All These Elaborate Schemes?

    Where does it get them? It’s all very well setting up a plan for Number 6 to think he’s arrived in an office he knows very well in London, but one mistake, one flaw in the plan and it could go very wrong all so very easily. It was a good idea, but they were using the wrong approach that’s all. Perhaps a more direct approach would be the better way, Degree Absolute perhaps. At least Number 2 got something out of the Prisoner, not to make it a complete waste of time. Poor Number 2, he gave his all for what? “I resigned for peace, for peace of mind, because too many people know too much.” It was a matter of conscience then, he told the Colonel that much.
    At least ‘A B and C’ was a little more direct, using a newly developed drug to cause inception, in order to get into Number 6’s dreams and manipulate them. Pity it had taken Number 2 to research and compute the Prisoner’s whole life, he was only left with three days to gain a result. Number 2 was over confident, and he’d put pressure on the doctor-Number 14, its no wonder she turned a blind eye to the fact that while the subject lay on the operation table, he opened his eyes and saw her. Number 2 failed, and while Number 6 succeeded the doctor gained retribution over Number 2 because of the way he had treated her.
    It was a right free for all wasn’t it? And for what? To teach Number 6 a lesson, to soften him up? A demonstration of not only the manipulation of such a community, but also of Number 6! “Will you never learn, this is only the beginning. We have many ways and means, but do not wish to damage you permanently. Are you ready to talk? Well the Prisoner wasn’t ready to talk, not even after all that time and effort. But I expect it will all be won in the end.
    ‘The Schizoid Man,’ and Number 6 has not only had his identity taken away and been given a number, they even took that away from him. More than that they faced him with himself! Anyone else who had not the sense of identity would have buckled. But then they couldn’t have Number 6 a broken man could they? Remember a previous Number 2 said he didn’t want a man of fragments, that he wanted Number 6 with a whole mind body and soul.
    What was it Number 2 said, “They’ll get me eventually, wherever I go,” and that turned out to be true for the Prisoner, but then again he was rather predictable. Having escaped The Village, and having survived a dangerous sea voyage, and returning home to London, what did he do? He went running back to his ex-colleagues. I mean had the Prisoner learned nothing from the events of ‘The Chimes of Big Ben? He’d gone running back to them then, and look what happened, betrayal! Number 6 made it easy for them to pick him up again and return him to The Village, because he couldn’t wait to get back. He returned to The Village of his own free will!
   Next would be ‘Dance of the Dead,’ putting the Prisoner on trial for the possession of a radio. The Prisoner had no radio of his own. There was no radio he could have borrowed, so when acquiring one…… just a minute, the prosecutor said there was no radio the Prisoner could have borrowed, so from where did he acquire one? The three judges never once asked Number 6 where he got the radio. Number 2 did ask Number 6 where he got the radio, that time on the outlook, but she never pressed the point. Had she done so she might have discovered that he took the radio off the dead body of Number 34. It was surreal, that court scene, putting the Prisoner on trial, finding him guilty, then sentencing him to death. What if there had been an error in calculation, and that screaming mob had actually laid hands on Number 6. They’d probably have torn him limb from limb! And all for what, to prove a point!
    Now we jump to ‘It’s Your Funeral,’ because both ‘Checkmate’ and ‘Hammer Into Anvil’ are both stratagems on the part of Number 6. But if one is to formulate a plan such as “Plan Division Q,” then it would have been better to have left Number 6 out of the equation altogether. But then why over complicate it the first place? If they wanted to rid The Village of malcontents, of which Number 6 happened to be “top of the bill,” why not just get on with it as Monique suggested? The Village is hardly a pocket democracy, it’s an internment camp!
    ‘A Change of Mind,’ and Number 6 is disharmonious, and for that the whole community is turned upon him. Now Number 6 is truly a man in isolation, as there is no-one he can turn to for help. However he was able to pull the wool over Number 86’ s eyes, and hoodwinked her into taking the drug Mytol. In her sedated state of mind Number 6 was able to hypnotise her, and when the Village clock chimes four………… the tables were turned on Number 2, and it was his turn to be chased by an angry Village mob
    ‘Do Not Forsake Me Oh My Darling’ was a risk, especially when one considers that it wasn’t necessary to go looking for Seltzman, as there wasn’t any need for any such reversal process. All they needed to do was to put the same subjects through the same mind transference process a second time. It all seems too much of an unnecessary contrivance!
    ‘Living In Harmony,’ sounds like a euphemism for living in The Village during ‘A Change of Mind,’ having put the Prisoner in a dangerous environment, giving him love, taking it away, isolating him. Making him kill, then facing him with death, and it might have worked had it not been for the human element. The fact that all the characters became so involved!
    ‘The Girl Who was Death,’ someone must have been having a laugh when they came up with this idea, else scraping the bottom of the barrel. Whatever made one think that Number 6 would drop his guard with children? All Number 2 got was an insight into the Prisoner’s previous life, the kind of work he was involved with, that of the world of counter terrorism!
    And finally ‘Fall Out,’ which could be described as a further machination on the part of The Village administration. All that praise heaped on the former Number 6, having revolted, resisted, fought, held fast, maintained. Having destroyed resistance, overcome coercion, and vindicated the right of the individual to be individual. “To be person, or someone individual.” All things previously frowned upon in The Village, it’s a wonder the former Number 6 didn’t smell a rat! And then they played what they thought was their trump card. They faced him with himself, in an attempt to demonstrate that Number 6 himself, is responsible for The Village, that he is his own worst enemy. All this time the Prisoner known as Number 6, has been fighting against himself. Or at least he will be, should the Prisoner’s future, shown to him in the crystal ball comes to pass.
Be seeing you