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Saturday 19 July 2014

Prismatic Reflection

    Numbers, have you ever wondered if there are too many numbers used in The Village? For example, is the number 8 used too frequently, by Nadia Rakovsky for one, all the way through to the White Queen, to the woman in the cipher room, to the Kid committing suicide in the Sliver Dollar Saloon. To be perfectly honest that doesn’t seem very often does it? I thought there were more number 8’s in The Village than that. Have you noticed that generally speaking the women in The Village who have dealings with Number 6 have the number 8. Well part from Numbers 2, 9, 14, 21, 22, 24, 50, 54, 86, and 240.
     There are times when two different numbers can be the same. Take the doctors Number 40 of ‘Dance of the Dead,’ and Number 22 of ‘Checkmate,’ the numbers may be different, yet the two characters are very much the alike, despite their difference in gender. They are enthusiastic, enjoy human experimentation, and they both have a man’s breaking point in mind! What I’m trying to say is, that the one doctor would have suited either role, and perhaps ‘the Prisoner’ would have been all the better for the one, but not both!
    Numbers are relative in The Village. Last week Number 14 was an old lady in a wheelchair. Now Number 14 is a middle aged woman, a doctor, and that makes her one of them! And Number 113 doesn’t exist, despite having sent a birthday greeting to Number 6. 113 was an old woman in a wheelchair, she died a month ago. Number 6 saw her grave in the cemetery. A headstone inscribed with the number 113, a couple of graves away from 73’s final resting place. It would seem that even being dead is not a case for one becoming numberless. Subsequently there must almost be as many dead numbers in the graveyard as there are living ones in The Village!
    It is said that there is no number 7 in The Village because it is thought to be a lucky number, as thirteen is unlucky. Well here’s an unlucky number in The Village if you like, number 2. How many number 2’s were there? Match the number of successful 2’s against those who failed in the task, well you can probably do that for yourself, because my idea of success and failure might be different from yours.
   Was it really any better to have a long series of 2s, rather than just one, or perhaps three or four? The fact that so many Number 2s were intended was so that Number 6 could not strike up a rapport or relationship with any 2. It was a decent enough idea to replace the first  Number 2, with the second, it brought the Prisoner back to square one, so that he would have to begin all over again with a new 2. And yet to stick with one single Two, at least he or she would have got to know Number 6, his strong points, his weaknesses. But of course I was forgetting, they knew all that anyway. And they exploited his one weakness, that one chink in his armour. Lets face it, Number 6 is a sucker for a damsel in distress, just ask Nadia Rakovsky. And I guess that the most unlucky of all the Number 2s to take up office in The Village was during ‘The Chimes of Big Ben.’ If only Post 5 had his watch set at Polish time, instead of Greenwich Mean Time, Number 6 would never have been any the wiser about his still being in The Village, and would have told the Colonel the reason behind his resignation. Then everyone would have been showered in glory. As it is……..
     Numbers are different, individual. You never have two numbers the same in The Village, and if they are, they are usually subdivided like 113, 113b, and 113c. But people, people can be very much alike, take Number 14 of ‘Hammer Into Anvil,‘ and Number 22 of ‘It’s your Funeral’ for example. Here we have two people with very different numbers, yet in appearance they are two people very much alike. They even wear identical clothes! It makes me wonder if they are supposed to be the same character in two different episodes, yet played by not too dissimilar actors.
    Numbers are relative in The Village, relative as to father and daughter Monique {oops, names are not used in The Village} Number 50 to her father the watchmaker-Number 51. It’s possible that mother and wife would have been either 49 or 52. The  twins in ‘Free For All,’ the photographer for The Tally Ho, and the operator of the newspaper dispenser being 113b and 113c. There is another set of twins, or doppelgangers Number 1 and Number 6, whose numbers when added together make 7, a number which does not exist in The Village. And yet it is not enough for 1 and 6 to be doppelgangers or twins, there has to be a third, a triplet…….12, that’s two times six! So the equation is this, 12 + 6 + 1 = 19 1 + 9 = 10 1 + 0 = 1 so perhaps it does all  boil down to 1 in the end. And yet we must not forget that, 1 is the loneliest number!


BESEENU

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