V For Vendetta: The Historical Significance Of November 5th

Here’s the historical significance behind the date of November 5th in V For Vendetta. Alan Moore is the acclaimed author behind classic graphic novels like Watchmen and V For Vendetta, but he’s had a famously fraught relationship with movie adaptations of his work and claims to have sold the rights to movies based on his material believing they’d never get made. The first two films based on his works were 2001’s From Hell and 2003’s The League Of Extraordinary Gentlemen, which both bore little resemblance to the source material and Moore himself refused to endorse or watch them.

Alan Moore’s attitude to films based on his work grew more fractured after the late screenwriter Larry Cohen filed a lawsuit against Moore and the studio over The League Of Extraordinary Gentlemen, claiming it plagiarised one of his unproduced scripts. The studio settled the suit, which angered Moore greatly as he wanted the chance to exonerate his name. Since then, he’s refused to watch, take credit or profit in any way from adaptations based around his work, including 2005’s Constantine and Watchmen.

This extended to V For Vendetta, the 2006 movie based on his graphic novel, with Moore being quick to deny assertions by the movie’s producer he was in any way connected to it. Regardless, this adaptation was a solid success and received good reviews, and its themes and political commentary has only seen it become timelier in the years since its release. The character of V (Hugo Weaving) is an anarchist looking to topple a fascist government in a futuristic Britain. He dons a Guy Fawkes mask and plans to blow up Parliament, and he quotes The Fifth of November rhyme throughout the story.

Both the V For Vendetta graphic novel and movie draw on the Gunpowder Plot from 1605, where a group of English Catholics conspired to blow up the Houses of Parliament. This was a plot to assassinate the Protestant King James with barrels of gunpowder placed under the building in the hopes of installing a new ruler more sympathetic to their beliefs. The Gunpowder Plot was instigated by Robert Catesby, with Guy Fawkes recruited as an explosives expert. The aim was to blow up Parliament on the 5th of November, but the conspiracy was discovered due to an anonymous letter and Fawkes was arrested under Parliament with the gunpowder barrels.

Fawkes then endured days of torture before confessing to the plot and its aims, and in the subsequent weeks, the other conspirators were either killed by authorities or captured and sentenced to death. Fawkes was sentenced to be hung, drawn and quartered, though he escaped the horrible fate of the latter part when he fell and broke his neck. November 5th was later declared a day of celebration to mark the King’s survival and the plot’s failure, and Guy Fawkes Night is still celebrated in Britain to this day with the lighting of bonfires and fireworks. Guy Fawkes has become a political icon too and his mask, as seen in V For Vendetta, has since been widely adopted as an anti-fascist symbol by groups like Anonymous or pro-democracy demonstrators in Hong Kong.

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Padraig Cotter
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It’s pronounced Paw-rick, not Pad-raig. Now that’s out of the way, a brief introduction. Padraig has been writing about film online since 2012, when a friend asked if he’d like to contribute the occasional review or feature to their site.

A part-time hobby soon blossomed into a career when he discovered he really loved writing about movies, TV and video games – he even (arguably) had a little bit of talent for it. He has written words for Den of Geek, Collider, The Irish Times and Screen Rant over the years, and can discuss anything from the MCU – where Hawkeye is clearly the best character – to the most obscure cult b-movie gem, and his hot takes often require heat resistant gloves to handle.

He’s super modern too, so his favorite movies include Jaws, Die Hard, The Thing, Ghostbusters and Batman. He can be found as i_Padds on Twitter making bad puns.

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