GoldenEye (film)/Characters

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


Natalya Fyodorovna Simonova (Izabella Scorupco)

A techie at Severnaya, she survives the massacre of her co-workers and the subsequent EMP attack on the facility. She then starts searching for the other survivor, Boris Grishenko, and meets Bond along the way.

Xenia Zaragevna Onatopp (Famke Janssen)

Assassin working for Janus Syndicate, who receives sexual pleasure from murder.

  • Combat Sadomasochist: Xenia literally gets off on murdering people, as shown during the Severnaya massacre. It's enough to get an Eye Take from Ourumov himself.
    • On the masochist side, she loves Bond hitting her in the sauna scene.
  • Dark Action Girl: In spades.
  • Death by Sex: Xenia's modus operandi.
  • Depraved Bisexual: It's all but spelled out explicitly that Xenia swings both ways when Natalya tries to attack her.

Xenia (to Natalya): Wait for your turn.

  • The Dragon: For Ourumov and later Trevelyan.
  • Erotic Asphyxiation: Part of Xenia's MO. She wraps her thighs around the ribcages of her lovers and victims and squeezes, depriving them of air and thoroughly enjoying the situation herself. Most prominently employed in the Interplay of Sex and Violence scene that is the sauna.
  • Expy: Onatopp is a nod directly to classic Bond villainess Fiona Volpe of Thunderball fame, but there are also elements of other bad Bond Girls, including Mayday, Naomi, Miss Taro and the unofficial bad Bond Girl of Never Say Never Again.
    • Xenia also has her own expy in the form of the buff SIE of Alpha Protocol fame, who shares Onatopp's tendencies toward rough sex and violence.
  • Murderous Thighs: A notorious example. This results in a Karmic Death for her.
  • Orgasmic Combat
  • Psycho for Hire
  • Punny Name
  • Rape Is Ok When It Is Female On Male: In sheer contrast with Bond's sexual encounters of the past, this is deliberately played with and averted; Onatopp's treatment of Bond in the sauna basically implies rape with her forcing sexual stimulation from an unwilling Bond in a very violent situation, but it's treated as something Bond has to fight back against, and then it's totally played for laughs a scene or two later.

Alec Trevelyan, 006 (Sean Bean)

A defected 00 agent and the main villain of the film. Having come from a family of Lienz Cossacks who were betrayed by the British when attempting to defect from the USSR in World War II, Alec seeks revenge on all of England. Quite possibly Bond's most personal enemy in any of the films, having been his friend while serving in the MI 6.

  • Affably Evil
  • Big Bad
  • Big Bad Friend
  • Death by Looking Up: He survives a Disney Villain Death just to get crushed by the antenna.
  • Evil Counterpart
  • Evil Former Friend
  • Expy: Sean Bean works so well because he's almost perfect as James Bond as he is as James Bond's enemy.
    • Additionally, Sean Bean was one of the people initially considered to replace Roger Moore before Timothy Dalton took the role.
  • Faking the Dead
  • First-Name Basis
  • Foe Yay: Appearently, he and James used to share everything.
  • Genre Savvy: Justified as he's a former MI 6 agent. He lampshades this throughout the film, such as when Bond asks him where Natalya is, and he replies, "Ah, yes. Your fatal weakness."
    • He's also savvy enough to have Bond hand over his watch after capturing him, and asks, "So how is old Q? Still up to his usual tricks? Still press here do I?" before using the watch to deactivate the explosives Bond has placed.
      • However, he isn't savvy enough to take away Bond's pen grenade.
  • Good Scars, Evil Scars: Janus's are decidedly evil.
  • Hannibal Lecture: Has a tendency to give these to Bond.
  • It's Personal
  • Made of Iron: Somehow, some way, he was not killed by being inside a chemical weapons plant when it exploded while he was right next to the gas tanks with the explosives on them, then he survives a very, very, very long fall onto concrete. He wasn't in great shape, might have been dying, but was still alive. Of course, then the antenna fell on top of him, so we'll never know.
  • Meaningful Name: "Janus" was a two-faced Roman deity.
  • Remember the New Guy?
  • Revenge: He is seeking revenge for the betrayal of his family, who were part of the Lienz Cossacks who worked with the Nazis against the Russians during WWII. The Cossacks, who believed that they were under British protection near the end of the war, were sent back to Stalin, who promptly had them all shot. Janus, needless to say, is pissed about this, and seeks to make the British government pay.
  • Rogue Agent
  • Two-Faced: A mild example. After the opening scene in GoldenEye, the right side of his face is scarred, but it's much less exaggerated than most uses of the trope.
  • You Killed My Father: Trevelyan's anger at the Crown for allowing his parents to be killed.

General Arkady Grigorovich Ourumov (Gottfried John)

A Soviet colonel who Bond and Trevelyan face off with during their mission to blow up the Arkangel Chemical Weapons facility, Ourumov is now a general and the head of Russia's new Space Division. One of Trevelyan's two henchmen (the other being Xenia), he is the one who stole the control keys for the Goldeneye satellite and detonated the first of them over Severnaya. He meets his end when he murders Defense Minister Dmitri Mishkin and kidnaps Natalya, leading to Bond gunning him down on board a missile train.

Boris Grishenko (Alan Cumming)

A masterful hacker who used to work at the Severnaya facility along with Natalya. He is the only other survivor of the massacre, and was spared only by his agreement to work with Trevelyan and Ourumov. He is put in charge of the technical aspects of Trevelyan's plans for the Goldeneye.

  • Catch Phrase: "I am invincible!"
    • ...which leads immediately to his death the final time he says it, after he survives the destruction of the Janus base.
  • Character Tic: Boris' habit of spinning pens and clicking them while he's working. This becomes a Chekhov's Gun when he gets his hands on Bond's pen grenade, which has to be clicked three times to arm it, and has to be clicked another three times to disarm it.
  • Dirty Coward
  • Evil Genius
  • Hollywood Hacking: Boris' "spike" is pretty classic Hollywood Hacking, including an Extreme Graphical Representation. It ultimately gets used against him when Natalya spikes him in order to locate the Janus base just three minutes before the train she and Bond are on is set to blow.
  • Kill It with Ice: His final fate.
  • Playful Hacker: A particularly villainous one. Natalya calls him on treating people's lives like a game during their confrontation.

Valentin Dmitrovich Zukovsky (Robbie Coltrane)

An ex-KGB agent turned Russian mafioso. Bond has to go to him for info about Janus, which is complicated by the history he has with Valentin -- the reason he has the limp in his right leg is because Bond shot him in the knee, and Bond also stole his car and his girl, giving Valentin plenty of reason to be pissed off. Valentin makes a return appearance in The World Is Not Enough, where he sacrifices himself to save Bond from Elektra King.

Valentin: Walther PPK. 7.65mm. Only three men I know use such a gun. I believe I've killed two of them.
Bond: Lucky me.
[another PPK is pointed at Bond's head]
Valentin: I think not.

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