Classic fictional scenario:villain captures hero;
villain talks freely;
hero escapes...
Archetypal example:
Donovan Grant, chief executioner for SMERSH, has James Bond at gunpoint on the Orient Express and will shoot him in the heart when the train enters a tunnel;
Grant tells Bond where and when he, Grant, is scheduled to meet Rosa Klebb, Head of Operations for SMERSH;
during their conversation, Bond lights a cigarette and slips his cigarette case over his heart...
In Poul Anderson's The Day Of Their Return:
Aycharaych confines Erannath underground;
he talks freely;
Erannath relays information to Ivar Frederiksen who comes to rescue him...
Anderson gives Aycharaych two plausible motives for talking to Erannath:
he is lonely;
by talking, he brings associations into Erannath's conscious mind where he can read them.
Sf has a wider range of possible explanations.
2 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
And of course we see Dominic Flandry using HIS cigarette case in an interesting way in A KNIGHT OF GHOSTS AND SHADOWS.
Ad astra and Happy New Year! Sean
That "villain monologues his evil plan to the prisoner" is an old one -- though it really does happen, sometimes.
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