Elektra King

Elektra King
James Bond character
Sophie Marceau as Elektra King
First appearance	The World Is Not Enough (1999)
Portrayed by	Sophie Marceau
In-universe information
Gender	Female
Classification	Bond girl / Villain

Elektra Vavra King is a character and one of the two main antagonists in the James Bond film The World Is Not Enough, played by actress Sophie Marceau.

In the film

Elektra is the daughter of Scottish oil magnate Sir Robert King and his Azerbaijani wife. Her father had acquired her mother's oil wealth and merged it into his own construction business, forming King Enterprises.

As a teenager, Elektra was kidnapped by Victor "Renard" Zokas, a terrorist and former KGB agent. On the advice of M, a family friend, Sir Robert refused to pay the ransom.

Elektra was embittered, and became Renard's lover. She joined in Renard's extortion scheme and mutilated her own ear to send to her father. James Bond speculates that, after her kidnapping, she was suffering from Stockholm syndrome.

In the film, she and Renard kill Sir Robert and attempt to blow up her family's oil pipeline as part of an elaborate plan to steal his fortune. Elektra impresses Bond by brazenly betting one million dollars on a card game and shrugging it off when she loses. They briefly become lovers, before she and Renard kidnap him, along with M and nuclear physicist Christmas Jones.

Elektra mortally wounds Bond's erstwhile ally Valentin Zukovsky, and then tortures Bond with a garrote. Zukovsky frees Bond as he dies, and Bond holds Elektra at gunpoint, ordering her to call off Renard from firing a nuclear missile at the pipeline. Elektra taunts Bond, saying, "You won't kill me - you'd miss me," and tells Renard to fire the missile. Bond then shoots her dead, saying "I never miss" though shows some brief regret for having to do so. He then also kills Renard.

Portrayal

Marceau's portrayal of Elektra earned her a nomination for Best Actress at the 2000 Empire Awards.

The film's costume designer, Lindy Hemming, highlighted Elektra's exoticism by "adorning her in luxuriant textiles".^[1]

Analysis

Alexander Sergeant suggests that Elektra King's name is a "deliberate play on Jung's concept of the Electra complex.^[2]

Kirsten Smith suggests that "Elektra holds some of the characteristics of the femme fatale displayed in her clothing choices, her quest for power over all the men in her life, and her ability to use sex to enhance her position." Smith goes on to say, however, that Elektra is also a "damaged and complex woman trying to redeem her mother's name and cultural heritage."^[3]

Dean Kowalski notes that while we are led to believe Renard is the main villain of the film, Elektra is actually the "brains and evil heart of the operation". Kowalski concludes that "Elektra's attitudes and behavior are reminiscent of the yin force and exactly what we would expect of a strong (even if misguided) female character."^[4]

References

1. Chalasani, Radhika (27 April 2016). "50 years of Bond style". CBS News. Retrieved 16 June 2021.
2. Sergeant, Alexander (2015). "Bond Is Not Enough: Elektra King and the Desiring Bond Girl". For His Eyes Only: The Women of James Bond. Columbia University Press. p. 132. ISBN 978-0-231-85092-6. Retrieved 19 November 2024.
3. Smith, Kirsten (2017). "Seduction and Sex: The Changing Allure of the Femme Fatale in Fact and Fiction". Re-visiting Female Evil: Power, Purity and Desire. Leiden, Netherlands: Brill Publishers. pp. 46–47. ISBN 9789004350816. Retrieved 16 June 2021.
4. Kowalski, Dean (2006). "The New Millennum Bond and Yin-Yang Chinese Cosmology". James Bond and Philosophy: Questions are Forever. Open Court Publishing Company. p. 225. ISBN 9780812696073. Retrieved 17 June 2021.