Of all the diabolical villains in 25 James Bond films, Fall from the skyRaoul Silva is the only one whose plan actually worked and wasn't thwarted by 007. Bond films tend to follow a fairly formulaic episodic structure. 007 is called by M to receive his mission, he is sent around the world to track down a megalomaniacal villain with a scheme to dominate the world, and ends up defeating the villain and putting an end to his scheme. Almost all Bond films follow this model until a predictable ending.
But not everyone followed this formula. In License to killOne of the best Bond films of the 1980s, 007 abandons his official mission at MI6 to seek personal revenge against a cruel drug lord. In the middle of the way Royal CasinoBond retires from active service so he can go on vacation with his new girlfriend. AND in Fall from the skythe villain does not want to dominate the world; he has a more personal mission – and unlike every other villain in the Bond franchise, he actually succeeds.
Raoul Silva is the only James Bond villain whose plan actually worked
Silva successfully disgraced and killed M
Raoul Silva, the main villain of Fall from the sky played by Javier Bardem, is the only Bond villain in the history of the franchise whose evil plan was not thwarted by 007. He actually achieves his goal in time for the final credits, and Bond has to live with his own failure. Silva was a former MI6 agent who worked for M as a field agent. When he was captured, M left him for dead, and upon escaping, he swore revenge on M and make her pay. AND despite Bond's best efforts, he manages to do so.
After the escape, Silva resorted to cyberterrorism to discredit M. He revealed to the world the identities of all of M's secret agents, and also revealed all of his professional failures. So, he came to London to murder her. Getting caught was part of his plan (a trope that was overused later The Dark Knight), as this brought him closer to M. Bond took the disgraced M to his childhood home in rural Scotland to protect her, but Silva found them, attacked the house and killed M before Bond could stop him..
Skyfall's Raoul Silva was willing to die to achieve his goal
Silva was not afraid of death
All of Bond's villains are committed to his plan, but Silva is one of the only ones who was willing to die for his cause. Many of them were going to die anyway whether they were ready or not – usually at the hands of Bond – like Dr. No or Franz Sanchez, but they weren't prepared to die. When faced with death, they often showed an unusual fear. Megalomaniacs like Auric Goldfinger wanted to seize power, so they wanted to be alive to enjoy that power. But Silva is a soldier and was ready to die in search of revenge.
Part of Silva's fearlessness in the face of death is that, in a way, he had already died. For Silva, he died the moment he bit into a cyanide capsule to take his own life in captivity. He survived the poisoning, which left him disfigured, and began planning his revenge. From that moment on, Silva knew he was living on borrowed time. He had already faced death, so he didn't mind facing it againas long as he managed to defeat his mortal enemy first.
No Time To Die's villain killed Bond, but that wasn't his true goal
Safin wanted to end up with millions from the Heracles project
There was a Bond villain after Silva who would succeed in something no previous Bond villain had: killing 007. At the end of There's no time to dieBond is wiped out by a missile strike on the island lair of Rami Malek's villain Lyutsifer Safin. But that wasn't Safin's plan; Bond died to ensure that Safin's plan would not succeed. Safin didn't want to kill 007; he wanted to launch Project Hercules, a nanobot-based virus he created that was coded for specific DNA, so it could kill millions of people.
Bond ordered the missile strike to destroy any trace of Project Hercules. But because Safin closed the blast doors, which would stop the missiles from reaching the virus, Bond had to go back and open them again. He didn't have time to get off the island before the missiles hit, so he was killed in the attack. But that wasn't Safin's plan; Safin's plan to free Hercules failed because of Bond's sacrifice. As it stands, Silva is still the only James Bond villain whose plan was a genuine success.