History Characters / DonQuixote

!!Alonso Quixano a.k.a. Don Quixote

Tropes that apply to him include:

* AdaptationalNiceGuy: Many pop culture adaptations reimagine Don Quixote as an eccentric, even delusional man who is ultimately an AllLovingHero with a noble heart. The actual story was an extremely biting satire of chivalric literature, so the original character, while well-intentioned, could be erratic, arrogant and ''wildly'' violent in his attempts to be heroic.

!!Sancho Panza

!!Rocinante

!!Sancho Panza's donkey / Rucio

!!Dulcinea del Toboso

The characters featured in ''Literature/DonQuixote''.

%%The Duke and the Duchess

!!Dulcinea del Toboso

Don Quixote's muse and lady love, who is actually a figment of his imagination whom he based upon a buxom country wench from his neighborhood named Aldonza Lorenzo.

* TheDulcineaEffect: TropeNamer. Don Quixote loves her even though he has never seen or met her before, because she doesn't even exist. At one point he practically admits to Sancho that her role as his motivation to perform great deeds is more important than whether she's even a real person.
* TheGhost: Don Quixote talks about Dulcinea all the time, but since she doesn't actually exist--at least not as he imagines her--she is never introduced to the reader in person.
* ObliviousToLove: Don Quixote was once in love with the real Aldonza, but she never noticed and probably wouldn't have given it any thought.
* WorldsMostBeautifulWoman: According to our lovestruck protagonist, her beauty is beyond compare and puts all other women to shame.

!!Rocinante

Don Quixote's old, beaten horse.
----

%%Gines de Pasamonte

* AdaptationalHeroism: Many pop culture adaptations reimagine Don Quixote as an eccentric, even delusional man who ultimately means well and has a truly good heart heroic spirit. The actual story was an extremely biting satire of chivalric literature, so his original character was insane, arrogant, and ''wildly'' violent.

* BadassBookworm: Even if most of his knowledge is about books of chivalry and he is not as mighty a warrior as he believes, Don Quixote is still a very cultured man in a variety of fields (particularly philosophy, as his speeches on the matter are quite impressive) and an unambiguously talented fighter (as he routinely beats soldiers and squires who by all logic should kick his ass through sheer training and age difference).

* {{Chuunibyou}}: He can be considered the UrExample of this trope in fiction. Despite being almost 50 years old, he still more or less qualifies, becoming obsessed with novels about Chivalric Romance and deluding himself into believing he's a knight who goes on all kinds of fantastical adventures when he's really just making a nuisance of himself to whoever he meets.
* CombatPragmatist: Not overly, but he does attack people before they get ready to fight and capitalizes on mistakes and accidents to strike. This is interestingly even more in-character for his chivalry gimmicks, given that knights from medieval legends could be surprisingly underhanded for what one would think.
* CrouchingMoronHiddenBadass: When it's time to fight, Don Quixote's capabilities are underestimated by his opponents almost as often as he underestimates theirs. Some of them get beaten precisely for being caught off guard by how dangerous he is despite his hilarious appearance and presentation.

* InstantExpert: For all his silliness, Don Quixote ''is'' a great swordfighter. Despite being technically just an aged amateur, he wins a duel against a professional man at arms (granted, Quixote wore armor and rode a superior mount, but his opponent was still younger and presumably much more experienced) and he usually only truly loses when overwhelmed by sheer numbers or attacked through means he cannot defend against (like sling stones or windmill's pulls).

* {{Foil}}: The complementing and contrasting opposite to his master in both body and temperament. Physically, [[FatAndSkinny Don Quixote is tall and thin as a scarecrow while Sancho is short and plump]]. While Don Quixote is an [[WideEyedIdealist overly idealistic]] LordErrorProne who [[{{Cloudcuckoolander}} lives in his own fantasy world]], ForgetsToEat, [[FearlessFool has no regard for his own safety]], thrives on hardship, and takes himself way too seriously, Sancho is an unsophisticated farmer governed by his own appetites and desires, has a [[CloudcuckoolandersMinder sane and realistic outlook]], is a [[LovableCoward bit of a coward]], wants the easy life promised to him as a reward, and [[DeadpanSnarker has a sense of humor]].
* HurricaneOfAphorisms: One of his specialties. He lampshades it claiming that he knows so many aphorisms that they come in groups to his mouth. Interestingly, at the first part of the novel, Sancho Panza gives an HurricaneOfAphorisms only ''once'' (Chapter XXVII, part I). In the second part, {{Flanderization}} sets in, and Sancho gives them [[RunningGag continuously]], and also [[LamarckWasRight his wife and his daughter]].

The characters featured in Don Quixote.

* NoNameGiven: Played with. The animal is technically nameless, but Sancho refers to him as ''rucio'', an old Spanish word for a light-furred donkey. As the term is otherwise rarely used in Spanish language nowadays, modern adaptations in the need of a name for him often upgrade it to a proper name, naming him Rucio.
** There are english translations which call the donkey “Dapple”.

* UncattyResemblance: Like Rocinante to Don Quijote, Sancho's donkey is an animal counterpart to his owner: he's shorter, stockier and less intellectual than his master (represented here by Rocinante), as well as more hedonistic and grounded.

* NiceGuy: While he often causes more problems than he solves, Don Quixote does mean well.

* YourCheatingHeart: Fantasizes about marrying some high-born lady to improve his station, never mind that he already has a wife and children back home. Of course, no such opportunity occurs.

* HurricaneOfAphorisms: One of his specialties. He lampshades it claiming that he knows so many aphorisms that they come in groups to his mouth. Interestingly, at the first part of the novel, Sancho Panza gives an HurricaneOfAphorisms only ''once'' (Chapter XXVII, part I). In the second part, Flanderization sets up, and Sancho gives them [[RunningGag continuously]], and also [[LamarckWasRight his wife and his daughter]].

* TheDulcineaEffect: Don Quixote loves her even though he has never seen or met her before, and even though she doesn't exist. At one point he practically admits to Sancho that her role as his motivation to perform great deeds is more important than whether she's even a real person.

* LovableCoward: Always look to save his own hide, in contrast to the suicidally brave Don Quixote, but this is entertaining rather than making him unsympathetic.

* YourCheatingHeart: Fantasizes about marrying some high-born lady to improve his station, nevermind that he already has a wife and children back home. Of course, no such opportunity occurs.

* AwesomeMcCoolname: Subverted. His name was chosen by Don Quixote because it sounded cool to him, but it actually doesn't, at least in a classic sense. "Rocinante" means literally "one who acts as a ''rocín'' (work horse)," although Quixote apparently formed it from ''rocín'' and ''antes'', translating thus as "one who was previously a work horse."
* CoolHorse: Played with. His owner thinks of the horse as such, while the reality is that Rocinante is a poor old animal that should be anywhere except with a loon like him. That said, even with all of his mileage, Rocinante is as resilient as his rider and rarely fails at his reluctant war horse tasks. More famously, he becomes instrumental in Quixote's victory against the Vizcaian, because old or not, Rocinante is still faster and with more stamina than their opponent's mule.

* TheAllegedSteed: Like Rocinante, Rucio is old and tired, and suffers the aditional setback of carrying a substantially heavier rider.

* MadeOfIron: Judging for all the various beatdowns he endures without lasting effects, he is surprisingly tough for someone his age and training (or lack thereof).

* PerilousOldFool: Middle age is cleary not a fit one to start a career as a vigilante, but he does it anyway to his friends' and relatives' chagrin.
* WindmillCrusader: The TropeNamer, a delusional would-be knight errant who engages in a constant struggle against evil sorcerors and wicked monsters that exist only in his own mind. Most famously he mistakes a group of windmills for "thirty or forty outrageous giants" despite his squire Sancho telling him that he is wrong, and gets thrown into the air by one of the sails when he sticks his lance into it.

* HurricaneOfAphorisms: One of his specialties. He lampshades it claiming that he knows so many aphorisms that they come in groups to his mouth.

* AgeLift: Given a mild one in some adaptations, which depict him as grey-haired and elderly, while in the original he was in his late forties, closer to late middle-age.
* ArmorIsUseless: Zig-zagged. His cobbled-together plate armor sometimes does protect him from slashes and weapon hits, but otherwise he still gets the crap beaten out of him by laborers wielding staffs and shepherds slinging stones. This is TruthInTelevision, though - ancient armors struggled at stopping the kinetic force of blunt objects and missiles from passing through metal plate and breaking the bones underneath.
* BadassBookworm: Even if most of his knowledge is about books of chivalry and he is not as mighty a warrior as he believes, Don Quixote is still a very cultured man in a variety of fields (particularly philosophy, as his speeches on the matter are quite impressive) and an unambiguously talented fighter (as he routinely beats soldiers and squires who by all logic should kick his untrained ass).

* BigDamnHeroes: Tries to swoop in and save people in need of rescue on several occasions, but it rarely works out because he either misidentifies who's the oppressor and who's the victim, falls for a trick, or gets the crap beaten out of him.

* CrouchingMoronHiddenBadass: When it's time to fight, Don Quixote's capabilities are underestimated by his opponents almost as often as he underestimates theirs. Some of them get beaten precisely through being caught off guard by how dangerous he is at fighting despite his hilarious presentation.

* InstantExpert: For all his silliness, Don Quixote ''is'' a great swordfighter. Despite being technically just an aged amateur, he wins a duel against a professional man at arms from Vizcaya (granted, Quixote wore armor and rode a superior mount, but his opponent was still younger and presumably much more experienced) and he usually only truly loses when overwhelmed by sheer numbers or attacked through means he cannot defend against (like sling stones or windmill's pulls).

* OhCrap: Has one when the Vizcaian squire gives him a good ''tajo'', which shows him that the fight is not going to be a CurbStompBattle in his favor as he had previously thought. However, he recovers pretty fast, as expected of someone who thinks of himself as a knight, and ends up winning.
%%* PerilousOldFool

* CloudcuckoolandersMinder: While he was gullible enough to believe Don Quixote's promises in the first place (as well as uncultured enough to buy into his fantasy world with some frequency), he still posesses basic sanity and tries to stop Don Quixote from getting into trouble whenever he has a chance.

* CoolHorse: Played with. His owner thinks of the horse as such, while the reality is that Rocinante is a poor old animal that should be anywhere except at the side of a loon like him. That said, even with all of his mileage, Rocinante is as resilient as his rider and rarely fails at his war horse tasks. More famously, he becomes instrumental in Quixote's victory against the Vizcaian, because old or not, Rocinante is still faster and with more stamina than their opponent's mule.