Line #12 YMMV/DonQuixote


1	* AlternateAesopInterpretation: There's an interpretation of ''Don Quixote'' which claims the most important character is secretly the "wise and learned" Cide Hamete Benengeli, an Arab scholar who is credited as the one who originally wrote down Don Quixote's adventures. This would make the novel an ''incredibly'' stealthy social commentary promoting toleration of the Muslims and Jews that were about to be/just were kicked out of Spain (it was published in 2 parts), subtly reminding the contemporary audience of the diverse and intellectual culture that made [[UsefulNotes/MoorishSpain Al-Andalus]] so special.
2	* AlternativeCharacterInterpretation:
3	** Is Don Quixote enforcing his fantastic chivalric ideals because he's unaware of their incompatibility with the lowly real world he lives in, like a delusional madman, or is he actually enforcing them with all awareness, because he believes the lowly real world ''needs'' precisely such ideals to improve itself, like a massive Romantic idealist? And in the latter case, can such idealism be really separated from madness?
4	** In Part II, Chapter XI, Don Quixote claims: ''"from a child I was fond of the play, and in my youth a keen lover of the actor's art"''. Several critics, notably writer Harold Bloom, have toyed with the idea that Don Quixote is in fact sane and rational and is just putting on an elaborate act to show the absurdity of society. This is borne more in Part 2, where Quixote discovers that he has become a cliche in his own lifetime and a LivingLegend, much like the great heroes of the past he hoped to emulate.
5	** Another popular interpretation of Don Quixote is that he is neither insane nor making social work, but merely acting out to [[IRejectYourReality live a fulfilling fantasy instead of his boring real environment]], in the style of a {{LARP}} player. This mindset was lampshaded in the 2002 Spanish film adaptation ''El Caballero Don Quijote'', where after Quijano's death, a mournful Sancho Panza states (in original lines that aren't in the book) that despite knowing his master was insane, if Don Quixote got up and asked him to come along on more of his crazy adventures, he would do so without a shadow of doubt.
6	** Speaking of Sancho, who's crazier, the madman or the sane man that follows him? It's lampshaded several times in the first part that Sancho is unintelligent but very sane (although in the second part [[CharacterDevelopment we get to see he's actually far from being dumb]]), yet he is impeccably loyal to a man who gives constant proofs of being a danger to himself and others. Is Sancho following Don Quixote out of greed for the rewards he has been promised? Is he following him out of friendship or loyalty towards a man he has probably known for a long time? Is it a case of InfectiousInsanity? Or as the 2002 film suggests, is Sancho following him simply because Don Quixote's hijinks make his plebeian life much more interesting and trascendent?
7	** If you are a Hispanist or a Spanish Literature student, you'll know that's not even the tip of the iceberg when discussing alternative interpretations of El Quijote and its characters, particularly the titular character, Sancho and Dulcinea. Even in the same books, the characters don't stay the same. The most accepted characterization has changed throughout history as well. From a funny loon in its original time, to an Idealistic or a Romantic hero in modern times, etc.
8	* {{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 themself'' is reflected by the novel. You can interpret all other novels, but in ''Don Quixote'''s case, the novel interprets YOU!
9	* CommonKnowledge:
10	** Everyone "knows" that Sancho is a short and chubby guy to contrast with the tall and lean Quixote. In reality, Sancho is repeatedly described as a fairly tall man aside from being rotund. The tradition of portraying Sancho as significantly shorter than Quixote was probably born as an artistic resource meant to increase the visual contrast between the two, making him grounder in all senses.
11	** Don Quixote is also frequently portrayed as a very old man, when the book has him being just middle-aged. Again, this probably originated as a stylistic way to highlight his madness by throwing a bit of implied senility to the mix.
12	** Don Quixote is often portrayed as a knight in full plate, at least until he trades his helmet for "Mambrino's helmet." In the book, he actually wears a mix of light and heavy armor cobbled from different suits.
13	** It's often thought that a big part of the joke is the "fact" that Don Quixote, for all his attempts at gallantry, is [[BoisterousWeakling completely useless in combat]]. Except it isn't true; Don Quixote [[BewareTheSillyOnes actually wins most of his fights]], and his comparatively few defeats are usually the result of being badly outnumbered and/or being attacked in manners he has no reasonable way of defending himself against. Because of this, some scholars consider it more likely that the joke is, if anything, not that he is a pussy believing himself to be a badass, but rather that it doesn't actually take that much to be a good knight; the difficult part is actually making a positive change in the world through it as Quixote wants.
14	* EvenBetterSequel: While Part I is probably the most famous one, Part II is considered deeper and more mature than Part I.
15	* FairForItsDay:
16	** Cervantes takes a stance favorable to the Moriscos and against UsefulNotes/PhilipIII's expelling them from Spain. He argues, among other reasons, that some Moriscos are honestly believing, even devout Christians (such as Ricote's daughter, who is given a special dispensation to stay because of it). It is needless to say that it would have been dangerous for Cervantes to argue in his own time that Moriscos had a right to remain, even if they were Crypto-Muslims or just blasé about religion. As in many other topics, Cervantes makes a good reflection of his time; even if not always openly, many Spaniards actually considered the expulsion a great overreaction to a real problem (in this case, the occasional rebellions and local support to Barbary pirates) and would have preferred them to stay.
17	** His portrayal of actual Muslim Algerians in the "Story of the Captive" is also surprisingly positive, considering that it is based on the author's own captivity in Algiers. At one point Cervantes plain says that Algerians are [[NotSoDifferentRemark just as brutalized]] by their Turkish overlords as their European prisoners are. However, the two most sympathetic Muslims in the story, who eventually follow the main character to freedom, turn out to be a Spaniard who pretended to convert to Islam but secretly remained a Christian, and a [[TheChiefsDaughter Moorish princess]] who looks forward to converting to Christianity. There is not a good Muslim who remains and wants to remain a Muslim, at least among the speaking parts.
18	* FirstInstallmentWins: Part II is considered deeper and more mature than Part I, but the most well-known and influential episodes (like the windmills) come from the first part.
19	* FridgeBrilliance: In the first part, Don Quixote uses AntiquatedLinguistics and the Spanish equivalent of YeOldeButcheredEnglish, but in the Second Part, he almost never uses it. This is because in the first Part he is a DiscoDan in a world where ChivalricRomance is CondemnedByHistory, so he uses this trope to [[IRejectYourReality reject everyone's reality and substitute his own.]] In the Second Part, everyone has read the first Part, knows about ChivalricRomance and stage scams, to convince Don Quixote he really is a KnightErrant, so this trope is unnecessary for him.
20	* SugarWiki/FunnyMoments: While the novel’s satire and lampooning of then cliches have lost a lot of their humor due to the book’s satire being more or less standard storytelling now, the infamous windmill scene still gets laughs out of readers to this very day.
21	* GeniusBonus: Manchego cheese, originally from the La Mancha region of Spain, is commonly served with a thin rectangle, or ''mambrino'', of golden-colored quince jelly paste on top. in Miguel de Cervantes' ''Literature/DonQuixote'', the titular character puts a shaving basin on his head and calls it "the Golden Helmet of Mambrino", making him, of course, the "cheese from La Mancha" in this analogy. The musical ''Theatre/ManOfLaMancha'' includes an entire song about this bonus.
22	* GermansLoveDavidHasselhoff: ''Don Quixote'' is reputed to be the most translated book in history after the Bible. As a result, it has been loved, studied, and referenced in the works of countries you wouldn't think of at first.
23	** Creator/MiguelDeUnamuno, a great critic of Spanish culture, openly said that the countries who had understood ''Don Quixote'' best were England and Russia.
24	** ''Don Quixote'' is literally BigInJapan, very popular and loved. It has an anime adaptation (''Zukkoke Knight - Don de La Mancha'' from 1980), is considered the UrExample of the Japanese syndrome {{Chuunibyou}}, and also gives its name to a [[https://www.donki.com/en/ discount chain store]], the biggest in Japan, with stores in other Asian countries and Hawaii.
25	** ''Don Quixote'' is widely considered a funny book in China, due to having been translated for the first time to Mandarin in the 20th century, while in Spain the comedy can get lost in the AntiquatedLinguistics. Creator/JackieChan's ''Film/WheelsOnMeals'', filmed in Spain, has the tagline "Not since Don Quixote has Spain had so much fun!", which for a Spaniard sounds like a non sequitur.
26	* HilariousInHindsight: The main character is a nobleman who spends most of his time staying at home reading chivalry books, obsesses over a woman and refers to her as "my lady," even though she doesn't even know him, and the story is all about his {{LARP}}ing adventures. ''Don Quixote'' could easily be satirizing modern nerd culture, and just goes to show how little things have changed in 400 years.
27	* LowestCommonDenominator: Don Quixote and a lot of people in the novel, even those who don't like chivalry books:
28	** Alonso Quijano: What other way can you describe a man that belittles UsefulNotes/ElCidCampeador (a real badass warrior), and prefers a silly character of fiction? Part I Chapter I:
29	--->''"He used to say the Cid Ruy Diaz was a very good knight, but that he was not to be compared with the Knight of the Burning Sword who with one back-stroke cut in half two fierce and monstrous giants. "''
30	** At Part I, Chapter XLVIII, the canon adduces that this trope is the reason he has [[{{Fanfic}} wrote a hundred pages of a chivalry book,]] but he will not finish it.
31	--->''"... because I perceived that the 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."''
32	* MemeticMutation:
33	** This book generated various memes that have survived for more than four hundred years. Some are now words registered in the Spanish Royal Language Academy's dictionary:
34	*** '''"¿Leoncitos a mi?"''' (literally, "Little lions to me?"). More figuratively, "Do they want to scare me with those little lions?". The quote is basically modified each time, changing the "leoncitos" part for whatever you want to show you're not scared of, serving as a BadassBoast. A popular recent example that English speakers can relate to is in the European Spanish dub of ''Film/TheAvengers2012'', where they translated Hulk's "''[[MemeticMutation Puny god]]''" as ''"¿Dioses a mí?"'' ("Gods to me?")[[note]] Whether this is genuine {{Woolseyism}} or [[BlindIdiotTranslation the dubbing team overstepping their boundaries]] is kind of a point of debate in Spain.[[/note]].
35	*** '''Quixote''': Man who fights for love of the ideal. Man who fights for noble causes.
36	*** '''Maritornes''': A rude, ugly, mannish maid.
37	*** '''Rocinante''': A [[TheAllegedSteed thin and weak horse]], almost always full of sores. This one was even documented by Cervantes in Part II, Chapter III, when Carrasco declares that the first part of the novel was read.
38	---->''" by heart by people of all sorts, that the instant they see any lean nag, they say, 'There goes Rocinante.'"''
39	*** '''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 talk of one's "Dulcinea" is to say the object of one's hopeless devotion and idealized love.
40	** Most native Spanish speakers who have completed high school can quote the first few lines by heart, at least before the 1990 education reform. As a matter of fact, quoting this book in general is often considered a sign of being a well read person, just like quoting Shakespeare is in English-speaking countries.
41	** Sadly, most of the quotes and scenes that have become memes owe that status only to being misunderstood or simply misused by people (see above).
42	*** The windmills scene is often used when someone wishes to be seen as a gallant figure fighting heroically against a powerful and evil ''real'' opponent, not as a [[WindmillCrusader delusional person crashing against an imaginary one.]]
43	*** '''"Con la iglesia hemos topado"''' ("we have run into the church.") is used in the book by Don Quixote when they find the wall of a church after being lost in the fog, but nowadays is always misused as a slogan against the Catholic Church whenever it is felt to meddle in non-religious topics.
44	*** '''"Ladran, Sancho, luego cabalgamos"''' ("they are barking, Sancho, therefore we are riding") is possibly the most quoted line of the book and is used when someone wants to show they are above the people that criticize them. It turns out that the line is not even in the book, but most people don't care enough to check.
45	* MisaimedFandom:
46	** Many people have misunderstood the point of the parody. Romantic writers lionized ''Don Quixote'' as a praise of hopeless noble ideals in an increasingly cynical and materialistic world. Then, followers of literary Naturalism praised the novel... precisely for [[{{deconstruction}} showing the inherent hilarity of groundless Romantic enthusiasm]]. The book's introduction making it quite clear that it aims to destroy the reputation of books of chivalry in general, but the "true" meaning of this is, as everything else in the book, endlessly debated about in academia.
47	** Some people TakeAThirdOption and argue that Don Quixote himself is more complex than either division, that he's essentially a tragic figure who willingly chooses to go insane rather than live his banal life, and that by willingly embodying virtues that are outdated (if not ever existing in the first place), he's paradoxically just as heroic as the legends he hopes to emulate, if not more. This makes him, more or less, [[ValuesResonance a modern day existentialist hero]].
48	** 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 hallucinate with a fantasy world that cool and elaborate, assuming it would not be fatal for them. Why else would we have games like ''Franchise/TheLegendOfZelda'' or ''Franchise/TheElderScrolls'' (or, for that matter, {{Escapism}} in general)?
49	* MisBlamed: Even many fans of Music/TheyMightBeGiants assume that the band took their name directly from this novel. It actually comes from the 1971 movie ''Film/TheyMightBeGiants'', whose main character (who believes himself to be Sherlock Holmes, and is 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.
50	* NeverLiveItDown: Sancho Panza's reputation as a BigEater. In the first part of the novel, Sancho Panza does have several scenes enjoying food and drink to show his easygoing nature, but when Avellaneda published his own second part of the novel, he directly accused Sancho of being a glutton. In Cervantes' second part of the novel, Don Quixote's niece also accuses Sancho of this (she hates him anyway) and later, when they know about Avellaneda's second part, Sancho defends himself against this accusation at chapter LXII of the Second Part:
51	--> ''"No, señor, 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; 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."''
52	* OlderThanTheyThink: Barring a few exceptions such as ''[[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tirant_lo_Blanc Tirant lo Blanc]]'' (which is remembered for being one of the first literary texts written in Catalan / Valencian, and had a FilmOfTheBook 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.
53	* ParodyDisplacement: ''Don Quixote'' proved to be dramatically more popular and longer lasting than the chivalry stories it mocked and criticized.
54	* RomanticPlotTumor: The last chapters of the First Part solve the LoveDodecahedron 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 rebukes when Don Quixote opines:
55	--> ''"... and I know not what could have led the author to have recourse to novels and irrelevant stories, when he had so much to write about in mine; no doubt he must have gone by the proverb 'with straw or with hay,' for by merely setting forth my thoughts, my sighs, my tears, my lofty purposes, my enterprises, he might have made a volume as large, or larger than all the works of El Tostado would make up"''.
56	* SequelDisplacement: Variation. A lot of people don't know that this was originally ''two'' separate books, with the sequel being written ''a full decade'' after its predecessor. It just so happens that now they are almost always printed together, although even then both parts are clearly marked inside of them.
57	* SignatureScene: Don Quixote charging against windmills, believing they are giants. "Tilting at windmills" has entered the popular lexicon as an expression referring to fighting an imaginary enemy, ensuring that even people who haven't read the story know about this scene.
58	* SurprisinglyImprovedSequel: Although Don Quixote is published as a one volume today, it is generally agreed that the mostly philosophical second part is better than the mostly farcical first one. Perhaps related to the fact that the first part was written while Cervantes was in jail (Sancho Panza's wife has two different names on the same page, Juana and Mari, neither of which would be the definitive Teresa).
59	* UnintentionalPeriodPiece:
60	** The book includes repeated sympathetic references to the Moriscos (or FairForItsDay at least) that critics interpret as Cervantes arguing against their expulsion - a highly debated idea at the time, that had been a topic of conversation for ages before it finally happened between the publication of both parts, in 1609.
61	** A big chunk of Part II is devoted to mock and negate Avellaneda's unofficial continuation from 1614, which would in all likelihood be long forgotten today if Cervantes had not done this.
62	** ''Don Quixote'' contained a lot of references not only to now disappeared chivalry books, but to Spain's popular culture during the 17th century: respectful caricatures of then famous celebrities, ''unrespectful'' caricatures of contemporary writers, quotes from Cervantes' favorite poets, popular proverbs, then-contemporary UrbanLegends, phrases that can be taken in at least two different ways... all of them completely unknown to the modern reader, even a Spanish one, if not for the notes provided in most reprints. Cervantes' book was incredibly funny when he published it, but it's very difficult to see it like this now.
63	* ValuesDissonance:
64	** Several of the attitudes expressed by the characters are enough to make modern sensibilities cringe. Sancho, a man usually associated with being a loyal and amiable sort, actually considers taking up selling people as slaves and "turning black into gold". There's also the mere fact that Quixote is essentially a mentally ill man starring in a comedy where he's the butt of the joke.
65	** Modern readers who expect the book to be like a modern novel and try to read it in one go find it exhausting, as it is not just long, but sometimes digresses into completely unrelated [[ShowWithinAShow side stories]] with their own beginning, middle, and end. This obviously comes from the time it was written, when books were fewer and supposed to entertain people for months at a time, more like a videogame with many quests or a TV series today.
66	* ValuesResonance:
67	** On the flipside, in the process of [[{{Deconstruction}} deconstructing]] the ChivalricRomance genre, the trope of "pining from afar" and the idea of a LoveMartyr were torn to pieces in this book. The subject of the affections of a veritable flock of shepherds, Marcela, rejects the idea that she "owes" them any affection [[EntitledToHaveYou just because they're infatuated with her]]. With grace and style, Cervantes satirized a certain mindset of toxic relationships that is still addressed today.
68	** Don Quixote's obsessive adoration of Dulcinea, another love interest that not only doesn't reciprocate his feelings, doesn't even ''exist'', only leads him to humiliation and misfortune. This turned out to be a quite prescient satire of the worst excesses of the modern [[PerverseSexualLust "waifu"/"husbando" culture]], if not also the real relationships based on AllTakeAndNoGive in general.
69	** During the side story with the galley slaves, Don Quixote delivers a surprisingly forward-thinking speech about slavery and freedom, declaring that nobody should be chained against their will and freeing the slaves. While it's a bit naïve of him to think setting a nefarious criminal loose on the countryside is a good idea, he's spot on in his conviction that ''none'' should be slaves. Cervantes likely gave the speech to Don Quixote in particular because voicing abolitionist or anti-king views was in his day a great way to get himself in trouble and all his books burned, so he needed plausible deniability.
70	* VanillaProtagonist: Possibly intentional. A lot of the side characters are far more interesting than Quixote himself, whose own gimmick feels spent by the time he finds them. The intentional part comes in when you consider that, in Don Quixote's world, everything is about him, and only him, so while there certainly are interesting characters around him, none of them are deserving of the attention he's supposed to get.
71	* TheWoobie: Particularly in the era where Don Quixote was considered a tragic hero. Admit it, sometimes you just want to give him a hug. He is, after all, ''El Caballero de la Triste Figura'', translated by Edith Grossmann as ''The Knight of the Sorrowful Face''. He is the knight of all woobies.
72	* {{Woolseyism}}: Early English translations of the novel were unusually creative, coining new phrases and one-liners that became an integral part of English phraseology (e.g., "thanks for nothing").

Context YMMV / DonQuixote