Is James Bond a psychopath?
Number24
NorwayPosts: 22,330MI6 Agent
I'll start by posting a video with that title. I don't fully agree with it, but it's food for thought:
Comments
I think you want to edit the topic title. Right now it's just a copy of the link to "James Bond: Her Majesty's Psychopath?"
😨😫☹️🤬🤬
Having said that, the Mods are free to delete this thread if they wish to.
I watched a bit of the vid, I think the answer is: yes, probably 😁
My answer is: he has psychopathic tendencies, yes. But I don't but that a full psycho risks his own life to save others.
Yes, I think that’s the key point. To psychopaths other people aren’t quite real. It’s why they can lie, manipulate, murder without compunction or remorse. Bond shows signs of psychopathy in the indifference which he can kill and in how he views women. But there’s a core of heroism in him that is irrefutable. He’s more than capable of empathy and willing to sacrifice to do his duty. My interpretation is that Bond’s psychopathic-seeming hardness is a protective shell he’s grown to do the work he’s been asked to do. It’s the same reason he lives so much in the moment, because his own death is always waiting outside the door of every room he’s in.
In the context of his own world, Bond is not a psychopath. Out of that context, in our world, someone could argue he is, but since Bond couldn't exist in our world anyway the question is moot.
there's a few lines in Craigs Casino Royale that could support this.
I forget the exact wording, but I think M is warning in this business its dangerous to build personal attachments or something like that (someone else please correct the quote), then pauses and looks at him close and says "but then that's not your problem, is it Bond?" and he responds dead cold "no mum". Also in those first two films its a theme that he leaves a trail of corpses, he's so easy with killing he doesn't realise part of his job is to gather information from people.
I get the idea he's supposed to be growing past this over the first two films, becoming a better agent if not a better person. Like he learns to open up and let Vesper close to him, then hardens up again after learning of her treason (this is all explicit in the dialog). He seems to be more human by SkyFall, however many years have passed in-universe, then finally ready to enter a normal relationship when he meets Madeleine. But the argument in the car is like a relapse to the bad old CraigBond we first met four films earlier.
So I think we're supposed to watch him grow as a human beyond possibly psychopathic roots, I'm just not sure we ever really see a healthier CraigBond in between other than his ability to tell jokes.
Speaking of which, then there's his reaction to Severine's death, which I just put down to bad writing.
I never saw the problem with the Severine thing: he's trying to throw Silva off balance.
It was posited on a The Bond Experience video with a geo-politics expert that out of all the 'movie Bonds', Roger Moore was truly the psychopath, with the others being more sociopathic.
Interesting. More Bond, the jolly killer?
once you have killed or been to war you will NEVER be the same person after that
if you do a job where you are trained to kill and then carry on as tho nothing has happend that will change you
ask any soldier or any body in the armed forces
i have been told many times by civilians your mad your off your head or that did not happen you did not no body could do that
civilians can not under stand or even think about what some armed forces guys und gals go through and have to do in the line of service
that must seem to a lot that yes some people in that job are off there head psycopaths
my 50 cents