Chivalry and superheroes

"That knight whom thou seest yonder in yellow armour, who bears upon his shield a lion crowned crouching at the feet of a damsel, is the valiant Laurcalco, lord of the Silver Bridge; that one in armour with flowers of gold, who bears on his shield three crowns argent on an azure field, is the dreaded Micocolembo, grand duke of Quirocia; that other of gigantic frame, on his right hand, is the ever dauntless Brandabarbaran de Boliche, lord of the three Arabias, who for armour wears that serpent skin, and has for shield a gate which, according to tradition, is one of those of the temple that Samson brought to the ground when by his death he revenged himself upon his enemies..."

Surely no one alive today has read as many chivalric romances as Don Quixote, or even as many as his creator, Cervantes. They were the pulp fiction of his time, and the only romances that are still in print (or, possibly, extant) are a relative handful of the best of the genre.

Still, you can get a sense of the conventions of the form by reading Don Quixote, and this has further convinced me of something I mentioned in passing in The Magician's Book, which is that the comic book superhero is the direct descendant of the knight heros of the chivalric romance. They have their characteristic costumes, their magical "weapons" (or superpowers) and their archenemies, or supervillains, the equivalent of the evil enchanters that Don Quixote perceives to be at work whenever something disastrous occurs.

According to Northrup Frye, the hero of romance is "superior in degree to other men and to his environment" (as opposed to the divine hero of myth, who is superior in kind). Frye goes on to write:

The hero of romance moves in a world in which the ordinary laws of nature are slightly suspended: prodigies of courage and endurance, unnatural to us, are natural to him, and enchanted weapons, talking animals, terrifying ogres and witches, and talismans of miraculous power violates no rule of probability once the postulates of romance have been established.

The code of the superhero -- to protect the weak -- is the equivalent to that of the knight errant, and though we now equate "chivalry" with opening doors for women, this was one of its original meanings of the word. Don Quixote keeps attempting chivalric feats, but due to his inability to distinguish fantasy from reality, he winds up thrashing innocent monks, disrupting funeral processions, robbing a barber and freeing convicts. I'm sure there's a superhero equivalent of the Don Quixote story out there, though it has yet to cross my path...