Villain Becomes Hero

Another diversion is necessary to acknowledge the return of Guy Fawkes in the present day. No, it’s not his Second Coming, but there is awareness of Guy Fawkes as a role model for modern-day activists and protesters. It has come particularly from Alan Moore and David Lloyd, creators of the graphic novel “V for Vendetta,” a serial first published as a book in 1988. It imagines a ruthless Fascist regime in England in the 1990s, opposed by a lone rebel who calls himself simply V, and who always wears a mask that is a simplified adaptation of the sketches of Guy Fawkes back in the 1600s, but with a smile. The resemblance to Fawkes is emphasized at the very beginning, where unlike Fawkes he casually blows up the houses of Parliament after reciting “Remember, remember, the fifth of December” to a young woman he has just rescued from the police. The story became a movie with Hugo Weaving as V and Natalie Portman as the rescued girl Evey. The masks were used by Occupy protesters and others early in the 21st century. Rather than an arch-villain, V and the mask now signal opposition to government tyranny. This chapter briefly cites Guy Fawkes’s 19th-century adaptations and references, including the beginning of Thomas Hardy’s 1888 novel, Return of the Native.