Valientes



Valientes (in Spanish, "The brave") is a 2009 Argentine telenovela, with a theme of vengueance.

In the backstory, the poor farmer Roque Sosa was tricked by his boss, Laureano Gómez Acuña, who stole him the lands he wanted to inherit to his three sons. Roque's wife was blackmailed to leave the country and his three sons taken, so he commited suicide.

The story begins with one of those sons, Leonardo Sosa, already grown, who reunited with his two brothers and proposed them to plot a vengueance against Laureano. Under the identities of the "Morales" brothers, to conceal their relation with Roque, they established a car repair shop next to Laureano's house, and slowly became confidents with him to disrupt his activities from within. Laureano had no idea of who or why was opposing him.

Leonardo was in love with Alma, a long family-friend of Laureano, and feared telling her about the plan or his real identity because she may out them. Juana, a dauther of Laureano, falled in love with him, and Leonardo took advantage of it to continue the master plan. But when she lied about being pregnant, and even lied about having lost a pregnancy, Leonardo left her immediately, and let the plan continue some other other way. Isabel, the other dauther of Laureano, had at first a romance with Enzo, but ended with Segundo.

Two new characters appeared in the last months, Elisa Sosa (the ex wife of Roque, and mother of the three brothers) and Andy, an old step-sister of Leonardo.

Valientes contains examples of:

 * Ax Crazy: Juana
 * Bullet Time: Laureano's bullet that hit the fuel and made the explosion that seemed to kill Leonardo.
 * Childhood Friend Romance: Leo and Alma. That's why it's such an important thing if he's Leonardo Morales or Leonardo Sosa.
 * Disabled Love Interest: Averted. Juana has schizophrenia (not Hollywood Schizophrenia but closer to the real life mental disorder), and Leonardo begins dating her... but it all a plot to help in taking revenge against Laureano.
 * Identity Amnesia: When Juana had an accident, she lost her memory about her motivations and the things she did, And There Was Much Rejoicing. So, when she got her memory back, she still pretended to have amnesia, because everyone was nicer to her now.
 * If You Kill Him You Will Be Just Like Him: Elisa Sosa, widow of Roque, had the chance to kill Laureano by throwing him to the pool (he was disabled at that moment, and would have drowned), but let him live for this reason.
 * Not Quite Dead: When he found out his real identity, Laureano lured Leonardo to an abandoned factory. He shot to the fuel, there was a huge explosion... so he left him for dead.
 * Perpetual Poverty: The Sosa may be poor, but Leonardo always has some spare money if the great plan needs it.
 * Revenge: And it ends well.
 * Secret Identity: The "Sosa" brothers took the new identity of the "Morales" brothers, to conceal that they are the sons of Roque
 * Self Immolation: Suicide of Juana at the end.
 * Stunned Silence: Did you expect Laureano to be so obvious to scream "You're alive!" to the returned Leonardo?
 * Uptown Girl: Averted. The story of Segundo and Isabel is soooo known: the poor guy that falls in love with the rich girl. We have seen that one hundreds of times. But this time, it had a twist that is not so common: when she became aware of the things her father did, and the methods used to get his wealth, she gave it all up, and moved to live with Segundo, regardless of their poverty. Yes, it is hard to move from having a king-sized bed for herself to have a basic single bed shared with someone else (and lots of similar things), but she did so anyway, and never complained about it.
 * The Masquerade Will Kill Your Dating Life: Leo and Alma. Ends with a type 2.