The Bond Villain: A Reassessment

You have to respect the Bond villain.

Sure, he’s hell-bent on world domination, careless with the lives of millions, enjoys torture even more than Cheney, but think of the severe psychological afflictions he’s had to overcome, often with little or no outside support. With his historic level of megalomania, his massively outsized sense of entitlement, his complete lack of perspective, his issues with impulse control, that infantile fixation on revenge, it’s a wonder he gets anything done. And yet he does. In the biggest way. You have to give him credit for making the most of a tough hand.

And don’t get me started on the whole secret hideaway thing. I mean, do you have any idea how difficult it is to conduct large-scale real estate development free from the interference of neighbors, building inspectors, planning councils and construction unions? Can you imagine the logistical challenges of moving vast amounts of steel, concrete and other building supplies to a mountain top or an isolated tropical island? It’s hard enough to build a simple house these days of NIMBY BANANA, but our Bond villain, for all his faults, shows a remarkable facility for cutting through the red tape and construction delays and cost overruns and environmental impact reports to build efficient, often beautiful, hideaways in the most difficult construction environments imaginable.

In these hard times, we have to acknowledge that the Bond villain excels as a much-needed jobs creator, providing many high-skilled and presumably high-paying jobs in fields for which there isn’t always high demand. As anyone who’s employed anyone can attest, it is no small task to find and retain the right person, let alone an army of the right people. You can’t just post an ad on Craigslist for jumpsuit-clad machine-gun toting goons and expect them to show up ready for work. You have to work it, recruiting worldwide, competing against other employers seeking similar skills. Not an easy task, but one our Bond villain manages quite nicely, assembling a training a hoard of employees with the talent, dedication and high degree of discipline necessary to do the job.

Most of all, though, the Bond villain is a dreamer, one of the rarest of individuals who dares to be different, who rejects the comfort of the mundane and familiar in favor of the unknown and untried, who reaches for the stars and demands the most out of life. Sure, that often requires us to lose our lives, but don’t let one wrong turn distract you from the essential lessons of his extraordinary and singular journey through life. Don’t be one of the herd – dare to live the dream!

So although the Bond villain is, after all, a villain, I cannot help but feel a grudging though strong sense of respect for what he managed to accomplish before Bond dealt him his gruesome death.