Does a Hero Need Honor?

celebrating the new bond film with hard questions

Jeremy Streich

Oct 08, 2021

It’s midnight

You’re walking through the rain on an empty sidewalk. The streetlight flickers. Someone’s at the end of the street.

Then, there’s the thum-thum-thum-thum of boots behind you.

You wheel around. There’s three.

One of them has a knife.

You need a hero.

But who?

To celebrate the release of Daniel Craig’s final portrayal as James Bond, this post is going to examine “under the hood” of what makes 007 tick.

Who has more honor, Bond or Batman?

Bond kills at will, sleeps with married women for sport, and drinks vodka martinis (shaken not stirred) like water. His suit is tailor-made, Italian, includes an Omega watch and, of course, an Aston martin.

Bruce Wayne—Batman—refuses to kill, has vowed to wait for Rachel Dawes, and is no stranger to the garden-variety spinach-smoothie. His suit is tailor-made too, but not the kind you’d wear to a dinner party. He definitely does not drive an Aston Martin.

Most people would call Bruce Wayne—Batman—the more honorable of the two.

But this post is less concerned with honor and more concerned with heroics.

So who is more of a hero?

If Bond and Wayne were philosophers…

Like all compelling stories, both Bruce Wayne and James Bond represent a philosophy. On the surface, these two seem at odds, but they are closer than you think.

Their means are different.

Their ends are identical.

If James Bond was a philosopher, he would be a realist like Niccolo Machiavelli.

If Bruce Wayne was a philosopher, he would be an idealist like Aristotle

You’ll notice they both emphasize the same end:

“Being Good, Becoming Good”

A Matter of Perspective

The cultural differences between East and West, according to one artist — Quartz — Image courtesy of Taschen, Quartz

Bruce Wayne and James Bond have more in common than you think.

Both are orphaned at around the same age. Each has his own troubled upbringing which isn’t straightened out until “training”—martial arts in Tibet for Wayne, British military for Bond.

Therein lies the kernel of their difference.

Bruce Wayne is like a Samurai:

honor, respect, tradition
avoid the treasure, don’t walk over it.

Both were trained, to do the right thing, to bring about “good,” albeit in different ways.

But if Bruce Wayne were sitting in Wayne Manor, watching No Time to Die, he would sip his smoothie (“Ahhh 🥬 refreshing”) and say “that James Bond has the right intentions, but the way he attacks problems is ‘wrong.’”

If Bond had the chance he’d sip his cocktail ( “Ahh 🍸 that’s damn good”) and respond, “Wrong? I’ve put away a known terrorist and bomb-maker. Wrong is just a matter of perspective.”

Taiki Beaufils on Instagram: “James Bond got it all right on Spectre. Everything is about perspective. It is literally depends on you how to turn negative into …

When I was a kid

I worshipped them both. I still remember buying a ticket to a sold-out theater just so I could stand in the back and see Dark Knight on opening day. At home, between video games and TV, the James Bond theme song was basically on loop in our house.

I would even give myself secret missions

Step 1: Sneak down and steal the butter without mom noticing

Step 2: Eat 2/3 stick butter

Step 3: Return butter bell, unnoticed

or

Step 1: Sneak up on Dad watching ESPN at 2am

Step 2: Steal his Lucky Charms

Step 3: Watch ESPN until 3am

Does that make James Bond a bad role model?

Should we encourage kids to dream about superheroes, and not everyday ones?

As I’ve gotten older, I’ve come to see the lessons these characters are meant to impart.

Yes, Bond may at times take gun-toting, wife-stealing, explosion-causing too far, but his secrecy represents something that some other heroes do not: humility.