How Did James Bond's Parents Die?
James Bond is one of the world's most capable and dependable secret agents, almost always being the go-to guy for British Intelligence when the world is on the line. Of course, one thing about being an international man of mystery is keeping that mystery every way you can. Because of that, there isn't much about Bond's life before the world of espionage in the films. The books provide more insight, but most of his story centers on his work for the British government. One clear aspect of his background is his status as an orphan.
Daniel Craig's version of the iconic character explores his family history more than others. As stated in "Casino Royale," Vesper Lynd (Eva Green) pegs him as an orphan, and it is confirmed multiple times throughout the series that orphans always make the best agents. In many iterations, the spy loses his parents at a young age in a tragic climbing accident. While the films copy this storyline from Ian Fleming's novels, one novel gives them a more sinister death as a part of an assassination plot.
Andrew Bond and Monique Delacroix Bond may not ever see the screen or become the primary focus of a "James Bond" storyline, but their deaths set 007 on the path to becoming the hero MI6 always needed.
Most iterations killed them off in a climbing accident
James Bond's journey to the Secret Service began when he was a child. In the novels by Ian Fleming, Andrew and Monique Delacroix Bond die in a climbing accident, leaving him an orphan to live with his aunt, Miss Chairman Bond. That is relatively short-lived before he attends Eton College as a pre-teen. He then moves on to study at his father's college, Fettes. Eventually, his orphan heritage lands him in the British Secret Service, where Vesper Lynd comments in "Casino Royale" that being an orphan fits his job.
"And that makes perfect sense since MI6 looks for maladjusted young men who give little thought to sacrificing others in order to protect queen and country. You know ... former SAS types with easy smiles and expensive watches." The "James Bond" movies double down on the idea of his parents' deaths being his origin story by tying it in with another moment from his past and connecting it to his present. After the climbing accident, Bond went to live with Hannes Oberhauser. Oberhauser was a ski instructor who took Bond in, becoming a foster father and teaching him to ski.
This leads his son, Franz Oberhauser, to become jealous of the two and, as revealed in "Spectre," orchestrate his father's death and embark on the path to becoming Ernst Stavro Blofeld, Bond's archnemesis and the leader of a villainous empire.
One Bond novel had a more sinister death
James Bond gets his first-ever true literary reboot in the 2012 novel "Carte Blanche" by Jeffrey Deaver. The story follows Bond as a brand new agent in the 00 program in the present day (2011). His background is retconned to being a veteran of the war in Afghanistan instead of World War II. In the book, Bond pursues an ex-combat engineer who plotted to derail a train to contaminate the Danube River.
One of the novel's subplots is Bond's investigation into a Russian operation called "Steel Cartridge." The mission was to eliminate their own spies embedded in Western organizations across the globe. Andrew Bond was one of the people assassinated, along with his wife. This leads Bond to believe his father was a Russian spy during the Cold War, which doesn't sit well with him. He discovers by the end that the real mission was to kill a hunter who had been rooting out Russian spies: Monique Delacroix Bond. Her husband was simply collateral damage.
There is much to love about the retconned story, bringing the literary Bond into the present day. It also adds some weight to the death of his parents in the same way Daniel Craig's films did. That tragedy may not have always been a major part of the storyline, but it was always the event that kickstarted him into becoming 007.