Don Quixote/YMMV: Difference between revisions

*** Let's be fair, though: A lot of people like to point and giggle at Quixote's insanity, but a lot of them would also love to have a hallucination that elaborate, assuming they could recover. Why else would we have games like ''[[The Legend of Zelda (Franchise)|The Legend of Zelda]]'' or ''[[Final Fantasy (Franchise)|Final Fantasy]]''?

* [[Applicability]] Literary critic Harold Bloom's wrote in his article, [http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2003/dec/13/classics.miguelcervantes ''The Knight in the Mirror'':] ''"The aesthetic wonder is ... when we stand back from the huge book and ponder its shape and endless range of meaning. No critic's account of Cervantes's masterpiece agrees with, or even resembles, any other critic's impressions. Don Quixote is a mirror held up not to nature, but to the reader. How can this bashed and mocked knight errant be, as he is, a universal paradigm?"'' That means that every reader will interpret ''Don Quixote'' in his own way, and all of those interpretations will be valid. It also means that none of them could be valid, because every reader’s impression ''of himself is reflected by the novel''. You can interpret all other novels, but in ''[[Don Quixote (Literature)|Don Quijote's]]'' case, [[In Soviet Russia, Trope Mocks You|the novel interprets YOU!!]].

* [[Fridge Brilliance]]: In the first part, Don Quixote uses [[Antiquated Linguistics]]/[[Ye Olde ButcheredButcherede EnglishEnglishe|El Viejo Español Masacrado]], but in the Second Part, he almost doesn't use it. This is because in the first Part he is a [[Disco Dan]] in a world when [[Chivalric Romance]] is [[Deader Than Disco]], so he uses this trope to [[I Reject Your Reality|Reject everyone’s reality and substitute her own]]. In the Second Part, [[Memetic Mutation|everyone has read the first Part]], knew about [[Chivalric Romance]] and stage [[Massive Multiplayer Scam|MassiveMultiplayerScams]] to convince Don Quixote he really is an [[Knight Errant]]… so this trope is unnecessary for him.

** <s>Don Quixote</s> Alonso Quijano: What other way can you describe a man that belittles Cid Ruy Diaz, (a real badass warrior) and prefers a silly character of fiction? Part I Chapter I:

{{quote| ''"He used to say the [[Folk Hero|Cid Ruy Diaz was a very good knight]], but that he was not to be compared with the [[Escapist Character|Knight of the Burning Sword]] [[Rule of Cool|who with one back-stroke cut in half two fierce and monstrous giants]]. "''}}

{{quote| ''"… because I perceived that the [[Lowest Common Denominator|fools are more numerous than the wise; and, though it is better to be praised by the wise few than applauded by the foolish many, I have no mind to submit myself to the stupid judgment of the silly public, to whom the reading of such books falls for the most part]]."''}}

* [[Magnificent Bastard]]: Gines de Pasamonte is an ungrateful galley slave whom Don Quixote frees. Gines is [[Large Ham|a vain, shameless, cynical]][[Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking|bandit, thief, swindler and picaresque writer]]. Then, in the second part, we discover that Gines is a {{spoiler|[[Master of Disguise]]}}.

** '''"¿Leoncitos a mi?"''' Could be translated as [[Badass Boast|"Do they want to scare me with those little lions?"]]

{{quote| ''" by heart by people of all sorts, that the instant they see any lean hack, they say, 'There goes Rocinante.'"''}}

** '''Dulcinea''': the name Don Quixote gives to the (blissfully unaware) woman he has made himself the champion of. In the Spanish of the time, Dulcinea meant something akin to an overly elegant "sweetness". To this day, to refer to one's "Dulcinea" is to refer to the object of one's hopeless devotion and idealized love.

* [[Magnum Opus Dissonance]]: At [[The Cavalier Years]] in Spain, money was found in [[Theater]], and glory was found in [[Poetry]].When Cervantes wrote a comedy book he didn't know he was creating the first modern novel, and the book didn't get noticed by the critics. Nonetheless, it was successful enough for the editor to kept asking for a [[Sequel]] because [[Money, Dear Boy]]. But Cervantes had [[Attention Deficit Creator Disorder]] and wanted to write a lot of projects that would bring him glory, like ''Los trabajos de Persiles y Segismunda''. [[Comedy Ghetto|No one took the comedy book seriously, least of all, Cervantes himself.]] Maybe that continuation would have never seen the light of day if not for Avellaneda's [[Fan Fiction]]: A [[Fix Fic]], because Avellaneda thought Cervantes wrote some characters deserving of a better writer. Cervantes [[Even Better Sequel|decided to write the best second part he could]] and considered [[Don Quixote]] a work that would survive centuries.

* [[Misaimed Fandom]]: Many people have misunderstood the point of the parody.

** Lampshaded [[In -Universe]]: Alonso Quixano, some time before he had definitely gone nuts and decided [[Ascended Fanboy|to be Don Quixote]], but after he devolved from a [[Fan Boy|guy interested in chivalry books]] to a [[Fan Dumb|guy obsessed by them]], displayed this [[Unexpected Reactions to This Index]]:

* [[Mis BlamedMisblamed]]: Even many fans of [[They Might Be Giants]] assume that the band took their name directly from this novel. It actually comes from the 1971 movie ''They Might Be Giants'', whose main character (who [[Napoleon Delusion|believes himself to be Sherlock Holmes]], and has been compared to Don Quixote by another character) muses on the value of being open to the ''possibility'' of windmills being giants. Don Quixote himself had no such doubts; he was positively certain that he was charging against giants.

* [[Never Live It Down]]: Sancho Panza’s reputation as a [[Big Eater]]. In the first part of the novel, Sancho Panza has several scenes enjoying food and drink to show his easygoing nature. When Avellaneda [[Fan Fiction|published his own second part of the novel]], he accused Sancho of being a [[Big Eater]]. In Cervante’s second part of the novel, Don Quixote’s niece accuses Sancho of this ([[Malicious Slander|she hates him]]) and later, [[Oh Crap, There Are Fanfics of Us|when they know about Avellaneda’s second part]], Sancho defends himself against this accusation at chapter LXII of the Second Part:

{{quote| "No, senor, that's not true," said Sancho, "for I am more cleanly than greedy, and my master Don Quixote here knows well that we two are used to live for a week on a handful of acorns or nuts. To be sure, if it so happens that they offer me a heifer, I run with a halter; I mean, I eat what I'm given, and make use of opportunities as I find them; [[Take That|but whoever says that I'm an out-of-the-way eater or not cleanly, let me tell him that he is wrong]]; and I'd put it in a different way if I did not respect the honourable beards that are at the table."}}

* [[Romantic Plot Tumor]]: The last chapters of the First Part solve the [[Love Dodecahedron]] between Dorotea, Don Fernando, Lucinda, Cardenio, Clara and Don Luis, leaving Don Quixote as a mere spectator in his own book. In the Second Part Cervantes makes a [[AuthorsAuthor's Saving Throw]] when Don Quixote opines:

{{quote| ''"...and I know not what could have led [[Literary Agent Hypothesis|the author to have recourse to]] [[Show Within a Show|novels]] and [[Romantic Plot Tumor|irrelevant stories]], [[ItsIt's All About Me|when he had so much to write about in mine; no doubt he must have gone by the proverb 'with straw or with hay, &c.,' for by merely setting forth my thoughts, my sighs, my tears, my lofty purposes, my enterprises]], [[Doorstopper|he might have made a volume as large, or larger than all the works of El Tostado would make up"'']].}}

* [[Values Resonance]]: ''[[Don Quixote (Literature)|Don Quixote]]''’s [[Satire]] will live as long as the [[Inherent in Thethe System|justice system will be]] [[Screw the Rules, I Have Money|made of]] [[Humans Are Flawed|human judges]] [[Screw the Rules, I Have Money|capable of corruption]] [[Buy Them Off|that let criminals go for a price]]. Or as [[Sleazy Politician|the people who direct]] [[The Government]] only care about ruling the people without making any effort to enhance the live of his subjects. Or while the [[Moral Guardians]] are useless because his own [[Pitying Perversion]]. Or while [[Fan Dumb|there are people who fanatically defend any kind of entertainment work no matter its faults]]. Those examples are only a few of the issues the book attacks.

* [[Weird Al Effect]]: Barring a few exceptions such as ''[http://en.[wikipedia.org/wiki/Tirant_lo_Blanc:Tirant lo Blanc|Tirant lo Blanc]]'' (which is remembered for being one of the first literary texts written in Catalan/Valencian, and has a recent [[Film of the Book]] made of it) few people today remember the novels that Don Quixote read and Cervantes lists before throwing them in the bonfire in Chapter 3, and most of them are philologers and historians. One of those novels is remembered today in the USA, sort of: a land conquered for Spain got named for a character in one of those novels - the nymph California.

** Another case of [[Weird Al Effect]] in Don Quixote is that both books were a satire and as such, contained a lot of references not only to now disappeared chivalry books, (the second part contains entire parodies to "Tirant lo blanch", one of the better chivalry books and a Cervante's favorite) but to Spain's popular culture at the XVII century: (respectful) [[No Celebrities Were Harmed|caricatures of then famous celebrities]], unrespectful [[Take That|caricatures of contemporary writers]], [[Shout -Out|quotes from Cervantes’s favorite poets]], [[Hurricane of Aphorisms|popular proverbs]], then contemporary [[Urban Legends]], [[Double Entendre|phrases that can be taken in at least two different ways]], [[Once More Withwith Endnotes|all of them completely unknown for the modern reader if not by the notes provided in the reprints]]. [[Don't Explain the Joke|Cervantes's book was incredibly funny when he published it, but it's very difficult to see it like this now]].