When people compare someone to a "Bond villain," they may be thinking of Auric Goldfinger, the main baddie of both the novel and the film bearing his name.
Goldfinger is an extremely wealthy man whose obsession with acquiring more money prompts him to cheat at golf and at cards. In particular, he loves gold, and constantly plots to get more of it. There is no limit to the crimes Goldfinger is willing to commit in pursuit of his goal. He plans to murder everyone at Fort Knox as part of his scheme to steal the entire U.S. gold reserve.
Goldfinger's vices do not include smoking or drinking, but he does pay for sex. His kink is that he likes a woman to be covered in gold paint so that he can feel that he is making love to gold.
Bond villains often seem cartoonish. They live in a world of sci-fi gadgets and over-the-top displays of opulence. Unlike Batman's villains, they typically do not sport costumes, makeup and caricatured personas that would be likely to bring them to public attention as insane if they existed in the real world. Nevertheless, their sanity may be in question as they expend vast resources of time, money, and hired help on personal obsessions and maniacal quests.
While many Bond villains are involved in political intrigue, often as agents for Russia or for terrorist organizations seeking world domination, wealth and greed are recurring themes. The villains may need money to support their causes, but often they are already rich and powerful, motivated by the desire for even more wealth and power. Sometimes they are seeking revenge.
Bond villains tend to have sadistic personalities, and may waste time for the sake of indulging in acts of physical or mental cruelty. Their vengeance is generally out of proportion to the original offense.
Lyutsifer Safin, from the film
No Time to Die, is a chemist whose main motive is to get revenge on the organization that killed his family. He carries this to extremes by killing individuals uninvolved in the original murder, and becomes willing to kill millions of innocent people, ostensibly as a way of preventing future terrorist organizations from forming. He commands a large security force on a private island and appears to have nearly unlimited financial resources. Like most Bond villains, he seeks world domination.
Another aspiring world dominator, Emilo Largo, from both the novel and film
Thunderball, is a leader of a criminal organization. He enjoys an upscale lifestyle, hobnobbing with socialites, and uses a private yacht in his crimes. His plan is to steal nuclear weapons and use the threat of destroying cities to intimidate world leaders into compliance with his demand for a huge payout.
Bond villains couldn't do what they do without the assistance of henchmen. These are usually powerful bodyguards, but may also be co-conspirators, double agents, technology experts, or seductive women. The henchmen may be motivated by personal loyalty to the villain, a shared vision of world domination, or a fat paycheck. Or maybe they are just nasty guys who like doing evil things.
James Bond always destroys the villains in the end. He has plenty of help - from his fellow British agents, from old pals in the CIA, from the villain's own colleagues who have a change of heart, or from good luck and fortunate timing. Perhaps our inclination to characterize certain adversaries as Bond villains reflects the powerful hope that we, too, can be assured of vanquishing them in the end.
Illustration: “Because so much money creeps into my sack, the whole world climbs into my hole” (1568), Jan Wierix
