Trigger Mortis mistake ?
SeanIsTheOnlyOne
Posts: 544MI6 Agent
I've reread Trigger Mortis. I noticed a detail that disturbed me a lot and I don't know if it has already been discussed here.
When Bond tries to escape at the end, he faces with some moral dilemma: should he kill one of the goons, a young guy named Danny Slater who explains he has a family and he only does that to provide their needs ? Then Bond remembers his previous missions, when he had to confront other goons to finally kill them while they probably had a life besides their dirty job. The problem is Sister Lily and Sister Rose are mentioned while in Dr No, I don't see where Bond faces those two characters and kills them.
Do we agree this is a mistake from Horowitz ?
Comments
I do vaguely remember that passage, it was discussed at the time. Some said it was a bit of revisionism, Fleming's Bond never would have worried about such things. But Fleming's Bond did feel guilt about having just killed a man in selfdefense in the first chapter of Goldfinger.
as for Sister Rose and Sister Lily, I dont think we know wat happened to them, do we?. Bond and Honey had to escape Crab Key in a hurry, I think other more conventional authorities would be expected to arrive on the island and round up all survivors.
In fact I'm sure theres many baddies Bond does not personally kill in the first seven novels. Just because he has a license to kill doesnt mean its his job to kill every bad guy he meets. Whatever happened to Shady Tree for example?
Actually it is not the fact Bond worries about such things that bothers me, it is the fact Sister Rose and Sister Lily are not supposed to cross Bond's path during the climax of Dr No. Fleming never mentions them while Horowitz seems to imply Bond had to get rid of them them to escape from the lair, to create a contrast between the previous missions and this one.
I have no problem with picking Fleming's material, but at least do it properly !
I don't think it's a mistake. On rereading that passage to check, Horowitz gives a list of various minor villains then mentions that Bond had killed many of them, as opposed to all.
Well, the way it is written is quite ambiguous. The fact Horowitz quotes some specific goons makes the reader think these ones do belong to this category, precisely to create a contrast with Slater and introduce some moral dilemma due to the fact the guy says he has a family.
I asked a friend of mine about this passage in the french version of the novel, and he confirmed Sister Lily and Sister Rose are said to have been killed by Bond.
I haven't read the French version, so can't comment on that.
It was mainly to explain this interrogation is not irrelevant at all. Knowing about the translations in other languages is interesting to see the way the people in charge of this work understand the text themselves.
...in which case it could be the translators didn't read Dr No
But doesn't their job consist in making sure every word/sentence/expression is relevant towards the original text, no matter how much they know about Fleming's work ?
This could be the case but perhaps not. I seem to recall that when the NTTD trailer came out in the US, Bond says to M, “I just met your new Double O…” and subtitles showed the same but in other trailers across the globe subtitles in English showed, “I just met your new Double O Seven…” So, perhaps, some things do actually get lost in translation.
"Keeping British end up, sir." - RM "This never happened to the other fellow." - JL "I must be dreaming." SC
From the small amount of research I've carried out over the years I've found that foreign editions are no great source of accuracy when it comes to Fleming or even the continuation Bond novel texts. The English edition is obviously the truest text, be it the UK or the US edition in some cases. My preference is still for the UK editions and I know the French editions (and no doubt others) cut out parts of the text.
I guess that while Fleming never described the event to us, Horowitz is saying that yes - it happened. A bit of plausible retconning.