# Is Guy Fawkes an admirable figure? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [November 5, 2011, 2:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-guy-fawkes-an-admirable-figure/601923 "2011-11-05T02:21:16Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 17\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Bloody\_L](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/ac8455/32.png) [@Bloody\_L](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bloody_L)\ **Post date:** [November 7, 2011, 2:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-guy-fawkes-an-admirable-figure/601923/41 "2011-11-07T02:32:01Z")
I’m one of the people who agree that it doesn’t have to do with the real Guy Fawkes but rather what it symbolized in V for Vendetta (particularly at the end of the film). I do own one of the masks, because I am a fan of the movie and it’s message. ---
**Author:** ![Captain\_Amazing](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/6de8d8/32.png) [@Captain\_Amazing](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Captain_Amazing)\ **Post date:** [November 7, 2011, 2:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-guy-fawkes-an-admirable-figure/601923/42 "2011-11-07T02:43:20Z")
> [@Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](#): > > And Catholic monarchs generally due to various factors were more intolerant of Protestants than visa versa. For example Elizabeth I did execute Catholics but largely for trying to assassinate her rather than just for practicing Catholicism. In addition Catholic monarchs were more absolutist-it should be noted the first countries with religious tolerance and parliamentary government in modern times were largely Protestant-UK, Netherlands etc. Tell that to Fathers Edmund Campion, Ralph Sherwin, and Alexander Briant who were hanged, drawn, and quartered in 1581 for nothing more than preaching Catholicism and denying the Queen was absolute in religious matters, or in fact, any of the so called “forty martyrs of England and Wales”, who were put to death for their Catholicism, or the “eighty-five martyrs of England and Wales”, also put to death for their Catholicism, or any Catholic in Ireland affected by the Penal Laws, which said Catholics couldn’t hold office, go to universities, serve in the armed forces, vote, buy land, own horses, adopt children, teach school, or be a priest. There was a good deal of intolerance and persecution on both sides. ---
**Author:** ![An\_Gadai](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/d6d6ee/32.png) [@An\_Gadai](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/An_Gadai)\ **Post date:** [November 7, 2011, 3:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-guy-fawkes-an-admirable-figure/601923/43 "2011-11-07T03:56:46Z")
> [@Bloody\_L](#): > > I’m one of the people who agree that it doesn’t have to do with the real Guy Fawkes but rather what it symbolized in V for Vendetta (particularly at the end of the film). I do own one of the masks, because I am a fan of the movie and it’s message. I’m curious, what’s its message? ---
**Author:** ![gonzomax](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e8c25b/32.png) [@gonzomax](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gonzomax)\ **Post date:** [November 7, 2011, 4:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-guy-fawkes-an-admirable-figure/601923/44 "2011-11-07T04:30:35Z")
> [@MichaelEmouse](#): > > The people who wear it do not wear it in the name of Fawkes but in the name of Anonymous. Anonymous members do not wear it because they think highly of Fawkes, they wear it because it looked cool in V for Vendetta and because it has become an Anonymous symbol. Many wear it or cloths over their faces because of the police using facial recognition software. They don’t want the police to start a file on them. ---
**Author:** ![kevlaw](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kevlaw/32/2281_2.png) [@kevlaw](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kevlaw)\ **Post date:** [November 7, 2011, 4:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-guy-fawkes-an-admirable-figure/601923/45 "2011-11-07T04:35:39Z")
> [@An\_Gadai](#): > > I’m curious, what’s its message? The movie’s message is that a tiny minority can rule over the majority using fear and propaganda…but only if the majority let them. ---
**Author:** ![Lobohan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lobohan/32/79_2.png) [@Lobohan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lobohan)\ **Post date:** [November 7, 2011, 4:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-guy-fawkes-an-admirable-figure/601923/46 "2011-11-07T04:35:58Z")
> [@An\_Gadai](#): > > I’m curious, what’s its message? The primary message is that Natalie Portman is still really hot, even when she’s bald. But the secondary message I think he’s getting at is that social change isn’t brought about by one mutant with super-strength and knives. It’s brought about by the mass and unity of a movement. At the end of the film, there are many thousands, or perhaps millions of people wearing their Fawkes masks in the streets, and the government structure in the film is terrified of the wide-spread uprising. Of course this assumes the government isn’t willing to start bombing its own civilians. ---
**Author:** ![Revenant\_Threshold](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/f1d935/32.png) [@Revenant\_Threshold](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Revenant_Threshold)\ **Post date:** [November 7, 2011, 1:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-guy-fawkes-an-admirable-figure/601923/47 "2011-11-07T13:29:13Z")
> [@Captain\_Amazing](#): > > Tell that to Fathers Edmund Campion, Ralph Sherwin, and Alexander Briant who were hanged, drawn, and quartered in 1581 for nothing more than preaching Catholicism and denying the Queen was absolute in religious matters, or in fact, any of the so called “forty martyrs of England and Wales”, who were put to death for their Catholicism, or the “eighty-five martyrs of England and Wales”, also put to death for their Catholicism, or any Catholic in Ireland affected by the Penal Laws, which said Catholics couldn’t hold office, go to universities, serve in the armed forces, vote, buy land, own horses, adopt children, teach school, or be a priest. > > There was a good deal of intolerance and persecution on both sides. Worth noting that Catholics get part of their bad rap for those times from the fact that the Protestants eventually “won”, at least when it comes to Britain. They got to write the history. ---
**Author:** ![villa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/bc79bd/32.png) [@villa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/villa)\ **Post date:** [November 7, 2011, 1:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-guy-fawkes-an-admirable-figure/601923/48 "2011-11-07T13:55:52Z")
> [@Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](#): > > No he was a clericalist traitor who desired to suppress the Reformation in England and assassinate the monarch. So I’m confused. Clericalist is bad. Wanted to assassinate the monarch is good. Do you like this guy or not - you are sending mixed messages. My local town when I was a nipper had a huge torchlit procession for GF day. There were always two effigies to be burned: one of young Guido and the other of the Pope. Wonder if they still do that… It’s probably illegal now. ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [November 7, 2011, 2:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-guy-fawkes-an-admirable-figure/601923/49 "2011-11-07T14:35:46Z")
> [@Sage\_Rat](#): > > That Brits like to blow themselves up, and have done so regularly for the last couple of centuries is indeed a cultural difference, but I’m not sure that I’d talk that one up as a good thing. I dunno if it’s just me, but do _most_ futuristic British dystopia fictions involve fascism? The only example offhand I can think of where the bugaboo was runaway communism was _1984_. Since then, it’s been mostly “American-style capitalism/racism/fundamentalism is coming to get us!” over and over. Geez, lighten up, Tommy… ---
**Author:** ![Revenant\_Threshold](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/f1d935/32.png) [@Revenant\_Threshold](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Revenant_Threshold)\ **Post date:** [November 7, 2011, 2:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-guy-fawkes-an-admirable-figure/601923/50 "2011-11-07T14:38:23Z")
> [@Bryan\_Ekers](#): > > I dunno if it’s just me, but do _most_ futuristic British dystopia fictions involve fascism? The only example offhand I can think of where the bugaboo was runaway communism was _1984_. Since then, it’s been mostly “American-style capitalism/racism/fundamentalism is coming to get us!” over and over. Geez, lighten up, Tommy… Judge Dredd is pretty damn fascistic, off the top of my head. ---
**Author:** ![Kobal2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kobal2/32/20_2.png) [@Kobal2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kobal2)\ **Post date:** [November 7, 2011, 2:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-guy-fawkes-an-admirable-figure/601923/51 "2011-11-07T14:43:25Z")
There is also this obscure comic about a guy who has some sort of mask related to a historical character of sorts… title’s on the tip of my tongue… 😉 ---
**Author:** ![villa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/bc79bd/32.png) [@villa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/villa)\ **Post date:** [November 7, 2011, 2:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-guy-fawkes-an-admirable-figure/601923/52 "2011-11-07T14:46:14Z")
> [@Bryan\_Ekers](#): > > I dunno if it’s just me, but do _most_ futuristic British dystopia fictions involve fascism? The only example offhand I can think of where the bugaboo was runaway communism was _1984_. Since then, it’s been mostly “American-style capitalism/racism/fundamentalism is coming to get us!” over and over. Geez, lighten up, Tommy… Well we never wet ourselves over the "threat"of communism in the same way. And we had a bit of history, that was pretty formative to many of our writers where there was a significant danger out a fascist takeover. During the height of the cold war, though, you could find fiction re commie takeovers. Golgotha by John Gardner springs to mind. 1984 wasn’t really about the threat of communism , though. It was about totalitarianism, and Stalinism in particular.Orwell was a pretty hard core socialist himself. ---
**Author:** ![Kobal2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kobal2/32/20_2.png) [@Kobal2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kobal2)\ **Post date:** [November 7, 2011, 2:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-guy-fawkes-an-admirable-figure/601923/53 "2011-11-07T14:56:35Z")
> [@villa](#): > > Well we never wet ourselves over the "threat"of communism in the same way. And we had a bit of history, that was pretty formative to many of our writers where there was a significant danger out a fascist takeover. Specifically the Thatcher years. At the time Alan Moore wrote _V_ he was genuinely scared that she would usher a thoroughly unpleasant era for the UK considering her popularity, her authoritarinism, and the fact it seemed she was all the more popular the more authoritarian she got. I’m sure he wasn’t the only one. ---
**Author:** ![villa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/bc79bd/32.png) [@villa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/villa)\ **Post date:** [November 7, 2011, 2:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-guy-fawkes-an-admirable-figure/601923/54 "2011-11-07T14:59:19Z")
> [@Kobal2](#): > > Specifically the Thatcher years. > At the time Alan Moore wrote _V_ he was genuinely scared that she would usher a thoroughly unpleasant era for the UK considering her popularity, her authoritarinism, and the fact it seemed she was all the more popular the more authoritarian she got. I’m sure he wasn’t the only one. Yeah the preface to V makes that clear. But I was talking a few years earlier. ---
**Author:** ![Bytegeist](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/9dc877/32.png) [@Bytegeist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bytegeist)\ **Post date:** [November 7, 2011, 3:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-guy-fawkes-an-admirable-figure/601923/55 "2011-11-07T15:48:12Z")
By the way, was Fawkes’ mission a suicidal one? Was he there in the cellar to detonate the gunpowder by torch, expecting to die in the process — or did he have a fuse to light so that he could escape in time? Better yet — did he have a digital detonator with red LED numbers, ticking down the seconds, with the authorities finding him just as the counter reached single digits? ---
**Author:** ![SanVito](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sanvito/32/2805_2.png) [@SanVito](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SanVito)\ **Post date:** [November 7, 2011, 4:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-guy-fawkes-an-admirable-figure/601923/56 "2011-11-07T16:54:43Z")
> [@Bytegeist](#): > > By the way, was Fawkes’ mission a suicidal one? Was he there in the cellar to detonate the gunpowder by torch, expecting to die in the process — or did he have a fuse to light so that he could escape in time? > > Better yet — did he have a digital detonator with red LED numbers, ticking down the seconds, with the authorities finding him just as the counter reached single digits? Haha. It’s been a while since I read [The Gunpowder plot](http://www.amazon.co.uk/Gunpowder-Plot-Terror-Faith-1605/dp/0753814013) but I ‘think’ he was there to guard and maybe light the fuse, but not to blow himself up. ---
**Author:** ![Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/f04885/32.png) [@Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Qin_Shi_Huangdi)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2011, 3:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-guy-fawkes-an-admirable-figure/601923/57 "2011-11-08T03:48:51Z")
> [@villa](#): > > So I’m confused. Clericalist is bad. Wanted to assassinate the monarch is good. Do you like this guy or not - you are sending mixed messages. > > My local town when I was a nipper had a huge torchlit procession for GF day. There were always two effigies to be burned: one of young Guido and the other of the Pope. Wonder if they still do that… It’s probably illegal now. I never said assassinating a monarch was good. 😕 > [@Captain\_Amazing](#): > > Tell that to Fathers Edmund Campion, Ralph Sherwin, and Alexander Briant who were hanged, drawn, and quartered in 1581 for nothing more than preaching Catholicism and denying the Queen was absolute in religious matters, or in fact, any of the so called “forty martyrs of England and Wales”, who were put to death for their Catholicism, or the “eighty-five martyrs of England and Wales”, also put to death for their Catholicism, or any Catholic in Ireland affected by the Penal Laws, which said Catholics couldn’t hold office, go to universities, serve in the armed forces, vote, buy land, own horses, adopt children, teach school, or be a priest. > > There was a good deal of intolerance and persecution on both sides. I agree. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-guy-fawkes-an-admirable-figure/601923.md?page=2)