20 Things You Didn't Know About The World Is Not Enough (1999)
14. The Importance Of Ear Lobes
In both Ian Fleming’s 1963 novel, On Her Majesty’s Secret Service and the 1969 film of the same name, the nefarious SPECTRE leader, Ernst Stavro Blofeld (Telly Savalas) has had his earlobes surgically removed in order to lay claim to the title of Comte de Bleuville (Count de Bleauchamp in the film adaptation).
In The World Is Not Enough, Elektra King severed one of her earlobes in order to convince the authorities and her own father that her kidnapping had been genuine and that Renard had been torturing her.
As seen in the recordings of her debriefing following her apparent escape from Renard and when she subsequently reveals the injury to James Bond, Elektra's "surgery" was far less professional (and likely far more painful) than Blofeld's was.
As producer, Barbara Broccoli explained when describing the character: "With Elektra, Bond thinks he has found Tracy, but he's really found Blofeld".
It is perhaps no coincidence that the title “The World Is Not Enough” is drawn from the Bond family’s coat of arms, which also derives from the novel and the film version of On Her Majesty’s Secret Service.