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I am confused about James Bond personal relationships


11 replies to this topic

#1 bondfisher007

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Posted 22 August 2014 - 09:28 PM

I never read the books so I was wondering if Bond fell in love with Vesper before Tracy and did he only fall in love with those 2 women out of the whole series? If Vesper never betrayed Bond, would they have been married?



#2 tdalton

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Posted 22 August 2014 - 10:44 PM

Yes, Bond fell in love with Vesper long before he even met Tracy.  Casino Royale is the first Bond novel and was published in 1953.  On Her Majesty's Secret Service is the tenth novel in the literary series (and eleventh book, including the short story collection For Your Eyes Only) and was published almost a full decade later in 1963.



#3 billy007

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Posted 22 August 2014 - 11:35 PM

Did 007 love Tiffany Case?

"There was talk about us getting married."



#4 Call Billy Bob

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Posted 23 August 2014 - 05:53 AM

I doubt it, but possibly. I haven't got the novel in front of me, but the only marriage talk I recall was Tiffany and the US military man she ended up with... plus, she did find 007 tough to live with.



#5 Colossus

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Posted 24 August 2014 - 04:00 AM

Did 007 love Tiffany Case?

"There was talk about us getting married."

 

lol what thhhhhhe



#6 Guy Haines

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Posted 24 August 2014 - 07:51 AM

Hello bondfisher007

 

Not only did Bond fall for Vesper long before Tracy, but in OHMSS there's mention of the big card battle he has with Le Chiffre at the Casino Royale, and that Bond makes a pilgrimage every year to Royale-Les-Eaux to visit Vesper's grave.

 

Other than Vesper, Tracy and possibly Tiffany, I don't think Bond genuinely falls in love, as in intending a meaningful long term relationship, with any of the other women he encounters in the books. He holds forth in the short story "Quantum Of Solace" (Nothing like the film!) about the type of woman he might marry - an airline hostess. I can think of at least one woman, late in the Bond canon who genuinely falls for Bond.  And there's a hint, at the end of The Man With The Golden Gun, that Bond is genuinely fond of Mary Goodnight.

 

As for the question whether Bond would have married Vesper had she not betrayed him - he might have. The novel certainly suggests that marriage was on his mind.  Oddly enough, marriage was on the mind of Ian Fleming when he wrote Casino Royale - his own forthcoming one. It's claimed he wrote the novel to take his mind off it.  I wonder if he wrote the novel with the ending it had not only to leave open the possible second novel - it was far from certain Casino Royale would succeed but one never knew - but also to say that in the world of James Bond, unlike that of the man who created him and invested so much of himself in him, marriage for now was out of the question.



#7 Professor Pi

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Posted 24 August 2014 - 05:54 PM

I mentioned in another thread (I think "trouble getting through the books"), that after Bond is devastated by Vesper's suicide, which is manifested in the hardening of his character at the book final's line, each subsequent female lead rebuilds some component of Bond's view of women.  Solitaire is young and innocent in contrast to Vesper's complicated background.  He never even sleeps with Gala Brand but they work as partners to defeat Drax.  Honey Rider's independence, Pussy Galore's strength, the attempts at domesticity with Tiffanie.  The later books have more fully developed characters with Domino being one Bond was able to save from the influence of evil men whereas he couldn't with Vesper.  She may have been the other one he could have fallen for under other circumstances.  But this all brings him to the point where he meets Tracy, and he had to go through his own restoration to be able to fall for her and understand his place in life.  While Bond is usually saving the women from peril, it's to Fleming's credit that he reverses this caretaker role with Kissy nursing Bond back to health after the Castle of Death in You Only Live Twice.

 

I'd like to see the next DC film address this aspect of Craig's Bond with a true romantic interest.  They've touched on similar themes with Camille and Severine, given more depth with his relationship to female authority via M, so the table is set to have a really meaningful relationship with the right woman.


Edited by Professor Pi, 24 August 2014 - 05:57 PM.


#8 Walecs

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Posted 24 August 2014 - 09:43 PM

I think Kissy Suzuki might count as a woman who's been loved by Bond, although that might be debatable

 

Spoiler



#9 Call Billy Bob

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Posted 26 August 2014 - 03:17 PM

Two more women Bond loved: his mother and his aunt Charmian ;)



#10 MajorB

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Posted 26 August 2014 - 04:45 PM

He does tell Domino he loves her, but I never got the sense that it was the same depth of commitment. IIRC, he was justifying why he made love to her before telling her that her brother was dead, so he might have been pouring it on a little to try to make them both feel better about it.



#11 Iceskater101

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Posted 27 August 2014 - 02:45 PM

Vesper is first! Casino Royale is the first novel that Fleming wrote, which I happened to love!



#12 FlemingBond

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Posted 28 August 2014 - 04:23 PM

Vesper was first, although reading the novel i really couldn't figure out why he was in love with her....

and as hard a man as Bond was he seemed to fall for about half of the women in the novels.