A Character Witness

    Here we have three characters of ‘Arrival,’ Number 2, who although we do not see much of, does get the first crack at the Prisoner. In as much that he welcomes the Prisoner to The Village, debriefs him, then after trying to get the Prisoner to answer one simple question, like the time of his birth, he expects then that all the rest will follow. It doesn’t. Then he treats the Prisoner to an aerial guided tour of The Village. He seems on the surface to be a perfect gentleman, who is either coming to the end of his term of office, or was replaced because the maid-Number 66’s attempt to extract the reason behind the Prisoner’s resignation, by playing the part of a damsel in distress, didn’t work! That combined with the manager of the Labour Exchange’s failure to get the Prisoner to fill in a questionnaire, certainly did for this particular Number 2. And so quickly too, because no sooner was he there, than his successor had made himself at home in his office in the Green Dome! 
   The Prisoner is a man with almost as many questions as Number 2! He rejects The Village, and is determined to escape at the first given opportunity, and Number 2 is determined to see that he doesn’t. He refuses to answer any of Number 2's questions, as Number 2 refuses to answer most of his. The Prisoner is a man of determination, he will not be pushed, filed, stamped, indexed, briefed, debriefed, or numbered, and yet he has been! Pushed into a corner until there was nothing else for it but to resign. Then filed away in a grey filing cabinet, his card having been well and truly stamped {exed out}, indexed as having resigned, briefed on The Village by Number 2, de-briefed by Number 2, and finally numbered…..6!
   And Number 9 who was assigned to Cobb, is later assigned to Number 6. She is obviously very good at her job, although she might despise the work she does, Number 9 refuses the offer of escape with Number 6. She, like so many other citizens in The Village, is a mere pawn. She was given the Electro Pass by Number 2, yet claimed to have got it from another source, saying she knew the last helicopter pilot. That in itself is at first suggestive, but the suggestion made by Number 9 is a false one.

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