When I first became familiar with the story of Don Quixote, he seemed childish and delusional to me – I did not understand the reasons as to why he would go on the adventures that he did and how he seriously thought of himself as a knight when he obviously wasn’t one. It made him seem as though he was a little child, being obsessed with fictional stories and believing they could be true in the real world.
However, after watching this video response, explaining how Don Quixote is actually an admirable character in some ways, made me see him differently. The narrator brought to my attention how some of the most notable people in history probably seemed crazy to those around them at the time. In fact, their rejection to what was perceived to be realistic (as how Don Quixote does) was what made them so great. The narrator used the Wright brothers as an example. Who would’ve thought that traveling through the air was even a possibility in their times? Probably not very many people. But that didn’t stop them from being successful in inventing one of the most unimaginable forms of transportation – the airplane.
This dismissal of reality is evident in Don Quixote when he sees the windmills and thought that they were giants and it was his service to God “to sweep so evil a breed from the face of the earth”. No matter how many times Sancho tried explaining to him that this wasn’t true, he wouldn’t have it and went for it anyway. This is a very extreme case and there is clearly no good reason as to why Don Quixote is fighting the windmills. However, the same theme is displayed. The narrator explains that these windmills are a representation of obstacles that we may face in accomplishing brilliant end goals and even if we fail, as Don Quixote did, we should not let that stop us from living our lives as if we are invincible.
*Video time: 2:40 until the end