Known as Don Quixote, Don Quixote of La Mancha and nicknamed “The Knight of the Sad Figure”, Alonso Quijano
Alonso Quijano, an old man of noble origin from the Medieval World, who has down at heel. From reading so much chivalry novels from the Real World, those left behind by humans, he ends up believing himself to be an errant knight, and arming himself he calls himself “Don Quixote”. To do this, he uses the rusty armor of some forgotten ancestor and rides a poor, skinny, ruined horse that he baptizes Rocinante.
In his adventures (and misadventures), Don Quixote meets Sancho Panza, a poor and naive peasant whom he convinces to be his squire. Sancho accompanies him to seek his fortune, under the promise of becoming governor of some island that together they discover.
Together they go out on the roads to “right wrongs,” as Don Quixote would say. In the midst of their adventures, they manage to somehow enter and exit portals that take them to and from other worlds, wandering through unknown worlds, meeting other characters from the different regions they visit. They listen to their stories and help them on their destinations or simply accompany them for a while. Finally, tired of so much punishment and without fulfilling their dream of becoming rich and famous, they return to their town.
Some time later, Alonso Quijano has definitively regained his lucidity, but this has cost him his vitality and was depressed, awaiting death. To cheer him up, Sancho Panza decides to urge him to resume his adventures.
After convincing him that reality is fiction and fiction is reality, they both embark on new adventures, in which everyone already knows Don Quixote and plays along.
Personality & Characteristics
Alonso Quijano is as an old, lanky and extremely thin man, with a beard, wearing a dilapidated armor. They describe him as “skinned” and that “he was almost 500 years old. He has a tall complexion, dry flesh, and a thin face”.
From a psychological point of view, Don Quixote is a stubborn man, with firm opinions and courage. His enormous imagination allows him to see the world as if it were that of human books of chivalry. In that sense, Don Quixote does not act like a madman, but like a child who believes his own game.
Don Quixote sees giants where there are windmills and enemy armies where cross flocks of sheep. But on the other hand, he has brief moments of lucidity, in which he demonstrates clear reasoning and discreet wisdom.
Sancho Panza relation with Alonso Quijano
The relationship between Don Quixote and Sancho Panza is extremely rich, and engenders the funniest dialogues and interactions between the supposed knight-errant and his supposed squire. In that sense, we can summarize it in two moments:
The first adventure: Don Quixote is delirious and pushes Sancho to look at the world through the glass of his imagination. He convinces him that things are really the way Don Quixote sees them and that, in any case, some sorcerer could have confused the gaze of his squire to prevent him from seeing the enemy army, disguising it as a flock of sheep.
The second (current) adventure: The roles are reversed. Don Quixote regains his sanity and begins to see the world as it is, which leads him to depression and getting sick. Meanwhile, Sancho Panza, moved by the health of his boss, insists on making him recover from delirium and convincing him that it is now his eyes that are deceiving him, prey to some evil spell.