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Eco also thought one of the Spangs was a hunchback. As for Irma, perhaps he had OHMSS in mind, since the characters are not an "item" in that book. But in YOLT she has clearly progressed from henchwoman to consort. Any reading of the book should make that clear.
Austin Powers primarily parodied the most egregious and easy to mock aspects of YOLT and TB. It stands to reason to avoid merely repeating those tropes. When overused, a "visual short cut" is the same thing as a cliche (which in novels is a verbal short cut)--too much repetition makes it stale.
Dr. No is a Fu-Manchu knockoff that is saved from cliche because Fleming took care to revamp and modernize the stereotype--he gave him a fascinating and wildy original backstory that branched out from China to America, added physical incredibly grotesque deformities, gave him a thoroughly modern scheme and hideout, and zeroed in on sadism as the character's defining trait.
Contrast this to Spectre's Blofeld, who is only modernized in his scheme. Everything else points to a tragic lack of imagination. His appearance consists of the most mockable and tired 60s tropes (Nehru jacket, cat, eye scar) while his backstory (Bond's resentful pseudo-stepbrother) is wholly unconvincing and frankly stupid (it's a desperate attempt to incorporate a modern cliche, the villain whose backstory is personally tied to the hero's). We know from the leaked scripts that the filmmakers had trouble deciding on what to do with Blofeld, and the film shows they failed to truly modernize the character. The cat stands for that failure. Put it to sleep!
As for Blofeld's backstory in SP I don't like it either but it has nothing to do with the cat. Which I was against the return. I'm merely saying I'm happy with the way he was used in the end.
Blofeld's backstory is as unoriginal as the return of the cat is. Both are part of an unoriginal, failed way of reinventing the character. And the return of the cat at the end is just terrible fanservice to folks who remember the old campy Blofeld. It does nothing for Waltz's Blofeld, who was already campy enough.
And the author's intention has little to no relevance here as what matters is the text which once written escapes his control.
"Well I'm no Cat Inspector, but I'll take a look at her pussy any time..."
I'll see myself out... ;)
Really? So why do Blofeld and Irma talk to each other like man and wife? Don't you think their speech is a little too lovey-dovey to convey merely platonic affection? And why should Fleming bother with such an idea?
You're clinging to your idea of Blofeld's supposed impotence despite its complete lack of evidence. Whereas I have pointed out that Blofeld has tertiary syphilis in OHMSS and treats Irma like a wife in YOLT. What is the most plausible interpretation to draw? Certainly not yours.
Not quite. While an author's intentions should not determine our own critical response, it is always worth asking why an author made the decisions he did and what he hoped to convey with them. A book only exists because of the author's intentions.
Even if this was true, what of it? Plenty of husband and wife couples derive togetherness from working toward the same goal. Irma's ascension from henchwoman to "liebchen" is the result of becoming Blofeld's helpmeet.
Isn't that resorting to the author's intentions? And if Fleming is showing the characters are monsters, surely the implication that the monsters are sexually involved is appropriate. Blofeld and Irma being in a romantic relationship is part of the grotesqueness of the garden of death. There's no reason to assume it's platonic. If Fleming didn't want readers to assume Blofeld and Irma were a real couple, he could have retained Irma's henchwoman status in OHMSS, where there was no evidence of her being in a personal relationship with Blofeld. But in YOLT they start cooing the German word for "beloved" to each other. That sends an obvious message to the reader.
So while there's no notion of falsifiability in literature and the syphilitic nose notwithstanding I'd say that the demeanour, overall behaviour and background of both characters seem to indicate that they are sexually inactive, and that their libido of what stands for it has been channelled into sadistic pulsions. I don't care about other husbands and wives what matters are these two lovebirds (so to speak).
Now I can be wrong, obviously I've been wrong about the cat already but this is where I stand on the subject and I do think it's based on the text.
Agreed. I was thrilled to see the white cat's return where he properly belongs, i.e. the 007 series not the Austin Powers series.
!!!
Back flips or front flips?
Yes, but the other side is for the birds.
Such is the nature of literary criticism.
They still say that?
We used to say it all the time.
It's strictly for the 'boids.'
- Hermann Gromek (Wolfgang Kieling), TORN CURTAIN by Alfred Hitchcock