Befriending Number 6

     You can count the number of friendships Number 6 cultivates in The Village on one hand. Nadia during ‘The Chimes of Big Ben’ was the first, or rather second if you count Number 9 of ‘Arrival.’ She supplied Number 6 with the electropass, but cannot really be counted as a friend to No.6. So Nadia was the first friend. But then what about Number 2, there was certainly a rapport between the two, friendly banter and all that. Which of course was rekindled during their time together in the embryo room of ‘Once Upon A Time,’ as Number 2 was actually beginning to like Number 6. And he did introduce Number 6 to his new neighbour Number 8, and she, I think, became close to Number 6, as a friend, but possibly it could have been more than that. Well that's the feeling I get from the attitude she shows towards Number 6. There's a warmth in her, especially when they are sealed inside that crate together!
   Number 6 had other friends once, such 'A' and 'B' of the episode ‘A B and C,’ although such friendships as these had been cultivated outside The Village and long before his abduction. Number 24-Alison in ‘The Schizoid Man’ could have been a friend. Certainly they looked friendly towards one another. But of course we don't know, and can never know, just how this friendship between Number 6 and Alison began to blossom, more on the part of Alison or Number 6. A mutual friendship, based on a "mental link" or one purposely cultivated by Alison which in turn had originated at the door of No.2's office! At the beginning it might just have been another assignment, but at the end, unlike Nadia, Alison was ashamed of what she did, and wanted Number 6 to know that given a second chance she wouldn't do it again! I suppose as well as not being able to say just when this friendship began to develop between Alison and Number 6, we cannot say just how this "mental link" between them came about. As we observe Number 6 helping Alison with her "mind reading" in his cottage, the "mental link" appears to be real enough, unlike the "stacked cards" during Number 6's attempt to prove that he is Number 6. There is no way that the cards used by Number 6 in his cottage that evening could possibly be stacked for or against him in the same way as they were in Number 2's office that time.
   So it would appear that there was something more than friendship between Alison and Number 6. Which could, I suppose, be said of Number 6 and the little watchmakers daughter Number 51-Monique of ‘It’s Your Funeral.’ At first they had been brought together by the manipulation of Number 2, in the assassination plot against Number 2. But was this a friendship in the true sense, or was Monique simply using Number 6 in order to save her father from a fate worse than a fate worse than death? Perhaps they were using each other for their own ends. Monique and Number 6 certainly seemed at times to enjoy each others company over a cup of coffee on frequent occasions.
    Cathy, the saloon girl of the Sliver Dollar Saloon in the Wild West town of Harmony, she was another to get close to the man with no name and a cosy little friendship was quietly developing between the pair. But of course almost anything and everything which occurred during the episode of ‘Living In Harmony’ was false. But even so, Number 22 who played Cathy in Number 8's "role playing game" had wished it had been real, and told Number 6 so as she lay dying in his arms.
   The trouble with trying to build friendships in The Village is, you can never quite find the friends who you can really trust and rely upon, not the prisoners anyway. It could be different for those who arrived in The Village of their own free will, the warders for example. And those citizens who work in and behind the scenes of The Village. People who maintain both it and its services. After all, you couldn't have an installation like the village where even those who work for it have no trust in one another, could you now?
    No, Number 6 enjoys associations and acquaintances in The Village. And for him it will not get much better than that. How Number 6 reacts to those who betray him, like Alison-Number 24, who remain in The Village, is not known. But perhaps he won't be so hard on the girl. After all she was either only carrying out, or having been coerced into carrying out Number 2's instructions!

Be seeing you