Number 6 - A Man Of Many Parts
Number Six is certainly a man of many parts. Able to take care of himself, he gives as good as he gets in any one-to-one fist fight, and invariably gives better.
He's a sportsman, at shooting with an average of 90%, and fencing "These foils have all a length." Excels at "Kosho," some oriental sport originated by Patrick McGoohan. He water skis, builds his own private gymnasium somewhere in the woods. "Modern art," No.6 explains "Is basically primitive, I've made my own tools." Stone axe and chisel, with a wooden rolling pin as a mallet!
He can chop down a tree, and carve the hull of a boat out of it. Explain an abstract work of art, which doesn't mean anything at all. Or perhaps the barrier is down, depending on how you look at it. But then why the cross piece? Well that's a spar for the sail of the boat! Then at another time, chopping down small trees, lashing them together with empty oil drums in order to make a sea going raft. All this, without a sign of calluses on his hands after so much manual work! Spending 25 days at sea, with only 4 hours sleep out of each twenty four "Remarkable!"
No.6 is good at navigation too, navigating along the coast in the Baltic. Sailing across the most violent sea in the world..... the Bay of Biscay , as he would have sailed through 60 foot waves!
Hypnotism is another of the Prisoners facets, in the way he hypnotised No.86 in ‘A Change of Mind.’ And at some point a short time before the episode of ‘The Schizoid Man,’ No.6 found someone he was simpatico with, Alison-No.24.
He has superhuman will power. He's not at all conventional, sometimes I think he's not human!
The General
Legend has it that ‘The General’ was just McGoohan’s cup of tea, that he liked it. And yet on the other side of the coin has it that McGoohan never liked The General, only in theory it seems. He thought it was stupid, and the self-destruction of the General - a joke!
Apparentky McGoohan thought No.2 to be something of a lightweight character, and only responded to people like Guy Doleman-No.2 of Arrival, who had severity. when McGoohan felt that No.2 was lightweight he didn't seem to care about the show.
The most intense episodes are the ones that reflect McGoohan's own personality. So you can decide which those are for yourself.
One such Vicious Circle was demonstrated in the Ghost story by Alfred Noyes ‘Midnight Express,’ when a man came face to face with himself one night at Midnight on a deserted railway platform. The idea of having No.6 come face to face with No.1, an original idea. There were others who came up with such an idea long before Patrick McGoohan, Alfred Noyes for one. Or perhaps such a story as this was inspiration for Patrick McGoohan. But we shall never know!
I'll be seeing you, preferably standing beneath a lamplight on a dark and gloomy night!
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