Month / October 2021

by Matthew

Breaking Bond 2: License to Kill Side Characters

Warning: spoilers ahead! Note: I will also presume you’ve read the previous entry in this series, so if you haven’t, go do that first.

For this installment of my dissection of No Time to Die, we will discuss killing off side characters as a motivational tool for our heroes. Typically this is done in one of three places:

  1. Before the hero has crossed the threshold. The death(s) provide the necessary motivation for the hero to begin the journey. Classic example here is in Star Wars Episode IV. Luke has refused Obi-Wan’s call to adventure (join the Rebellion). He returns to his farm to find Uncle Owen and Aunt Beru murdered by the Empire. Motivation is gained, he agrees to join the Rebellion, and crosses the threshold.
  2. During Trials, Allies, and Enemies or in the Ordeal. Typically a side character’s death here helps the hero (and audience) realize how deadly the antagonist is. In Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring, Gandalf sacrifices himself to stop the Balrog, and allow Frodo and friends to escape the Ordeal of the Mines of Moria. This gives them the chance to regroup (Road Back) and prepare for the final fight (against the Uruk-hai). Frodo is emotionally wounded by the loss of his friend and mentor and is taught a valuable lesson in his fight against the evils of Mordor.
  3. During the Resurrection. Here, side character deaths close subplots, expose the true villainy of the antagonist to give the hero the last bit of oomph to triumph over evil, and (intentionally) traumatize the reader/audience to deepen the emotional impact of the climax. Remember the final battle in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows? JK Rowling kills off scores of beloved side characters to deepen the emotional resolution of her story. I’m still mad.

In all three, a side character’s death serves to motivate the hero. Get off their butt. Get better prepared to face the villain. Finish the fight, or else the world will end. All common, all useful. Apply directly to the forehead.

So let’s examine what the heck the writers of No Time to Die were thinking when they killed off Jeffrey Wright’s Felix Leiter.

Recall that Bond was pulled out of retirement by Leiter (in a Mentor role) to case a big party that Spectre was having, conveniently not far from Bond’s home. Things go south. Spectre thinks they’re killing Bond in a grand spectacle. They all die instead. Let’s continue.

As Bond is attempting to ascertain how the Spectre party went from his funeral to Spectre’s, he makes off with Spectre’s bumbling scientist Obruchev and steals the new 007’s plane to meet back up with Leiter.

Bond has just come through an intense firefight, exchanged unpleasantries with his MI6 double-0 replacement, and was totally shown up by Ana de Armas’ wickedly fun spy Paloma (she needed way more screen time!). He’s got scores of dead Spectre big wigs at his feet, the snivelling Obruchev by the collar, and some mysterious and way deadly viral agent in a briefcase. Does he need any more motivation to join the journey?

Nope. He’s in. As the plane is in the air approaching Leiter’s fishing boat hideout, Bond’s chest is heaving, his adrenaline is coursing, and he is fully committed to the adventure. He has crossed the threshold.

But moments after Bond meets up with Leiter and presents Obruchev, Leiter’s CIA tagalong, Logan Ash, reveals the turn of his coat and begins shooting. Not a big surprise. Leiter is mortally wounded. Ash absconds with Obruchev and the plane, locks Bond and Leiter inside the boat, and leaves a bomb. Bomb blows, boat sinks, and Bond narrowly escapes with his life (via conveniently available life raft) and the trauma of seeing his friend die.

Well, okay. So that’s a checkmark for Trials, Allies, and Enemies, right?

As my daughter likes to say, “Noooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!”

Bond doesn’t need to learn how deadly his foe is. Whoever it is just murdered the entirety of Spectre. Yes, this moment teaches Bond and the audience whose side Logan Ash is on, but come on. We knew he was bad the moment we saw that stupid grin on his face. Any time there are two CIA agents involved in the plot, one will end up being a bad guy. It’s a Hollywood staple.

More critically, we need to look at the Hero’s Journey when lined up with the classic Three-Act Structure. The point where the hero crosses the threshold happens when the story moves from Act I to Act II. And that doesn’t happen until after the boat sinks. Why not? Because story beat wise, we’re still wrapping up the Spectre party and firefight afterwards. Yes, the boat is a new scene, but it is the last step in the Spectre party’s sequence of events, and is thusly the final scene of Act I.

Which means structurally, Leiter’s death is supposed to be the final motivating piece to get Bond off his old duff and off to adventureland. And as that, it is 2000% unnecessary. Bond is already there. All the death serves to do is traumatize Bond and the audience. And that’s no fun. Character deaths (at least the ones we care about) should matter both emotionally (easy), and structurally (harder). In the Song of Fire and Ice series (Game of Thrones), it’s okay for George R. R. Martin to off randos with familiar names at regular intervals, because he has a ton to pick from, but more importantly we don’t really care about Ser What’s-his-name-from-three-scenes-ago. The deaths of important characters we care about happen, but less frequently, and with absolute impact to character development. Ned Stark? Mattered to the Starks and served as series-long motivation for Sansa, feeding into Littlefinger’s ultimate comeuppance. Red Wedding? Mattered to Arya who trained to exact sweet, sweet revenge against Walder Frey. Perfect.

Felix Leiter in No Time to Die? Didn’t matter to the hero (motivationally), because he was already on his way to adventure. That sauce is weak, my friends.

So let’s take a look at another 007 film and see where they used Leiter correctly as a motivational tool for Bond.

There’s a special place in my heart for the two Timothy Dalton 007 outings, The Living Daylights and License to Kill. These were the first Bonds I got to see in the theater, and as such, my young mind was expanded to the possibilities of choosing spy as a career. (Spoiler, I didn’t go that route). They had my impressionable teenage mind all aflutter.

I love, love, love The Living Daylights for a handful of reasons which I’ll save for future posts. But it is in Dalton’s second turn, License to Kill, where they use his old friend Felix Leiter to spur Bond into action.

The movie opens with Leiter and Bond on the way to Leiter’s wedding, suddenly called in to assist the DEA in an attempt to capture drug kingpin Sanchez before he leaves US airspace. One thrilling helicopter/airplane chase later, the baddie is snagged, and the two friends parachute (in their tuxedos) right into Leiter’s wedding. Fantastic opening. Full of classic Bondness.

Bond is in America in the Florida Keys for the wedding, so is comedically referred to during this sequence as strictly an observer, but he’s the one to jump out of the helicopter to tie a cable to the tail of Sanchez’s plane. At this point, he’s just helping his friend (Bond is Leiter’s best man at the wedding). He is only superficially aware of the threat that Sanchez poses, through what he gleans from Leiter and the DEA on the lead-in to the chase.

Sanchez quickly escapes (of course) with the help of a local DEA stooge (of course). His lackeys kidnap Leiter and kill his bride Stella. Leiter is strung up and fed to a shark, then left for dead for Bond to find. Here, Bond is taught the true villainy of the antagonist. Leiter survives with grievous wounds and is out of commission. The DEA is unwilling to operate outside of US jurisdiction, so it is left to Bond to pick up the fight. And cross the threshold he does. Begin Act II.

Simple, brutal, and very, very effective. And oh, what that shark scene did to me as a young teen! I hadn’t seen Jaws yet. Yes, Bond and the audience are traumatized appropriately, but it is done in the correct order with respect to the Hero’s Journey and Three-Act Structure and provides motivation for Bond exactly at the right time. They didn’t kill Leiter here, but they certainly could have and the character’s impact on Bond (and the film) would have been even stronger for it.

Bonus points! They also tied that motivation throughout the rest of the movie, as not only does Bond get revenge against the locals that helped Sanchez escape the DEA, he ultimately stops the bad guy in the end by setting him on fire with the gift he received from Felix and Stella at the wedding. That’s hot sauce!

Suffice it to say, I was not a fan of Leiter’s death in No Time to Die. Primarily because of how they did it (see above), but two, I like the character (throughout the Bonds), and three, I love Wright as an actor (hello, Westworld). Now I think they actually elected to kill off Leiter since Bond dies at the end of the film (also intentional). By clearing out all the ties to the old Bondiverse, it gives Amazon (who now owns the lion’s share of MGM (hah)) a clear path to carve out a new Bondiverse that fits in their plans for world domination. All Jeff Bezos needs is a damaged eye and a fluffy white cat and he’d fit right in as the next Blofeld. He’s already been to space, what else is there to accomplish?

What did you think? Leave a comment!

by Matthew

Breaking Bond

For my inaugural posts on Building Worlds, I’m going to discuss the thoroughly entertaining, yet developmentally flawed film, No Time to Die, featuring everyone’s favorite British spy, James Bond. The legendary 007. Be warned, there will be spoilers. Many, many spoilers. 

In fact, I’m going to be spoiling stuff almost straight off the bat, so if you haven’t seen the movie and want to do so without knowing what’s coming, then perhaps wait to read any further until you’ve hit your local theater.

You’ve been warned…

Alright, let’s get to it.

We’re going to talk about the force of antagonism in this post, which features prominently in several key steps along the Hero’s Journey. If you don’t set it up right, the story won’t feel right, and the payoff in the climax isn’t nearly as satisfying.

This past weekend I watched No Time to Die in the theater. Daniel Craig’s final turn as the incomparable James Bond. Now I haven’t gone back and watched all the 007 films since becoming an acolyte of the Hero’s Journey (yes, a teacher actually called me that), but even with my hazy memory, I can say with complete certainty that none of the Bond films are perfect examples of the Journey. Some are good to great (Casino Royale), others not so much (Quantum of Solace). No Time to Die probably falls in the latter category.

But, don’t fret! Like all Bond movies, No Time to Die is still a wild, entertaining ride. In fact, in Craig’s final spin through Bondland, they made some very fun nods to previous entries in the films, including possibly my most favorite 007 moment ever when during a very tense moment, they snuck in the theme music from On Her Majesty’s Secret Service (an instrumental track), which is one of my favorite opening pieces of the entire bunch. They also made use of my favorite Aston Martin, the ’87 Vantage.

Have you ever read a book, or listened to one, or watched a movie and somewhere between a third to halfway through something doesn’t feel right? Kinda hard to put your finger on, but something’s missing? Well, I got that feeling in No Time to Die, but there was no confusion why. 

The relationship between the hero and the antagonistic force (the villain) has to be well established early on, so that the stakes the hero is fighting for matter to the hero in the end. Optimally, this is done at both an external (save the world) and internal (overcome some personal problem) level.

While Spectre (the film) was probably my least favorite of the five Craig Bonds (still good), the internal and external connections to the force of antagonism (Blofeld) are well established. Spectre wants to control the world, and Bond has a personal history with Blofeld. However halfway through No Time to Die, the external antagonist is nebulous (to Bond), and the internal antagonist is practically non-existent. Part of this is, I think, intentional as the writers pull a number of bait-and-switch moves on the audience. Probably to keep us surprised and guessing, but the result isn’t as satisfying as I suspect they had hoped.

Major spoilers ahead. Seriously, last chance.

Early on in the movie, the threat of evil organization Spectre looms. Bond is summoned out of retirement by old friend and CIA agent Felix Leiter (the great Jeffrey Wright) to case a party of Spectre big wigs. Turns out it was a trap to lure Bond to his death (via a DNA-linked form of smallpox macguffin), but the tables are turned and the DNA weapon targets every Spectre agent instead. In moments, the huge evil organization that has clouded the entirety of Craig’s 007 run, as well as a number of older Bond films, is wiped out. In seconds. Yeah, they did that. Shock value: high. Story structure development: net negative.

The only remaining Spectre agent alive is Blofeld (Christoph Waltz) himself, still in the max security prison that Bond put him in at the end of Spectre (the film). He’s had a bionic eye implanted and was using that to spy on the proceedings at the party. Okay, so Blofeld is the big baddie, right? And him wiping out his Spectre buddies is just more example of his evil genius, right? No. Blofeld is soon killed via the same DNA weapon (accidentally by Bond) and is out of the picture. Well now what? Somewhere out there is a nameless, unknown uber-villain, evidently worse and more evil than the legendary Blofeld and Spectre. Surely Bond and MI6 know who it is, right?

Nope.

Ambiguity is fine when the clues are fairly presented and it is part of the character’s development that they haven’t figured things out yet. But the intelligence agency is left scratching their heads with only one nonsensical lead from the Spectre massacre. It feels off, because the audience already knows who the big bad is (by process of elimination, side-character scenes, and order of names in the opening credits), and by this point, a third of the way through, the hero should too. It is Remi Malek’s Safin, with whom Bond has absolutely zero connection. Who does? Bond’s ex, Madeleine (Lea Seydoux). Her father (a Spectre agent) killed Safin’s family when she was a child. Safin comes back for revenge, kills the mother and is about to off Madeleine (via drowning in a frozen river), but decides to save her instead. Traumatic past sounds like the great makings of an internal antagonist, right?

Except it’s not Bond’s! Madeleine suffers greatly from this wound, and if she was the one to triumph over Safin in the end (while Bond stops the weapons from deploying), it would have been immensely gratifying for her (underdeveloped) character arc, and the audience. But, she’s sent off to safety while Bond fights both internal and external fights. His triumph over Safin in the end (because of course, he wins) does save the world, but it provides exactly zero satisfaction of the internal character arc because Bond wasn’t ever connected to Safin except through Madeleine (which she only loosely explains to Bond about two hours in). It doesn’t change Bond, it doesn’t help him grow or get over something he was lacking. It certainly motivates him to defeat Safin, but that’s external, and he already had saving the world as motivation. If he does that, Madeleine gets saved too, so no extra credit there.

And they were so close! Right at the beginning of the film, Bond and Madeleine are enjoying life together, and she’s experiencing nightmarish flashbacks of Safin. Instead of sharing their trauma (Bond still struggling to get past Vesper from Casino Royale), they play coy with their secrets (setting up a lack of trust for Bond ultimately ending their relationship after Spectre blows up Vesper’s tomb when Bond visits). Insead, if Madeleine’s trauma had been revealed and shared, Bond could have gone through the longing for Madeleine (despite dumping her, he never gets over her and they get back together later on for a bit), filtered with analysis of her trauma from Safin. It could have become much more personal for him and would have healed the internal relationship wound he inflicted upon himself in the opening vignette of the film. This would have been even more impactful if Safin had been the one to blow up Vesper’s tomb, providing some personal connection to Bond as well. 

So let’s talk antagonists in general for a second. Well-done stories include character arcs for the villain too. The very best will have an arc that nearly mirrors the hero’s, but ultimately results in a different choice being made and a villainous downfall as the hero triumphs. In Madeleine’s flashback, we are informed that Safin’s family is killed by Spectre. He wants revenge. We first see him already in this state. This is telling, not showing. It is telling the audience the antagonist’s motivation, and it’s done in mere seconds. Within the early minutes of the movie, the villain’s growth is done. From the point where he saves Madeleine from drowning in the icy river onward, he’s the same one-note creepy bad dude.

And sure, good triumphs over evil in the end. We’re glad he loses. But it could have been so much better.

Let’s go back to blowing up the tomb. As presented, it would have made no sense for Safin to have been the person to perpetrate that. But let’s make it make sense, and improve his connection to Bond. What if Safin never knew who killed his family? This eliminates his connection to Madeleine, but honestly we don’t need that. Safin can antagonize Madeleine and her daughter later on in the film, and it would still make sense for his relationship to Bond.

How to build a better villain? Make us sympathize with them a little! After his family was killed by Spectre, Safin could have been adopted by Spectre (jerks, right?) and unwittingly indoctrinated by his family’s murderers. His development as an uber-villain under the auspices of Spectre would make sense, and seem ‘connected’ to the Bondiverse. While in Spectre he would be aware of Bond’s threat and have 007 on his radar. He could have been jealous of Blofeld having a pseudo-brother in Bond. He could have been competitive with Blofeld. Safin, in his own professional dealings as an adult, could have uncovered Spectre’s involvement in killing his family, and thus begins plotting his exit from Spectre and future horrible revenge. Now if he’s the one blowing up Vesper’s tomb (because it is the first step in his grand scheme to bring down Spectre), it connects him to Bond, and opens an internal wound for Bond to close when he blames Madeleine for luring him to Spectre’s trap and it was later revealed to be Safin’s solo work.

Now in fairness, doing all of that would probably take upwards of 10-15 minutes of screen time to accomplish, add a handful of additional actors, speaking roles, sets, and locations, and at 2 hrs 43 mins, the movie is already very long. I can easily see why the studio might give the villain less attention. But I argue that spending that time in the opening moments developing the actual villain, instead of investing it in a thrilling (but developmentally unimpactful) Italian rooftop motorcycle chase (and ultimately leading the audience down the path of a false quest), would have made for a much more satisfying conclusion to the Craig Bond era.

Come back next time when I discuss killing off side characters. Thanks for reading! M

by Matthew

Hello worldbuilders!

Thanks for visiting my new blog. This here is my very first post. Many more to come…

In many of my posts on Building Worlds Blog I will be reviewing parts of movies or books (well, audiobooks probably), and presenting my thoughts on how well those stories line up with the established path of the Hero’s Journey.

“What’s the Hero’s Journey?” you ask? Get thee to Google, my friend, and look it up. Better yet, go get a copy of The Writer’s Journey by Vogler and enjoy. No time for that? Well, okay, I’ll distill it for you. The Hero’s Journey is a twelve-step pattern that humans have used (quite unintentionally until the Journey was defined) to tell stories. Modern writers of all kinds use it as a guideline to structure their stories. It is a guide, not a requirement. Though, as we are all children of modern media, throughout which the Hero’s Journey is carefully used and hidden, I dare you to write a sensical, and enjoyable, piece of fiction that doesn’t include most of those twelve steps. 

I finished the first draft of my first novel before I ever learned about the Hero’s Journey. After taking a class on it and analyzing what I had written, I discovered I had used ten of the twelve steps without even trying, and mostly in the proper order as well. I had also included a number of established character archetypes as well (though we’ll get into those in future blog posts). Seeing the Hero’s Journey laid out in my own work confirmed for me how effective it is as a tool to help writers tell coherent — and entertaining — stories.

Study the Journey enough and you won’t be able to watch, listen to, or read another piece of fiction without analyzing it first, and enjoying it second. So, beware. But, if you really want to be an author, you gotta do it.

Why do it? Well, as an aspiring author, analyzing the structure and success of other stories helps me with crafting my own. With practice, it becomes second nature to identify the various milestones in a story and analyze how effective (or ineffective) they are at the implementation. While adherence to the Hero’s Journey isn’t a requirement to tell a great story, you will use some components of it — it’s impossible not to. And if you get stuck somewhere along your path, it’s a pretty good resource to use to analyze what’s not going right in your manuscript. Plus, it’s kinda fun to break down a movie at a deeper level on the drive home. At least I think it’s fun.

So to take part in the fun, check back often, and join in the discussion in the comments (be nice!). Don’t forget to sign up for the e-mail list to be notified of new posts!