Why Safin Was Wrong To Call Madeleine Damaged For Choosing To Bring Mathilde To Term

No other Bond villain has incurred my ire like Lyutsifer Safin has. He indirectly killed James Bond, threatened a child, and felt entitled to a woman because he saved her life. One of the things that I find repugnant is he insinuated that Madeleine was damaged because she chose to carry Mathilde to term, despite the fact James rejected her over SPECTRE framing her. And Safin made such an implication to her face. Now, James's reasons for rejecting her were mistaken, but understandable. I'll refresh everyone's memory of James & Vesper's doomed romance, which is a contributing factor behind Bond dumping Madeleine. In Casino Royale, James met a woman named Vesper. He fell in love with her; she fell in love with him, and he decided to quit his job in order to spend his life with her. But Vesper was blackmailed into working for the bad guys, and she betrayed James and then took her own life out of shame. This hurt Bond deeply, but in Quantum of Solace, he eventually forgave her. In SPECTRE, it's revealed that the Vesper chapter in his life still affects him negatively. At the beginning of No Time To Die, Bond & Madeleine, who are in the early stages of a relationship together, are vacationing in Italy. They're staying in Matera, where Vesper is buried. When James hesitates to open up to Madeleine about Vesper, she encourages him to go to her grave and put all of what happened with Vesper behind him. Basically, Madeleine wants to help James heal those wounds, but make sure he loves her, not Vesper.

This had me a little miffed at first, but I ended up doing some research about people having affection for deceased partners while in a new relationship. What I found was the new partner was often OK with their partner having affection for both them and the deceased significant other, knowing that their partner had enough room for both the old, deceased partner and them in their heart. So for a while, this information led me to a "If you can't deal with James having room in his heart for both you and Vesper, maybe this isn't a relationship you should be investing in, Madeleine," attitude. But I came around to thinking that James having warm feelings (of the platonic sort) for Vesper was enough for me at this point.

Anyway, Bond brought a slip of paper, on which he had written forgive me, thus revealing his guilt about not being able to save her, with him to her grave. After a heartfelt "I miss you," James took his cigarette lighter out of his suit jacket and set the slip of paper ablaze. The tradition of burning secrets written on slips of paper is revealed to be unique to Matera in the film. It is their way of letting go of the past. Madeleine had joined in on the tradition the night before, burning one of her own written secrets to help let go of a traumatic event in her past.

A moment after the fire has consumed the slip of paper containing Bond's guilt over not being able to save Vesper and his plea for forgiveness, he notices a business card with an octopus, the symbol of the organization known as SPECTRE, leaning against the tombstone. As he leans forward to get a closer look, an explosion comes from the tombstone. The blast throws Bond back a couple feet, and renders him momentarily unconscious. When he regains consciousness and gets to his feet, he tries calling Madeleine, but gets no answer. He hurries from the cemetery, but encounters SPECTRE agents on the way, who tell him that Madeleine is "a daughter of SPECTRE." This arouses Bond's suspicion that Madeleine has been secretly working for SPECTRE and that she has betrayed him. With Madeleine as the daughter of former SPECTRE member Mr. White and his prior experience with Vesper, one would be hard pressed to blame James for suspecting that Madeleine has betrayed him. Besides, he's the hero and the protagonist in these movies, and so I think we're supposed to cut him a little slack. 

He gets Madeleine from the hotel, escorts her to his car and starts driving, as she bewilderedly asks him why she would betray him. After Bond replies with a bitter "We all have our secrets. We just haven't gotten to yours yet," Madeleine's cellphone rings, which she doesn't pick up right away. She picks it up at Bond's angry insistence. It's Blofeld, James's nemesis and the head of SPECTRE, with an encouraging and congratulatory message, which only confirms James's assumptions. After a chase sequence, James takes Madeleine to the local train station and puts her on a train, dumping her. As the train doors close, Madeleine's hand goes to her stomach, hinting that she's pregnant with their first child. 

Later, Bond does find out that Madeleine didn't actually betray him and that SPECTRE did set her up.

But let's get back to why I find Safin's implication so abhorrent. First, to me, calling Madeleine damaged because she bore her and James's child despite his dumping her implies that Safin was saying, "You should have had an abortion."

That's the primary reason why I find this implication so repulsive.

 
Second, it speaks to Safin's entitlement. Safin thinks Madeleine belongs to him and only him because he saved her life when she was a child. He resents the fact that she got involved with James and had his child because both of those realities threaten his "ownership" of Madeleine.

And anyone who's seen SPECTRE and No Time To Die knows that no one, absolutely no one, owns Madeleine Swann, or is entitled to her. If she does become involved with a man, it's of her own free will.

 
I adore Madeleine and I think she's courageous for choosing life for her and James's child despite him dumping her. She did the right thing by choosing to let Mathilde live despite the pain that James caused her. And I know plenty of people, both religious and non-religious, would agree with me.