History Literature / BanaagAtSikat

* MultiethnicName: This being the Philippines, many characters here have combinations of Spanish and Tagalog (or other Philippine language) names; see for instance Atty. Honorio Madlang-layon—first name Spanish, last name ''very'' Tagalog (not to mention his nickname, "Yoyong", is also a typically-Filipino diminutive of "Honorio").

%%%%* SlobsVsSnobs
* SmallTownTyrant: Kapitan Loloy, Felipe's father, mayor of a Laguna town south of Manila.
* SpiritualSuccessor: To other Filipino versions of the Spanish ''costumbrista'' genre, which details local cultures and customs; particularly ''Literature/{{Ninay}}'', the first Filipino novel. ''Banaag at Sikat'' even shares with ''Nínay'' detailed descriptions of Antipolo town, its flora and fauna and its vacationing families—in Tagalog this time, of course.

* WriteWhatYouKnow: Delfin's newspapering job is patterned after Santos' own RealLife newspapering job.

* ShownTheirWork
* SlobsVsSnobs

* RedScare: A very early version of this, a decade before UsefulNotes/TheRussianRevolution and long before the UsefulNotes/ColdWar, is naturally espoused by the landed and capitalist classes, including Meni's and Felipe's own families. For instance, most if not all that Kapitan Loloy, Felipe's father, knows about anarchism is that it has to do with killing presidents and other world leaders[[note]]even amongst the Philippines' colonisers: both U.S. president William McKinley—who approved colonising the Philippines in the first place—and Antonio Cánovas del Castillo, Spanish prime minister during the Philippine Revolution—were assassinated by anarchists[[/note]].

* GratuitousSpanish

* RedScare: A very early version of this, a decade before UsefulNotes/TheRussianRevolution and long before the UsefulNotes/ColdWar, is naturally espoused by the landed and capitalist classes, including Meni's and Felipe's own families.

* HistoricalDomainCharacter: Doña Margarita Roxas, the RealLife oligarch founder of La Concordia College, is the subject of urban legends where she purportedly plants dead children's bodies in a garden from which she later harvests gold and precious stones.

* MixedAncestry: The Mirandas have Spanish ancestry in their otherwise native-Filipino blood. Likely so does Don Filemon, whose mother was rumoured to have dated a Spanish friar who then lavished a great fortune on her son who quite closely resembled him.

* SceneryPorn

* GratuitousEnglish: One of the things Felipe plans to study as opposed to Commerce is English, which could be a stepping-stone to teaching, especially since English is the new medium of instruction under American rule. He and Delfin throw around a bunch of mangled English phrases as proof of what they've picked up so far.

* HistoricalDomainCharacter: Doña Margarita Roxas, the RealLife oligarch founder of La Concordia College, is the subject of urban legends where she purportedly plants dead children's bodies in a garden from which she later harvests gold and precious stones.

* HistoricalDomainCharacter: Doña Margarita Roxas, the RealLife oligarch founder of La Concordia College, is the subject of urban legends where she purportedly plants dead children's bodies in a garden from which she later harvests gold and jewellery.

* HistoricalDomainCharacter: Doña Margarita Roxas, the RealLife oligarch founder of La Concordia College, is the subject of urban legends that she plants dead children's bodies in a garden from which she later harvests gold and jewellery.

** Also to ''Walang Sugat'', a revolutionary and anticolonialist play by Santos' contemporary Severino Reyes (you may know him better as children's storyteller "Lola Basyang"), which the Americans censored for "subversive/seditious content".