YMMV / Noli Me Tangere

• Anvilicious: Filipinos are perpetual victims. All Spaniards are venal and corrupt. Hidden Depths is nowhere to be found and the Filipinos who blindly go along with the Spaniards' insidious system are as big of a problem. If you couldn't, the negative impacts of colonialism and imperialism is treated with as much subtlety as a mack truck veering wildly off road whilst carrying a practicing brass band.^note  Seeing the situation at the time kinda justifies it more or less
• Alternate Character Interpretation: It's pretty much a given that Ibarra is Rizal's stand-in. But debates are held about whether Elias is a stand-in for Bonifacio, the leader of the Philippine revolution, or rather revolution-minded people in general^note as the novel was written years before the two heroes can be proven to have crossed paths, when Bonifacio joined Rizal's organization, though it is unconfirmed (but possible) if the two talked with each other or if he's simply another facet of Rizal as he mulls over the pros and cons of revolution through the novel.
• Common Knowledge:
  • Damaso has entered Filipino parlance to denote a tyrannical, corrupt and lecherous man of the cloth because of Father Damaso and so he's often supposed to be the main villain. The villain truly driving the plot is Father Salvi who lusts after Maria Clara and tries to get Ibarra killed or put away.
  • Also, Father Damaso is often pictured as an elderly Fat Bastard, but Rizal actually describes him as middle-aged with his hair only starting to turn gray, with a formidable appearance - square-jawed with a Herculean frame, like a Roman patrician of old. Some historians think the Fat Bastard image is from confusing/combining him with Friar Botod ("Friar Big-Belly"), from the writings of Rizal's compatriot Graciano Lopez-Jaena.
  • And "Damaso" is his first name, unlike with Father Salvi, his replacement as parish priest. He's just on first-name basis with everyone likely due to his two decades of service.
  • Sisa is often pictured as a raving, laughing madwoman often screaming her missing sons' names (see Memetic Mutation), but in the novel this happens only once and her madness rendered her mostly near-mute, able to do little else but sing songs.
• Crosses the Line Twice: The alferez is getting into another fight with the Doña, but she has barricaded herself in her room where he can safely volley insults at him. He leaves the house, then comes back in shoeless so she wouldn't hear him. The servants found their fights boring because they did it all the time, but this one piqued their interest. The Doña asks a servant boy if the alferez had left, the latter giving the signal to say he did.
  Cook: You'll pay for that.
  Servant Boy: She asked me if he had gone out, not if he had come back!
• Funny Moments:
  • The Two Señoras is pretty much a chapter long bitch fight between the high class Doña Victorina and Doña Consolacion over who was the most uncouth. The chapter begins with Doña Victorina being disappointed that "the common folk" ignore her attempts to flaunt her wealth and it ends with them enjoying the commotion.
  • The alferez, in one of his many fights against Doña Consolacion, he curses her children, which would be his.
  • Father Salvi serving hot cocoa to guests. If they're favored, he secretly signals his servant to make it thick and rich by saying "Make a cup of chocolate, eh?" while if they're deemed unimportant, he says "Make a cup of chocolate, ah?" and his servant makes it thin - eh and ah being short for esposo (thick) and aguado (watered-down).
    • Since the alferez is telling this story, the narrator thinks it may just be slander, because the same thing has been reported about many priests, or it may be a quirk of the Franciscans, of which Salvi is one.
    • Today, some dining establishments offering Spanish-style hot cocoa have adopted "Chocolate Eh" and "Chocolate Ah" on their menus, following the novel.
• Harsher in Hindsight:
  • Like Elias, Rizal himself died "without seeing the dawn", indirectly because of writing this book, and so historians discuss how much Rizal could have been a "conscious hero".
  • Several times, Rizal mentions the field of Bagumbayan in Manila, a public execution spot for political prisoners and thus already a name of dread, where he himself would be shot years later.
• Ho Yay: Ibarra and Elias. You know Elias is that devoted to Ibarra when he chooses to save him instead of avenging his family (which is basically his entire reason for living).
• It Was His Sled:
  • Sisa goes insane due to the loss of her children.
  • Father Damaso is Maria Clara's biological father. Not helped by a popular/School Study Media 1998 biopic of Rizal spoiling the twist in the wrong place and time within its segments dramatizing his novels.
• Memetic Mutation: Basilio! Crispin! It's all that really needs to be said.
• Narm: In the 1961 movie adaptation, Ibarra and Elias get into a heated argument while in a rowboat, with both of them in turn standing up and flinging an oar away. How did they get back on land? Since the movie is often School Study Media like the mandatory book, this has drawn many chuckles over the years.
• Moral Event Horizon: The head sacristan (by extension, the Catholic church during the Colonial Period) crosses this really early in the book, with their barbaric treatment of the lower sacristans and the murder of Crispin.
• Never Live It Down: In modern times, the name Sisa is synonymous with women having mental disabilities.
• Signature Scene: The dining room scene in the first two chapters, especially the part where Father Damaso is served chicken tinola that only has wing and leg parts.
• Tear Jerker:
  • The Sacristans properly introduces Basilio and Crispin, two poor boys working for the church and are deathly aware of their situation. They're starving, they haven't seen their mother in a week and Crispin is accused of stealing two gold coins (which is equal to approximately a lot of money.) Crispin, who is only seven years old knows that he's going to die because he can't get the money back. Basilio can only listen as his brother takes a savage beating, crying out for his mother and brother to save him. The chapter ends with two gunshots.
  • The people arrested from the revolution are led through the town. All of them have at least one person in the crowd who weeps for them. All of them save for Ibarra, who is treated with volleys of epithets and stones.
• Values Dissonance: Though Rizal wrote Maria Clara as the "ideal image" of the Filipino woman, modern literary critics and historians find her as "a misfortune" from the Spanish era due to being portrayed as weak and not taking an active role.
• Values Resonance: The social cancers Rizal decried in the book - corruption, moral abuses leadership, colonial mentality, blatant hypocrisy and the overwhelming political influence of organized religion - are still issues that plague the country over 130 years later. Not only that, the book and the law that backs it up encourages readers not to accept the horrible world for what it is and do what we can to eliminate the injustices brought forth by a corrupt and uncaring system.
• What Do You Mean, It's Not Symbolic?: People are still puzzled by the symbols on the cover.
• The Woobie:
  • Basilio, Sisa, and Crispin. They pretty much embody the abuse that poor Filipinos had during that time.
  • Elias, once he reveals his backstory.
  • [[spoiler Ibarra]] becomes this towards the end of the book, finally knowing what it's like to be punished for the sin of being a good person.

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