Wednesday, 21 May 2025

The Big One

At the end of a story, the main villain attempts to escape and may or may not succeed, depending on whether the author wants him to remain or become a recurring villain. (Dan Dare's antagonist, the Mekon, says, "Even my escape craft has an escape craft!")

The Union Corse confronts SPECTRE on top of an Alp but Bond sees that "The Big One," Blofeld, is getting away. Blofeld does get away, with tragic results for Bond, but is apprehended and strangled in the sequel. Two volumes later, Scaramanga is seen to be getting away but, in this case, is apprehended and shot before the end of the novel.

At the climax of "Hunters of the Sky Cave," Dominic Flandry sees that Aycharaych is getting away. Flandry pursues and captures his enemy alive but the Merseians insist on a full prisoner exchange! Laying to rest the threat of Aycharaych turns out to be a much more difficult task although it is eventually accomplished at the end of the last Captain Flandry instalment.

The nature of this kind of fiction is that a hero will always have a villain.

2 comments:

S.M. Stirling said...

As the old saying goes, the only good enemy is a dead one -- and even then, they stink. (This is much older than the 19th century versions, btw.)

Anonymous said...

Kaor, Mr. Stirling!

The British and French forgot about that when they failed to take the firm and decisive actions needed to prevent Germany becoming a mortal danger in the early years of Hitler's rule.

Ad astra! Sean