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Sure, but as you say, she's already made the deal with White before the game so it doesn't really matter. I don't think the film says she got White to spare him does it?
Yeah, maybe. Le Chiff isn't beyond a bit of rough stuff so he may just kill Mendel and steal the encoder to enter the details or force him to do it at gunpoint, it would still work.
Well, M says Vesper made a deal to save Bond. Of course, she has no way of knowing this and it doesn't really make sense, but I guess the writers wanted to put something together to give an idea what going on...
And if Le Chiffre's plan involves basically robbing a Swiss bank, well... :)) We're back to why is he bothering with Bond at all.
To be clear, I'm not saying Vesper had a deal with White beforehand. I guess she did? The movie says she made a deal later, but who knows. I have the impression that when she typed the account number I to Mendels encryptor, it could have been anything.
Ah, does she? Okay. Hmm, that is troublesome.
Well I guess having the account number and password is a bit easier than robbing a Swiss bank though. Mendel is hardly invulnerable.
Right, I guess. I suppose it may have been some sort of intermediary account for the Treasury she entered to protect the Treasury's accounts.
Maybe she did only tell White she'd get him the money on the barge then: White said it wasn't about the money so may well have been about to kill Bond as he didn't care either way (Obanno is dead, after all) but she persuaded him that he could have it (plus I guess potentially he's now got an MI6 agent who he can exploit through threatening his girlfriend). I think that works?
I’d say he was fairly confidant that bashing Bonds balls would get him to give up the password.He was desperate yes,but it’s only when Bond makes it clear he wasn’t going to give up the password that Lechiffre realised he was out of options and was going to castrate Bond out of spite.
We never had the Blofeld from the books. I hope we'll get him in the reboot.
Shame he didn't realize the password was a waste of time!
But @MakeshiftPython, you're right of course. Whether or not CR makes sense in its plot mechanics, and it doesn't, it does make sense in its story/character beats. It obviously connects with the vast majority of Bond fans.
I'm actually willing to go to the mats to defend Purvis & Wade, who I think have done a fine job, but there seems to be something about their films where they occasionally get their point across with something slightly too complicated that doesn't bear scrutiny, with Safin's motivation and methods being the most recent example.
Not from his point of view though?
Well again, there's the more cooperative lady next door who he knows is in charge of the vastly more important/useful account number situation...!
I'm not sure what you're saying: we're told that the password is required to release the funds into the account which she designated. Are you saying the account number is enough on its own? Mendel is holding the money in escrow until the password is entered into his machine- what's the point in Le Chiffre knowing the account number of an empty account?
She doesnt designate any account as far as I know until after the Le Chiffre scenes. He can get her to designate a different account. Just like she did in the movie for the cleverer character.
We haven't even got into the fact that Le Chiffre has no way whatsoever to check that a password Bond gives him is correct.
But without the password it won't go into any account. So he needs the password.
So in fact it's the reverse to what you said: he doesn't need Vesper at all, any account number she has is useless. She's only really useful (in the barge) as leverage to get Bond to give the password to him.
Why do you think the account number is vastly more useful?
I guess he just keeps him alive until he tries it.
But we went over this. Bond enters the password. Vesper enters a different account number. Exactly like what happened in the movie.
Of course Le Chiffre doesn't need her account number for anything (in contrast to what he says in the movie!). He would have her enter a different account number. The way Mr White did.
There's no reason for Le Chiffre to even speak with Bond once the game is over.
Vesper was a double agent the entire time, as she was responsible for telling Le Chiffre about his tell. Vesper, I think, was Quantum's insurance plan in case Le Chiffre lost the Poker game, and was injected into the plot when they found out the British government was putting Bond in the game. They likely knew Le Chiffre gambles with it, but either way would have been extremely unhappy with him for losing it in the stock market because Quantum was responsible for setting him up with the client. I think it's possible Le Chiffre needed the account number and password so he could "log in" to her account in a matter of speaking, and make the transfer to his own account. He wouldn't need to rob any banks.
"A lovely man from the treasury wondering if you're ever going to deposit the money" indicates the account number Vesper used was for this "Quantum" account. So I think Le Chiffre did need the account # and password.
I tend to think Vesper's scream in the torture place was indeed fake (But then there was the Vesper Interrogation videotape in Spectre, so that complicates things... I'm typing things as I think them lol). Anyways with regards to Casino, the deal she made with White to spare Bond's life would be "listen, only I know the account number and I'm meant to withdraw the cash to give to Gettler to get it back to Quantum. I won't do that unless you promise to let Bond live".
EDIT: Maybe she says something to this effect, they hit her or something and the scream is real.
You’d need to read the discussion.
I think the fact that Le Chiffre requires the account number (I believe we sort of have to trust that they're telling us the story the way they want to tell it) indicates to us that Vesper did nominate the account # previously in the story, but off screen. ie, she didn't nominate it with Bond and Mendel in the courtyard by Lake Como (on screen), but much earlier.
There's that too. The story is basic enough that it doesn't take a viewer out when they're watching it; it does become more complicated the more you think about it, but I think all the answers are there.
Yes good point about Vesper telling Le Chiffre (LC) about Bond’s tell. If that was true it means she was working with him, which means almost nothing that happens next makes sense. LC would indeed have no reason to torture Bond; it wouldn’t even matter which of them won the game as with Vesper on his side, LC would get the cash no matter what.
I think logically you have to take LC and Quantum as separate entities (another point which Spectre destroys lol); in the beginning, Mr. White says "all we guarantee is the introduction" which to me indicates Le Chiffre doesn't actually work directly for Quantum, but is a criminal-banker-associate, a person they use from time to time.
Think of it this way, Quantum's
Plan A: Have our agent Vesper help Le Chiffre win the game. Everything's back to normal.
Plan B: If he still can't win the game, the hopeless tosser, we'll cut off Le Chiffre and get the money back ourselves, again through Vesper and her Quantum bank account.
Plan C: Kill them. Kill them all. Get the money back as well.
EDIT: Sorry, the character above's name is Obanno.
Not with Vesper on their side: she just puts their account number in and that’s that.
But LC and her don’t seem to be working together. Is it her that reveals the tell?
I don't think LC wants to give the money to White. And LC indicating he has Mathis on his side was just fiction, I think it was in there to throw Bond off. Perhaps Le Chiffre deduced correctly that Bond was too naive to suspect Vesper, and that by process of elimination, Bond would suspect Mathis, and his comment there was to double-down on that suspicion.
Again, Quantum's Plan A was to have the money end up with, and remain with, Le Chiffre.
If he messed that up, their Plan B was to take the money themselves to restore their reputation as a reputable crime organization to deal with.