Guy Fawkes question

[colontos]

I have an inquiry and maybe some of you Brits could shed some light on the subject.

In pop culture, there are many portrayals of Guy Fawkes that border on (or are) admiration. The biggest example probably being the graphic novel and movie V for Vendetta, which portrays the Guy as a freedom fighter and a "great citizen."

It's my understanding that Fawkes was merely a Catholic who wanted to remove (kill) the mostly Protestant government and replace it with a Catholic one. I don't see anything about freedom here, unless it means (fuller) religious freedom for Catholics, which would presumably have come at the cost of the religious freedoms of others.

So why the admiration?

 

[MrCynical]

In pop culture politicians are often portrayed as corrupt/evil, and hence anyone making a serious effort to remove them is portrayed as someone "good".

Guy Fawkes though is rarely portrayed with much admiration in Britain except by those too clueless about history to understand the point of Bonfire Night. A long running tradition of burning Guy Fawkes in effigy once a year is kind of an indication this person was disliked.

 

[bathsheba666]

Partly celebrated as "the only man to enter Parliament with honest intentions", but let down by the fact his name was actually Guido.

The Brits enjoy foreigners trying to determine their destiny about as much as George likes Osama doing the same thing.

 

[classical_hero]

He wa basically the guy that wanted to return England to a Catholic nation. This would have had great implications for the rest of the world had he been successful. One of the reasons this event took place was so that they could destroy the attempt to make an official version of the English Bible, which we now know as the King James Version.

 

[GinandTonic]

The point of V for Vendetta was to subvert the myths around GF. I guess Benedict Arnold is the closest comparison you have in the states, but you dont burn an effigy of him every year.

 

[Quinzy]

I guess Benedict Arnold is the closest comparison you have in the states, but you dont burn an effigy of him every year.

you should. burning stuff is fun.

 

[GinandTonic]

Lewes in Sussex have the definative 5th Nov bash.

http://www.lewesbonfirecouncil.org.uk/

It's anarchy, a carnival in the sense of a night outside of the normal rules. Its amasing that more people dont get injured. The seven parades burn effigies of all sorts. Last year there was Fawlks, Blair, Bush, the Pope, the Home Sec and a couple more I didnt catch.

 

[zenspiderz]

Normally Guy Fawkes and his supporters were presented in popular mythology as a villain or terrorist. This spin was first started by the ruling elites that he had tried to destroy but who hung him instead. The otherside of the story now widely forgotton is that at that time Catholics in England were cruelly persecuted by the protestant ruling elites. The gunpowder plot is not simple random violence but rather both revenge and attempt to kill before being killed.

I believe this is the point that the author of V for Vendetta is trying to make by connecting his 'hero' V so strongly with Guy Fawkes: that sometimes those that the establishment dub as terrorist/criminal etc. are nothing more than the reaction to the establishment's own terror/criminality....

The fact that the graphic novel should be made into a film (movie) at this time in history is entirely appropriate... you know this war of terrorism, 911 an inside job etc...

Incidently I have heard some historians claim that no less than William Shakespeare was closely connected to the Gunpowder plot and even a possible supporter...

As we say in Blighty 'makes yer fink dunnit'

 

[Eran of Arcadia]

The sad thing about Benedict Arnold is that without his heroics at Saratoga, we probably never would have won the Revolutionary War. All he really destroyed was his legacy, he still ended up doing far more good than harm to the rebel cause.

 

[colontos]

A foreign name does not a foreigner make, quoth Colin the American.

So admiration of Guy Fawkes can be chalked up to ill-thought out rebellious tendencies? That's what I suspected, but wanted to make sure.

It's an odd tradition, to be sure. But an interesting one.

 

[Lambert Simnel]

It's my understanding that Fawkes was merely a Catholic who wanted to remove (kill) the mostly Protestant government and replace it with a Catholic one.

The main aim was to kill the protestant king and his heir, not the parliament. The plotters hoped to aduct his daughter, convert her to Catholicism, and thus have a Catholic monarch. Frankly, the English Protestants would simply never have accepted a Catholic queen, so the plan as a whole was doomed to fail even if an explosion had succeeded in killing James.

James had been playing the Catholic nobles for quite a while - he was seen as a great hope of granting greater rights of worship to Catholics compared to Elizabeth's later years, but, while he may well have been more sympathetic to the Catholics, he was very limited in what he could have done by the strengths of the Protestants, and it was partly the level of disappointment in James which lead to the plot.

So the plotters could never have succeeded with their plan, and ended up giving cause for far worse treatment of Catholics thereafter. They were failures from any and every side of the issue.

 

[Paradigne]

'Twas still a fantastic movie

 

[happy_Alex]

Parliament and democracy (even in it's limited form at the time) are values consisitent with a reformed church. Catholicism with it's Roman emphasis is synonomous with the church as an organisation designed to enhance and validate the state.

Therefore, the gunpowder plot is regarded, as well as an assult on the king as an attack on early liberalism and what became 'the mother of parliamnets'

 

[PrinceOfLeigh]

IIRC Fawkes was the poor unfortunate little bleeder who was left copping for it when the plot was exposed. I believe he had little more than a 'bit part' to play and it was in fact Thomas De Winter and others who were the main protagonists. I stand to be corrected though by those with a greater historical knowledge than I.