10 James Bond Fates Worse Than Death
2. A Slow, Torturous Decline - Renard (The World Is Not Enough)
Renard, the superhumanly strong villain of The World Is Not Enough, seems to have a pretty sweet deal on the surface. Having survived a bullet to the head, he loses all sense of pain and can push himself harder and further than any living man. The bullet will eventually kill him, but he gets to live out his remaining days as a hulking superman, right?
Wrong.
If we look at this with a more discerning eye, it's clear that the slow-moving bullet will eventually do much more than simply disable the man's pain receptors. Much like vascular dementia, Renard will gradually lose all his faculties, such as reasoning, planning, judgement and memory, and his body and mind will deteriorate hugely.
Had Renard survived the final act of The World Is Not Enough, it would only have been a matter of time until he was akin to an elderly invalid, with little control over communication, operation or even defecation. Bond plunging a plutonium rod into his chest afforded him an undoubtedly more dignified death than the unpleasant decline laid out for him.