Elektra King

Elektra King: "I could've given you the world."

James Bond: "The world is not enough."

―Elektra King and James Bond^[src]

Elektra King is the daughter of oil tycoon Sir Robert King and is the hidden primary main antagonist in the 1999 James Bond film The World Is Not Enough. She is played by French actress Sophie Marceau.

Film biography

Background

Elektra is the daughter of Sir Robert King and his second wife. Her maternal background is of Azerbaijani descent; the family had fled the country immediately after the Soviet Union was established and relocated to England. Robert King's marriage had become a much noted affair as he managed to acquire his wife's family oil business and assimilate it into his own construction enterprise, forming the official King Industries. Elektra's subsequent birth was also subject of much press coverage, foreshadowing much of the attention she would receive later on in her early adulthood. As the only daughter of a lucrative oil baron, Elektra had a privileged upbringing, becoming a tad bit spoiled in the process. She attended prestigious private schools around Europe and often spent summer vacationing with her maternal family in the Middle East. After college, Elektra decided to follow in her father's footsteps and join King Enterprises. Much to the media's delight, Elektra's business affiliation and beauty made her a well known figure in the press. The fame eventually drew the attention of the anarchist Renard, who decided to kidnap her in a scheme to extort a large sum from her father. Sir Robert refused to pay the ransom on the advice of family friend (and James Bond's boss) M. Embittered, she became Renard's lover and participated in his scheme to extort money from her family (going so far as to mutilate her own left ear so Renard could send it to her father as a warning) but pretended to have been traumatized by the kidnapping. (Bond thought she suffered from Stockholm syndrome, but may have been blinded by his affection for her.)

Hostile takeover

She secretly collaborated with Renard to blow up her family's oil pipeline, becoming Bond's lover to throw off suspicion. When Renard publicly threatened to destroy the pipeline, however, she showed her true colors and kidnapped M, whom she blamed for her father's betrayal in not paying her ransom years earlier. Her plan was minutes away from completion when Bond stormed her hideout. Soon Bond and Christmas Jones are captured by Elektra's henchmen. Christmas is taken aboard the submarine, which was seized by Renard's men. Bond is taken to the tower, where Elektra tortures him in a garrote. During said torment, Elektra taunts and seduces Bond, insisting that she had a certain power that no man could resist, and that Bond's affection for her had been his undoing. Bond denied that Elektra ever meant anything to him, even as Elektra slowly but steadily brought him closer to death.

Death

Having survived the bombing, Valentin Zukovsky and his men take mount a raid on the tower. Reaching the room where Elektra has Bond, he is shot by her. Dying, Zukovsky uses his cane gun to free Bond, who then chases after the fleeing Elektra, freeing M in the process. During a tense standoff, and at the business end of a gun, Bond demands that Elektra order Renard to call off the imminent meltdown in the city. Elektra then taunts Bond, telling him that he wouldn't shoot her and that he would miss her as she didn't see him as a killer of a former lover in cold blood. She then radios Renard and in her overconfidence on her hold over Bond, she instead tells him to proceed with the plan, and Bond immediately kills her with a single gunshot while exclaiming "I never miss".

Henchmen & Associates

Trivia

Elektra King is notable for being the first female main villain of the James Bond film series. While Rosa Klebb is the central villain of From Russia with Love, she is merely an enforcer of a higher power.
Elektra is slightly similar to Vesper Lynd. Both are love interests who betray Bond for the villain. Although Elektra herself ends up being a main villain as well, and Vesper was simply being blackmailed.
In the novelization Elektra does not die immediately after she's shot by Bond. Instead as she lies dying on the bed she begins to sing a lullaby.
Elektra is the opposite of Octopussy in that she is initially meant to be seen as the main Bond girl of the film but turns out to be the main villain, where Octopussy was made out to be the main villain at first but became the main Bond girl while the true main villains were General Orlov and Kamal Khan.
It is often debated as to whether Elektra or Renard is the main villain of the film, while Elektra being Renard's puppet or him being her henchman. It seems as though Elektra orchestrated some of the plots, while Renard did most of the work. She is therefore arguably the primary main antagonist of the film.