Elektra King is a fictional character and villain from the James Bond film The World Is Not Enough, played by Sophie Marceau.

Sophie Marceau as Elektra King.

Biography: Elektra King is the daughter of oil tycoon Sir Robert King, whose mother’s side of the family is of Azeri descent and fled the country immediately after the Soviet Union was established. As Elektra’s maternal grandfather had no sons, Sir Robert became the de facto male heir when he married into the family. It is for this reason that Elektra believes her father “stole” the oil reserves that rightfully belonged to her mother’s side.

Elektra is abducted by the terrorist Renard and held for ransom, which her father refuses to pay on the advice of family friend (and acting head of MI6) M. Embittered by what she sees as her father’s betrayal, Elektra participates in Renard’s scheme to milch money from her father, going so far as to mutilate her ear so Renard can send it to Sir Robert as a warning.

After “surviving” her abduction, Elektra secretly collaborates with Renard to blow up her family’s oil pipeline. Her motives are to kill her father and seize his oil business, which she believes is rightfully hers. She also holds a personal grudge toward M for influencing Sir Robert’s decision not to pay the ransom demands. Elektra and Renard arrange an attack on MI6’s London office hoping to kill her father and M. The attack is only partly successful, as M survives. Bond decides to offer his services to protect Elektra, believing that Renard will target her next. To throw off suspicion, Elektra accepts Bond’s offer and even becomes his lover. When Renard publicly threatens to destroy the pipeline, however, she shows her true colours and abducts M.

The pipeline destruction proves to be a diversion to further throw off suspicion to her real plan: contaminating the Bosporus with a nuclear meltdown, forcing oil traders to use her family’s pipeline to transport fossil fuel as any other route would require tanker transport across the Bosporus. With her plan minutes away from completion, Elektra places Bond in a torture device designed to break his neck. (see the article garotte). She straps his hands, feet, and neck down, but Bond frees himself with the help of Valentin Zukovsky. Bond chases after Elektra, and during a tense standoff, shoots and kills her.

See also:

• Bond girls
• Bond villains