Yahoo Movies Skyfall: Was Silva Actually M’s Son?
As part of part of our series on mind-blowing movie fan theories, we’re changing the way you watch some of Hollywood’s most famous films. This week: ’Skyfall’.
Warning: Plot spoilers for ‘Skyfall’ ahead.
The Theory
There are many crazy fan theories about the box office-busting ‘Skyfall’. One suggests that Daniel Craig’s Bond is the descendent of Sean Connery’s 007 (nonsense), another posits that the film confirms “James Bond” is just a code name that all 007s use (feasible), and another says that ‘Bond 23’ offers irrefutable evidence that James Bond is a Time Lord like Doctor Who (obviously).
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One of the most compelling theories though, which resurfaced on Reddit this week, suggests that the film’s villain Raoul Silva (Javier Bardem on fine form) is actually the long-lost adopted son of Dame Judi Dench’s M. If true, this casts the film’s tragic ending into a whole new light, adding heaps of oedipal angst to an already emotional climax. The theory, first published on Bloomberg View in November 2013, comes courtesy of Yale law professor Stephen L. Carter.
What sets his theory apart from the usual crackpot hypotheses that clog the internet, is that his theory is based on a puzzling subplot that seems to have ended up on the cutting-room floor, rather than imagined subtext.
The Evidence
To give a brief recap: In ’Skyfall’ 007 is sent to track down Raoul Silva, a rogue MI6 agent cut loose by Judi Dench’s M. He was disavowed and tortured in a Hong Kong prison, before he escaped and turned to a life of cyber-crime. Silva is very bitter towards M for her “betrayal” and over the course of the film he gets captured (on purpose) by Bond to get close enough to exact his revenge on M. And he does, before he himself is offed by 007.
Carter’s theory rests on one vital piece of evidence, a subplot that he suggests was excised in the cutting room. Shortly before the action kicks off in London, Silva sends M a cryptic message “THINK ON YOUR SINS”. He says that the language is so stylized, it has to have a hidden meaning, and he says that the anagram’s solution reads “YOUR SON ISNT IN HK”. The anagram is not discussed again for the rest of the film, so he thinks the reveal was left on the cutting room floor.
He asks, why did the screenwriters go to the trouble of telling us Silva was languishing in a prison in Hong Kong if it had no bearing on the later plot? Why was Silva’s rage towards M so intense and full of grief? And why, even though his entire nefarious plot revolved around getting revenge on the head of MI6, did he change his mind about killing her at the last moment?
But, why do these three unanswered questions add up to Silva being, as Carter puts it, “M’s son — adopted, possibly, but undeniably her son”?
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He says M’s comment to Bond about “orphans making the best recruits” is delivered by Dench with such poignancy that there has to be subtext there – did M adopt Silva before grooming him for a life in the secret service?
If she did, it makes her gritty resolve to value the secret service over the lives of her men (as she does at the start of film, sacrificing both Ronson and Bond in the line of duty) understandable – she has to, it’s her coping method. After all, she did it to her son, so why should others live where he suffered?
Carter concludes: “Without the knowledge that she let her own son rot in prison for the sake of the Secret Intelligence Service, her death at the film’s end seems more contrivance than tragedy.”
The Verdict
Let’s first consider the anagram at the heart of his theory. Carter says “THINK ON YOUR SINS” was really “YOUR SON ISNT IN HK” and the reveal of this plot point was cut from the final film. If that is correct, can you take Silva’s message at face value? Is he literally her son?
When the blond-haired villain first meets Bond tied to a chair, a hostage on his island fortress, he says to him, “She sent you after me knowing you’re not ready, knowing you’ll likely die. Mommy was very bad.” He’s being flippant, it’s a gag poking fun at M’s maternal relationship to all her agents (M could stand for mother after all).
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If the anagram is correct (which it could be, seems possible), it’s likely he’s reiterating the joke that M is really a surrogate mother to all of her agents, not saying she’s literally his “mommy”. Bond has always had a bit of a mother-son relationship with M ever since Dench took over the role in ‘GoldenEye’, so it’s more likely that writers Neal Purvis, Robert Wade and John Logan were making reference to that relationship, not confirming a family connection.
This suggestion that M is Bond’s surrogate mother-figure only adds poignancy to her untimely demise in the film’s climax. He’s already an orphan and now he’s lost his M. The line about orphans making good agents? She’s talking about Bond, not Silva. As for the gritty resolve which allows her to sacrifice men in the name of the secret service? That’s her job, let’s not read too much into it.
So why does Silva harbour so much resentment towards M? She left him to rot in a prison and the cyanide pills, supplied on the command of M, have left him hideously scarred. She doesn’t need to be his mother too to make his evil plans seem reasonable.
It’s a good theory, but it all hinges on one clue. Even if Carter is correct about the solution, we think he’s drawn the wrong conclusions.
Consider this theory revoked.
What do you think? Let us know in the comments below…
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