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So I am late to all the hype, but I just recently watched the Kingsman 2 in theaters. I enjoyed it so much and watched the first one again.

One thing kept REALLY bugging me:

In both the British and American HQ, they have a table where all of the others kingsmen/statesmen sit in holographic meeting. In both movies, there were doomsday scenarios with millions of people possibly being killed.

Why did none of the other kingsmen/statesmen assist in saving the world?

Even in the second movie, when all of the kingsmen were murdered by missile in the beginning, there were still a table full of statesmen that could have helped the protagonist.

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    ...because the script said so. – Tetsujin Oct 2 '17 at 18:13
  • "Lets send a new recruit to go save the world when we have a round table full of experienced spies"... said no one ever. – Lanet Rino Oct 2 '17 at 19:20
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    It's called "Willing suspension of disbelief." Look it up ;-) – Tetsujin Oct 2 '17 at 19:32
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    You think evil megalomaniacs take numbers and wait, in turn, to try and destroy the world, like kung-fu fodder attacking Bruce Lee one at a time? If everyone panics and they all attend to each threat to the world, it leaves the world completely unguarded against any other attempts. – PoloHoleSet Oct 23 '17 at 16:31
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Because they believed that both agencies might be compromised at the time.

In the first movie, the Kingsman agency is led by Arthur, who Eggsy discovers is in league with Valentine. He then goes directly to the agency and tells the only 2 people that he trusts: Merlin and Roxy.

They can't go and tell any of the other agents, because they might have been in on the plan along with Arthur. This is why Merlin entrusts Eggsy with infiltrating Valentine's base: he's the only one other than Lancelot that he can trust (because she had only just joined the agency).

The mission is also incredibly time sensitive, so they couldn't spend the time tracking down individual agents and seeing if they are trustworthy or not, they just had to get on with saving the world on their own.

Likewise in the second movie: Harry doesn't trust Whiskey and shoots him. At this point Harry didn't know Whiskey's motive for breaking the bottle with the cure in it, he might have been ordered to make sure that the cure wasn't recovered by the agency, which is why they don't tell anyone else what they're doing.

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Much like Tetsujin, I'm gonna have to give a meta-answer....

Because the first film was an inherently British film, that skewed British spy movies (Bond primarily, but other genre elements can be found) whilst delivering a subtle critique of the British class system.

After it found unprecedented success, Matthew Vaughn has attempted to solicit a broader audience by introducing 'American' elements, in order to more fully find favour with a US market. Many criticisms of the film stem from the notion that this element, 'The Statesmen', are reduced to mere cameos with no real traction to the plot; both during much of the sequel and as you have pointed out, any of the first film.

The Statesmen don't exist in the comics, and Vaughn likely didn't conceive their introduction during the production of the first movie. It is for this reason they effectively 'pop into existence' during the sequel, with no reference to any activity during the interim (with the exception of their rescue of Harry Hart, itself reduced to more or less a cameo).

It's disappointing that Vaughn chose not to allude to why they were unable to help during the 'doomsday' events of the first film, and I'd agree it's an oversight that raises more questions than their introduction answers.

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  • What I am taking away from the lack of answers is that it was a total oversight. I never read the comic's, were the other kingsmen involved? Or did it only center around one protagonist who never received help from his associates? – Lanet Rino Oct 2 '17 at 21:40

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