Was Fleming's Bond a wimp?

[Count_Lippe]

007 in Fleming's books wasn't just a killer, he was actually a contemplating character who disliked killing, a person who exhibited the full range of emotions.

Was he a wimp?

[John P. Drake]

Yes, Count Lippe! I've been arguing about this for years on that Rubbish MI6Community forums and several Facebook pages. Yes, Fleming's original character was a wimp. I mean, he couldn't take a surprise calmly, then hesitates to pull off an assassination task, then dreaming about leaving service both in CR and OHMSS, always ready to give in. Come on!

[Kristatos]

Fleming's Bond often showed fear (most notably the underwater scenes in Thunderball, which were quite different in tone to their almost balletic equivalents in the movie version). But paradoxically, I think this makes him braver than some 2-dimensional Boy's Own hero who never exhibits any recognisable human emotion, because said lantern-jawed automaton would not need to overcome his fears, since he doesn't have any to overcome.

[Blowfeld]

To today's yabbo Daniel Craig fan Ian Fleming's James Bond 007 has to be seen by them as a wimp. Ian's 007 never ran through walls nor was he capable of the superhuman feats the gym bound Daniel accomplishes as a matter of routine. Daniel's 007 is a creature of a fallen culture relying on the lowest action hero meme to power through the spots where a story should be. In Ian's days his Bond was written as what a proper man should be, refined, educated, yet able to respond to a physical threat, a WWII British commando in short, not a superhuman shock troop with inhuman emotions motivating them. Fleming's 007 was not a super spy and not a rogue agent with mommy issues. I don't know if fans who accept the Craig reboot are capable of balancing the two different worlds, since Timothy Dalton the series has taken on more aspects of the big American actioners with bigger stunts, explosions, and cgi calumniating to hiring the most American of the Bond actors (Daniel) to essentially play a stuntman on screen.

Fleming's 007 surrounded himself with friends, the atmosphere surrounding his world was a friendlier world one he fought to maintain. Even with his internal doubts, a good way for a pulp writer to notch up the suspense, 007 was not motivated to be the toughest or meanest, often out classed he adhered to the standard he kept his life by. He made mistakes yet was man anyone could respect and trust. A man who killed who didn't like killing, someone who loved women so he would try to save them, an enigma to today's world of story telling.

In a way I can see where Ian's 007 has flaws action heroes like The Rock and Rock mini (Daniel) do not share, so he would be a wimp to those hero standards. Yet in Fleming's work alone forgetting 50 years of other books and movies, I could argue there are aspects to Bond that are not as strong as they could be his lowest found in You Only Live Twice, still over all I fell Fleming's Bond was not a wimp, not to the standard of the day.

[Kristatos]

As I've said before, if I have one complaint about Fleming's Bond, it's that he sometimes seems a little slow on the uptake for a professional spy, often figuring things out long after the reader does (eg the identity of the two "mystery" passengers on his ship in DAF).

[Blowfeld]

It's also a story telling style. Rex Stout (who Ian was a fan of) kept Archie Goodwin and the readers in the dark by running the bulk of the stories solving behind closed doors of the mind of Nero Wolfe, which is impractical for a first person action drama. The author struggles with revealing the facts too soon or too late.

To my mind there are two ways of calling Ian's Bond a wimp. One is a comparison to today's action heroes of which there is no doubt Daniel is from, the other is dissecting the books for parts where 007 was less than impressive. I could lose the battle there. However I feel James Bond was a capable, intelligent agent despite occasions were he was slow on the uptake.

[Capt. Sir Dominic Flandry]

Not a wimp as he had lots of tough missions. Of course he ruminated over his missions and career in interior monologues and ended up in hospital on numerous occasions but I don't think that made him a wimp.

[Count_Lippe]

Of course you could argue that 007 was always sort of a superhero in the films, even before Daniel Craig.

Escaping impossible situations without getting a scratch, through skill, luck or with the help of some gadget.

And this is simply something that didn't happen in the books.

007 in the books wasn't perfect and he constantly used alcohol to soothe his nerves.

I don't know if this makes him a wimp though?

[Kristatos]

007 in the books wasn't perfect and he constantly used alcohol to soothe his nerves.

I don't know if this makes him a wimp though?

It possibly makes him an alcoholic.

[Mazer Rackham]

The books are travelogues,on the scale of world of travelogues Michael Palin is a wuss and Ian Fleming/James Bond is a blokes bloke. If Fleming's Bond had backed down because of his fears then I'd agree he'd be a wuss.

[Count_Lippe]

007 in the books wasn't perfect and he constantly used alcohol to soothe his nerves.

I don't know if this makes him a wimp though?

It possibly makes him an alcoholic.

Even during the ski chase in the novel OHMSS Bond has some booze in a pocket flask which he downs.

Picture Lazenby doing this in the film version.

[Dr. No]

I never felt Bond was a wimp. in eveyr book i read he hit the wall of physical endurance but getting to that wall was hell so he'd be one of the tougher literary characters in my book.

[Dr. No]

007 in the books wasn't perfect and he constantly used alcohol to soothe his nerves.

I don't know if this makes him a wimp though?

It possibly makes him an alcoholic.

Even during the ski chase in the novel OHMSS Bond has some booze in a pocket flask which he downs.

Picture Lazenby doing this in the film version.

The booze was borderline in the 1950s America he'd be a teetotaler

[Blowfeld]

007 in the books wasn't perfect and he constantly used alcohol to soothe his nerves.

I don't know if this makes him a wimp though?

It possibly makes him an alcoholic.

Even during the ski chase in the novel OHMSS Bond has some booze in a pocket flask which he downs.

Picture Lazenby doing this in the film version.

The booze was borderline in the 1950s America he'd be a teetotaler

The BMJ has a study out claiming 007 is a booze hound talk about timely for our discussion.

The authors found that Bond, as depicted in 14 classic Ian Fleming novels, drinks more than four times the limit recommended for British men

[Capt. Sir Dominic Flandry]

007 in the books wasn't perfect and he constantly used alcohol to soothe his nerves.

I don't know if this makes him a wimp though?

It possibly makes him an alcoholic.

Even during the ski chase in the novel OHMSS Bond has some booze in a pocket flask which he downs.

Picture Lazenby doing this in the film version.

The booze was borderline in the 1950s America he'd be a teetotaler

The BMJ has a study out claiming 007 is a booze hound talk about timely for our discussion.

The authors found that Bond, as depicted in 14 classic Ian Fleming novels, drinks more than four times the limit recommended for British men

This is a good site on Bond's drinks. It's offline but is on the Wayback archive.

http://web.archive.org/web/200608211043 ... index.html

[acid]

I don't know if fans who accept the Craig reboot are capable of balancing the two different worlds, since Timothy Dalton the series has taken on more aspects of the big American actioners with bigger stunts, explosions, and cgi calumniating to hiring the most American of the Bond actors (Daniel) to essentially play a stuntman on screen.

They try to make the stunts and action bigger and better but I'd argue there were vastly better stunts in Moore's era. Landing a car on the roof of a moving bus, catching up with a parachutist to wrestle the chute off him, oh and the excellent corkscrew car jump in TMWTGG. More than that, these stunts were all done for real and it really shows. I know that's true for some of them in Craig's films also, but overuse of CG and disjointed storylines just leave me underwhelmed. The stunts seem to stick out somehow clumsily because the rest of Craig's films are so boring!

I don't think it's fair to call Fleming's Bond a wimp. How many people would have the strength of character to survive and succeed at those missions? He's thoughtful and philosophical at times but I think that makes him superior to a superficial, brain-dead, thuggish, sociopathic action hero! The thoughtful philosophical bits are often there because most of the books are written from Bond's point of view. So we see reflections and inner vulnerability that would be undetectable to a third person observer.

[Count_Lippe]

[John P. Drake]

^^ Well defined!!

[Jamesdude]

Every Bond fan should know 007 isnt a soda drinker, but then again this the craig era...

[Blowfeld]

It's common knowledge that Fleming's 007 was all about Coke zero and Heineken.

I found it strangely apropos that Coke zero was used to advertise Daniel.