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Endarire
2018-12-08, 12:10 AM
Greetings, all!

Having been reminded of Man of La Mancha (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LxQ6UMxVNLY), one of my favorite musicals, I realized that this is the sort of story that likely inspired D&D's earliest days. Just listen to the aforelinked lyrics (or read them here (https://genius.com/Christopher-lee-i-don-quixote-man-of-la-mancha-lyrics)) and consider this Don Quixote plot summary (https://www.sparknotes.com/lit/donquixote/summary/) and this previous-in-the-movie exposition (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Rr8Ep11F1I).

Nevermind that Don is (or at least seems to be, depending on version and interpretation) a delusional knight in an age past chivalry: He seems very much like a D&D 3.5 Paladin with the Harmonious Knight alternative class feature for singing.

What are your thoughts?

Mystral
2018-12-08, 03:04 AM
Greetings, all!

Having been reminded of Man of La Mancha (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LxQ6UMxVNLY), one of my favorite musicals, I realized that this is the sort of story that likely inspired D&D's earliest days. Just listen to the aforelinked lyrics (or read them here (https://genius.com/Christopher-lee-i-don-quixote-man-of-la-mancha-lyrics)) and consider this Don Quixote plot summary (https://www.sparknotes.com/lit/donquixote/summary/) and this previous-in-the-movie exposition (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Rr8Ep11F1I).

Nevermind that Don is (or at least seems to be, depending on version and interpretation) a delusional knight in an age past chivalry: He seems very much like a D&D 3.5 Paladin with the Harmonious Knight alternative class feature for singing.

What are your thoughts?

The entire point of Don Quixote is that he is living in a world that is either long dead or has never existed at all. If he were a paladin, he would be a paladin in a world where evil is already vanquished or was never a big problem at all, and where his naive desire to vanquish evil creatures and save good people collides with the realities of the world. Or alternatively, the world itself could be so rotten that any attempt to just do good is senseless.

You could go either route, either by having him be a paladin in a world where a goblin tribe is just a slightly unhygienic collection of creatures and the red dragon is a well-liked pillar of the community, or you can have each of his supposed good deeds cause problems because the world and its inhabitants are far too cynical for anything good to be done.

The Archetype of Don Quixote is an extreme case of wrong genre savvy, where someone thinks he is something that not only he is not, but that doesn't exist at all. You could also have a character be a wizard in a world without magic, a druid in a world with absolutely hostile nature, a cleric in a world without gods or a pirate in a world with no bodies of water.

The problem with that is that while it makes for amusing and interesting stories, it causes real problems in a group of roleplayers if they're not on board with the same delusion your character has.

Jay R
2018-12-08, 12:53 PM
You get a much more elegant picture by dropping back one level of reality.

Don Quixote is Alonso Quijana's PC.

[And Miguel de Cervantes is a Gygaxian DM.]

Martin Greywolf
2018-12-10, 09:56 AM
Well, sort of, but not really. Actual non-funny answer follows.

Original Cervantes and DnD both draw from the same culture, and when it comes to knights and paladins, from the same source. A knight was... amny things and there are countless subtypes, but very sgort version is he was a mounted warrior at the start and then split off into 2 types, secular and religious/monastic. Seculars are more not really relevant here, so I'll focus on monastic knights.

These guys were basically warrior monks - take a person rich enough to own a horse, squires and hevay gear and make them a monk. Not Shaolin monk, think, say, Dominican. These sprang up as a product of Outremer crusades, and promptly became very popular when it came to romantic stories. They, or rather their ideal/idealized image was what every noble should aspire to be, morally speaking (so most didn't bother, of course).

All the dragon slaying and princess rescuing comes from them (by way of stealing from earlier works, as is tradition), and that's essentially where paladins come from and what Cervantes was spoofing.

Mr_Fixler
2018-12-10, 01:15 PM
Don Quixote (as the noble knight that he imitated) is a great Paladin character. I mean "The Impossible Dream" is something that I have literally made my Paladin Oath in game.

As the actual character from the book/play in which he really didn't fit with the times and reality of the world, that kind of character might be a bit more challenging to pull off.

True and just knight = yes, easily

Guy who sees himself as something he is not, and furthermore everyone else sees the reality of the situation and wonders what is happening = major challenge

paddyfool
2018-12-10, 01:27 PM
Now I want to create a magic item that has a reverse illusion: a suit of full plate glamered to make the wearer appear and sound as if he were a frail old man equipped with rusty, ill-fitting gear. So you can look like you're a delusional old man while actually being a valiant knight. Or whatever other full plate wearing character you might want.

Jay R
2018-12-11, 11:31 AM
All the dragon slaying and princess rescuing comes from them (by way of stealing from earlier works, as is tradition), and that's essentially where paladins come from and what Cervantes was spoofing.

Just as knights come originally from knights, paladins come originally from, well, paladins.

The paladins were Charlemagne's (mostly fictional) Twelve Peers, and were as central to the chansons collectively called The Matter of France as knights were to the Arthurian cycle called The Matter of Britain.

JeenLeen
2018-12-11, 11:38 AM
I think a delusional PC could work as long as the player handles it in a way that's not disruptive. It could work for someone like Don Quixote if you show some restraint. (Playing V:tM with Malkavians taught me some neat lessons.)


Now I want to create a magic item that has a reverse illusion: a suit of full plate glamered to make the wearer appear and sound as if he were a frail old man equipped with rusty, ill-fitting gear. So you can look like you're a delusional old man while actually being a valiant knight. Or whatever other full plate wearing character you might want.

I think the normal Glamered enchantment for armor in D&D 3.5 could do that. Or, possibly, wearing a Hat of Illusion. I don't think anything says the illusion has to be of something good.

gkathellar
2018-12-11, 05:21 PM
I always felt that Man of La Mancha runs counter to Don Quixote in almost every respect. Its surreal romanticism is very paladin-esque at times, and asserts the ideals of honor and chivalry in the face of an uncaring and cruel world. That’s good material if I ever saw it.

The original book ... well, look, Cervantes had so little respect for his leading man that the last third of book one isn’t even about him. Instead, it’s this weird love polygon that Quixote is just sort of around for. He gets delivered home not much the worse for wear at the end and the story pretty much concludes the way it started: an old man with severe dementia reading books of chivalry while the world goes on without him.


Just as knights come originally from knights, paladins come originally from, well, paladins.

The paladins were Charlemagne's (mostly fictional) Twelve Peers, and were as central to the chansons collectively called The Matter of France as knights were to the Arthurian cycle called The Matter of Britain.

Weirdly, the word originated from the Latin palatine, referring to a type of regional governor in the (mid-to-late, IIRC) Roman Empire. Charlemagne’s paladins were so named not because they were holy warriors, but because they were trusted government officials.

johnbragg
2018-12-11, 07:16 PM
I always felt that Man of La Mancha runs counter to Don Quixote in almost every respect. Its surreal romanticism is very paladin-esque at times, and asserts the ideals of honor and chivalry in the face of an uncaring and cruel world. That’s good material if I ever saw it.

The original book ... well, look, Cervantes had so little respect for his leading man that the last third of book one isn’t even about him. Instead, it’s this weird love polygon that Quixote is just sort of around for. He gets delivered home not much the worse for wear at the end and the story pretty much concludes the way it started: an old man with severe dementia reading books of chivalry while the world goes on without him.



Weirdly, the word originated from the Latin palatine, referring to a type of regional governor in the (mid-to-late, IIRC) Roman Empire. Charlemagne’s paladins were so named not because they were holy warriors, but because they were trusted government officials.

Palatine, "of the palace." Basically, Charlemagne's Knights of the Round Table, without the table and real. (EDIT: not as real as I thought, sorry)

From there, it becomes a rank bestowed on a family of counts (Counts Palatine, later Elector Palatine), and associated with their territories (the Palatinate of the Rhine), sometimes including a chunk of now -Bavaria known as the Lower PAlatinate.

Clistenes
2018-12-11, 08:18 PM
I always felt that Man of La Mancha runs counter to Don Quixote in almost every respect. Its surreal romanticism is very paladin-esque at times, and asserts the ideals of honor and chivalry in the face of an uncaring and cruel world. That’s good material if I ever saw it.

The original book ... well, look, Cervantes had so little respect for his leading man that the last third of book one isn’t even about him. Instead, it’s this weird love polygon that Quixote is just sort of around for. He gets delivered home not much the worse for wear at the end and the story pretty much concludes the way it started: an old man with severe dementia reading books of chivalry while the world goes on without him.

Cramming all kind of side stories was quite common at the time. Before Don Quixote, novels were just funny, entertaining things happening... As a matter of fact, Don Quixote was maybe the first novel with character development... Don Quixote started as a regular "funny stuff happens" novel, and at some point Cervantes became reflexive, and his novel became something more...

Cervantes came to identify with Don Quixote. Cervantes came from a family of respectable commoners who almost reached the status of hidalgos (minor nobility) but fell into poverty, and they never really got over it... they tried to keep their self-perceived status as gentlemen... Cervantes worked as soldier, secretary or assistant for a Cardinal, tax collector, purchasing agent for the navy, writer...

As he got old, he acknowledged the distance between his ideals (and those society supposedly promoted) and the dark, harsh reality of the corrupted, unfair society he lived in. Don Quixote embodies the ideals he believed, and how these are mocked by society. Sancho Panza, a simple, honest man, knows little about ideals, but he is naturally a good and decent person, and as such, he is ridiculed too...

In the second book, when asked to explain his ideals, Don Quixote doesn't babble nonsense... he has a clear idea of why the world of errant chivalry, as described in the books, is preferable to the ugly real world... For example, on the subject of war, when he explains how awful war is and why common soldiers should be admired, everybody is astonished how wise he sounds... he knows how real war is. In another chapter he tries to stop a fight between two villages by giving a speech about war is to be avoided save for a few justified reasons (self-defense, mostly). He despises firearms, which kill or maim good men without giving them the chance to defend themselves.

His madness isn't in his ideals, it is to believe that he can impose his ideal world over the less worthy real one just by willing it... wouldn't it be better if strength were used to protect justice, truth and love? wouldn't it be better if wars were fought by a few brave, noble men charging at each other with lance and sword, and the loser were spared, rather than armies slaughtering each other with cannons and muskets? And he is right. The problem is, that just isn't how the world is... He is very aware that his actions make him look like a madman, but he thinks he can prove everybody wrong.

At some point, at the end of the book, Don Quixote is threatened by gun-armed foes. Don Quixote may charge at windmills, but when facing men armed with guns, he turns tail and runs away... And at that point he starts to recover his sanity, or on other words, to give up on his ideals. He realizes that he can't win against the real world.

As for Sancho, when confronted with the Duke that hosts Don Quixote, Sancho proves to be wiser. And when entrusted a role of responsibility, with the purpose of enjoying his expected disastrous failure, he proves to be an honest and wise judge, unlike the Duke, a supposedly better man, who wastes his time and money in meaningless games.

Don Quixote and Sancho are right. It is the world that is corrupted and wrong. The problem is, there is no fixing the world, it is the way it is, and you have to accept it and live in it. Doing otherwise, like Don Quixote does, is madness...

Saintheart
2018-12-12, 02:30 AM
I think a delusional PC could work as long as the player handles it in a way that's not disruptive. It could work for someone like Don Quixote if you show some restraint. (Playing V:tM with Malkavians taught me some neat lessons.)

Easiest way to play DQ is to do Lawful Neutral, but let the code you follow be utterly delusional. Nobody says the tradition a character follows has to be rational.

Khaiel
2018-12-12, 03:24 AM
Easiest way to play DQ is to do Lawful Neutral, but let the code you follow be utterly delusional. Nobody says the tradition a character follows has to be rational.

This. So much this. Don Quijote (sorry, the English writing makes my poor spaniard eyes bleed) is all about the fact that the titular character is delusional, and he isn't even that good at being a righteous knight (His response to most things that don't go like they should in story about knights is anger).

It's Spanish literature from our Golden Century: it's cynical.

Willie the Duck
2018-12-12, 09:25 AM
Greetings, all!

Having been reminded ofMan of La Mancha, one of my favorite musicals, I realized that this is the sort of story that likely inspired D&D's earliest days.

We do not live in a dark age where we have to guess at what inspired D&D's earliest days. EGG included Appendix N specifically to say what he thought the main inspirations were. And if we consider him an unreliable self-narrator, we have many extremely well researched books on the subject (Playing At the World being the most lauded for its' technical research rigor). Neither Cervantes' El Ingenioso Hidalgo Don Quijote de la Mancha, nor the musical inspired (or, as others have noted, anti-inspired, since the musical is effectively a rebuke of the cynicism of the novel) are listed. However...


Original Cervantes and DnD both draw from the same culture, and when it comes to knights and paladins, from the same source. A knight was... amny things and there are countless subtypes, but very sgort version is he was a mounted warrior at the start and then split off into 2 types, secular and religious/monastic. Seculars are more not really relevant here, so I'll focus on monastic knights.

These guys were basically warrior monks - take a person rich enough to own a horse, squires and hevay gear and make them a monk. Not Shaolin monk, think, say, Dominican. These sprang up as a product of Outremer crusades, and promptly became very popular when it came to romantic stories. They, or rather their ideal/idealized image was what every noble should aspire to be, morally speaking (so most didn't bother, of course).

All the dragon slaying and princess rescuing comes from them (by way of stealing from earlier works, as is tradition), and that's essentially where paladins come from and what Cervantes was spoofing.

Very much this. They share a common original thread, in that they both draw on the mythic archetype of knights. D&D just also draws heavily on westerns, pulps, and Hammer horror films.

gkathellar
2018-12-12, 12:57 PM
Cramming all kind of side stories was quite common at the time. Before Don Quixote, novels were just funny, entertaining things happening... As a matter of fact, Don Quixote was maybe the first novel with character development... Don Quixote started as a regular "funny stuff happens" novel, and at some point Cervantes became reflexive, and his novel became something more...

Cervantes came to identify with Don Quixote. Cervantes came from a family of respectable commoners who almost reached the status of hidalgos (minor nobility) but fell into poverty, and they never really got over it... they tried to keep their self-perceived status as gentlemen... Cervantes worked as soldier, secretary or assistant for a Cardinal, tax collector, purchasing agent for the navy, writer...

As he got old, he acknowledged the distance between his ideals (and those society supposedly promoted) and the dark, harsh reality of the corrupted, unfair society he lived in. Don Quixote embodies the ideals he believed, and how these are mocked by society. Sancho Panza, a simple, honest man, knows little about ideals, but he is naturally a good and decent person, and as such, he is ridiculed too...

In the second book, when asked to explain his ideals, Don Quixote doesn't babble nonsense... he has a clear idea of why the world of errant chivalry, as described in the books, is preferable to the ugly real world... For example, on the subject of war, when he explains how awful war is and why common soldiers should be admired, everybody is astonished how wise he sounds... he knows how real war is. In another chapter he tries to stop a fight between two villages by giving a speech about war is to be avoided save for a few justified reasons (self-defense, mostly). He despises firearms, which kill or maim good men without giving them the chance to defend themselves.

His madness isn't in his ideals, it is to believe that he can impose his ideal world over the less worthy real one just by willing it... wouldn't it be better if strength were used to protect justice, truth and love? wouldn't it be better if wars were fought by a few brave, noble men charging at each other with lance and sword, and the loser were spared, rather than armies slaughtering each other with cannons and muskets? And he is right. The problem is, that just isn't how the world is... He is very aware that his actions make him look like a madman, but he thinks he can prove everybody wrong.

At some point, at the end of the book, Don Quixote is threatened by gun-armed foes. Don Quixote may charge at windmills, but when facing men armed with guns, he turns tail and runs away... And at that point he starts to recover his sanity, or on other words, to give up on his ideals. He realizes that he can't win against the real world.

As for Sancho, when confronted with the Duke that hosts Don Quixote, Sancho proves to be wiser. And when entrusted a role of responsibility, with the purpose of enjoying his expected disastrous failure, he proves to be an honest and wise judge, unlike the Duke, a supposedly better man, who wastes his time and money in meaningless games.

Don Quixote and Sancho are right. It is the world that is corrupted and wrong. The problem is, there is no fixing the world, it is the way it is, and you have to accept it and live in it. Doing otherwise, like Don Quixote does, is madness...

That’s interesting. I should probably have noted that I never had the opportunity to read the second book, so the perspective I offered was exclusively with reference to the first (where it honestly seemed to me that by the end Cervantes was tired of the character and didn’t really know what to do with the narrative). It seems almost like a different character - I remember in the first book he charges a rifleman and survives by sheer dumb luck, for instance. I suppose Cervantes wanted to do something other than slapstick and mean jabs at chivalric writers for his second turn at the wheel, which ... actually makes me a lot more interested in giving it a gander.

Do you think the second book’s tone could have informed Man of La Mancha, or is it still a different interpretation?

Clistenes
2018-12-12, 03:02 PM
That’s interesting. I should probably have noted that I never had the opportunity to read the second book, so the perspective I offered was exclusively with reference to the first (where it honestly seemed to me that by the end Cervantes was tired of the character and didn’t really know what to do with the narrative). It seems almost like a different character - I remember in the first book he charges a rifleman and survives by sheer dumb luck, for instance. I suppose Cervantes wanted to do something other than slapstick and mean jabs at chivalric writers for his second turn at the wheel, which ... actually makes me a lot more interested in giving it a gander.

Do you think the second book’s tone could have informed Man of La Mancha, or is it still a different interpretation?

I think the Man of La Mancha takes more from the second book but it is still a different interpretation. Mitch Leigh wrote for a XX century American public, who had been told that following your dreams was the right thing.

Cervantes was a XVI century Spaniard, and during his lifetime the general attitude of Spaniards had been shifting towards one of resigned acceptance of the ugliness of the world... People were bitter about how doing what honor demanded wasn't rewarded, but rather punished; they became pessimistic, and took solace in religion and in the belief that, after death, they would go to a place where good deeds would be rewarded.

And Cervantes lived the shift from the heroic XVI century, when Spaniards thought to be heroes living an epic tale, to the dark XVII century, when attitude was often "life is crap, nothing matters, save saving your soul for the next life, which is the real one..." XVII century plays like La Vida es Sueño (Life is a Dream), El Gran Teatro del Mundo (The Great Theater of the World), La Cena del Rey Baltasar (King Baltasar's Dinner) show that life is fleeting and unreal, and ultimately, worthless; only the next life had real worth.

Of course there were still uplifting plays and novels where the good people won, and fun comedies where everybody found happiness, but the serious works tended to be pessimistic...

But anyways, Don Quixote isn't a modern novel... it still is a succession of entertaining stuff that just happens, as long novels were at that time, so it may feel disjointed and to lose rhythm to modern readers, with lots of side stories that break the plot... but Cervantes, as the book goes on, slips serious stuff and develops the character. A typical comedy would end with Don Quixote getting healed and returning to his family; Cervantes's novel ends like a moral tale. At some point Cervantes starts to respect Don Quixote more, and to portray another side of him.

By the way: Cervantes wasn't jailed by the Inquisition (as in The Man of La Mancha), but he was falsely accused of embezzling money when he was a working for the navy as purchasing agent, and was sent to prison. He started to write Don Quixote while in prison, inspired by the contrast between his youthful ideals (he fought in the Battle of Lepanto, which was seen as a glorious crusade) and the ugly, corrupt reality; the first book would have been inspired by a (maybe unconscious) sense of self-mockery. Some people claim that he met a madman while in prison, who inspired him to wrote the novel...

Endarire
2018-12-13, 12:57 AM
@Clistenes: Thankee for your insights of the DQ novels!

According to Cervantes...

Wanting to improve the world? Sane. Wanting to merely will the world into being better? Madness.

Martin Greywolf
2018-12-13, 11:07 AM
Very much this. They share a common original thread, in that they both draw on the mythic archetype of knights. D&D just also draws heavily on westerns, pulps, and Hammer horror films.

DnD as a whole yes, but not Paladin - that one is basically intended to be the archetypal dude from Song of Roland updated to modern sensibilities and given magical bling.

And honestly? That's pretty cool. I wish my swords glowed in the dark...

Clistenes
2018-12-13, 05:16 PM
I have found a translation of Don Quixote's speech about XVI-XVII century Spanish soldiers and why he admires them:


"None in his poverty is as poor as he, for he depends on his miserable pay which comes late or never or on whatever he can steal with his own hands at great risk to life and conscíence. Sometimes he is so naked that a slashed and tom doublet is both uniform and shirt and in the middle of winter in an empty field the breath from his mouth is his only protection against theinclemencies of heaven, and since that breath comes from an empty place I consider it certain that it must come out cold, contradicting the laws of nature.( ... ) Then after this the day and hour arrive when he receives the degree his profession offers: the day of battle, there he will receive his tasseled academic cap made of bandages to heal a bullet wound, perhaps one that has passed through his temples or will leave him with a ruined arm or leg..."


Don Quixote speech about war:


"Valor not founded on the base of prudence is recklessness and the deeds of the reckless are attributed more to good fortune than to courage.
Prudent and well ordered nations take up arms and unsheathe their swords and risk their persons lives and fortunes for only four reasons, fírst in defense of the Catholic faith; second in self defense which is a natural and divine law third in defense of their honor their family and fortune fourth to serve their king in a just war and if we wish to add a fifth (which can be considered the second) it ís in defense of their country. To these five capital causes we can add a few others that are just and reasonable and oblige men to take up arms but anyone who does so for trifles and matters that are more laughable and amusing than insulting seems to lack all good sense,moreover taking unjust revenge (and no revenge can be just) is directly contrary to the holy law we possess which commands us to do good to our enemies and love those who hate us"


After trying to fight some lions, despite everybody around telling him it was madness and a suicide:


Don Quixote roused him from these reflections and this soliloquy by saying, "No doubt, Senor Don Diego de Miranda, you set me down in your mind as a fool and a madman, and it would be no wonder if you did, for my deeds do not argue anything else. But for all that, I would have you take notice that I am neither so mad nor so foolish as I must have seemed to you.(...)

(...)I, then, as it has fallen to my lot to be a member of knight-errantry, cannot avoid attempting all that to me seems to come within the sphere of my duties; thus it was my bounden duty to attack those lions that I just now attacked, although I knew it to be the height of rashness; for I know well what valour is, that it is a virtue that occupies a place between two vicious extremes, cowardice and temerity; but it will be a lesser evil for him who is valiant to rise till he reaches the point of rashness, than to sink until he reaches the point of cowardice; for, as it is easier for the prodigal than for the miser to become generous, so it is easier for a rash man to prove truly valiant than for a coward to rise to true valour; and believe me, Senor Don Diego, in attempting adventures it is better to lose by a card too many than by a card too few; for to hear it said, 'such a knight is rash and daring,' sounds better than 'such a knight is timid and cowardly.'"


Don Quixote is intelligent and articulate... and he is also mad. He is delusional, because he is convinced that tales of chivalry are real accounts, his madness being born from a rejection of how ugly, unfair and hopeless the real world is. So he decides to force his ideal world to become real.

He has psychotic episodes (of course, Cervantes didn't know about those, he just portrays Don Quixote seeing things) and during those he sees things that aren't there and creates whole scenarios out of thin air, rewriting the past; he often has those when he is relaxed and bored; he rarely undergoes them when he is in real danger. After the episode's end, her when he sees things like they are again, he makes up some fantasy to protect his delusion and protect himself against reality. And he lashes out when people try to corner him and force him to face reality.

But he has lucid periods too, during which he looks and sounds a sane, intelligent person; he is able to defend his ideals with sound arguments...so long as you avoid the magical part of his delusions or try to force him to face his own madness.

If he were just a drooling fool, he would have no value as a parable about trying to live in your ideal world vs accepting the world just as it is... He needs to be someone the reader can have some respect in some level, so that when he is tortured, physically and psychologically, to show how the world treats those who refuse to accept reality and try to live their dream, it hits the target, rather than just laughing at him.

Knaight
2018-12-13, 07:00 PM
Don Quixote is intelligent and articulate... and he is also mad. He is delusional, because he is convinced that tales of chivalry are real accounts, his madness being born from a rejection of how ugly, unfair and hopeless the real world is. So he decides to force his ideal world to become real.
He's delusional because he's a noble shut in who's spent an entire lifetime not interacting with the world and instead reading ridiculous fiction. He then goes out believing his own delusions, and in a series of picaresque stories brings great harm to everyone around him, and also himself.

As for being intelligent and articulate, he's a pompous windbag talking in an archaic style emulating the books that are his life, because he doesn't interact with his actual society at all. His intelligence similarly doesn't ever seem to show up in any context other than the aforementioned pompous windbaggery.


If he were just a drooling fool, he would have no value as a parable about trying to live in your ideal world vs accepting the world just as it is... He needs to be someone the reader can have some respect in some level, so that when he is tortured, physically and psychologically, to show how the world treats those who refuse to accept reality and try to live their dream, it hits the target, rather than just laughing at him.
He would have no value in a parable about that, true. On the other hand, he would have plenty of value in a satiric critique of chivalric fiction and chivalric ideals, along with being a pretty great picaresque character for other characters to play off of.

Tvtyrant
2018-12-13, 07:50 PM
This makes me think of Saturday Morning Breakfast Cartoons.



http://www.smbc-comics.com/comics/20110124.gif