Why is the British Secret Agent regarded as a hero ?

Secret Agents can't also not be considered as hero. It's not showed but they are very intrusive in people's privacy and violent when they are in front someone who is not "agree" with them.

And worst of this, some of them are allowed to kill. They can be seen as crual and people without heart and soul.

How can they live with some people's murderer on their conscience and without feeling guilty ?

MI5 and MI6 are the most famous sections of the Military Intelligence.

MI5 is the Security Service which cares about security within UK to avoid for example attacks and keep under surveillance british citizens and "the Queen".

MI6 is the Intelligence Agency external UK. They gather data for "UK's safety" and interests.

Their main mission is to save their country of the foreign enemies.

Not Hero ?

British ?

Secret Agents are not very "family oriented" (most of the time, they don't have one or it's not broach in the story) and their main aim is to save their country during top secret missions thanks to their talents but also with State-of-the-art gadgets.

Their missions are often nay always

successful thanks to them and their smartness and they are loved by -almost- everybody.

Secret agents are very charismatic and elegant characters. They love seduce women and are womanizer at heart.

Secret Agents ?

Why is the British Secret Agent regarded as a hero ?

Hero ?

Most of the time, secret agents are considered as heroes because they fight the villain,are fearless and "win" almost all the time .

They doesn't have super powers but they have super gadgets and are very self-confident and at the end, it's the same, they save lives.

They don't praise themselves and prefer having stiff upper lip (mostly because they can't blow their cover) and be wallflowers.

In a way, they are hero, we don't see them, but they are here, somewhere, protecting us from something we don't even know about.

Reality ?

Culture ?

Spies adventures are very popular in the international culture.

James Bond is the most famous of them. Created in 1952 by Ian Fleming.

The character's characteristics were inspired by Forest Yeo-Thomas, Fleming's friend and workmate.

James Bond is a very tough figure : mysterious, charismatic, self-confident, manly and womanizer

In fact there is real secret agents who served and saved their own countries of the foreign foes.

For example during the WW2, there were british secret agents in german army to prevent some attacks.

Nowadays, almost each country has his own Secret Intelligence. In Canada, the CIS (Canadian Intelligence Service) is the secret agency which watch out for any threats or attacks towards the country

There's other spy characters. For example, Johnny English who is clearly a James' Bond caricature and his opposite : clumsy, considered as stupid and not really attractive

The BBC's TV show Spooks or MI-5 shows MI5's agents and how they have to deal with their secret job and their personnal life.