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Young Bond's Age


9 replies to this topic

#1 danielcraigisjamesbond007

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Posted 28 May 2009 - 11:58 PM

There might be a thread on this, but I have to ask:
I'm in the middle of Double or Die and I wanted to know how old Bond is in each of the books. Maybe I missed it, or maybe it wasn't written in.
Either way, does anyone have an answer for me?

#2 zencat

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Posted 29 May 2009 - 12:45 AM

I don't think it's ever written, but he's 13 (he may be 14 in the last book).

#3 K1Bond007

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Posted 30 May 2009 - 03:08 AM

I believe it's implied in the books that Bond's birthday is in November which comes from John Pearson and has pretty much stuck as far as month and day. (Armistice Day sounds good to me) Year has always been hard to pin down even when it's more or less stated outright, however, I do believe Charlie is on record saying that his Bond was born in 1920. (Perason said 1920, Fleming implied 1917, 1918, and 1924, Griswold speculated 1921)

You'll have to look up some of Charlie's past interviews to double check (try around SilverFin). If I'm right then it would be:

SilverFin: 13
Blood Fever: 13
----birthday----
Double or Die: 14 (takes place in December)
Hurricane Gold: 14
By Royal Command: 14

I could be wrong though. Wouldn't surprise me given Bond's cloudy chronological history.

#4 David Schofield

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Posted 30 May 2009 - 09:26 AM

For the November month to apply (which I like) AND Young Bond to be 13 (as Higson has stated) starting with Silverfin (which, again, Higson has implicitly has stated is set in 1933), Bond has to have been born in November 1919.

Bond arrived at Eton in early 1933 and is ALREADY 13. He must, therefore, have been born in 1919 for Novemer to work.

As Bond arrives at Eton in January 1933 and is already 13, for him to have been born in 1920, he birth month would have to be January, and very early January at that.

Of course, it all depends how much you take any of this stuff literally, or even accurately. Maybe Higson is just continuing Fleming's tradition for not caring...

#5 zencat

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Posted 30 May 2009 - 03:53 PM

I think IFP and Higson have decided Bond was born in 1920. I don't think they've determined a month.

#6 K1Bond007

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Posted 30 May 2009 - 07:03 PM

For the November month to apply (which I like) AND Young Bond to be 13 (as Higson has stated) starting with Silverfin (which, again, Higson has implicitly has stated is set in 1933), Bond has to have been born in November 1919.

Bond arrived at Eton in early 1933 and is ALREADY 13. He must, therefore, have been born in 1919 for Novemer to work.

As Bond arrives at Eton in January 1933 and is already 13, for him to have been born in 1920, he birth month would have to be January, and very early January at that.

Of course, it all depends how much you take any of this stuff literally, or even accurately. Maybe Higson is just continuing Fleming's tradition for not caring...


Well it does specifically say that Bond was 11 when his parents died which was in the summer. 2 years later SilverFin takes place (technically April since it's Easter). So we're talking either an early 1920 birthday or Bond was 12 in SilverFin & Blood Fever about to turn 13 (if Higson was aiming for November).

I could have sworn there was a book that alluded to Bond having a birthday prior ('off-book' so to speak). I thought it was Double or Die, but it could just as well have been SilverFin. I highly doubt it was Blood Fever. Bond wasn't at Eton in Hurricane Gold so I don't think he really discussed it, so I'd eliminate that and I guess if it's an early 1920 date it could have been By Royal Command. I need to reread these. I've only read them once. I could be confused with another character.

I'm fairly certain that Bond is 13 in SilverFin and 14 in By Royal Command it's just where the birthday falls. I wonder if Higson even knows or cares.

#7 zencat

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Posted 30 May 2009 - 07:13 PM

Charlie said in our first CBn Interview (which was actually the first interview Charlie ever did on Young Bond) that Bond is 13 in SilverFin and will be 14 when the first set of books end. So there's the answer on age. For some reason, I recall some talk about making 1920 his birth year, but I don't recall where I heard this. I don't think anyone has committed to a month and day.

#8 Mister Asterix

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Posted 30 May 2009 - 07:17 PM

I don't remember where, but charlie definitely said Bond was born in 1920. Perhaps there's more to that April date that Eon gave Craig's Bond then just the anniversary of Casino Royale's release.

#9 zencat

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Posted 30 May 2009 - 08:21 PM

Bingo! Here we go. Charlie addressed this at length in a Q&A held on the official site fourms. Luckily, I saved it and dropped it into my site when the official forums went away. Here's the Q and the A.

Q. What are your thoughts & Ian Fleming Publication's position on harmonizing your stories with John Griswold's Ian Fleming's James Bond: Annotations and Chronologies for Ian Fleming's Bond Stories? Of note is a particular section called "Chronology of Events by James Bond's Age" in which Bond is born in Nov. 1921. Griswold has Bond starting Eton College in Sept. 1935, which of course doesn't fit SilverFin, which has Bond start in the spring or Lent half at Eton. Would you actually place Bond's start at Eton in the spring of 1935 (which would fit SilverFin mentioning being 2 yrs after his parents are killed (when Bond's 11)), or would you place the book in the spring of 1936, just after James would have turned 14?


CH: This is one for the adults and will get a bit technical and boring, so kids can skip it if they want to. When IFP approached me to write these books they said that all I needed to worry about were the Fleming novels. I didn't need to try and include what appears in the films, or in any of the books not written by Fleming. So I have never read any of them. This is Fleming’s Bond. So my books cannot fit in with the continuation novels. The timescale we chose is somewhere roughly in middle of what Fleming created. The dates and details of Bond’s early life change as Fleming’s books and short stories progress, because he was trying to keep Bond roughly the same age through his books. We chose 1920 as a birth date, because we thought that the early thirties were an interesting time for these books to be set. Though it’s never stated in the books, SilverFin starts at the beginning of 1933 when James is 13. Book 5 will take place in the summer of 1934.

You can treat the Pearson autobiography and the Benson and Gardner books as an alternative universe, perhaps, but I would go mad trying to include everything. I particularly avoided reading the Pearson book, as I didn't want to steal anything that he had made up.

John Griswold has done a great job on unravelling the timeline, but the truth is, Fleming really didn’t give a stuff about this sort of thing, he was fairly lackadaisical in his approach. I'm in the business of writing fiction and although I try to stick as closely as possible to Fleming it isn't always possible – he changed things and made mistakes as he went along so I feel I have a but of leeway.


#10 K1Bond007

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Posted 30 May 2009 - 09:21 PM

Well, there we go. So Young Bond's birthday is probably sometime in early January before the half begins. Of course Higson probably never thought that out or cared to do so.