Force and Resistance!

    It was as we witnessed, a matter of force with which the Prisoner resigned his position of employment. Although at the time, at least physically, he wasn’t a prisoner. He was as free as any man can be free, and he had made his choice. And he demonstrated that choice, to resign, with force, and to a man who showed no resistance.
   Then having been abducted to The Village, he woke up a prisoner in a strange environment. Now the canvas shoe was on the other foot, and force had been used against him, and he resisted. He used, what Number 6 is pleased to call “Good old fashioned brute force” against two guardians in a Mini-Moke in order to try and escape. And again when confronted by the white membranic mass of the Guardian, but it gave no resistance, that’s why Number 6 was so easily overpowered, and suffocated into unconsciousness. And it maybe supposed that earlier, when that young man in the Piazza was suffocated by the Guardian, that was a show of force.
   Of course ‘the Prisoner’ as a series is littered with demonstrations of force, fist fights and the like, and almost always Number 6 comes out on top. As I think through the episodes I can remember only a couple of fights Number 6 lost. The time when he stumbled into that cave towards the end of ‘Free For All,’ when the two motor mechanics took their revenge upon Number 6. {For want had happened in the estuary aboard the jet boat} He was on the receiving end of a dose of “good old fashioned brute force,” and to resist was useless seeing as he was firmly held hand and foot!
  Then there was the time when he is walking the range carrying his saddle on his shoulder, and is set upon by a gang of bushwhackers. After which he is tied to the back of a horse and taken off to the frontier town of Harmony. Yes more often that not Number 6 comes off best in a fist fight, but there are times when “Good old fashioned brute force” avails him nothing. Like the time he ripped the wiring and paper out of the teletype in that fancy room in the Town Hall. I suppose the way the machine started printing again a few moments later, still with its wiring hanging out and torn paper, it must have had a back-up system. Either that, or the Prisoner failed to do a proper job on it! Mind you, he had been more subtle with the General, all he had to do was ask it a question it couldn’t possibly answer. Number 2 once said of Number 6, as he was having his hands tied up, that he thought Number 6 would have thought of something more original. Number 6 leaves originality to Number 2, but that quickly he will learn that good old fashioned brute force can be very effective. Not all the time Number 6, not all the time. And of resistance, well you know what’s often said about that, resistance is futile. 

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