I'm in ur former colony, appropriating ur holiday.*

[alexandraerin]

As an American, my first exposure to Guy Fawkes came from a fantasy novel by Diana Wynne Jones, Witch Week. It wasn't a very sympathetic portrayal... it postulated that Fawkes's failure was a multiversal constant to the point that if there was a universe wherein the plot he undertook succeeded, it would be the equivalent of a Crisis-level reality fracturing event.

It's still possibly a better portrayal than the rather unflattering portrayal that Google has chosen to put on their main page for Bonfire Day.

---

*Note: Nebraska was never actually a colony.

Comments

[arielstarshadow.livejournal.com]

They had Big Bird on there yesterday, so there must be some sort of Sesame Street anniversary going on this week. I don't think Cookie Monster is meant to relate to November 5th. :)

[janewilliams20.livejournal.com]

The hover text says "40th anniversary of Sesame Street". Has it really been going that long?

[janewilliams20.livejournal.com]

A friend of mine has a sig that mentions "Guy Fawkes - the only man ever to enter Parliament with honest intentions"

[spes-abrin.livejournal.com]

That's awesome! :)

[ionicaq.livejournal.com]

Why is the 40th anniversary of Sesame Street offensive to Bonfire Day...?

[jupiterrhode.livejournal.com]

I assume Ms. Erin is being facetious about the Google image thing choosing to honor Sesame street rather than Fawkes. But maybe there really was an offensive picture that I didn't see before the cookie monster went up.

[brenda-ea.livejournal.com]

Witch Week was the first I ever heard of Guy Fawkes as well! Funny, I just finished reading the latest Chrestomanci book...

[thegreenyear.livejournal.com]

oddly, witch week was also my first exposure to guy fawkes.

[mazzon.livejournal.com]

I can't help but be amused by how positively people nowadays regard Fawkes while at the same time hating and fearing terrorists so much. The guy was a terrorist, he tried to blow up a big house full of people. The traditional way to celebrate his memory is to burn him in effigy.
But yeah, I suppose a couple of works of fiction that depict him or someone fashioned after him in some way positively count for more than that. Carry on.

[brenda-ea.livejournal.com]

The fiction we were discussing doesn't portray him as anything other than "someone who blew up the houses of Parliament"!

[alexandraerin.livejournal.com]

What an utter non sequitur.

There is nothing especially positive or negative in regards to Guy Fawkes in my post, and the only fictional portrayal referenced is clearly negative. Witch Week didn't only portray Fawkes as a terrorist, it portrayed him as one who was a congenital loser to the point where if he had succeeded at anything in his life it would break the entire world to pieces.

Of course, had I penned a screed against Guy Fawkes along those lines, I'm sure you would have responded about how sad it is that people are still swallowing four centuries-old pro-government propaganda or something of that nature.

I don't believe you have actual opinions, or at least, I don't believe you're sharing them when you comment. You're just going around shitting on people, and you do it at a subtle/ambiguous enough level that it's hard to unambiguously label you a troll.

Whatever, I'm done with you now. Go play your games somewhere else.

[andy9306.livejournal.com]

This is also where I first came across him. I had forgotten the title of the book though... I wonder if there aren't a few left in the series for me to read....

[zathras-ix.livejournal.com]

http://www.colbertnation.com/the-colbert-report-videos/255184/november-05-2009/guy-fawkers