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    Pre-release theories 
Ernst Stavro Blofeld is...
  • ...Oberhauser.
    • Because Christoph Waltz ain't nobody's run-of-the-mill Bond villain.
    • And his collarless jacket is a dead give away considering it resembles Blofeld's nehru jackets.
    • Confirmed.
  • ...Mr. White.
    • It's so obvious and expected that people essentially WON'T expect it.
      • Jossed with the power of a bullet through the base of the mouth.
  • ...Denbigh.
    • Andrew Scott's character isn't featured much at all in promotional material, maybe to hide his true colours?
      • There has been speculation it is Scott, not Waltz, saying the line "You've come across me so many times yet you never saw me" in the 2nd trailer. If this is true, it's nigh-incontrovertible evidence that Denbigh is the film's Blofeld.
    • Jossed with a fall from a great height.
  • ...Bond.
    • No one would expect it, so why not?
  • ...someone of no apparent importance.
    • Throughout the movie there will be a man present in various scenes, a Recurring Extra. He otherwise seems to have little involvement in the plot. At the end of the film he will be sitting at a desk, discuss on a telephone the events of the film, and ask if anyone learned who the REAL head of Spectre was. That's when a familiar cat jumps on his desk and he starts petting it...
      • This theory can't see the forest for the trees, as that's almost exactly how it happens in the film.
  • ...Lucia Sciarra.
    • A female Blofeld, and right under Bond's nose.

"Blofeld" is an inherited title, Spectre is a fraternity associated with the Blofeld "estate", and Oberhauser has usurped both.
This explains how Oberhauser retains his name while appearing to be in charge of Spectre, which Mr. White appears to be familiar with. Spectre might be a "cabal within a cabal" with influence even within Quantum, which explains Mr. White's warning to Bond that he's dealing with forces far beyond his control. Quantum's dissolution, spurred by Bond's work at Tosca and exemplified by Mr. White's reduced lot in life, seems to have only strengthened Spectre.

Blofeld being a Legacy Character would be a subtle nod at the spurious "Bond is a codename" theory, with not Bond but (the Comte de?) Blofeld being the inherited title, with Oberhauser merely being the latest holder of the position/title.

  • Furthermore, Mr White will assume the title of Blofeld at the end of the film, after Oberhauser's death at Bond's hand, and become the Big Bad of future films and the classic Blofeld. White will probably help Bond in his battle with Spectre just so he can make this power play, and it'll set up Bond's particular hate-on for the villain.

Bond's family was murdered by Spectre.
One (or both) of James Bond's parents was investigating Spectre and discovered something important, so they were murdered by the organisation. James was temporarily adopted by Oberhauser so he could learn more about the family's connection and what they'd learned.
  • Jossed.

James Bond's father is/was Blofeld.
Through his late family, James Bond is somehow connected to Spectre and to its current leader Oberhauser, who was (or is related to) James' foster parent not long after his real family's death. Perhaps his father was covertly the organisation's leader and Oberhauser took over after the senior Bond's death.
  • Jossed.

Oberhauser is Bond's brother and will eventually become Blofeld.
Oberhauser is the son of Hannes, guardian to James in the previous film; but he is also James half brother from Hannes' affair with James' mother, and he beholds a grudge to James because they began their spy careers for an evil organization before James turning good and going to work with MI6, thus becoming his nemesis. Eventually he will be revealed to be Blofeld.
  • Partly confirmed - Bond is Franz's adopted brother and names himself Blofeld; however they never worked together annd Franz murdered his father as James had far more love and attention. There's no explicit mention of an affair but Franz names himself Blofeld from his mother's bloodline so it's not completely improbable.

Spectre is the remaining faction of Quantum.
Bond clearly gave MI6 all the info they needed to start taking Quantum apart, but Silva's attack on M gave the organization's remaining lieutenants enough breathing space to shear off part of the group and go underground. Thus, Spectre is a Meaningful Rename: they're the ghost of an organization returned to haunt Bond.
  • Partly confirmed. Oberhauser/Blofeld implies that Green (and White) were working for him, but White's dialogue suggests that Spectre is Quantum after the leadership disruption in Quantum of Solace and after significant mission drift (notably, moving into human trafficking). Word of God says Quantum was indeed intended to replace Spectre, as TPTB didn't have the right to use Spectre's name. Ergo, Spectre would have shown up as early as the second Craig film had they had the rights, meaning that Spectre/Quantum is indeed "the author of all of James' pain

This film will be more "classic Bond"
With more classic spy-genre things like hi-tech villain lairs and spy gadgets. It'll be filled with Reconstruction.
  • Confirmed.

What would the Spectre be without one?
  • It was a Turkish Angora not Persian.
  • One way or another, confirmed.

Doubling down on the above: The cat is shown in this movie but the face of the person who holds it isn't.

However, his real name will be used as a codename for all future agents with the designation 007. Thus, the "James Bond is a codename" WMG from the old continuity will become reality for the post-Casino Royale continuity.
  • If they ever go down that route, it will have to wait, since Daniel Craig is stated to return for Bond 25.
    • Jossed. The 00 section is essentially dead though.

The parts of the British Government that still want to shut down MI6 are connected to Spectre
Why else would they hire Andrew Scott as an obstructive MP?
  • The latest trailer has Scott's Denbigh and M fighting over a pistol, this appears likely.
    • Confirmed.

  • Jossed.

Bond's parents were in Spectre
  • Jossed.

Mr.Hinx will become Jaws.
With all the Mythology Gags and the return of Spectre, and it would make perfect sense for Jaws to return. Mr.Hinx will have his teeth knocked out by Bond, and will receive steel dentures so that he can get some payback in the sequel.
  • Eh, I see him more as an Oddjob kind of figure.
  • Averted. He does however, sport metal fingernails on his thumbs in his opening scene, which he uses to great effect.

Oberhauser caused the accident that killed Bond's parents
Oberhauser calls himself "the author of all your pain" and by Skyfall's reckoning Bond was never the same after their death. Oberhauser for whatever reason sabotaged the climbing equipment and caused them to die (jealousy, for the evulz) and in doing so caused Bond's misery.
  • Oberhauser caused the accident that killed his own father, not James parents.

Quantum is like a farm league to Spectre.

Spectre uses Quantum for relatively minor stuff. It also makes for a nice bit of misdirection, should anyone familiar with Quantum be captured. White was their direct contact point, overseeing their Quantum interests. So White's "We have people everywhere" line was as much about Spectre as Quantum.

Not only that, because White was a Spectre operative, the agents activated to retrieve him from MI6 custody were Spectre agents, not Quantum ones.

  • Partly averted. Oberhauser's dialogue implies that Quantum (or at least Quantum agents) worked for him, but Mr. White's dialogue implies that Quantum suffered mission drift and became Spectre. No farm league type element comes up.

Oberhauser is actually Ian Fleming

As he mentioned in the trailers, he is the author of all of Bond's suffering. Fleming has broken down the Fourth Wall and is challenging Bond directly now rather than merely toying with his universe.

    Post-release theories 
Oberhauser isn't really Blofeld, despite the scar.

He'd turn out to be Craig's era's version of Emilio Largo or Number Two, and is essentially the real Blofeld's most trusted underling. Oberhauser, being very loyal, agreed to be his decoy, providing fake information to Bond (except maybe their shared background, which may or may not be real) to keep him off his boss's tail. And even if he got captured, Spectre is far from being eliminated. If he comes back for the next film, he would have the iconic eyepatch over his scarred eye similar to the one Largo wears in Thunderball.

In the next film, M is going to be stuck with a lot more Parliamentary hearings
The head of a discontinued branch of British Intelligence ran an unauthorized op to shut down a major multi-national intelligence program, killing his ex-boss in the process. We know that C was actually connected to the organization that was behind most of the recent terrorist attacks, but can M prove that?

Mr. Hinx is still alive.

He just fell off the train with a bunch of barrels around his neck and he's already survived being thrown through a windshield. Anyway, in Octopussy, Bond and a henchman survived being thrown off a train and they were much higher off the ground than Hinx was.

Oberhauser Sr. is Bond's biological father.

Thus extending the cuckoo motif. Hannes Oberhauser was sufficiently close to Bond's parents to receive guardianship of their son in the event of their death. So at the very least he must have been known to Monique. Bond was conceived earlier (perhaps during a sporting trip) and Oberhauser Sr.'s attention toward the boy was based at least in part in his own grief and sense of obligation. Either Franz knew and resented it, perhaps strengthening his affinity for his mother's side of the family, or he had no idea.

  • Jossed as per No Time to Die; in fact, the narrative made it impossible to work, as Bond gets infected with a virus that will kill Blofeld and anyone related to him by blood, which (as Q states directly) would kill him outright if he really is Franz's blood brother.

Q is Oberhauser's son.

Both of them are slightly-built, neatly-dressed, technologically-minded cat owners. Coincidence? Impossible. (Though this is at the very least improbable, though not impossible, depending on characters' ages vs. their actors'. Maybe Blofeld was a precocious teen.)

Dying Dream

I just read an article about Spectre at EW dot com. The author suggests that the entire third act after Bond is tortured is a Dying Dream, just like Taxi Driver. Makes sense.

C is not a villain.
Sure, his character is played by Moriarty and his actions are furthering Spectre's goals, but he's actually just an Unwitting Pawn. He genuinely believes that what he's doing will serve the greater good. At worst he's a Well-Intentioned Extremist.

The ending won't last.
The film ends with Bond seemingly leaving MI6 with Madeleine for a new future. Jason Bourne, who partially helped inspire the direction of the Craig films, did that at the end of his first movie, and it didn't exactly last.
  • Not to mention it ends with Bond leaving Blofeld alive, complete with his trademark scar. It's pretty clear that Blofeld's being set up as a recurring villain. He might have been captured, but even if their big super-surveilance program fell through, Spectre still has plenty of agents around and were riding pretty high even before it was supposed to go online. So, despite Bond's actions, they're probably still going fairly strong. Of course, given Blofeld's tendency towards It's Personal approaches to screwing with Bond, it also likely means that poor Dr. Swann is not long for this world.
  • Confirmed with No Time to Die, where a chain of events results in Bond and Madeleine going their separate ways for five years, along with that film also ending with Bond dying.

Dr. Madeleine Swann would turn out to be Sabine Moreau in Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol
Surprisingly Realistic Outcome follows after the end of the film, Dr. Swann would eventually parts away with Bond for good because of the constant life on the run from Spectre. She then grew to despise Bond, secret agents and the espionage world in general for ruining her whole life, then later uses what she've learned from her father to become a Professional Killer herself and also changing her name, both to protect herself from Spectre and create a new life. Unfortunately, she grew to become merciless and began to cut deals with dangerous people herself, and we all knew how that ends when she crossed paths with Ethan Hunt.

Silva was doing work for Spectre, and his work led to him being sold out.
  • It would make more sense to me if he was doing Spectre's work before he was sold out, since his plots during Skyfall appeared to be his personal vendetta against M. It wasn't stated clearly in the film how he was connected to Spectre.

Madeleine will become this franchise's new Tracy Bond.
  • She will end up falling in love with Bond and end up marrying him (or coming close to) and then Blofeld will go after them again in an attempt at revenge.
    • Jossed, with a twist. Despite hints to the contrary (up to and including the usage of "we have all the time in the world"), she survives No Time to Die, although she lost Bond (for five years and then for good).

Bond actually did lose his ability to recognize faces.
  • He lied to Madeleine when she asked if he recognized her by her face, but from her voice and clothes, he remembered who she was.
  • During the firefight, he paused to look at her, probably matching up her clothes with his memory of her and make sure it was her that he was protecting. Later when he's in the Vauxhall Cross building, Oberhauser placed photos of people that Bond knows he should know, but they just look like a bunch of strangers to him. What better way to taunt someone than by placing photos of his loved ones, but then him not being able to recognize them?
    • He still seemed to recognize his colleagues in MI6, though, namely M, Q, Tanner and Moneypenny. Or maybe It's just selective memory loss?
      • It's still plausible he waited for M to say something that indicated who he was, and so on and so forth.

Dr. Swann won't be Stuffed in the Fridge in the next film. She'll dump Bond, or they'll get married, or something.
Please?
  • Confirmed. Madeleine survives the events of the next film.

A major element of the next film will involve Blofeld
in prison.
  • As of the film's end, he is being held by MI6, who will almost certainly seek to get whatever info they can out of him, on Spectre. He's spend his time toying with them, of course, Hannibal-Lector-style. Bond will be called out of retirement because he's the only one Blofeld will talk to...resulting in an inevitable Hannibal Lecture.
    • Meanwhile, Spectre is engaging in its latest evil plot, which is why MI6 is so desperate to get the info from Blofeld. Alas... Blofeld's mind games will culminate in his inevitable escape.
    • Semi-jossed. Blofeld does appear in prison in No Time to Die... for about five minutes; due to a series of events, he ends up dead by the end of it.

Many intended action scenes had to be cut.
The budgetary problems revealed in the Sony email hack were the reason so much of the action in this movie seems anticlimactic. We were supposed to see Bond fight off more assassins going after Lucia, and there would have been a bigger action scene around the crater facility resulting in it getting blown up.

Blofeld's visit to Swann's father when she was just a girl...
Is the same event she relates to Bond earlier, when an assassin came to kill her father and she had to shoot him. Blofeld was young and survived the gunshot.
  • Jossed; No Time to Die's opening sequence shows the incident in full detail, and it's someone else (who happens to have a vendetta against Blofeld, in fact).

James Bond will die in the 25th or 26th film
Scenario 1: Bond 25: During their honeymoon, the newly wed Mr. and Mrs. Bond toast to their new life. However, after Bond drank his martini, he suddenly collapses to the ground. His body is then rushed to the hospital, when he is announced dead on arrival. After the funeral, M briefs with 008 on Bond's death and asks the 00 agent to investigate on whether SPRECTRE or some other organization is involved with 007's death. Mrs. Swann then joins with 008 in order to tack down and kill the person responsible for her husband's death.

Scenario 2: Bond 26: After the funeral of Madeleine Swann, who was killed by a Spectre agent by the name of Irma Bunt, Bond proceeds to avenge his wife's death by tracking down Blofeld. Along the way, he meets a Japanese woman named Kissy Suzuki. He later learns his archnemesis resides in Japan inside a castle off the coastline, where the two have their final showdown. After an intense battle, Bond grabs Blofeld by the throat, but not before the villain impales the agent with a poisonous dagger, yet it wasn't enough to prevent Bond from strangling his enemy to death. Bond later succumbs to his wounds. Suzuki then rushes to Bond only for him to tell her it's too late for him. They share one final kiss as Bond dies in her arms and later dies next to his foster brother. Weeks after the final showdown between Blofeld and Bond, MI6 decides to use James Bond's name as an alias to any agent given the 007 title, honoring the memory of England's greatest secret agent.

  • CONFIRMED only on Bond dying in the 25th film; he dies under an entirely different series of events, spanning five years.

Mr. Hinx will pull a Mook–Face Turn like Jaws in a future Bond film.
It's possible that Blofeld will do something that even Mr. Hinx would find morally questionable, prompting him to pull off a Heel–Face Turn and switch sides.

Oberhauser blames himself for his father's death (and projects it onto Bond), but he wasn't technically responsible
Okay, I haven't checked the exact wording of the movie to scope out the plausibility of this, but I can at least lay out the blueprints.I propose that, as in the novels, Hannes Oberhauser was a (remorseful?) former agent of the Nazis (or whatever more recent government or terror cell would work better as a Setting Update) who ended the war with a cache of Nazi Gold. Eventually, a corrupt British secret service agent got wind of this, and basically extorted Hannes into guiding him to it... then stole the gold and killed Hannes. Franz feels some guilt over being unable to prevent this, but projects it onto MI6, Britain, and by extension Bond for joining them; this makes him a reboot of Alec Trevelyan as much as Blofeld.

Oberhauser's claim of being the "the Author of all your (Bond's) Pain" isn't to be taken as literal.
It's simply him stating that SPECTRE at least financed or set up the main antagonists of the previous films, only really adjusting the plans once he learned of Bond's involvement.

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