The theories presented here are based mainly on the science of evolutionary psychology, and try to explain various things about the way humans are, by looking at the way they evolved. Some of the titles may seem a but frivolous, but all the essays have some serious argument to them. For those readers unfamiliar with evolutionary psychology, I have a page giving you a very brief explanation.

Why Bond Villains Employ Dwarfs

“Ah, Commander Bond. I’ve been expecting you. Please sit.” The arch villain Hubert Krall motioned with his well-manicured hands to a seat. Bond sat and regarded for a moment the cold inscrutable stare of the identical twins behind Hubert. Chinese, thought Bond, and very pretty, but probably both capable of killing without feeling guilt. Hubert had a good eye for psychopaths.

“It is good to have this opportunity to talk,” said Hubert. He spoke with the exaggerated calmness typical of megalomaniacs. He smiled falsely, and formed the fingers of his hands into an arch. “I’m sure that Uthra and Bjorn here will see that we are not disturbed.” The two men mentioned hardly moved on hearing their names. One, an Indian giant, stood behind Bond, and in front of the door Bond came through. The other, his face forever grinning from the hideous scars down the left side, stood by the room’s only other door.

“Would you care for a drink, Commander? Chivas Regal, perhaps, or your famous vodka Martini? Goto here can provide you with either.” Goto, a cross-eyed dwarf, smiled proudly, wearing a waiter’s suit that must have been a great challenge for the tailor to fit so closely to the lop-sided frame. With his stubby fingers he pulled the white cloth cover off a drinks trolley.

“Orange squash, please,” said Bond.

Why do Bond villains all seem to live in human zoos? For some reason, it feels right for them to do so. The writers of scripts for films always choose to create side-kicks for the super-villains from a bizarre menu of cripples, dwarfs, freaks, and a variety of races. Sorcerers have mute slaves from the far southern kingdoms, mad inventors have hunchback laboratory assistants, white pirate captains take black slave girls to bed, and eastern rulers have white slave girls attending to their wishes. While some might argue that this is merely literary tradition or cliché, I suspect that this tradition has some basis in human nature. It feels right for us that a high-status and self-important man might have an odd assortment in his entourage, because of something in our innate natures.

An arch villain values his own importance, his ability to control others, and his status. He is fearful of losing status, and cannot afford to look a fool. Imagine how annoyed Hubert would be if he were cuckolded. True, he might enact terrible revenge on his unfaithful woman and on the cuckolding man, but he would never live it down. His pride wouldn’t tolerate such a disgrace. He will take all manner of steps to avoid this possibility.

In order to convince himself that he is high status, he will avail himself of the principle advantage a man gets from being high status. He will have regular sex with more than one woman. Despite the wonderful prowess which the villain has, which allowed him to become so powerful in the first place, it is still a risk that the attentions of one of his women might stray. It is a necessity to surround oneself with henchmen if one is to get anywhere as a super-villain bent on destruction and extortion. In today’s world, it is very difficult to recruit volunteers to become eunuchs.

The solution is the one which we all hit upon sub-consciously. Make sure that as far as possible, your henchmen are very unlikely to be found attractive by your harem. Bjorn with his scarred face fits this bill. Also, make sure that everyone in your entourage is so genetically different that it would be obvious who had fathered the child. If the Indian giant or the dwarf fathered a child by one of the Chinese twins, then it would be quite apparent to Hubert that something was amiss on the day of the birth. Knowing what a terrible revenge Hubert would exact, neither of his Chinese concubines, nor the giant, nor Goto would dare try anything. If the women are of different race from the henchmen, and different from the villain, then any unsanctioned bonking will risk painful death.

It would be very difficult to do a scientific survey of super-villains, but if I am right, then one would expect certain other things to be true. I would expect that in a survey of people employing servants the world over, that female servants employed by the lady of the household will be uglier than those chosen by the gentleman of the house. I would also expect that the gentlemen would be less likely to employ female servants of race differing from themselves. My reasoning is this: men seek opportunities for sex, and their tactics will be influenced by instincts appropriate to the environment of evolutionary adaption, before contraceptives were invented. a man who chooses a pretty servant, of the same race as his himself, will possibly get to enjoy a dalliance with that servant, which might produce a child. Fearing this, his wife would prefer to employ an ugly servant, who would be less attractive to her husband, and one of different race from her husband, so that her husband knows that the mixed race of the potential child would indicate who the father was. Fearing being caught, the husband would stay faithful. I'd also expect that most male servants employed by the gentleman of the house are uglier than male servants employed by the lady of the house.

Similarly, I would expect any survey of very high-status men and their entourages, to show that the higher the status of the man, the more likely he is to be surrounded by servants, body-guards, courtesans, and hangers on who are of substantially different genetic make up from him.

Most people have not thought through the question of why Bond villains employ dwarfs. Nevertheless, the fact that they feel that somehow this is right, tells me that they have solved this problem on a sub-conscious level. Most men, on becoming megalomaniacs bent on taking over the world, would behave the same way. The fact that people can solve this problem sub-consciously, tells me that we have inherited very sophisticated instincts for getting sex and enforcing faithfulness in our sexual partners.

One reason a man might not want to live somewhere where the rest of the population is of a different race, would be that he would have little opportunity to father illegitimate children. On the other hand, his wife could be fairly assured of his faithfulness because of precisely this reason, so he may be able to get a wife more easily. Therefore, I would expect middle-status men in lands where they are racially abnormal, to marry into the local native population less often than low-status men. Low-status men probably would not get to have many affairs anyway, and high-status men could probably get away with a few affairs anyway. With women, it would be different. a woman of race type a living in a land populated by men of race type B, could have any number of affairs and produce children which no local man could tell was not his own. I would therefore expect that women of locally abnormal race would all be equally advantaged or disadvantaged by this, irrespective of their individual attractiveness or status.

One reason that gentlemen might prefer blondes with symmetrical faces, is that both blonde hair and symmetry are recessive traits. If such a wife were to be unfaithful, then her recessive traits would be like a blank slate onto which the dominant traits of the cuckolding man might write themselves. With this in mind, a blonde and beautiful woman married to a husband with recessive traits would perhaps sub-consciously find other men with recessive traits the most attractive for affairs. If she had an affair with a man with dominant traits, she would be likely to be caught out when the baby arrived. If she had a husband with dominant traits, then she would still have some motive for having affairs with men similar to her husband. Conversely, a man with recessive traits might find women with dominant traits attractive for affairs. If the affair produced a baby, then there would be a degree of plausible deniability. This is a testable hypothesis.