The Spy Who Loved Me (novel) - Characters and Themes

Characters and Themes

Continuation Bond author Raymond Benson sees Vivienne Michel as the best realised female characterisation undertaken by Fleming, partly because the story is told in the first person narrative. Academic Jeremy Black notes that Michel is the closest Fleming gets to kitchen sink realism in the Bond canon: she has been a victim of life in the past, but is wilful and tough, too.

The other characters in the novel are given less attention and Vivienne's second lover, Kurt, is a caricature of a cruel German, who forces her to have an abortion before finishing their affair. According to Black, the two thugs, Sluggsy and Horror, are "comic-book villains with comic-book names". Their characters are not given the same status as other villains in Bond stories, but are second-rate professional killers, which makes them more believable in the story.

As with Casino Royale, the question of morality between Bond and the villains is brought up, again by Bond, but also by the police officer involved. Benson argues that this runs counter to another theme in the novel, which had also appeared in a number of other Bond books including Goldfinger: the concept of Bond as Saint George against the dragon. In this Black agrees, who sees The Spy Who Loved Me as being "an account of the vulnerable under challenge, of the manipulative nature of individuals and of the possibility of being trapped by evil".