History Literature / DonQuixote

* LifeEmbellished: [[AuthorAvatar Ruy Pérez de Viedma]] relates all his biography in ''"The Story of the Captive Captain"''. He was a handsome captive captain who wanted to escape the Moors and was helped by Zoraida, a beautiful Moor princess who wanted to convert to Christianity. The captain organized a successful evasion to Spain, was well received by his powerful and rich relatives and married Zoraida. Cervantes was a captive who failed all his evasion intents, his family paid his rescue and he always was an ImpoverishedPatrician.

** '''The Duke and the Duchess:''' They spent a lot of money and organize truly massive scams (Dulcinea’s enchantment has all the people in their castle, the Insula Barataria involucres all the people of a town) only to laugh at Don Quixote and Sancho.

** '''The Duke and the Duchess:''' They spent a lot of money and organize truly massive scam (Dulcinea’s enchantment has all the people in their castle, the Insula Barataria involucres all the people of a town) only to laugh at Don Quixote and Sancho.

* NewMediaAreEvil: Spain at the Cavalier Years had just discovered the printing press, and books were considered this trope. The BookBurning the {{Moral Guardian}}s enact at first part chapter VI to cure Don Quixote's madness has not the darker connotations associated to the trope (and it's full of {{Take That}}s against badly written books), and at chapter IV of the Second Part, when Don Quixote and Sansón Carrasco discuss reputed writers that lost prestige when they publish their works on the new printing presses, Carrasco explains that a printed book makes [[AccentuateTheNegative easier to explore for any kind of error]], and FanDumb is always envy of great creators, [[LetsSeeYouDoBetter because they have never produced a book]]. (Incidentally, Cervantes get a lot of critiques because the first part of Don Quixote was plagued with {{Series Continuity Error}}s).

* LostInTranslation: Cervantes is constantly making puns and wordplay, most of which is untranslatable; one joke in the Spanish version is that even when everyone understands the term "island", only truly sophisticated people understand the term "''[[GratuitousLatin insula]]''". So, Sancho doesn't really understand what an "''insula''" really is, but he desperately wants to rule one, so he would be tricked later in a scam to rule a little town that is not an island. In some English translations (for example, [[http://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/996/pg996.html the Gutenberg Project]]) this joke is Lost in Translation).

* DirectLineToTheAuthor: Cervantes (only referred in the book as "the second author") says that the book was based on some manuscripts he found made by an Arab, Cide Hamete Benengeli (or Sidi Ahmed bin Engeli, as it would be rendered today) whose first name, "Cide", could be translated as "Mister", and whose last name is [[PunnyName a pun]] on "berenjena" (eggplant / aubergine), and translated to Spanish by an anonymous Arab translator. This is parody of how a lot of chivalry books have his authors claim that they are based in an old manuscript found in an ancient pyramid or another ruined building in some faraway country, written in an exotic language by a wise, famed wizard who favored the hero of the novel. Those claims are made to feign that the chivalry book was inspired by real events. Cervantes twist this and uses it to a comic effect, explaining that the next part of the novel was found in some pamphlets and papers (only a few years old) found in Alcaná de Toledo (a real city in Spain) in a silk mercer store, written in Arabic (a fairly known language in Spain) by a (foolish) boy who didn't know what was written in them and so sold the papers to Cervantes for peanuts. If we include the funny name of the wizard and the fact that the [[UnreliableNarrator second author, the translator and Cide Hamete Benengeli are always making comments about the book]], we can see that Cervantes want us to admit that all this tale is a long sequence of lies and nonsense... just like all the chivalry books.

TropeNamer for WindmillCrusader.

** ''Film/LostInLaMancha'', documentary about the above film's [[TroubledProduction notoriously plagued]] making.

* ''Film/TheManWhoKilledDonQuixote'', 2018 co-production film directed by Creator/TerryGilliam. Not an adaptation of the story, but uses the character and themes in a 21st century setting.
** Part of its notoriously plagued making was documented in ''Film/LostInLaMancha''.

* ''Film/TheManWhoKilledDonQuixote'', a 2018 co-production directed by Creator/TerryGilliam. Not an adaptation of the story, but uses the character and themes in a 21st century setting.

* ''Film/TheManWhoKilledDonQuixote'', a 2018 co-production directed by Creator/TerryGilliam. Not an adaptation of the story itself, but uses the character and themes in a 21st century setting with madness as the central element. Notable in that the project's making was plagued by troubles for nearly three decades, including three separate productions attempts, as well as legal fights over rights to distribute. The doomed first filming attempt was documented in ''Film/LostInLaMancha'', originally intended to be the making-of documentary for the film.

* DirectLinetoTheAuthor: Cervantes (only referred in the book as "the second author") says that the book was based on some manuscripts he found made by an Arab, Cide Hamete Benengeli (or Sidi Ahmed bin Engeli, as it would be rendered today) whose first name, "Cide", could be translated as "Mister", and whose last name is [[PunnyName a pun]] on "berenjena" (eggplant / aubergine), and translated to Spanish by an anonymous Arab translator. This is parody of how a lot of chivalry books have his authors claim that they are based in an old manuscript found in an ancient pyramid or another ruined building in some faraway country, written in an exotic language by a wise, famed wizard who favored the hero of the novel. Those claims are made to feign that the chivalry book was inspired by real events. Cervantes twist this and uses it to a comic effect, explaining that the next part of the novel was found in some pamphlets and papers (only a few years old) found in Alcaná de Toledo (a real city in Spain) in a silk mercer store, written in Arabic (a fairly known language in Spain) by a (foolish) boy who didn't know what was written in them and so sold the papers to Cervantes for peanuts. If we include the funny name of the wizard and the fact that the [[UnreliableNarrator second author, the translator and Cide Hamete Benengeli are always making comments about the book]], we can see that Cervantes want us to admit that all this tale is a long sequence of lies and nonsense... just like all the chivalry books.

** Not only of chivalric romances themselves (see below for details), but also of the attitudes they foster in their readers. While Don Quixote takes things to extremes [[RuleOfFunny for the sake of a good laugh]], Cervantes uses him to make the point that living one's life in the real world strictly by an idealized, incomplete, and oft-contradictory code of chivalry is [[RealityEnsues ultimately an exercise in absurdity]].

* HonorBeforeReason: The protagonist falls victim to this trope countless times. The first example is when Don Quixote "rescues" Andrés from being flogged by his master, Juan Haduldo. Don Quixote bullies Juan into promising to let Andres go, and he departs to other adventures, [[GenreSavvy because he has read that when a Knight]] [[IGaveMyWord gives his word, it's enough.]] [[WrongGenreSavvy Unfortunately, this is the first modern novel]] [[RealityEnsues and Juan flogs Andres even harder.]]

* JustLikeRobinHood: Deconstructed by Roque Guinart, a deconstruction of the GentlemanThief, who leads a band of [[TheHighwayman highwaymen]] at Barcelona's CivilWar. He is an ''armed beggar'', that takes only a part of the money of his victims... ''by asking them.'' His 60 men assault two soldiers (300 crowns), a Noblewoman (600 crowns) and some pilgrims (60 reals). That would have been 15 crowns and a real for each highwayman. Roque asks for 60 crowns for the soldiers (20%) and 80 crowns from the Noblewoman (13.6%). That's 140 crowns. He gives 2 crowns to each highwayman and the 20 crown left he gives 10 to the pilgrims (that's almost 100 reals) and 10 crowns to Sancho Panza in a clear attempt to BuyThemOff. The people who attacked are happy to keep most of their own money, and Roque Guinart is considered a hero. Everyone is happy! [[RealityEnsues Except for the highwaymen who were cheated of 13 crowns and a real]], but Roque manages to MakeAnExampleOfThem by murdering the one who dares to be a DeadpanSnarker.

* NiceJobBreakingItHero: Countless times, Don Quixote's chivalric antics make things only worse. All Don Quixote's adventures end like this, just to see the first of them, Chapter IV Part I: Don Quixote rescues Andres, a boy shepherd who was flogged by his master Juan Haduldo, and trusts Juan to pay Andres his salary ([[WrongGenreSavvy because the knights in]] ChivalricRomance [[IGaveMyWord always keep their word]]). Just after Don Quixote leaves, [[RealityEnsues Juan brutally flogs Andres and doesn't pay him]].

* RealityEnsues: This is what happens when an aging nobleman with little fighting skills and crappy armaments imagines himself a knight-errant.

** Another example is lampshaded in Part II, chapter LI. Sancho has been made [[MassiveMultiplayerScam governor of the "Island of Barataria"]]. In the 17th century, it was expected that the people who were part of the government and the aristocracy were well educated, and this education included Latin. Don Quixote never uses Latin words in his sentences with Sancho because he is not interested in impressing him with his superior knowledge, but he expects that now that Sancho is a governor he has learned Latin.

* TheLadysFavour: Deconstructed when (even if it's only part of a MassiveMultiplayerScam), Altisidora gave Don Quixote three kerchiefs that later are stolen by bandits:

* LostInTranslation: Cervantes is constantly making puns and wordplay, most of which is untranslatable; one joke in the Spanish version is that even when everyone understands the term "island", only truly sophisticated people understand the term "''[[GratuitousLatin insula]]''". So, Sancho doesn't really understand what an "''insula''" really is, but he desperately wants to rule one, so he would be tricked later in a MassiveMultiplayerScam to rule a little town that is not an island. In some English translations (for example, [[http://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/996/pg996.html the Gutenberg Project]]) this joke is Lost in Translation).

* RealAfterAll: Sancho Panza is fooled by the Duke to assume a governorship (really a complicated series of MassiveMultiplayerScam just to prank Sancho). When Sancho patrols his Insula, he is victim of various pranksters, except for the last one, a SweetPollyOliver that no one knows, who is a girl who has escaped his GildedCage, to all the pranksters' confusion.

** '''The Duke and the Duchess:''' They spent a lot of money and organize truly MassiveMultiplayerScam (Dulcinea’s enchantment has all the people in their castle, the Insula Barataria involucres all the people of a town) only to laugh at Don Quixote and Sancho.

* WideEyedIdealist: This trope is severely deconstructed with Don Quixote: In the first part, Don Quixote cares more for fulfilling his fantasies than for anyone else. He is sure that the farmer Haduldo will keep his promise to stop flogging the boy Andrés, and that the Galley slaves he liberates will be grateful enough to do him a favor. (They're not). His actions make him the original LordErrorProne. In the second part is even worse: he really acts ForHappiness, and after some MassiveMultiplayerScam adventures that convince him he is a real KnightErrant, he must face the sad fact that he has not helped anyone, and therefore, all those ChivalricRomance tropes were BlatantLies. This is so heartbreaking that he becomes BoredWithInsanity and dies. Being called "Quixotic" is not always a good thing.

** An attack to the (then) famous chivalry book's author Feliciano de Silva's composition, ''"[[SarcasmMode for their lucidity of style and complicated conceits were as pearls in his sight]]"''; Feliciano's style was an example of [[PurpleProse how to sacrifice Utility in the altar of Eloquence]], [[DepartmentOfRedundancyDepartment writing sentence after sentence of redundant synonyms once and again]], [[MindScrew making it so confuse that you cannot even try to comprehend it]].

** Parodied when Don Quixote doesn't want to pay for a day in an inn, he tells the Innkeeper that there should be a law that forces HospitalityForHeroes on [[KnightErrant knights errant]] like himself.

** Played straight when the Canon makes a small CharacterFilibuster asking for a law to regulate Theatre at Spain, and so avoid excesses and revenge, between actors and society, that is obviously an AuthorFilibuster from Cervantes himself.
** Played straight when Sancho Panza becomes a ReasonableAuthorityFigure and imposes some reasonable laws at the [[{{Utopia}} Barataria Insula]].
* ThresholdGuardians: Deconsctructed by [[ThoseTwoGuys the curate and the barber]]: Don Quixote's family asks help from {{Moral Guardian}}s to destroy Don Quixote's delusions, but their pity makes them pull a RevealingCoverup that enforces those delusions, making them ThresholdGuardians.

* RevealingCoverup: Parodied by the {{Moral Guardian}}s who become {{Threshold Guardian}}s: In his first sally, Don Quixote doesn't find any [[OurDragonsAreDifferent dragons]], [[RobeAndWizardHat enchanters]], or [[DamselInDistress damsels in distress]]. He is very disappointed when he comes back to his house, where their family and two Moral Guardians have made a BookBurning of his ChivalricRomance books. To avoid Don Quixote's ire, the Moral Guardians advise the family to tell him, literally, that AWizardDidIt. ''That excuse was Don Quixote's first contact with the MedievalEuropeanFantasy he so desperately wanted to live!'' If the Moral Guardians had told him the truth, he would never have persevered in his madness.
* SarcasticDevotee: Deconstructed by Sancho Panza: What happens in RealLife to the employee that cannot say anything about his master without being sarcastic? Why, Sancho is beaten by Don Quixote at chapters XX and XXV of Part I, and gives him a hurricane of insults at chapter XLVI. The problem is that a lot of people enjoys Sancho's sarcasm (he is good at it), and so he feels compelled to say it, even when he is in perilous situations, like when he denied payment to a Innkeeper (Chapter XVII part I), [[TooDumbToLive and he mocked the entire people of the Braying Town or the highwaymen of Barcelona]] (Chapters XXVII and LX of the part II) The first give him a beating, the highwaymen almost kill him.

* DiscoDan: Deconstructed: Don Quixote's obsession with ChivalricRomance leaves him mentally stuck in an era that barely even existed, and by the time of TheCavalierYears is dead: few people at Spain know, and even less care, what an KnightErrant is. So, Don Quixote has to explain what a Knight Errant is every time and again through the first part of the novel. First he makes {{Character Filibuster}}s, then he makes his explanations shorter, and then comes chapter XLVII when Don Quixote is tired and gives up:

* RevealingCoverup: Parodied by the {{Moral Guardian}}s who become {{Threshold Guardian}}s: In his first sally, Don Quixote doesn't find any [[InstantAwesomeJustAddDragons dragons]], [[RobeAndWizardHat enchanters]], or [[DamselInDistress damsels in distress]]. He is very disappointed when he comes back to his house, where their family and two Moral Guardians have made a BookBurning of his ChivalricRomance books. To avoid Don Quixote's ire, the Moral Guardians advise the family to tell him, literally, that AWizardDidIt. ''That excuse was Don Quixote's first contact with the MedievalEuropeanFantasy he so desperately wanted to live!'' If the Moral Guardians had told him the truth, he would never have persevered in his madness.

* DiscoDan: Deconstructed: Don Quixote's obsession with ChivalricRomance leaves him mentally stuck in an era that barely even existed, and by the time of TheCavalierYears is DeaderThanDisco: few people at Spain know, and even less care, what an KnightErrant is. So, Don Quixote has to explain what a Knight Errant is every time and again through the first part of the novel. First he makes {{Character Filibuster}}s, then he makes his explanations shorter, and then comes chapter XLVII when Don Quixote is tired and gives up:

The first part of the novel was published in 1605, when stories of chivalry were pushing DeaderThanDisco and Don Quixote's dreams of reviving chivalric ways were really a strange, misbegotten idea. However, Miguel de Cervantes had a clear distaste for them, in no small part because he was an ex-soldier who lost the mobility of his left arm in the UsefulNotes/BattleOfLepanto [[note]] Cervantes was famously nicknamed "The One-Armed of Lepanto", or "el Manco de Lepanto" [[/note]] and spent several years in prison. Having had such harsh experiences, [[SillyRabbitIdealismIsForKids he found such idealistic stories completely absurd]], and thought that they were too disconnected from reality. And out of such distaste, he decided to write this story [[DeconstructiveParody to pick them apart and openly mock them]].

** Part I -- The GoldenAge of chivalry is not only DeaderThanDisco but never existed outside the pages of a book. Real-Life doesn't have noble knights, damsels in distress and plucky common folk in need of saving, but people doing what it takes to survive in an unfair society. Someone who tries to be a Knight in the real-world [[RequiredSecondaryPowers has to be crazy]] since anyone with a sense of reality would know [[ThisIsReality it's impossible]].

* DeaderThanDisco: In-universe: At Part II Chapter XVI, Don Quixote claims that the ChivalricRomance (and its RealLife counterpart, [[KnightErrant knight-errantry]]) is this trope and he is merely trying to bring it to life again.
-->''[[DiscoDan My desire was to bring to life again]] [[KnightErrant knight-errantry]], now dead, and for some time past, stumbling here, falling there, now coming down headlong, now raising myself up again.''

The story is that of an old ''hidalgo'' named Alonso Quijano, who is so obsessed with chivalric novels that he's lost a few screws and decided that he is a vagrant knight. Quijano renames himself as "Don Quixote de La Mancha" and decides to win eternal fame through the besting of criminals and general upholding of the Chivalric Code. Unfortunately for a lot of innocent people, his delusions make him pick fights with innocent bystanders, some of whom do not fight back because Don Quixote is obviously crazy. Of course, there are also strangers who are not so sympathetic. After one delivers a brutal beating to Don Quixote, a neighbor from his village meets the wounded Don Quixote and takes him home, where his friends and family burn the cursed books of chivalry and claim that AWizardDidIt (literally) to try to cure him. However, he soon returns to his delusion and journey. This time he manages to convince a simple farm-hand, Sancho Panza, to become his squire and sidekick for the promise of a governorship in the future. They experience many adventures, including the famous one where Don Quixote attacks some windmills thinking they are ferocious giants.[[note]]The band Music/TheyMightBeGiants was named after the film ''Film/TheyMightBeGiants'', which paralleled ''Don Quixote'' with the main character's delusions that he is Literature/SherlockHolmes.[[/note]] At the end of the book, Don Quixote’s friends trick him by making him believe he is enchanted and take him back to his village.

The first part of the novel was published in 1605, when stories of chivalry were pushing DeaderThanDisco and Don Quixote's dreams of reviving chivalric ways were really a strange, misbegotten idea. However, Miguel de Cervantes had a clear distaste for them, in no small part because he was an ex-soldier who lost the mobility of his left arm in the UsefulNotes/BattleOfLepanto[[note]]Cervantes was famously nicknamed "The One-Armed of Lepanto", or "el Manco de Lepanto"[[/note]] and spent several years in prison. Having had such harsh experiences, [[SillyRabbitIdealismIsForKids he found such idealistic stories completely absurd]], and thought that they were too disconnected from reality. And out of such distaste, he decided to write this story [[DeconstructiveParody to pick them apart and openly mock them]].

[[folder:Some Adaptations]]

[[AC:Anime and Manga]]

[[AC:Film]]

[[AC:Theatre]]

[[AC:Western Animation]]

[[AC:Video Games]]

!!Tropes found in ''Don Quixote'':

* AchillesInHisTent: Parodied when Don Quixote invokes this trope for no other reason that a lot of other Knights (Amadis of Gaul, Beltenebros, and Orlando) did it. At the Sierra Morena forest, Don Quixote sends Sancho with a letter to Dulcinea (his imaginary love interest) explaining to her that he will be in the forest until she forgives him… Even when Don Quixote has not made anything against her. This madness will force the Curate and the Barber to ask Dorotea to pretend to be a princess and ask Don Quixote a favour to get him out of the forest.

** The Disney film ''WesternAnimation/{{Bolt}}'' is arguably a retelling of this story with Bolt in the place of [[spoiler:Don Quixote]], Rhino filling the role of [[spoiler:Sancho Panza]], Penny playing [[spoiler:Dulcinea]], Mittens standing in for [[spoiler:Cordonza]], and the hamsterball is [[spoiler:Rocinante]]. The windmill is the [[spoiler:television show ''Bolt'']] but there is a real windmill too.
** The 2007 computer-animated film ''[[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donkey_Xote Donkey Xote]]'' is an InNameOnly adaptation told from the point of view of Sancho Panza's donkey Rucio, best known for how it blatantly rips off ''WesternAnimation/{{Shrek}}'': The donkey is clearly modeled after ''Shrek''[='s=] Donkey, and the adversiting even presented it as "From producers '''''who saw''' Shrek''."

* BeamMeUpScotty: Invoked and lampshaded: In the Preface of the Author, Part I, Cervantes's friend mentions a quote in Latin that a lot of people attributed to Horace, but Cervantes's friend [[ShownTheirWork really has done the research]], so he mentions ''"or whoever said it"''

* BornInTheWrongCentury: Surprisingly, played straight and lampshaded, not because Don Quixote wants to be a KnightInShiningArmor (Don Quixote wanted to revive a past that [[TheThemeParkVersion really never was]], a past with good and bad wizards, fierce giants, fabulous monsters, imaginary reigns, incredible dresses, poisonous snakes, terrible battles, incredible encounters, lovesick princess, funny dwarfs, squires made counts and a lot of outrageous adventures) but because he is an Hidalgo (noble). Alonso Quijano lives in the wrong century and is lampshaded in the famous ''[[AuthorFilibuster Discourse on Arms and Letters]]'', Part I, Chapter 38. Cervantes' genius let him realize that technological advances like gunpowder and artillery demanded the end of the cavalry and the initiation of new strategies and organizational forms in the armies, as well as a redefinition of the role of nobility in a society where individual courage and skill are useless, and the organization of nameless masses of soldiers (infantry) becomes important. With Don Quijote, Cervantes is saying that for him, and for all the [[BlueBlood nobility (rich or poor)]] they ''were born in the wrong century'', and they must reform or die. Though with the rise of video games and such, you could make a case for Don Quixote being, unbeknownst even to the author, born too ''early''.

--> ''…"if a hunted cat, surrounded and hard pressed, turns into a lion, God knows what I, who am a man, may turn into..."''

-->''[[DiscoDan My desire was to bring to life again]] [[KnightErrant knight-errantry]], now dead, and for some time past, stumbling here, falling there, now coming down headlong, now raising myself up again''

** Deconstructed by Sancho Panza: What happens in RealLife to the employee that cannot say anything about his master without being sarcastic? Why, Sancho is beaten by Don Quixote at chapters XX and XXV of Part I, and gives him a hurricane of insults at chapter XLVI. The problem is that a lot of people enjoys Sancho's sarcasm (he is good at it) and so he feels compelled to say it, even when he is in perilous situations, like when he denied payment to a Innkeeper (Chapter XVII part I), [[TooDumbToLive and he mocked the entire people of the Braying Town or the highwaymen of Barcelona]] (Chapters XXVII and LX of the part II) The first give him a beating, the highwaymen almost kill him.
** The only murder that is explicitly shown in this novel is the [[TooDumbToLive bandit who dared to snark to his leader]], and Andres (the flogged boy) [[WhatTheHellHero snarking about Don Quixote's]] [[ComplainingAboutRescuesTheyDontLike rescue]] is the first clue the reader has that he was an AssholeVictim all the time.
* DeathByDespair:

** Literary critics note that the second part of the book is perhaps an even more comprehensive deconstruction than Part 1, in that it tackles the thin line between fiction and reality. When Don Quixote and Sancho Panza meet aristocrats, Dukes, Kings and Village Prefects, the latter engage in petty and cruel games intended to see [[invoked]] [[JustHereForGodzilla Don Quixote do something crazy]]. In their interactions, critics from Miguel de Unamuno and Harold Bloom note, the books make a larger point that all of society essentially rests on a fiction; aristocrats have to act like aristocrats to ''be'' aristocrats when their authority and power is actually unearned and arbitrary. In the episode where Sancho Panza is made-to-believe that he's actually a governor of a small village, he proves to be far more competent than the real and actual governor of the village. The point at the end is that, Don Quixote in openly making himself a hero out of chivalry isn't anymore crazy than aristocrats making themselves rulers based on imagined lineage or traditions rather than merit.
** The nature of reality and fiction get tackled even further in the Puppet Theatre episode of Part II. Don Quixote criticizes a puppet theatre's poor staging of an event in the Crusades and keeps heckling it/stage directing to make it real. Don Quixote's constant needling and addition of details ultimately culminates in a staging so realistic that Don Quixote goes nuts and charges in and fights the puppets himself, completely falling in with the fiction he created. Likewise Don Quixote, while an annoying madman in the first book, in the sequel discovers that he's actually become a LivingLegend, with fan authors writing spurious legends of his life while Cide Hamete Benengeli is accurate but denies him royalties. In other words, Don Quixote somehow managed to become a real-life legendary hero with many alternate versions and apocrypha of his adventures spreading around.

* DirectLinetoTheAuthor: Cervantes (only referred in the book as "the second author") says that the book was based on some manuscripts he found made by an Arab, Cide Hamete Benengeli (or Sidi Ahmed bin Engeli, as it would be rendered today) whose first name, "Cide", could be translated as "Mister", and whose last name is [[PunnyName a pun]] on "berenjena" (eggplant/aubergine), and translated to Spanish by an anonymous Arab translator. This is parody of how a lot of chivalry books have his authors claim that they are based in an old manuscript found in an ancient pyramid or another ruined building in some faraway country, written in an exotic language by a wise, famed wizard who favored the hero of the novel. Those claims are made to feign that the chivalry book was inspired by real events. Cervantes twist this and uses it to a comic effect, explaining that the next part of the novel was found in some pamphlets and papers (only a few years old) found in Alcaná de Toledo (a real city in Spain) in a silk mercer store, written in Arabic (a fairly known language in Spain) by a (foolish) boy who didn't know what was written in them and so sold the papers to Cervantes for peanuts. If we include the funny name of the wizard and the fact that the [[UnreliableNarrator second author, the translator and Cide Hamete Benengeli are always making comments about the book]], we can see that Cervantes want us to admit that all this tale is a long sequence of lies and nonsense... just like all the chivalry books.
* DiscoDan: Deconstructed: Don Quixote's obsession with ChivalricRomance leaves him mentally stuck in an era that barely even existed, and by the time of TheCavalierYears is DeaderThanDisco: few people at Spain know, and even less care, what an KnightErrant is. So, Don Quixote has to explain what a Knight Errant is every time and again throught the first part of the novel. First he makes {{Character Filibuster}}s, then he makes his explanations shorter, and then comes chapter XLVII when Don Quixote is tired and gives up:

* TheDulcineaEffect: ''Don Quixote'', pretty much the {{Trope Maker|s}} -and {{Trope Namer|s}}- for this, is a parody of this trope. The hero Don Quixote, who believes himself to be a knight, claims to serve a beautiful, virtuous young lady, Dulcinea (really named Aldonza Lorenzo, but Don Quixote doesn't care), who is, in fact, nothing more than a peasant from his hometown, and, in some adaptations, a whore. Interestingly, in the original novel as well as in most adaptations, the actual character Dulcinea makes not a single appearance. He knows that the lady is nothing more than a excuse for the hero to have adventures, so he imagines his lady and begins to live his dreams!

** Don Quixote mentions the Nine Worthies: Nine characters who personified the ideal values of a brave knight. They were three pagans (Alexander The Great, Hector and Julius Ceasar), three Jewish (Joshua, Salomon and Juda Maccabee) and three Christians (King Arthur, Charlomagne and Godfrey of Bouillion). All of those figures are still very well-known, but most people are not familiar with the idea of all of them united in a single rethoric concept. When Quixote was wounded by some BadassBystander and helped by some neighbor, and the neighbor claims Don Quixote is not a KnightErrant, Don Quixote claims: "I know who I am," and adds, "and I know that I may be not only those I have named, but all the [[Literature/TheSongofRoland Twelve Peers of France]] and even all the Nine Worthies, since my achievements surpass all that they have done all together and each of them on his own account." Justified, since Quixote is FanDumb about ChivalricRomance and he must know everything about [[KnightErrant knights errant]]. The real ironic part is that in-universe Quixote is only a LoonyFan who cannot match them, but in RealLife, more people know who is Don Quixote that the Nine Worthies… so this BadassBoast became HilariousInHindsight.

* GeniusDitz: Don Quixote, despite his reputation as a crazy, is highly intelligent, and several characters who come across him note that he occassionally sounds rational and sane before going off tangent on his chivalric ideals. Several characters who later trick him note that he's fairly astute about the minor points that concern a given situation but neglects the bigger picture altogether.

--> '' "A nice sort of historian, indeed!" exclaimed Sancho at this; "he must know a deal about our affairs when he calls my wife Teresa Panza, Mari Gutierrez; take the book again, senor, and see if I am in it and if he has changed my name."''

* HourglassPlot: In the first part of the novel, Don Quixote is a DaydreamBeliever MadDreamer and Sancho Panza has SimplemindedWisdom and represents realism. Both are {{Static Character}}s. At the second part, Sancho is influenced by Don Quixote and becomes more and more of a DaydreamBeliever, while at the end, Don Quixote will become BoredWithInsanity by Sancho's influence. The relevance is that they maybe were the very first characters in literature to use this trope and become {{Dynamic Character}}s.

---> ''I would have thee know, Sancho, that the famous Amadis of Gaul was one of the most perfect knights-errant—I am wrong to say he was one; he stood alone, the first, the only one, the lord of all that were in the world in his time. A fig for Don Belianis, and for all who say he equalled him in any respect, for, my oath upon it, they are deceiving themselves! ... In the same way Amadis was the polestar, day-star, sun of valiant and devoted knights, whom all we who fight under the banner of love and chivalry are bound to imitate.''

** Parodied at Chapter XVIII, Part I. Since Creator/{{Homer}}, the description of the forces and the generals of an army was an important part of the heroic literature, and books of chivalry were pleased to develop it, (Amadis of Gaul has a similar scene). In that chapter, Don Quixote describes what he sees at two contending armies to Sancho, who can see… only two droves of sheep.

** PlayedForDrama when Dorothea recounts how she agreed to sleep with Don Fernando, son of the Duke, under a promise of marriage, she was constantly MovingTheGoalposts. In restrospect, Dorothea realizes that when Don Fernando answered “yes” to all her demands, [[TheCakeIsALie that was the proof that he would fulfill none of them]].

*** In Part I, Chapter I: Bernardo del Carpio is one of Alonso Quixano's favorite knights, because he found the way to defeat [[NighInvulnerable Roland]] [[AWizardDidIt the enchanted]]: instead of attacking him with a sword, [[CombatPragmatist Bernardo simply strangled Roland]]… Cool, isn’t it? [[TheOldestOnesInTheBook But not as cool as the first time this tale was told]], [[UnreliableNarrator as our narrator]] [[LampshadeHanging reminds us]],
*** In Part I, Chapter I: The giant Morgante is one of Alonso Quixano’s favorite characters, because despite being a giant, (and in the chivalry books all giants are arrogant and angry), he is affable and well bred… It’s cool, isn’t it? the whole point is that Alonso Quixano think’s [[ArchetypalCharacter this kind of character]] is original of his beloved chivalry books, but really [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint_Christopher it's not]].

** Better examples are the unnamed ecclesiastic from chapter XXXI and the unnamed Castilian for chapter LXII, both from part II. They are the only ones who publicly recognize that Don Quixote is a crazy fool, and lampshade that everyone who makes jokes on him is also a crazy fool too.
* OutOfCharacterMoment: Lampshaded: In the first part, it's very clear that Sancho Panza is a naïve simpleton. In the second part, Sancho suddenly says very intelligent things to his wife. [[DirectLineToTheAuthor One of the "narrators" of this tale]], seeing this inconsistence, decides to [[LampshadeHanging warn us]]: ''"The translator of this history, when he comes to write this fifth chapter, says that he considers it apocryphal, because in it Sancho Panza speaks in a style unlike that which might have been expected from his limited intelligence, and says things so intelligent that he does not think it possible he could have conceived them; however, desirous of doing what his task imposed upon him, he was unwilling to leave it untranslated, and therefore he went on to say":'' This could be considered the beginning of Sancho's slow transformation into a [[SimplemindedWisdom wiser person]].

* RashomonStyle: At chapter XII of Part I, Don Quixote hears conflicted versions of the story of Chrysostom and Marcela in his way to Chrysostom's funeral: Shepherd Pedro thinks Marcela is a good person. Ambrosio, Chrysostom's best friend, calls her cruel, but admits it's an InformedFlaw. Chrysostom poem claims he is a LoveMartyr and Marcela is a cruel IceQueen. At the end, Marcela claims she is SoBeautifulItsACurse and he has the right, as a free woman, to reject anyone. Nobody says, but everybody implies, SpurnedIntoSuicide
* RealAfterAll: Sancho Panza is fooled by the Duke to assume a governorship (really a complicated series of MassiveMultiplayerScam just to prank Sancho). When Sancho patrols his Insula, he is victim of various prankers, except for the last one, a SweetPollyOliver that no one knows, who is a girl who has escaped his GildedCage, to all the pranksters' confusion.

* SarcasticDevotee: Deconstructed by Sancho Panza: What happens in RealLife to the employee that cannot say anything about his master without being sarcastic? Why, Sancho is beaten by Don Quixote at chapters XX and XXV of Part I, and gives him a hurricane of insults at chapter XLVI. The problem is that a lot of people enjoys Sancho's sarcasm (he is good at it) and so he feels compelled to say it, even when he is in perilous situations, like when he denied payment to a Innkeeper (Chapter XVII part I), [[TooDumbToLive and he mocked the entire people of the Braying Town or the highwaymen of Barcelona]] (Chapters XXVII and LX of the part II) The first give him a beating, the highwaymen almost kill him.
* SatireParodyPastiche:

* SeriesContinuityError: For a book that only has one continuation, there are various examples of those errors. Then again, Cervantes was mocking [[FanDumb those fans who put too much attention to continuity]]… There are two types:

* SelfProclaimedKnight: Defied, but played straight: Don Quixote is truly GenreSavvy at ChivalricRomance books. Chapter III shows him aware of this trope and he tries to defy it when he insists to [[ThePresentsWereNeverFromSanta an innkeeper (who he thinks is a castellan)]] [[{{Knighting}} to knight him after he has watched his armor in the castle chapel -- that is, in the stable of the inn]]. So Don Quixote believes he has averted this trope. However, ''Las partidas de Alfonso el Sabio'', the spanish chivalry code, states that a man cannot be knighted if he is too poor or if he is knighted as a joke… so, Don Quixote, being an ImpoverishedPatrician [[{{Irony}} trying to defy this trope, only has enforced it]].

** '''Don Quixote:''' Type I: The very last stage of Alonso Quixano's obsession with chivalry books and the first stage of his true madness (and also to show exactly how out of touch with reality he really is): Part I, Chapter I shows us how important are the chivalry books for him: he will have given his housekeeper and his niece to kick that traitor of Ganelon. ([[BetrayalTropes Ganelon]] was the guy who betrayed [[Literature/TheSongOfRoland Roland at Roncesvalles]] and who becomes, with [[Myth/KingArthur Mordred]] and [[UsefulNotes/{{Jesus}} Judas]], one of the great exemplars of treachery for the mediæval period).

* ServileSnarker: Deconstructed by Sancho Panza: What happens in RealLife to the employee that cannot say anything about his master without being sarcastic? Why, Sancho is beaten by Don Quixote at chapters XX and XXV of Part I, and gives him a hurricane of insults at chapter XLVI. The problem is that a lot of people enjoys Sancho's sarcasm (he is good at it) and so he feels compelled to say it, even when he is in perilous situations, like when he denied payment to a Innkeeper (Chapter XVII part I), [[TooDumbToLive and he mocked the entire people of the Braying Town or the highwaymen of Barcelona]] (Chapters XXVII and LX of the part II) The first give him a beating, the highwaymen almost kill him.

* SuperheroSobriquets: Don Quixote is given one by Sancho Panza: "The Knight of the Sorrowful Face".[[note]](or "Sad Countenance"/"Rueful Figure"), Edith Grossman's translation places it as "Sorrowful"[[/note]] The reason is, as Sancho says, he had never seen a sadder face than that of Don Quixote's. Later, after the incident with the lions, Sancho calls him, without irony, as "The Knight of the Lions".

** [[NoNameGiven The daughter of Don Pedro de la Llana]] parodies this trope: TheIngenue who has been in a GildedCage all his life and asked his brother to show her the world... that is, the little town they live... at night. Justified because she is JustAKid who has lived in a GildedCage and really doesn’t know better.

** Played straight when the Canon makes a small CharacterFilibuster asking for a law to regulate Theatre at Spain and so avoid excesses and revenge between actors and society that is obviously an AuthorFilibuster from Cervantes himself.

* UndyingLoyalty: Sancho Panza claims to have this for Don Quixote… even when Sancho considers several times in the book to left Don Quixote service, but he is so fond of him he never does it.

-->'''For the love of God, sir knight-errant, if you ever meet me again, though you may see them cutting me to pieces, give me no aid or succour, but leave me to my misfortune, which will not be so great but that a greater will come to me by being helped by your worship, on whom and all the knights-errant that have ever been born God send his curse''
* UnreliableNarrator: Several layers of this, actually. Lampshaded, even: In the very first paragraph, Don Quixote's literary portrait has the narrator NOT telling us the name of Don Quixote's town, and the narrator admits he doesn't know very well if his name was Quixada, Quesada or Quexana. For the people of the seventeen century, this was an infringement of a very well known rule of the literary portrait, and so they immediately had the real impression that the author was a liar. Also, [[DirectLineToTheAuthor the original author (Cide Hamete Benengeli) and the Translator (an anonymous Moor)]] comment the text when the plot is being implausible, and the second author (Cervantes), [[SuspiciouslySpecificDenial constantly remind us that this is a true history]]. All these tricks show that Cervantes clearly want the reader realizes that this tale cannot be true. Not to mention the fact that the so called original author has an Arabic name. At that time in Spain, Arabs were thought to be liars.

* WideEyedIdealist: This trope is severely deconstructed with Don Quixote: In the first part, Don Quixote cares more for fulfilling his fantasies than for anyone else. He is sure that the farmer Haduldo will keep his promise to stop flogging the boy Andrés, and that the Galley slaves he liberates will be grateful enough to do him a favor. (They're not). His actions make him the original LordErrorProne. In the second part is even worse: he really acts ForHappiness and after some MassiveMultiplayerScam aventures that convince him he is a real KnightErrant he must face the sad fact that he has not helped anyone and therefore, all those ChivalricRomance tropes were BlatantLies. This is so heartbreaking that he becomes BoredWithInsanity and dies. Being called "Quixotic" is not always a good thing.
* WindmillCrusader: Don Quixote is the trope namer, who will go down in literary history as the deluded self-proclaimed knight who mistook a bunch of windmills for wicked giants and tried to attack one with his lance. This is only the most famous of many cases where his mind creates imaginary villains out of mundane or innocuous things, all because he is so eager to win glory through heroic deeds.

* YouWatchTooMuchX: Even when Quixote could be the UrExample and {{Trope Maker|s}} for this trope, in the novel this is a UnbuiltTrope: the {{Stock Phrase|s}} never appears in the novel, and Don Quixote is not GenreSavvy but WrongGenreSavvy: When in some situation Don Quixote comments about how similar situation have happened in the tales he has read in his chivalry books , the people hearing him don't answer with "You read too much X". Even so, there are some examples that are very near to this situation, and the fact that Don Quixote read too much and that drove him to believe that he was a knight errant is the core of the novel, and is lampshaded by the narrator since the very beginning (Chapter I Part I).

->“En un lugar de la Mancha, de cuyo nombre no quiero acordarme, no ha mucho tiempo que vivía un hidalgo de los de lanza en astillero, adarga antigua, rocín flaco y galgo corredor.”

* {{Bookends}}: At chapter I of the first part, Don Quixote spends [[SeriousBusiness four days thinking how to]] [[MeaningfulRename give his horse a new name, and another eight days how to rename himself]], showing us that he is a MadDreamer. At the penultimate chapter of the second part, Don Quixote immediately thinks of the names he and his partners will adopt as shepherds, and Sanson Carrasco even says some names in a carelessly manner. Don Quixote ''laughed at the adaptation of the name'', showing us that he now is BoredWithInsanity.

* BornInTheWrongCentury: Surprisingly, played straight and lampshaded, not because Don Quixote wants to be a KnightInShiningArmor (Don Quixote wanted to revive a past that [[TheThemeParkVersion really never was]], a past with good and bad wizards, fierce giants, fabulous monsters, imaginary reigns, incredible dresses, poisonous snakes, terrible battles, incredible encounters, lovesick princess, funny dwarfs, squires made counts and a lot of outrageous adventures) but because he is an Hidalgo (noble). Alonso Quijano lives in the wrong century and is lampshaded in the famous ''[[AuthorFilibuster Discourse on Arms and Letters]]'', Part I, Chapter 38. Cervantes' genius let him realize that technological advances like the gunpowder and the artillery demanded the end of the cavalry and the initiation of new strategies and organizational forms in the armies, as well as a redefinition of the role of nobility in a society where individual courage and skill are useless, and the organization of nameless masses of soldiers (infantry) becomes important. With Don Quijote, Cervantes is saying that for him, and for all the [[BlueBlood nobility (rich or poor)]] they ''were born in the wrong century'', and they must reform or die. Though with the rise of video games and such, you could make a case for Don Quixote being, unbeknownst even to the author, born too ''early''.

* DiscoDan: Deconstructed: Don Quixote's obsession with ChivalricRomance leaves him mentally stuck in an era that barely even existed, and at TheCavalierYears is DeaderThanDisco: few people at Spain know, and even less care, what an KnightErrant is. So, Don Quixote has to explain what a Knight Errant is every time and again throught the first part of the novel. First he makes {{Character Filibuster}}s, then he makes his explanations shorter, and then comes chapter XLVII when Don Quixote is tired and gives up:

* BookBurning: A subversion of this trope given that books ''then'' [[NewMediaAreEvil were new media]]: Don Quixote's niece and OldRetainer asked the {{Moral Guardian}}s' permission to do the book burning in a desperate attempt to cure him. The moral guardians are the most educated people in the village (a curate and a barber), they never wanted to impose their ideas and are doing this as a favor to the family, so they don't care much for this book burning. And a lot of those are really bad written books that destroyed Don Quixote's mind, [[FamilyUnfriendlyAesop and the good books were stolen by]] the moral guardians.

* MadDreamer: The first part of the novel settles Don Quixote as LordErrorProne. Fandom insisted to see him as the UrExample of the much more sympathetic Mad Dreamer. [[UnbuiltTrope Cervantes wanted to explore all ramifications of this new trope]]: Don Quixote is welcomed by people of all classes... because they want to mock him. One character even gives the FamilyUnfriendlyAesop that ''"the gain by Don Quixote's sanity can never equal the enjoyment his crazes give"''.

* WindmillCrusader: DonQuixote is the trope namer, who will go down in literary history as the deluded self-proclaimed knight who mistook a bunch of windmills for wicked giants and tried to attack one with his lance. This is only the most famous of many cases where his mind creates imaginary villains out of mundane or innocuous things, all because he is so eager to win glory through heroic deeds.

* {{Cliffhanger}}: Parodied by the end of Part I, chapter 8: that chapter ends with a dramatic description of Don Quixote and a poor innocent bystander charging at each other... only to have the next chapter start with [[UnreliableNarrator the narrator]] telling us that he doesn't have [[LiteraryAgentHypothesis the page in the original manuscript that describes the fight]], and wasting three pages telling us how he could get the next part. The critics have said that the cliffhanger was a regular resource of the chivalry books.

* LiteraryAgentHypothesis: Cervantes (only referred in the book as "the second author") says that the book was based on some manuscripts he found made by an Arab, Cide Hamete Benengeli (or Sidi Ahmed bin Engeli, as it would be rendered today) whose first name, "Cide", could be translated as "Mister", and whose last name is [[PunnyName a pun]] on "berenjena" (eggplant/aubergine), and translated to Spanish by an anonymous Arab translator. This is parody of how a lot of chivalry books have his authors claim that they are based in an old manuscript found in an ancient pyramid or another ruined building in some faraway country, written in an exotic language by a wise, famed wizard who favored the hero of the novel. Those claims are made to feign that the chivalry book was inspired by real events. Cervantes twist this and uses it to a comic effect, explaining that the next part of the novel was found in some pamphlets and papers (only a few years old) found in Alcaná de Toledo (a real city in Spain) in a silk mercer store, written in Arabic (a fairly known language in Spain) by a (foolish) boy who didn't know what was written in them and so sold the papers to Cervantes for peanuts. If we include the funny name of the wizard and the fact that the [[UnreliableNarrator second author, the translator and Cide Hamete Benengeli are always making comments about the book]], we can see that Cervantes want us to admit that all this tale is a long sequence of lies and nonsense... just like all the chivalry books.

* OutOfCharacterMoment: Lampshaded: In the first part, it's very clear that Sancho Panza is a naïve simpleton. In the second part, Sancho suddenly says very intelligent things to his wife. [[LiteraryAgentHypothesis One of the "narrators" of this tale]], seeing this inconsistence, decides to [[LampshadeHanging warn us]]: ''"The translator of this history, when he comes to write this fifth chapter, says that he considers it apocryphal, because in it Sancho Panza speaks in a style unlike that which might have been expected from his limited intelligence, and says things so intelligent that he does not think it possible he could have conceived them; however, desirous of doing what his task imposed upon him, he was unwilling to leave it untranslated, and therefore he went on to say":'' This could be considered the beginning of Sancho's slow transformation into a [[SimplemindedWisdom wiser person]].

* UnreliableNarrator: Several layers of this, actually. Lampshaded, even: In the very first paragraph, Don Quixote's literary portrait has the narrator NOT telling us the name of Don Quixote's town, and the narrator admits he doesn't know very well if his name was Quixada, Quesada or Quexana. For the people of the seventeen century, this was an infringement of a very well known rule of the literary portrait, and so they immediately had the real impression that the author was a liar. Also, [[LiteraryAgentHypothesis the original author (Cide Hamete Benengeli) and the Translator (an anonymous Moor)]] comment the text when the plot is being implausible, and the second author (Cervantes), [[SuspiciouslySpecificDenial constantly remind us that this is a true history]]. All these tricks show that Cervantes clearly want the reader realizes that this tale cannot be true. Not to mention the fact that the so called original author has an Arabic name. At that time in Spain, Arabs were thought to be liars.

--> ''"...and I know not what could have led [[LiteraryAgentHypothesis the author to have recourse to]] [[ShowWithinAShow novels]] and [[{{Filler}} irrelevant stories]], [[ItsAllAboutMe when he had so much to write about in mine; no doubt he must have gone by]] [[{{Filler}} the proverb 'with straw or with hay, etc.,' for by merely setting forth my thoughts, my sighs, my tears, my lofty purposes, my enterprises]], [[DoorStopper he might have made a volume as large, or larger than all the works of El Tostado]] [[note]]Alfonso de Madrigal, philosopher whose works "have more than twenty volumes"[[/note]] would make up"''.