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Very true,but I back my arguments with facts (I.e. lines from the books,interviews of Fleming,scenes from the old movies or simply good old logic) while you just use wishful thinking. Remember when you mentioned you could see Connery in the Severigne execution scene and I pointed out Seans reactions about the death of the Masterson girls? You never gave an answer to that,but I don't remember you ever repeating that claim, so I guess even you saw some merit in my point.
:))
I'm not sure I totally agree with you there @timmer. I can see your point and understand your explanation, but I don't agree that Bond and Pussy were flirting from the moment they met. Bond was, but Pussy gave little if anything away, and it's only Bond's cockiness and self belief that kept him interested.
In the barn after they had their 'fight' Bond forces himself down on Pussy, and I mean forced. He ignored her obvious resistance and through gritted teeth forced himself down on her. Now, ultimately she crumbled and participated but in normal, real life if a man forces himself on a girl and meets that kind of initial resistance it could be interpreted as rape.
This was 1964, things were different, but I don't know how anyone could condone Bond's approach and call it playful seduction.
Absolutely - why didn't she scream if it was rape? Not like there was nobody about.
Patricia Fearing is far more distasteful. Bond basically blackmailing her into shagging her (not to mention the earlier sexual assault when he grabbed her and kissed her). To be fair she seemed up for it too but I do find Sean pretty creepy in the Shrublands scenes.
On topic, I think @chrisisall hit the nail on the head, it depends on how you define an anti hero. To me an anti hero is a heroic character, a good guy who does the right thing, but one who also does some questionable stuff and has some dark characteristics, and Bond fits that description.
Pardon me,but how did I go at her? If you take the burden and scroll back you'll find I didn't start mentioning SF,but only weighed in about Bonds supposed anti hero traits. My point towards 4ever was,that her finding the Severigne "business" handled tastefully was no proof, that @timmers reasoning was wrong.To strengthen my point (and to show her "we happen to disagree on everything" doesn't necessarily means I am wrong) I remembered her about our "just like Sean" discussion a few month ago. About me being arrogant,well I might be,BUT I know I am absolutely willing to admit when I am proven wrong about whatever. As long this is not the case I consider it plain wrong to withdraw my opinion, since I firmly believe,that the cleverer gives in only serves to strengthen the wrong believes. Sorry,but that's how I feel about it.
I think Walt started off as an anti hero but slowly became a villain as the series went on. With Tony Montana and Hannibal Lecter, I don't see them as anti heroes, just entertaining/likeable villains.
I never looked at it that way, but I guess it could be right.
Since 2012, you have been seeking out SF related threads, always ready to spit out the same condescending comments like acid reflux. Are you really so restless about this film? Hasn't it been enough by now? Do you really fail to see that this isn't about your opinion any more but about your dreaded compulsion to invade every bit of neutral or positive discussion concerning SF?
I don't visit every SF thread. I like SF and I also have some criticism towards SF but I made my points aeons ago and rarely do I wish to restate them. Yet only recently I stumbled upon a Thomas Newman thread, only to read your comments - again - about SF's senseless plot. This is the best sign of how incredibly focused you are on literally anything SF for the sake of giving it a big and loud sting. I don't like Kevin McClory. To imitate you, I'd have to Google search all our threads about TB, underwater action or even Ian Fleming and regurgitate my anti-McClory ramble in almost all of them. I won't. Even when NSNA is discussed, I'm not necessarily going to talk about McClory because by now people have probably read my opinion about the man often enough.
You do post in other threads too and I really appreciate much if not all of the input you have in our discussions. But SF is your Moby Dick; your desire to break its popularity has made you almost irrationally focused towards these threads. I don't believe you're always wrong about SF. I do believe, however, you're wrong about your personal mission to have all of our members publicly curse SF because that won't happen. In fact your caustic attempts only serve one purpose, which is to kill every bit of fun in almost every SF related thread people create with good intentions, whether that's your intention or not.
I wouldn't dream of taking away your free speech but this is a little bit like in real life: we're allowed to say what we want and as often as we want, but a wise man realises when to stop unless he really wants to be known as a party pooper. You'd be surprised how many of us take genuine offence in some of the things SF did or didn't do. So how come you're the only one to take so much heat? Something to think about.
AGAIN, I originally only weighed in about Bonds claimed anti hero traits, since I (believe it or not) know (and feel) that my disdain for SF is already known to anyone. 4everBonded came in on SF and I merely pointed out,that her feelings about that movie don't change anything about how Fleming and Mr. Maibaum (together with Connery ) conceived James Bond. It's just that simple.
No. The reason was that Gustav Graves felt the need to point out the intellectual superiority of SF compared to those older,brainless Bond movies. Think of me whatever you want,but I'm Bond fan and I won't stand idly by,when someone feels like denigrating a bunch of movies,that managed to build a legend ( something I honestly feel the after the reboot flics wouldn't have been able to. And I quite like CR and especially QoS ).
To all else, sorry about derailing this thread. Sorry about sounding like a broken record, constantly raising the same point, again, not letting it go - passionately not letting it go.
But Walter White did sort of redeem himself in the end by avenging the deaths of his family members and allowing his wife to grieve for her loss too
For example in Silence of the Lambs I'd say its
-Clarice (hero)
-Hannibal (anti-hero)
-Buffalo Bill (villain)
What about Pierce Brosnan in The Matador? I'd class him as an anti-hero.
Back on topic, sort of, I wonder whether most people see @Matt_Helm as a hero or anti-hero?
Well, I had no idea I was asked questions that needed answering. So as not to derail this thread further, please just PM me. I'll have to go look up your mention of Sean's reaction; I cannot remember it. Yes, we do seem to disagree on many things, most especially anything to do with Skyfall, apparently. That is not new. Nor is it relevant to this thread really.
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I have never given much though to my exact definition of an "antihero." But it seems to me it could be someone who at first looks unlikely to be a hero and/or someone whose actions do not always follow the straight and "good" options but who does heroic things.
I rather agree with thelivingroyale's observation here: I do agree though that there is a difference between an anti hero and just a plain unlikeable character. Bond is an example of an anti hero done right. He sometimes does questionable stuff and can be pretty cold blooded and sexist but he always has charm and likeability, and he's a good person really. He's caring and he tries to do the right thing.
And timmer's, too: So call him anti-hero if you want, free world, as he's no boyscout. He frequents brothels too occasionally. But there is no denying his heroic qualities, never mind actions. The anti-hero is only ever a reluctant hero. Bond on the other hand, is motivated by heroic qualities such as honor, duty, morality.
I see Bond as basically a good person, with loyalty, honor, and moraltiy. But his job requires him to do awful things at times. He is not bad in his core. He is not a killer who just happens to do good things. He does care, he does try to do the right thing, and he is scarred from his job (it is such a heavy responsibility and the consequences are enormous), yet he does not give up.
ie owning certain ‘villainous’ qualities such as misogyny, bigotry and cold-bloodedness, and lacking certain heroic traits such as honour and a sense of morality But any one of 50 or so persons on this board, could have easily rebuffed the above. I just happened to get to it first, and with some down time on my hands.
I don't think as a community we will ever reach real consensus on the Severine seduction. Some of us are bothered more than others or not at all, and I don't think any of us are really wrong.
But I do find it interesting as @getafix alluded to, how SF does manage to hold together and work as a very watchable, even quite a good film, despite never ending discussions on all that might be wrong with it.
I've got lots of issues with SF, but I can't throw the whole film out. I actually do like watching it, even though its not really what I want from a Bond film.
It works as a different kind of Bond movie.
Just for the record, this is how my exchange with Gustav Graves started:
Gustav_Graves:
Well, I didn't hear "M" citing a complete poem in GE. Nor did I hear "M" explaining the importance of secret intelligence services as opposed to Richard Snowden's, Julian Assange's WikiLeaks scandal.
(I really wonder what movie he's talking about)
Me:
Well,maybe it is because the Bonds of yesteryear didn't feel the need to PRETEND they were intellectual. Probably that's the main reason why they didn't feel as pseudo as ...You know.
Gustav:
Yes, they were, as you call it, less "intellectual". They were indeed slightly more "brainless". They were chewing the popcorn for us, so to say .
and so on...
I am absolutely willing to leave it with that, but still James Bond has just about nothing in common with an anti hero and to the best of my recollection Fleming referred to him in several interviews as a white knight, which should give us a clear idea how he saw him.
Btw the OP also mentioned Phillip Marlowe as an anti hero,which is as absurd as it gets. This guy even refused to get paid in almost every single book (one more reason why Hammetts Continental Op is the much more realistic protagonist. Apart from Hammett being the better writer anyway,of course.)
Just as the term implies, an antihero is the opposite of a hero, that is: he is a villain…but because of the way he is presented to the audience, the antihero gains our sympathy…to the point that the audience finds itself rooting for a character whose actual goals we find abhorrent.
The antihero is a character of fiction. Because we can dissociate our rooting for a fictional evildoer with any blame for the consequences of his violent, antisocial actions, we are able to see matters from a different perspective than the one we would normally take were that villain, and his actions, real. We can see things from the point of view of that villain…and if he is presented as sufficiently charming, or relatable, then we can find ourselves hoping that good things happen to him; that he will, in some fashion, “win.”
In live action media, consider the character of Tony Soprano from “The Sopranos.” He is a criminal; a mob boss, in fact. We see him kill some people personally; we know that he orders the deaths of various others. He profits from robbery, drug dealing and prostitution; he is a thug for life, a villain, and we know this to be true. Nonetheless, he has our sympathy. We see him dealing with his wife and children; with his mother and his uncle and his sister, we have some awareness of his childhood and the various traumas he has suffered…and amazingly, we come to sympathize with this depraved character. Tony is the focal point of the story we are being shown but he is by no means its hero. He is an antihero.
In the world of comic books, one of the most interesting antiheroes I can name is one of Marvel’s earliest characters: Prince Namor, the SubMariner. The prince of Atlantis, Namor is the halfbreed offspring of a human male and a mermaid princess. His divided loyalties…and his undisguised sense of nobility… make for a character who can play either side of the moral street: he fought the Nazis alongside Captain America and the Human Torch in World War II, and he also has tried to make war against the surface world and destroy New York City more times than I can count. He has battled both alongside and against The Avengers, the Fantastic Four, and every other hero in the Marvel pantheon nearly incessantly since his creation in 1939. He is not exactly a hero and not exactly a villain; most recently (as of this writing) he saved our world and indeed, our entire universe by destroying another, alternate universe, and you’d better believe that Tony Stark and Reed Richards and the other upright heroes of Marvel are plenty PO’s at him for doing so! Namor is an antihero if ever there was one…and I assure you, James Bond is nothing like him!
If you think for a moment that Bond’s foibles…his alcoholism, his nearly obsessive pursuit of sexual conquest, and his charmingly outdated support of a faded empire…make him the equal of either Tony Soprano or Prince Namor, you really need to reconsider your position here. Bond only kills people who are themselves killers, moreover he does so on the orders of his superiors and is essentially just another soldier (albeit one who is fighting a series of undeclared wars, armed outrageously by a black budgeted bureaucracy.) Soprano is a flat out gangster who is fighting burnout and emotional breakdown over the life he has lived. Namor is an arrogant elitist who believes that his royal birthright and incomparable physical power simply make him superior to anyone else, but every now and then he’ll do the correct and noble thing just because the adoration of the masses requires it. Those two are antiheroes; Bond is just a flawed guy trying to do the right thing, save the world, and get laid by the end of the movie. That makes him something of a hero in MY book…