Was the Village objectively real?
Jan
the Village was external to Number 6, and that his experiences were
objectively real. Recently, though, I've begun to wonder whether
everything was happening inside his head, whether from a mental
collapse from the strain of his resignation and everything leading up
to it, or mind control, after he was gassed.
As with everything else concerning the series, I guess there are no
certain answers to this, but I was wondering what other people think.
Jill Mills
"Jan" <jan.t...@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:8c86d5e0-843f-4f7f...@f3g2000yqf.googlegroups.com...
I think it's some time since this group last heard a rehash of the 'death
dream' theory.
Brace yourself for Ingmar Bergman, chess games and medieval cuttings and
pastings... ;-)
Jill
Jan
wrote:
> "Jan" <jan.tzin...@gmail.com> wrote in message
I wasn't thinking of "death dream" in particular. Maybe I shouldn't
have posted? :(
Jill Mills
"Jan" <jan.t...@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:33098505-adce-47c8...@u14g2000yqg.googlegroups.com...
I didn't mean to be off-putting.
Of course you should post! :-)
The idea that the Village might be entirely figurative certainly holds
water.
If 6 is 1 then his surroundings and the things that happen to him can
legitimately be viewed as representations of the extreme turmoil, pressure
and conflicting emotions raging through a particular man's mind.
(And there are certainly some episodes which have the strangeness and the
surreal qualities of fever dreams...) ;-)
How do you see the series, Jan?
Jill
roger
roger
news:8c86d5e0-843f-4f7f...@f3g2000yqf.googlegroups.com...
> Growing up, and thinking about The Prisoner, I had always assumed that
> the Village was external to Number 6, and that his experiences were
> objectively real. Recently, though, I've begun to wonder whether
> everything was happening inside his head, whether from a mental
> collapse from the strain of his resignation and everything leading up
> to it, or mind control, after he was gassed.
It's interesting that, as the series progresses, broadly we move from an
"external" Village, emphasised by the Portmeirion location, to a more
"inside head" situation, whether voluntary (Girl Who Was Death) or enforced
(Living In Harmony). How much that had to do with production, budget and the
loss of the story editor is genuinely debatable.
Jill Mills
"roger" <roadN...@prizSPAM.biz> wrote in message
news:nuGdnXfUj5CXAqbU...@posted.plusnet...
We also move from something which can at first be viewed as the usual 60's
spy caper to something deeper, or more obscure, depending upon your point of
view.
Anyone who has ever directed anything will tell you that some of your
choices are deliberate and some are driven by the exigencies of time and
money... :-)
Jill
Moor Larkin
I think you can be fairly certain that the original story-tellers
intended the village and the events to be objectively real but some of
the stories were intended to be going on inside the prisoner's
head....... ABC was mostly a head game as was Harmony so the two ideas
are not mutually exclusive.......... Rover had about as much reality
as a the lava of your imagination........ ;-)))))
The idea that one's own worst enemy is oneself is a somewhat
subjective notion. It is easy to allow the final lines in any plot/
book/play to dictate meaning backwards... a classic device in much
story-telling.
Jan
>
> - Show quoted text -
I don't have any profound insights to share, but I was wondering about
it just for one reason, and that was along the lines of character
analysis of the man who would become Number 6. We don't know much
about him, except that he resigned in anger, that he had a fiancee,
that he seemed to be a man of integrity and decency and competent in
many areas. All very general. So, I was just musing a while back,
that if his adventures in the Village were inside his head, that we
could learn a bit more about him and --mostly-- about his world
outside the Village. If the Village and the people therein are
reflections or representations of his real life and the people he
knew and worked with, then we could know quite a lot. Not very
encouraging, and I don't blame him for resigning in a huff like
that.
Also, along these same lines, one could see the personal struggle
going on within himself as well, who he was, just to himself, as
separate from who he appears to others (we all wear our masks when
dealing with the world; how do we see ourself when we take off the
mask and face ourself?)
Like I said, nothing profound, but I like to read classic literature
and the most interesting part of that for me is to try to understand
the main character(s) as though they were real people with their own
thoughts and backstory. I see the Prisoner as literature, and I like
to try to "read" it in the same way.
Ivor Jones
Jill Mills <mills...@NOSPAMbtinternet.com> typed, for some strange,
unexplained reason:
[snip]
: We also move from something which can at first be viewed as the usual
: 60's spy caper to something deeper, or more obscure, depending upon
: your point of view.
Well that's how I've always seen it Jill, as an extension of Danger Man if
you will (I've always firmly believed No.6 was John Drake, but that's
another can of worms..!)
The more "inside head" episodes you mention could have been drug induced,
given that such things were probably very commonplace in the 60's ;-)
Ivor
Slitheen
news:8c86d5e0-843f-4f7f...@f3g2000yqf.googlegroups.com...
I think it's as good an explanation for the events as any. That's the beauty
of The Prisoner, it can mean a thousand things to a thousand people.....and
no 'answers' or opinions are worth any more/less than any others. Don't ever
let anyone tell you different. :)
Jill Mills
"Ivor Jones" <iv...@thisaddressis.invalid> wrote in message
news:6qce6lF...@mid.individual.net...
Yes - he *could* be a spy who has been kidnapped.
Alternatively, he could be a man called Peter Smith, who was once very good
at woodwork, and is now in a mental institution having a nervous breakdown
complete with fantasies about his action-man lifestyle...
For variations on this theme see the plot of 'Total Recall' based on a story
by Philip K. Dick. :-)
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0100802/
Jill
Jill Mills
"Slitheen" <Slith...@googlemail.com> wrote in message
news:ghr0o8$k1g$1...@news.motzarella.org...
I agree.
On one level he is just the Protagonist and Number 2 is the Antagonist.
"The protagonist is often the main character (the central or main figure) of
a story. However, the terms protagonist, main character and hero are
variously (and rarely well) defined, and depending on the source, may denote
different concepts. The word "protagonist" derives from the Greek
(protagonistes), "one who plays the first part, chief actor" but in some
plots, the main character is not the actual protagonist.
In classical and later theater, a protagonist is specifically a character
undergoing a dramatic change (peripeteia), both of his own character traits
and external circumstances. When the plot goes from order to chaos, as in a
tragedy, a reversal of fortune can bring about the downfall of the
protagonist, usually an exceptional individual, as a result of a tragic flaw
(hamartia) in his personality. In a plot going from chaos to order, as in a
comedy, the protagonist can go from misfortune to prosperity, or from
obscurity to prominence.........
.........The principal opponent of the protagonist is a character known as
the antagonist, who represents or creates obstacles that the protagonist(s)
must overcome. As with protagonists, there may be more than one antagonist
in a story."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protagonist
In this way he's an icon: the hero.
In Greek Tragedy or Shakespeare he usually is an outstanding, admirable
person with one fatal flaw.
The more you give him a back story and start to fill in his biographical
details, his likes and dislikes,
(for martial arts, candy or anything else...) ;-)
the less scope you have for your imagination to play upon the character and
his motives, and the more restrictive the drama becomes.
Of course, you can invent *your* Number 6, but he remains just that, yours.
One of the thousands of potential individuals that he could be.
Everyman, in fact. :-)
Jill
Moor Larkin
wrote:
> In this way he's an icon: the hero.
>
> In Greek Tragedy or Shakespeare he usually is an outstanding, admirable
> person with one fatal flaw.
Relating this back to Jan's initial quizzle, one of my objections to
the notion that the Prisoner is all just going on inside somebody's
head (whether dead or otherwise) is the fact that all *heroism* is
lost. It becomes an idle fantasy.
In the film *Brazil* an *unhappy ending* was the finale, and one could
equally conclude that the whole fantastical story was just intended to
be inside Sam Lowry's head.......... but in that instance I sense
people would be more likely to ask, "What was the point of all that?"
Every man wants to be a winner, as Mike Dann might have pointed out,
if anyone had been listening to him.
Jill Mills
"Moor Larkin" <moor_...@yahoo.co.uk> wrote in message
news:d9272e0a-9d79-44b0...@w1g2000prk.googlegroups.com...
I thought the point was that Everyman wants to be free. :-)
Jill
Moor Larkin
wrote:
> I thought the point was that Everyman wants to be free. :-)
That would make it all just a silly dream then........... ;-))))))
Jill Mills
"Moor Larkin" <moor_...@yahoo.co.uk> wrote in message
news:dd1eb280-6d29-4c94...@s9g2000prg.googlegroups.com...
Dance of the Dead: 2: 'If you insist on living a dream you may be taken for
mad.' 6: 'I like my dream.' 2: 'Then you are mad.'
Jill
Jan
This is an excellent point, that of heroism being lost. I am going to
give this some thought.
Jan
wrote:
> "Slitheen" <Slithee...@googlemail.com> wrote in message
>
> news:ghr0o8$k1g$1...@news.motzarella.org...
>
>
>
>
>
> > "Jan" <jan.tzin...@gmail.com> wrote in message
>
> - Show quoted text -
Another good point, along with what Moor posted. I have something new
to think about now ..... what I like best about being a Prisoner
fan! :)
Jan
>
> - Show quoted text -
Thinking about heroism being lost, as Moor suggested...I'm not so sure
that would be the case. Heroism isn't necessarily what one does, but
rather who one is, and how one responds. Even if all his
misadventures were in his head, whether drug induced or otherwise, the
fact is that he fought to maintain his integrity, his identity, his
individuality, etc. and was not willing to be co-opted. I'd like to
hear what others think.
Off topic, but just because it's on my mind, I had a chance to watch
"The Quare Fellow" this afternoon. What a great movie that was.
McGoohan is very good at simultaneously expressing and understating
inner turmoil! It was fun to watch Walter Macken, too, since my
current project is to read as many of his books as I can lay my hands
on, having read an endorsement of his "Rain on the Wind" in a McG
interview. Guess I will have to read Brendan Beehan when that's
done.
I've always thought of The Prisoner as springboard to a lifetime
reading program. And so it continues. :)
Jill Mills
> Thinking about heroism being lost, as Moor suggested...I'm not so sure
> that would be the case. Heroism isn't necessarily what one does, but
> rather who one is, and how one responds. Even if all his
> misadventures were in his head, whether drug induced or otherwise, the
> fact is that he fought to maintain his integrity, his identity, his
> individuality, etc. and was not willing to be co-opted. I'd like to
> hear what others think.
The series is actually a work of philosophy disguised as an action
adventure.
Each episode poses questions about right and wrong, social responsibility,
personal integrity and individual freedom.
But would anyone watch it without the running on the beach, the mini-moke
chases, and the punch-ups?
Probably not... ;-)
Personally, I'd hate to be without the verbal sparring of No 6 and No 2.
>
> Off topic, but just because it's on my mind, I had a chance to watch
> "The Quare Fellow" this afternoon. What a great movie that was.
> McGoohan is very good at simultaneously expressing and understating
> inner turmoil! It was fun to watch Walter Macken, too, since my
> current project is to read as many of his books as I can lay my hands
> on, having read an endorsement of his "Rain on the Wind" in a McG
> interview. Guess I will have to read Brendan Beehan when that's
> done.
>
> I've always thought of The Prisoner as springboard to a lifetime
> reading program. And so it continues. :)
Oh, I've been on one of those since I could first hold a book.... ;-)
Jill
roger
roger
> Heroism isn't necessarily what one does, but rather who one is, and how
> one responds.
Exactly. We hear of situations where someone "died like a hero" in
circumstances that would have most of us running in the opposite direction.
I guess it's how you want to be remembered and how important it is to your
own self-standing if you behaved otherwise.
Jan
wrote:
> The series is actually a work of philosophy disguised as an action
> adventure.
> Each episode poses questions about right and wrong, social responsibility,
> personal integrity and individual freedom.
Oh, absolutely!
I wasn't able to go to college right after high school, and by the
time I got to go, I had been meditating on the show for about ten
years, and the Troyer interview had been aired, and they did that
wonderful book "The Prisoner Puzzle" with that great bibliography. I
structured my whole college program around the ideas in the series and
the books in the list, and when I was done, I had a liberal arts
degree with concentrations in Philosophy and Religion. So, yes...The
Prisoner was/is a philosophical masterpiece told as literature.
Moor Larkin
> Thinking about heroism being lost, as Moor suggested...I'm not so sure
> that would be the case. Heroism isn't necessarily what one does, but
> rather who one is, and how one responds.
Yes. We see this every day. We're all heroes m'dear.
> Even if all his
> misadventures were in his head, whether drug induced or otherwise, the
> fact is that he fought to maintain his integrity, his identity, his
> individuality, etc. and was not willing to be co-opted.
My dreams are my own................ Don't bother to wake me. This a
lovely dream. I feel like a hero!!
redcat
Yes, although many of his escape attempts are thwarted, we see Number 6
sacrifice his freedom for the sake of another's a few times.
However, what happened in the bloodless bulletfest of Fall Out? Did it
occur to Number Six that while it is noble to be a hero it is sometimes
more useful to cut, shoot and run?
It could be that having seen the resurrection of Number 2 he guessed
that in this crazy place the dead would rise anyway after a brief rest.
So he wasn't really killing anyone at all, just making a new kind of
escape that played by Village rules.
Happy Boxing Day to all & a prosperous 2009.
redcat
Jan
> roger wrote:
> > "Jan" <jan.tzin...@gmail.com> wrote in message
Yet, the dead didn't always rise, did they? Hence, the Village
graveyard.
redcat
>
> Yet, the dead didn't always rise, did they? Hence, the Village
> graveyard.
How many did you need to see rise to think "the dead rise here!" It was
only a 17-ep series, after all. And it was The Prisoner not The Undead.
redcat
Jan
I think I'd need more than just one, since (if I were Number 6) I
would be very suspicious about deciding that anything were true or
reliable in the Village.
Moor Larkin
rise here!"
Moorticia opines:
I was never totally convinced that anyone rose from the dead anyhow.
Nobody in America ever saw 'The Kid' die in the "Episode That Wasn't
Banned" (well, not until 1970 anyhow)
And was Number Two really dead? I wasn't ever convinced, not even back
in '67...... The Spervisor got Number Six out o' the crib pretty darn
quick didn't he?.........
As the steel door closed the tubby bearded guy probably just stopped
holding his breath and gasped nary his last...........
Call me a doubting Tomm but I like to put my fingers in the holes
before I believe hardly anything. Which way did he go?
Passing Quickly On.............
roger
> since (if I were Number 6) I would be very suspicious about
> deciding that anything were true or reliable in the Village.
Graveyards feature in both 'Arrival' and 'Living In Harmony', but whether
that's where the bodies are buried is quite another matter ...
Jan
> "Jan" <jan.tzin...@gmail.com> wrote in message
The problem with liars is that you can never know if they are telling
the truth at any point or not. And the Village raised lying to a
science and a fine art, didn't they?
redcat
The lying is not unique to the Village. It's the least fiction-y thing
about it!
redcat
Moor Larkin
wear plaid?........... so many quotes..... so little memory.
If it is the former this could explain why the shaved number two was a
changed man.....
But no body can rise from the dead... Every body knows that! Anyone
who says otherwise is patently a liar!
Jan
Agreed.
Jan
You're welcome to your opinion on that one, Moor. But that would be
off-topic.
At least No. 2 wasn't wearing plaid.
Moor Larkin
> > But no body can rise from the dead... Every body knows that! Anyone
> > who says otherwise is patently a liar!
>
> You're welcome to your opinion on that one, Moor. But that would be
> off-topic.
Moor opines further:
Not really. If the Number Two and the Kid were 'risen from the dead'
it would presumably back up the 'dream' interpretation, rather than
the village being objectively real.
So whether Two was really dead is quite important. I'm not sure if
Number 48 was really meant to be the Kid anymore than the two Number
Two's played by Colin Gordon were meant to be the same Number Two.
However the Leo McKern character was clearly and objectively
intentioned to be the same person throughout the series, so whether or
not he died and rose again could actually be quite a crucial issue in
this respect.
>
> At least No. 2 wasn't wearing plaid.
Only on Saturday nights and in the privacy of his own home I
believe.... ;-)))
Jan
I usually don't bother much about whether No. 48 was the same person
as the Kid (I don't think he was, but that's just a personal opinion)
or the Colin Gordin/No. 2 question, because there's just not much
internal evidence for discussion (probably more for 48/Kid than
Gordon, though, now that I think about it). But I agree with you that
the rising of Leo McKern/No. 2 does indeed lend support to the idea of
the Village being internal rather than external.
No. 6 had just concluded a week of really intense mind control.
There wasn't any recuperative break between Once Upon a Time and Fall
Out, so sometimes I wonder what was going on in his head, if anything
(he was uncharacteristically passive during most of it). Was it all
being fed into him? Was he dreaming? Was it distorted external
reality?
How on earth is the remake going to live up to this???
Moor Larkin
embryo room and not Number Two and what we saw afterward was his death
dream. Terry Gilliam's twist to the shootout finale of 'Brazil'
embraced that concept I think, but it was only the final escape that
would need to be the dream, not the entire series.
redcat
>
> How on earth is the remake going to live up to this???
Just want to note that this remake, which seems to be making no use of
any talent (including writing/consulting)from the original series, is
reminding me of the time a fresh, new team tried to remake the Twilight
Zone series.
They didn't make use of any of the still-available writers (OK, there
was one case, but credit was removed at the writer's request) or anyone
from the original. As a result, there was no artistic continuity at all.
The stories that came out were bland and the series was quickly
abandoned and forgotten.
redcat
Jan
Yes, and this concerns me.
Jan
>
> - Show quoted text -
Back to the original question for a moment...
I was thinking about geography during a slow period at work today.
The map of the Village shows The Mountains to the north and The Sea to
the south, with the Village sandwiched in between. Number 6 could
have verified this by sight just standing around, no equipment
needed. And indeed, we do see mountains and sea in the episodes.
My question: does this match what we learn in Chimes of Big Ben, Many
Happy Returns, or Fall Out?? Isn't the geography different in those
places from each other and from the Village?
So I was wondering if this could be something else that suggests that
the Village was an internal, rather than objective external, reality
for the man who became No. 6?
redcat
That's two questions. My answers: Yes. No.
redcat
Jan
>
> - Show quoted text -
In that order?
redcat
David Catterall
> Jan wrote:
>> I was thinking about geography during a slow period at work today.
>> The map of the Village shows The Mountains to the north and The Sea to
>> the south, with the Village sandwiched in between. Number 6 could
>> have verified this by sight just standing around, no equipment
>> needed. And indeed, we do see mountains and sea in the episodes.
>>
>> My question: does this match what we learn in Chimes of Big Ben, Many
>> Happy Returns, or Fall Out?? Isn't the geography different in those
>> places from each other and from the Village?
>
> That's two questions. My answers: Yes. No.
>
> redcat
Redcat,
Forgive me any accidental insult, but surely in MHR the Village is
off the coast of North Africa whereas in FO it's a road drive
away from English trunk road A2. And in COBB the location of the
Village doesn't come into it because we don't actually go anywhere else... .
Best wishes for 09,
David
Jan
David: my question was based on the geography that we (and No. 6) can
see with our unaided eyes. You just can't tell what's true or false
in the Village, so I was just trying to rely on what's obviously
visible.
In MHR, he was in the raft and the boat, then in a plane. Would the
geography of Morocco match "mountains in the north, sea to the south"?
In Fall Out, is there geography like this outside London?
In COBB, would Lithuania meet the criteria?
This wasn't meant to be a really serious question. I was laying awake
one night, totally unable to fall asleep, and I started musing whether
what we saw of the Village could be traced to some particular place on
the globe. Number 6 was always wondering where the Village was.
So...there was the geography.
There was also climate, which was temperate, with seasonal changes to
the plant life.
And then I started going through a mental map of the earth wondering
what would line up with that. There's a lot of the earth that's
disqualified.
Then I finally fell asleep. But I'm still left with (1) geography
(mountains/north; sea/south), (2) climate (temperate, so middle
latitudes), (3) altitude (sea level), and (4) seasonal changes.
Where are we?
Anyway, I was just having fun. :)
David Catterall
> In MHR, he was in the raft and the boat, then in a plane. Would the
> geography of Morocco match "mountains in the north, sea to the south"?
>
> In Fall Out, is there geography like this outside London?
>
> In COBB, would Lithuania meet the criteria?
Jan (and Redcat),
Apologies for not seeing your latest question in the light of the Title
of This Thread! My only plea is that I'm temporarily running with only
one eye -- seriously, I had a retina re-attached just before Christmas.
You're saying that if the observed facts of Geography are inconsistent
then the Village must be a series of *subjective* experiences.
Thanks for the forbearance,
David
Jan
No apologies necessary!
I don't think it's possible to make a definitive statement, that it's
objectively real, or subjective and internal, because The Prisoner
really resists definitive statements. I remember reading somewhere
that in Fall Out, in the jukebox sequence, that one of the songs
Patrick McGoohan wanted to play was "Little Boxes" and I always
thought that was funny, because The Prisoner, as a series, definitely
can't be put into a box and labelled. And that's as close to a
definitive statement as I would dare come!
I was just thinking that maybe the geographical questions might add
supportive evidence that the Village could be whole or in part
internal.
Here's hoping for a quick and easy recovery for your vision!
redcat
Hi David,
The Village is wherever you want.
Perhaps this year someone will note in this newsgroup that she has been
having holidays in a punterless Village off the coast of Morocco.
Best wishes for a good recovery after your eye surgery.
redcat
moorl...@googlemail.com
> off the coast of North Africa
and I'm pretty sure it was on an island..................
whereas in FO it's a road drive
> away from English trunk road A2.
BTW. How do we know there was only one *village*?
Just as an aside, did we ever *see* any mountains? Apart from when Six
drives off on his trip to the Swiss barbershop?........... I recall
seeing some hills in at least one village, a few times but they always
seemed to be glimpsed just across the sea..... and therefore
presumably to the south............
Jan
Yes, we did see mountains. Can't remember which episode now, but I
will watch for it. It was Number 6 looking around from within the
Village.
Jill Mills
"Jan" <jan.t...@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:07992b1a-9c7f-4159...@z6g2000pre.googlegroups.com...
'Many Happy Returns'
Exterior Mountains Day
Point of View. The mountain range seems to go to infinity.
It's when he's looking for a way out.
(Metaphors will do that to you...) ;-)
Jill
moorl...@googlemail.com
Jill Mills
<moorl...@googlemail.com> wrote in message
news:1e4c6f7f-b18e-49da...@u18g2000pro.googlegroups.com...
> *makes note to check island overview for mountains*
http://www.theprisoneronline.com/YourVillage-800.jpg
See any?
:-))
Jan
wrote:
> <moorlar...@googlemail.com> wrote in message
You can see them about 8 minutes into the MHR episode.
Jill Mills
"Jan" <jan.t...@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:f2af6afa-848e-4687...@40g2000prx.googlegroups.com...
As I mentioned earlier.
redcat
Jan, we see dark hills that may as well be mountains in Free For All
during the Jetboat-helicopter chase.
And there is a tenth of a second where we see mountains with clouds. But
I can't think of the ep, either, because it wasn't a real view.
redcat
moorl...@googlemail.com
the mountains to be fairly irrelevant, insofar as influencing any
*escape plan*. All Six's escapes seemed to involve boats one way or
another, until the final one, when maybe he finally found the tunnel
that went under the mountains.....................
Given that the programme makers deliberately suggested the village to
be in such radically different places as the Baltic or near the Canary
Islands, it would seem reasonable that they were implying to us that
there was more than one village.
Jill Mills
<moorl...@googlemail.com> wrote in message
news:6c0d0500-47c9-4982...@i18g2000prf.googlegroups.com...
I'm just relieved that you are now scrutinizing content rather than form.
Still, you won't be the first man to get obsessed about length rather than
performance... ;-)
Jill
Dick Spanner
> Growing up, and thinking about The Prisoner, I had always assumed that
> the Village was external to Number 6, and that his experiences were
> objectively real. Recently, though, I've begun to wonder whether
> everything was happening inside his head, whether from a mental
> collapse from the strain of his resignation and everything leading up
> to it, or mind control, after he was gassed.
>
> As with everything else concerning the series, I guess there are no
> certain answers to this, but I was wondering what other people think.