History Creator / JorgeLuisBorges

* MightyWhitey: [[spoiler: Deconstructed in]] "The Dead Man".

* MockMillionaire: At his prologue of Thorstein Veblen's ''[[RichInDollarsPoorInSense Theory Of The Leisure Class]]'' (The reader can find more about this book at ConspicuousConsumption, RealLife) Borges shows us a harsh critic for Argentinean society:

* AdaptationExpansion: The movie version of ''"Death and the Compass"''; the added material actually makes the story ''more'' of a MindScrew. "Days of Hate", a screenplay adaptation of ''"Emma Zunz"''

* MotiveMisidentification: "The Death and the Compass": GreatDetective thinks the DiabolicalMastermind is looking for a MagicalIncantation. The real EvilPlan is more sinister (and logical).

* PerspectiveFlip: "The House of Asterion", in which the narrator tells us of his strange life in his strange house; upon reaching the end we realize that [[spoiler:the narrator is the Minotaur and the house is the Labyrinth]]. (Well, the reader realizes it about halfway through if he's conversant with ancient mythology.)
** And a story sketched in "The Zahir," whose protagonist is an ascetic living in isolation in a wasteland called ''gnittaheidr'', guarding a huge treasure to protect lesser men from the temptation it causes (including his own father, whom he killed). [[spoiler:In the end, it turns out the protagonist is Fafnir, who was turned into a giant serpent by [[ArtifactOfDoom the Ring of the Nibelungen]] and slain by Siegfried.]]

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[[caption-width-right:350: [[HistoryRepeats That history should have copied history was already sufficiently astonishing]]; [[LifeImitatesArt that history should copy literature was inconceivable]]. -- The Theme of the Traitor and the Hero.]]

** Special mention goes to "Averroes's Search". In it, the Islamic philosopher Averroes investigates a Greek translation and ponders the meaning of "tragedy" and "comedy", which he can't understand because he lives in a culture in which the art of dramatic performance doesn't exist. After hearing with some guests a story about China and the performers that live there and CompletelyMissingThePoint about the whole "acting" thing, he starts meditating and eventually has a sudden realization about the meaning of "tragedy" and "comedy", [[spoiler:which turns out to be wrong]]. He then [[spoiler: disappears, as do his house and all those that were in it, without leaving a trace.]] Borges then explains within the story that he himself had to understand Averroes to write the story, and like Averroes, had no real chance of doing so. The writer [[spoiler:could no longer believe in Averroes as a character and he naturally disappeared completely along with his house.]]

* ''"Funes the Memorious"'': After being concussed and paralyzed from the waist down in a riding accident, a young man suddenly finds that he has a literally photographic memory -- he can remember ''everything'' that he has experienced, ''every'' second of ''every'' day of his life, down to the minutest possible detail. As he goes on living, the number of things he remembers continues piling up. This has a very strange effect on the way he sees the world, and after meeting him, Borges' narrator cannot decide whether Funes is CursedWithAwesome or BlessedWithSuck.
* ''Literature/TheHouseOfAsterion'' (1947): A monologue from Prince Asterion where he denies the claims he is arrogant, misantrophist or mad, or how he isn't prisoner of his home of infinite doors. A PerspectiveFlip of [[spoiler: the myth of the Minotaur from the monster's point of view.]]

** Another subversion is ''The Condemned'': In some street of Buenos Aires, two BitPartBadGuys are going to fight. Ezequiel Tabares wants revenge because El Chengo stealed his lover Matilde from him, and impatiently waits for El Chengo, repeatedly entering a little bar. [[spoiler: Ezequiel can see the new houses built at the street, and the new buses pass through him. He doesn’t realize that he’s DeadAllAlong and condemned to a GroundhogDayLoop of his final seconds on earth… but if he could realize, he will not care either. ]] [[ThePowerOfHate His own hate fulfills him]].
* AnimalMotifs: Tigers, featured or mentioned in many of his stories. [[spoiler:Particularly important when you consider that one of the Zahir was once a tiger.]]

** Later, Borges wrote that one of the characters of this tale, Teodelina Villar, was a deconstruction of this trope: Who could be fascinating to anyone in RealLife? A SatelliteLoveInterest, someone who nobody (not even the guy who is in love with her) can define ''why'' is he in love: Teodelina was a RichInDollarsPoorInSense RichBitch when she was young, and then she was a FallenPrincess. Even when Borges describes her as pretty stupid, he claims to love her, even when he cannot justify why, except because Borges admit he is a snob.

** ''The Disk'', a woodcutter once met an old man who claimed to be King of the sects, and to prove it show him the disk of Odin, that has but one side. There is not another thing on earth that has but one side. The woodcutter wants it and [[spoiler: kills the old man, who left the disk on the floor. The woodcutter says he is still looking for the disk after many long years]]

** Arguably, he's also one of the founders of it and by far one of the most well known, along with Creator/GabrielGarciaMarquez.

* MixAndMatchCritters: The Peryton in ''The Book of Imaginary Beings'', described as a half-bird, half-deer beast that cast a human shadow.

* RecursiveReality: '' "Averroe's Search" '': In the last page, Borges realizes that he has broke the [[MutuallyFictional Stable Fictional Loop]] and incurred in an [[OntologicalMystery Ontological Paradox]]

* YourMindMakesItReal: "The Circular Ruins" in a personal level. "Literature/TlonUqbarOrbisTertius" on a global scale.

* AuthorExistenceFailure: "Averroes's Search": A subversion, when Borges has his CreatorBreakdown, he stops believing in the characters of this story, forcing a NoEnding.

** The poem "SherlockHolmes" is about how this fictional character managed to survive his CreatorBacklash to the point to [[OutlivedItsCreator Outlive His Creator]], realizing that literature has made an immortal character simply because Holmes was never alive. Borges published this poem in ''Los conjurados'', his last book, and died some months after its publication.

* MassiveMultiplayerScam: [[spoiler: "The Dead Man"]], [[spoiler: "The Man on the Threshold"]], [[spoiler: "Theme of the Traitor and the Hero"]].

* EldritchAbomination: The A Bao A Qu, one of several "mythical" mythical creatures from ''The Book of Imaginary Beings'', which he claimed originated from India.

Jorge Luis Borges (1899-1986) is considered the greatest UsefulNotes/{{Argentin|a}}e writer of the twentieth century and an immensely influential author. His short stories, essays and poetry blend truth and fiction in unexpected ways, playing {{Mind Screw}}s on the reader at every turn, and exploring deep philosophical themes (idealism, determinism, infinity, the search for personal identity, fiction vs. reality, humanity vs. divinity...) in a rigorous but entertaining way. He is considered an important precursor and originator of many {{Post Modern|ism}} devices. Borges himself was an Ultraist, a short lived movement that originated in early 20th-century Spain (where Borges arrived around 1920).

Politically, Borges described himself as a [[TheSocialDarwinist Spencerian anarchist]] and a classical liberal. He was an outspoken critic of both fascist Peronism in his native Argentina and Marxism, and one of his recurring themes was the use of literature and the written word to fabricate false and delusional worldviews, a common classical liberal criticism of fascism and Marxism. However, his vocal support for right-wing capitalist dictators such as Augusto Pinochet and a purported undercurrent of elitism and snobbery in his life and in his work have earned him his fair share of detractors.

* ''"Averroes's Search"'' An exploration of the TragicDream in the character of Averroes, an Islamic philosopher who hoped to explain Creator/{{Aristotle}}’s works to Islamic culture. [[CultureClash Averroes's problem is that, being confined to the sphere of Islam, he cannot understand the terms “Tragedy” and “Comedy” that constantly pop up in Aristotle’s canon]]. Suddenly there is NoEnding and [[spoiler: Borges is BreakingTheFourthWall to inform us that this story is his own TragicDream, because as a twentieth-century author, he has no better chance of successfully imagining the character of a twelfth-century Arab with nothing better to go on than some literary references.]] This realization forces him to [[spoiler: recognize the RecursiveReality of literature, and conduces Borges to a CreatorBreakdown and his story to a NoEnding because a minor case of AuthorExistenceFailure.]]
* ''"The Two Kings and the Two Labyrinths"'': A deconstruction of SealedRoomInTheMiddleOfNowhere: The Prideful King of Babylon mocks the King of Arabia by forcing him to enter his labyrinth. The King of Arabia asks for God's help, [[DeusExMachina and gets out]]. He tells the King of Babylon he knows a better labyrinth and some day he will show it to him. Years later, the Arabian King makes war and dethrones the King of Babylon, [[spoiler: drags him out into the Arabian desert and abandons him there, where he died from thirst and hunger in a "labyrinth with no walls"]].

* AdaptationExpansion: The movie version of ''"Death and the Compass"''; the added material actually makes the story ''more'' of a MindScrew. "Days of Hate", a screenplay adaptation of ''"Emma Zunz"''

-->Let others [[WritersSuck boast of the pages they have written]];
-->[[BookWorm I am proud of the ones I have read.]]

-->Let others [[WritersSuck boast of the pages they have written]];//

----

* ''The Book of Imaginary Beings'': Borges details mythical creatures. Considered the TropeCodifier (or UrExample) of all books on mythical creatures today and popularized of many obscure mythical creatures, but it also includes literary creations and creatures he made up himself. The most notable of these joke mythical creatures is the Peryton, a half-stag, half-bird monster that cast a human shadow (for they were the souls of {{Atlantis}} survivors trapped in monstrous forms, only able to escape by killing a human and devouring the victim's heart). Borges claimed it came from Myth/ClassicalMythology (specifically a medieval German tome on the subject that was destroyed in World War 2), which many people believed in, turning the Peryton into a fantasy staple.

* AndIMustScream: Perhaps the only ''positive'' use of this trope ever takes place in "The Secret Miracle".

* ArtifactOfAttraction: ''El Zahir'' is the most fascinating object in the world. It doesn't matter what it is - in this case, it's a scarred coin, but there's always one Zahir in the world at any one time (but God is good and doesn't let two things be the Zahir at the same time). ''Zahir'' is an Arabic word meaning "the obvious meaning," "the conspicuous" or "something that cannot be ignored."

** Another subversion is ''The Condemned'': In some street of Buenos Aires, two BitPartBadGuys are going to fight. Ezequiel Tabares wants revenge because El Chengo stealed Matilde from him, and impatiently waits for him repeatedly entering a little bar. [[spoiler: Ezequiel can see the new houses and the buses pass through him. He doesn’t realize that he’s DeadAllAlong and condemned to a GroundhogDayLoop of his final moments… and he doesn’t care either. ]] [[ThePowerOfHate His own hate fulfills him]].

* [[Quotes/SecretIdentityIdentity ''"Borges and I"'']]: This short story (that you can read in the link) explains the curios relationship between the normal person Jorge Luis Borges was, and Borges, the literature SacredCow SophisticatedAsHell GentlemanSnarker his public were expecting to meet. You can see it's a essay about the SecretIdentityIdentity trope.

* [[/Quotes/SecretIdentityIdentity ''"Borges and I"'']]: This short story (that you can read in the link) explains the curios relationship between the normal person Jorge Luis Borges was, and Borges, the literature SacredCow SophisticatedAsHell GentlemanSnarker his public were expecting to meet. You can see it's a essay about the SecretIdentityIdentity trope.

[[caption-width-right:314: [[HistoryRepeats That history should have copied history was already sufficiently astonishing]]; [[LifeImitatesArt that history should copy literature was inconceivable.]] -The Theme of the Traitor and the Hero.]]

-->-- '''Jorge Luis Borges''', -The Analytical Language of John Wilkins''''.

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Politically, Borges described himself as a [[TheSocialDarwinist Spencerian anarchist]] and a classical liberal. He was an outspoken critic of both fascist Peronism in his native Argentina and Marxism in general, and one of his recurring themes was the use of literature and the written word to fabricate false and delusional worldviews, a common classical liberal criticism of fascism and Marxism. However, his vocal support for right-wing capitalist dictators such as Augusto Pinochet and a purported undercurrent of elitism and snobbery in his life and in his work have earned him his fair share of detractors.