assassin. He doesn't go out of his way to cure people or dispense some worldly knowledge. Bond has a misogynistic view and he's an emotionless man, a trait that helps him to complete his assignments. He's willing to let others die if it means saving thousands for his country.

Yet in the movie, Bond dies and thanks to the help of Vesper, he is brought back to life. Just like Christ died and was resurrected, Bond came back a changed man.  Christ was revered, and his perspectives and words were profound and impactful on thousands of lives. And it is this superior knowledge of knowing what is right and what is wrong, knowing good and evil, forgiveness and resentment, that slowly puts Bond on the path to being a Jesus like figure.

Bonds' several near death experiences have such an impact on how he views who the villain is. He no longer sees his nemesis Le Chiffre as a villain, but more so as a pawn in the hands of the Devil. He feels sorry for Le Chiffre, just like Jesus had for pity on those that put him to death. His luck, or miracle of still being alive, causes Bond to question his own patriotism and whether it's worth risking his life for his country. More specifically, he questions who is the villain, since the villain can be anyone depending on your point of view.

As an agent, Bond is given a dossier with the facts of the enemy and has been provided with the necessary tools in order to defeat the "enemy." Yet he is without a voice in the beginning of the novel, obeying as instructed - once given the directive he's to get the job done. Period. 

Which brings to mind how we are as a society. When we're born, we are raised a certain way, being brought up with certain value systems and beliefs that are reinforced over time. Over the years these ideas become our own for the most part. When we begin to question who gave us this list of what to do, what not to do, what to believe in, what not to believe in, that this is your friend and this is your enemy, we may realize that we aren't human beings who are entitled to freedom of expression, freedom of choice. We are to some extent slaves to our superiors, from our parents to our employers, and even to our country, acting as robots doing what we are told to do. Like Bond we have become a machine.

Granted the need for some semblance of discipline is necessary to establish order in our daily lives, but it is this constant growing fear of not having control, of not having order that drives some power hungry people into madness. Hitler is a primary example.  He feared the Jews and wanted to eradicate them and he made it his life mission to do so.  It is the fear of the unknown that drives people to do some crazy things. When one deviates from the norm, even if they have good intentions, we see those individuals as a threat if their beliefs don't align with our own agreements.

The intentions are good, from passing a piece of state legislature to voting for a new president, but they may not be what we really expect them to be. We are presented with “facts” that are laid out for us to make our decision easier when in reality those facts are skewed in order to incite our opposition or our agreement with the agenda at hand.  It’s the lack of discernment, of not being able to put things into perspective that may get us into trouble.  We feed off of the information that is given to us and we lose sight that what we have in front of us may actually be assumptions and nothing more. We sometimes fail to see beyond the stereotypes, beyond our own scope of knowledge, that we don’t see things clearly.

It’s this perspective which Bond talks about that he finds troublesome, for “when one's young, it seems very easy to distinguish between right and wrong, but as one gets older it becomes more difficult.“  Just as Bond may be the good guy in our eyes and Le Chiffre the evil one, Le Chiffre sees Bond as the villain, a threat to Le Chiffre’s culture, his way of life. What we may be doing as a group, as a nation may not really be the right thing. Our intentions may be good but it’s the way we go about achieving those goals that becomes scary. Throughout history fear has been used as method of shifting the truth so that the “enemy” is seen as the enemy when opposite may be true. It’s the balance that is the key. As Bond points out, having people like Le Chiffre in the world brings out someone like Bond himself, one to balance the other. But is it as simple as that: the evil doers bring out the wise and the just?