"We're not so very different, you and I," says Karla to Smiley in Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy. "We both spend our lives looking for the weaknesses in one and another's systems."
The hyperlink goes to the recent film not to the BBC TV series, which I haven't seen (though I bet the same point is true of it), but the absolutely crucial point about the film is that Karla and Smiley never knowingly meet, and that when Smiley reminisces about having - with the benefit of hindsight - met Karla in India many years earlier, the reflections which Smiley makes about the encounter to Guillam are about Smiley revealing himself by projecting feelings onto Karla, not having a revelation from Karla, who is resisting being turned at the time, even though the alternative is near certain death in a Moscow purge.
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