A lot of people know that James Bond and the double O agents have a license to kill, which as been on display for a while, but the idea that it takes two kills is pretty simple when it comes to Bond and his fellow agents. First of all, the agency needs to know that the troubleshooting agents they’ve recruited, mostly from special forces, are capable of taking on a job that will force them to take the life of another individual. In other words, Bond has killed people in cold blood during his assignments, and this has earned him the 007 designation. These agents answer solely to M as the author Bond told it, meaning they’re the specialists, the ones that are called when a matter is too dangerous, too sensitive, or simply requires one individual that can get in and cause minimal damage whereas an army or special force would level a city block. That’s kind of funny to think of really since Bond has caused a massive amount of damage in his time, no matter who’s playing the role, but he usually ends up getting who he’s after and tends to look good while he’s doing it. The fact that said agents need to be able to kill at a moment’s notice is kind of a hard note to wrap one’s head around, as it means that they might become sociopaths in a way since they have to show so little emotion when dealing with certain people, especially if they’re expected to go undercover.
But the life of a super spy is one that a lot of people tend to see as glamorous, a dangerous and thrilling lifestyle that the movies have made into something that looks absolutely appealing. Thankfully the truth isn’t too hard to realize when it comes to espionage since the reality is much more dangerous and less conducive to a life of martinis, fast cars, and beautiful people. Don’t go doubting that there are people in the field that can and have killed people in ways that might make a lot of people blank, as the world of espionage might be a lot more boring than a lot of people think, but to believe that the harsh realities of it aren’t bound to be realistic when it comes to terminations and assassinations it’d be gullible to think that such things have never happened. The real world spies are likely far less like Bond than a lot of people want to think about, but the fact is that those in the field of espionage are likely to be highly trained and could possibly end the life of someone that was considered a threat to others if they have to. The worst part is that these days there are bound to be a great number of inventive ways to do such a thing, and a lot of ways to make it look like an accident.
An interesting part that was written in about the MI6 agents in the Bond stories is the idea of retirement and that for some it was required at the age of 45. Once a person reaches their 40s it’s time to start looking around to see what you’ve done with your life and if there’s anything you can cut out or anything you want to continue to pursue. Bond and his fellow agents might look around and, depending on what they do in their down time, figure out that it might be time to stop killing and just disappear from the world of espionage. Of course the question is whether or not that life would follow them, and if it would take the kind of revenge that some might feel is due since killing for one’s country has to incur a serious karmic debt no matter if the agent was in the right or not. One has to wonder if retirement at the age of 45 would be to salvage whatever moral compass they still had, if it’s possible, or to keep them from going absolutely insane considering that so much death and destruction in the name of your country would have to weigh pretty heavily on a person. We’ve always been shown that Bond can take the stress more or less, that he’ll be fine in his own way as he continues to move forward. But think about it as he lies in the dark, alone or with a woman it doesn’t matter, and try to understand how many demons such an individual would have resting just beyond the fringes of his sanity. Would death begin to weigh heavily on a person that dealt in it from time to time? Or would he turn into a true sociopath and just not care? It’s kind of an interesting question really, since the death of another human being isn’t something to be taken lightly, even in service to one’s country.
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