“The cool thing about bombs is that you can hide them in anything,” is probably my favourite Oppenheimer quote of all time, and in the case of Ian Hitman, it does raise an important question: with so many everyday objects equal to the rubber duck in its unthreatening aura, yet more inconspicuous, why choose to put an explosive in this one?
The simplest answer is that’s it’s a recurring bit of levity, a holdover easter egg, elevated to the status of key mission item in Hitman: Codename 47 before being given pride of place as an explosive in the World Of Assassination games. But to ascribe such unassuming purpose to the duck is to ignore its revelatory power. We must go deeper.
Perhaps Ian’s most recognisable trait, and his most unintentionally revealing, is his deeply considered sense of style. Hitman would have us believe that Ian is a blank slate, invisible in his heightened conspicuity – all the better to inhabit his myriad disguises. This is a falsehood. We must only observe his perfectly tailored suits to know this. These are the suits of a man who cherishes compliments.
This reveals two things to us. Firstly, Ian knows that once something reaches a certain threshold of balls-out flagrancy, it actually becomes less so, especially in terms of espionage. As any good spy sniffer will tell you; if there’s an assassin here, it’s not going to be the very large man with the outline of a garotte handle clearly visible in the pockets of expensive suit, and a barcode on the back of his very bald head. The rubber duck, then, blends in precisely because of its novel incongruity with its surroundings, its garish yellow actually a deeply chameleonic hue.
No one suspects the ducky, and even if they do, they’re unlikely to say anything. Have you seen the sort of high society soirée Hitman attends? To get duck-bombed is to die in agony, but the inherent histrionic clownishness of any attempt to alert the party to a BOMB inside a DUCK is to die a thousand painful soul-deaths in a barrage of ostracisation. Most would simply rather perish in the flames.
The second revelation we might reasonably glean from Ian’s penchant for sharp attire is this: his morning routine is similarly painstaking, both as an extension of his style and to ensure that any unpleasant odours do not compromise his stealth. As Del The Funkee Homosapien taught us, one must wash one’s ass, or else be funky. And one cannot afford to be funky in this line of work.
And so, he must bathe. He is a man of luxury. The shower is perfunctory. Clinical. Utilitarian. The preferred cleansing method of those in a hurry. They will smell his impatience. It is not enough to clean. Ian must cleanse. The duck, then, adopts the form of a calling card. You have not just been blast-assinated – you have been so by a man who smells like he can afford to take his time marinating in his own soapy sweat water. And that is the most terrifying man of all.