title: Tretinoin

text: The origin of the name "tretinoin" is uncertain, although several sources agree (one with probability, one with asserted certainty) that it probably comes from "trans-" + "retinoic [acid]" + "-in", which is plausible given that tretinoin is the all-trans isomer of retinoic acid. The name "isotretinoin" is the same root "tretinoin" plus the prefix "iso-". Regarding pronunciation, the following variants apply equally to both "tretinoin" and "isotretinoin". Given that "retinoic" is pronounced , it is natural that is a commonly heard pronunciation. Dictionary transcriptions also include () and .


title: Tretinoin

text: Tretinoin has been explored as a treatment for hair loss, potentially as a way to increase the ability of minoxidil to penetrate the scalp, but the evidence is weak and contradictory.


title: Multiple rocket launcher

text: A multiple rocket launcher (MRL) or multiple launch rocket system (MLRS) is a type of rocket artillery system that contains multiple launchers which are fixed to a single platform, and shoots its rocket ordnance in a fashion similar to a volley gun. Rockets are self-propelled in flight and have different capabilities than conventional artillery shells, such as longer effective range, lower recoil, typically considerably higher payload than a similarly sized gun artillery platform, or even carrying multiple warheads.


title: Multiple rocket launcher

text: Unguided rocket artillery is notoriously inaccurate and slow to reload compared to gun artillery. A multiple rocket launcher helps compensate for this with its ability to launch multiple rockets in rapid succession, which, coupled with the large kill zone of each warhead, can easily deliver saturation fire over a target area. However, modern rockets can use GPS or inertial guidance to combine the advantages of rockets with the higher accuracy of precision-guided munitions.


title: Multiple rocket launcher

text: The first multiple rocket launchers were invented during the medieval Chinese Song dynasty, in which the Chinese fire lance was fixed backward on a pike or arrow and shot at an enemy as early as 1180. This form of rocket was used during the Mongol siege of Kaifeng.


title: Multiple rocket launcher

text: Chinese militaries later created multiple rocket launchers that fired up to 100 small fire-arrow rockets simultaneously. The typical powder section of the arrow-rockets was 1/3 to 1/2 ft (10 to 15 cm) long. Bamboo arrow shafts varied from 1.5 ft (45 cm) to 2.5 ft (75 cm) long and the striking distance reached 300 to 400 paces. The Chinese also enhanced rocket tips with poison and made sure that the launchers were mobile. They designed a multiple rocket launcher to be carried and operated by a single soldier. Various forms of MRLs evolved, including a launcher mounted on a wheelbarrow.


title: Multiple rocket launcher

text: The Joseon dynasty of Korea used an expanded variant of such a launcher (called a "hwacha") made of 100 to 200 holes containing rocket arrows placed on a two-wheeled cart. The range of the fired arrows is estimated to have been 2,000 meters. The "hwacha" was used to great effect against invading armies during the Japanese invasions of 1592–1598, most notably the Battle of Haengju, in which 40 hwachas were deployed to repel 30,000 Japanese soldiers.


title: Multiple rocket launcher

text: European armies preferred relatively large single-launch rockets prior to World War II. Napoleonic armies of both sides followed the British adoption of Mysorean rockets as the Congreve rocket. These were explosive steel-cased bombardment rockets with minimal launchers. European navies developed naval multiple launcher mounts with steadily improving explosive rockets for light and coastal vessels. These weapons were largely replaced by conventional light artillery during the late nineteenth century.


title: Multiple rocket launcher

text: The first self-propelled MRLs and arguably the most famous was the Soviet BM-13 Katyusha, first used during World War II and exported to Soviet allies afterwards. They were simple systems in which a rack of launch rails was mounted on the back of a truck. This set the template for modern MRLs. The Americans mounted tubular launchers atop M4 Sherman tanks to create the T34 Calliope rocket launching tank, only used in small numbers, as their closest equivalent to the Katyusha. The Germans began using a towed six-tube multiple rocket launcher during World War II, the Nebelwerfer, called the "Screaming Mimi" by the Allies. The system was developed before the war to skirt the limitations of the Treaty of Versailles. Later in the war, 15 cm Nebelwerfer 41s were mounted on modified Opel Maultier "Mule" halftracks, becoming Panzerwerfer 42 4/1s. Another version produced in limited numbers towards the end of the war was a conversion of the Schwerer Wehrmachtschlepper ("heavy military transport", sWS) halftrack to a configuration similar to the Panzerwerfer 42 4/1, mounting the 10-barreled 15 cm Nebelwerfer.


title: Multiple rocket launcher

text: Another German halftrack MRL system was inspired by the Russian BM-13. Keeping the Soviet 82 mm rocket caliber as well as the launch and rocket stabilisation designs, it was developed into a system of two rows of 12 guide rails mounted to a Maultier chassis, each row providing the capacity for 24 rockets, underslung as well as on top of the rails, for 48 rockets total. This vehicle was designated 8 cm Raketen-Vielfachwerfer (8 cm multiple rocket launcher). As the launch system was inspired by and looked similar to the BM-13, which the Germans had nicknamed "Stalin-Orgel" or "Stalin-Organ", the Vielfachwerfer soon became known as the "Himmler-Orgel", or "Himmler-Organ".


title: Multiple rocket launcher

text: Like all artillery, MRLs have a reputation of devastating morale on ill-disciplined or already-shaken troops. The material effect depends on circumstances, as well-covered field fortifications may provide reasonable protection.


title: Multiple rocket launcher

text: MRLs are still unable to properly engage reverse slope positions in mountain warfare because it is more difficult to determine the trajectory compared to that of a howitzer by adding or removing propellant increments. Simple MRL rocket types have a rather long minimum firing range for the same reason. An approach to lessen this limit is the addition of drag rings to the rocket nose. The increased drag slows the rocket down relative to a clean configuration and creates a less flat trajectory. Pre-packaged MRL munitions do not offer this option but some MRL types with individually loaded rockets do.


title: Multiple rocket launcher

text: Improvised MRLs based on helicopter or aircraft-mounted rocket pods (typically of 57–80mm caliber) especially on light trucks and pickups (so-called "technicals") are often seen in civil wars when rebels make use of captured launchers and munitions.


title: Multiple rocket launcher

text: Modern MRL systems can use modern land navigation (especially satellite navigation such as GPS) for quick and accurate positioning. The accurate determination of the battery position previously required such effort that making a dispersed operation of the battery was at times impractical. MRL systems with GPS can have their MRLs dispersed and fire from various positions at a single target, just as previously multiple batteries were often united on one target area.


title: Multiple rocket launcher

text: Radar may be used to track weather balloons to determine winds or to track special rockets that self-destruct in the air. The tracking allows determination of the influence of winds and propellant temperatures on the rockets' flight paths. These observations can then be factored into the firing solution for the rocket salvo for effect. Such tracking radars can also be used to predict the range error of individual rockets. Trajectory-correcting munitions may then benefit from this, as a directional radio may send a coded message to the rocket to deploy air brakes at just the right time to correct most of the range error. This requires that the rockets were originally aimed too far, as the range can only be shortened by the air brakes, not extended.


title: Multiple rocket launcher

text: A more sophisticated system makes use of radar data and a one-way radio datalink to initiate a two dimensional (range and azimuth) correction of the rocket's flight path with steering by fins or nose thrusters. The latter is more common with systems which can be used to upgrade old rockets and the IMI ACCULAR is an example.


title: Multiple rocket launcher

text: Fin-stabilised rockets also allow for easy course corrections using rudders or minute charges. Precision-guided munitions have been introduced to exploit this. Guidance principles such as GPS satellite navigation, inertial navigation systems and semi-active laser seekers are used for this. This improves dispersion from a CEP of hundreds of meters at dozens of kilometers' range to just a few meters and largely independent of the range of the round (except for INS, as INS navigation creates a small dispersion that is about proportional to range). This in turn made great increases of rocket (or missile) ranges useful; previously dispersion had made rockets too inefficient and often too dangerous to friendly troops at long ranges.


title: Multiple rocket launcher

text: Long-range MRL missiles often fly a higher quasi-ballistic trajectory than shorter-ranged rockets and thus pose a de-confliction challenge, as they might collide with friendly aircraft in the air.


title: Multiple rocket launcher

text: The differences between an MRL missile and a large anti-tank guided missile, such as the Nimrod, have blurred due to guided MRL missiles such as the M31 GMLRS (guided unitary multiple launch rocket system), which passed flight tests in 2014.


title: Overwatch (video game)

text: Overwatch was a 2016 team-based multiplayer first-person shooter game by Blizzard Entertainment. The game was first released for PlayStation 4, Windows, and Xbox One in May 2016 and Nintendo Switch in October 2019. Cross-platform play was supported across all platforms.


title: Overwatch (video game)

text: Described as a "hero shooter", "Overwatch" assigned players into two teams of six, with each player selecting from a large roster of characters, known as "heroes", with unique abilities. Teams worked to complete map-specific objectives within a limited period of time. Blizzard added new characters, maps, and game modes post-release, all free of charge, with the only additional cost to players being optional loot boxes to purchase cosmetic items.


title: Overwatch (video game)

text: "Overwatch" is Blizzard's fourth major franchise and came about following the 2014 cancellation of a massively multiplayer online role-playing game, "Titan". A portion of the "Titan" team were inspired by the success of team-based first-person shooters like "Team Fortress 2" and the popularity of multiplayer online battle arena games, creating a hero-based shooter which emphasized teamwork. Some elements of "Overwatch" borrow concepts from the canceled "Titan" project.


title: Overwatch (video game)

text: "Overwatch" was unveiled at the 2014 BlizzCon event and was in a closed beta from late 2015 through early 2016. An open beta before release drew in nearly 10 million players. "Overwatch" received universal acclaim from critics, who praised the game for its accessibility, the diverse appeal of its hero characters, its cartoonish art style, and enjoyable gameplay. Blizzard reported over in revenue during the first year of its release and had more than 50 million players after three years. "Overwatch" is considered to be among the greatest video games ever made, receiving numerous game of the year awards and other accolades. The game is a popular esport, with Blizzard funding and producing the global Overwatch League.


title: Overwatch (video game)

text: A sequel, "Overwatch 2", was announced in 2019 and entered beta in 2022. The player versus player portion of the game is free to play, with all cosmetic items from "Overwatch" carried over while introducing new heroes, maps, and gamemodes. A player versus environment (PvE) co-operative multiplayer mode will be released at a later time. On October 3, 2022, the "Overwatch" servers were shut down in preparation for the release of "Overwatch 2" the next day.


title: Overwatch (video game)

text: "Overwatch" was an online team-based game generally played as a first-person shooter. The game featured several different game modes, principally designed around squad-based combat with two opposing teams of six players each. Players selected one of over two dozen pre-made hero characters from one of three class types: Damage heroes that deal most of the damage to attack or defend control points, Tank heroes that can absorb a large amount of damage, and Support heroes that provide healing or other buffs for their teammates. Each hero had a unique skill kit, defining their intrinsic attributes like health points and running speed, their primary attacks, several active and passive skills, and an ultimate ability that can only be used after it has been charged through dealing damage to enemies and healing allies. Players can change their hero during the course of a match, as a goal of "Overwatch" design was to encourage dynamic team compositions that adapt to the situation. The game's genre has been described by some journalists as a "hero shooter", due to its design around specific heroes and classes.


title: Overwatch (video game)

text: The game featured game modes for casual play, competitive ranked play, and for supporting esports competitions including Blizzard's Overwatch League. These modes were generally centered around sequentially securing control of points on the map, or escorting a payload between points on the map, with one team attacking while the other defends. Other modes set aside for casual matches include solo and team deathmatch, capture-the-flag, and unique modes run during various seasonal events. More recent updates had enabled users to craft their own game modes with a limited set of scripting tools. Regardless of winning or losing a match, players gained experience towards a player level, and on gaining a new level, received loot boxes that contain cosmetic items that they can use to customize the appearance of the hero characters but otherwise does not affect gameplay. Loot boxes could also be purchased through microtransactions.


title: Overwatch (video game)

text: The backstory to "Overwatch" is described through animated shorts and other information distributed by Blizzard in promoting the game.


title: Overwatch (video game)

text: "Overwatch" is set sixty years into the future of a fictionalized Earth, thirty years after the resolution of what is known as the "Omnic Crisis." Before the Omnic Crisis, humanity had been in a golden age of prosperity and technology development. Humans developed robots with artificial intelligence called "Omnics", which were put to use to achieve economic equality, and began to be treated as people in their own right. The Omnic Crisis began when the worldwide automated "omnium" facilities that produced them started producing a series of lethal, hostile robots that attacked humankind. After individual nations' efforts failed to ward off the Omnics, the United Nations quickly formed Overwatch, an international task force designed to combat this threat and restore order.


title: Overwatch (video game)

text: Two veteran soldiers from the Soldier Enhancement Program were put in charge of Overwatch: Gabriel Reyes and Jack Morrison. Though Overwatch successfully quelled the robotic uprising and brought many talented individuals to the forefront, a rift developed between Reyes and Morrison due to Reyes being the official leader of the group despite everyone viewing the more popular Morrison as their true leader. Eventually, Morrison was made the leader of Overwatch while Reyes was given charge of Blackwatch, Overwatch's covert operations division, fighting terrorist organizations like Talon, a group that appears to be trying to start a second Omnic Crisis, and Null Sector, a group of Omnics that revolted against the society that persecuted Omnics following the first Crisis. Overwatch continued to maintain peace across the world for several decades in what came to be called the "Overwatch Generation" as the team gained more members, but the rift between Morrison and Reyes intensified. One night, Blackwatch was dispatched to arrest a notorious mobster with ties to Talon. After infiltrating the compound, Reyes chose to execute the mobster rather than let him buy his way out of prison. This action caused Blackwatch and their less heroic actions to be exposed to the public. Several allegations of wrongdoing and failures were leveled at Overwatch, leading to a public outcry against the organization and in-fighting between its members, prompting the UN to investigate the situation. During this, an explosion destroyed Overwatch's headquarters in Switzerland, purportedly killing Morrison and Reyes among others. The UN passed the Petras Act, which dismantled Overwatch and forbade any Overwatch-type activity.


title: Overwatch (video game)

text: "Overwatch" is set six years after the Petras Act; without Overwatch, corporations have started to take over, fighting and terrorism have broken out in parts of the globe, and there are signs of a second Omnic Crisis occurring in Russia. The intelligent gorilla Winston, a former member of Overwatch, decides to begin reforming Overwatch to protect the peace once again despite the Petras Act, with the team members recruiting old friends and gaining new allies in their fight. It is revealed that Reyes and Morrison were not killed in the explosion resulting from their battle: Morrison became a masked vigilante known as "", who is trying to uncover the reasons why Overwatch was shut down, while Reyes joined Talon and became "Reaper", a terrorist with a Death-like appearance.


title: Overwatch (video game)

text: "Overwatch" came about in the aftermath of Blizzard's decision to cancel the massively multiplayer online role-playing game "Titan" in 2013, a project that had been in development for about seven years. While most others assigned to the project were transferred to other departments within Blizzard, a small team of about 40 people, led by director Jeff Kaplan, were tasked to come up with a new concept for a game in a few months. After some brainstorming, they came onto the idea of a hero team-based shooter, building upon the success of games like "Team Fortress 2" and multiplayer online battle arenas. They started with assets developed for "Titan" to demonstrate the proof-of-concept and were greenlit to build out the full game, the first new intellectual property that Blizzard had developed since "StarCraft".


title: Overwatch (video game)

text: The intra-company experience of "Titan" cancellation served to help drive the narrative and setting. They created an optimistic vision of the near-future, some decades following the Omnic Crisis and the formation and collapse of the peacekeeping Overwatch group. This allowed them to create a diverse cast of characters, including non-human ones, and colorful settings from around the globe. The "Overwatch" team continues to support the game through free updates, the introduction of new characters, maps, game modes, cosmetic items, seasonal events, and external media to support the game's narrative, as well as continuously tuning how the individual heroes play by monitoring meta-game statistics and user feedback. New characters and maps were added regularly to the game since launch, expanding the original hero roster from 21 in May 2016 to 32 by April 2020. Since April 2020 however, no heroes have been released, as the development team is focused on creating "Overwatch 2".


title: Overwatch (video game)

text: "Overwatch" development had been led by Kaplan through April 2021, after which he departed Blizzard. Kaplan's duties were taken over by Aaron Keller following his departure.


title: Overwatch (video game)

text: "Overwatch" was formally announced at the BlizzCon event on November 7, 2014; the game was playable during the event to all attendees, with fourteen characters available to select from. During this event, Blizzard released a cinematic trailer and an extended gameplay video for the game. A month after the BlizzCon event, in December 2014, Blizzard published character introduction videos to its YouTube channel and followed up on this May 2015 by posting weekly videos of game footage and character highlights.


title: Overwatch (video game)

text: A closed beta period for "Overwatch" across all three platforms began on October 27, 2015. The closed beta was put on "extended break" in December and brought back in February 2016. Following the March 2016 release announcement, Blizzard announced an open beta period from May 5 to 9 for any registered user of the Battle.net client. The open beta proved popular with Blizzard reporting over 9.7 million players participating, and as a way of showing thanks, extended the open beta period by one extra day.


title: Overwatch (video game)

text: In the week before release, Blizzard arranged to have three giant-sized boxes (approximately tall) of various "Overwatch" heroes, as if being sold as packaged action figures, put on display across the globe at Hollywood, Paris, and Busan, South Korea. The displays were created by Alliance Studios, led by Steve Wang, who has collaborated with Blizzard before on past projects, and Eddie Yang. After planning the design of the sculptures in January 2016, teams across the world, including Droga5, Scicon, Stratasys and Egads, raced to print, finish and assemble the works in time for the game's release. Propelled by "Overwatch", Blizzard had over 50% of the American advertisement share among gaming industry brands from May 16 to June 15, 2016.


title: Overwatch (video game)

text: "Overwatch" was released for PlayStation 4, Windows, and Xbox One on May 24, 2016. Blizzard allowed retailers to sell physical copies of the game a day before to help players prepare for the servers' launch.


title: Overwatch (video game)

text: Two special editions of "Overwatch" were released alongside the base game. The "Origins Edition", available both as a downloadable and retail product, includes the base game and five additional character skins, as well as other bonus items for other Blizzard games via Battle.net. The "Collectors Edition", only available as retail, includes the "Origins Edition" content as well as a statue of Soldier: 76, one of the playable characters, along with the game's soundtrack and a source book.


title: Overwatch (video game)

text: In honor of its first anniversary in 2017, Blizzard released a digital "Game of the Year" edition of "Overwatch". It includes all content from the "Origins Edition", in addition to ten free loot boxes. Blizzard had expressed interest in supporting cross-platform play between console systems in the future, though initially had no plans for Windows-supported cross-play due to the precision advantage of keyboard-mouse controls over controller-based ones. However, in June 2021, Blizzard brought cross-platform play to "Overwatch" across all supported platforms, with a beta test launched at the start of the month before full release by the end of June. To deal with the control differences, the game's competitive mode would still remain segregated between console players and computer players, but all other game modes would allow for cross-play on any combination of platforms, after users register their account via Battle.net.


title: Overwatch (video game)

text: The game was announced for Nintendo Switch during the September 2019 Nintendo Direct, the Switch had the "Overwatch: Legendary Edition" and was released in North America and Europe on October 15, 2019, and is scheduled for release in Japan on November 29, 2019. The Switch version, developed by Iron Galaxy, includes support for the console's gyroscopic controls for some actions, such as controlling Junkrat's Rip-tire, and maneuvering Wrecking Ball in his spherical form. The version is equivalent to the existing version of the game on other platforms, including all heroes, maps, and game modes, although Switch players will not be able to participate in the game's current Competition season as to give players a chance to adjust to the console's controls before introducing ranked play. The version has a game case for retailers in North America and Europe but does not include a physical Game Card, featuring a download code instead.


title: Overwatch (video game)

text: The Xbox One version of the game received an optimization patch in March 2021, adding new performance settings when played using backwards compatibility on Xbox Series X/S, allowing the game to run at up to 120 frames per second on supported monitors.


title: Overwatch (video game)

text: Before its release, "Overwatch" experienced a period of pre-launch attention not typically expected; "Game Revolution" noted that reputation has quickly permeated through cyberspace, attracting attention from people who may not traditionally put down $40 to $60 each time a new first-person shooter releases." The game's open beta, which attracted 9.7 million players, was very heavily covered by the media.


title: Overwatch (video game)

text: "Overwatch" received "universal acclaim" upon release, according to review aggregator Metacritic. IGN's Vince Ingenito praised the game's characters and maps, writing ""Overwatch" takes just about every possible opportunity to make its cast and locales seem like people and places rather than puppets and scenery." Ingenito added that the game has a "strong online experience that gets you into games quickly and reliably." "The Verge" Andrew Webster praised "Overwatch" and previous titles "Titanfall" and "Splatoon" as "friendly online shooters" that have room for both new and casual players who may not desire to master the game but can still compete fairly with others, and for expert players that can utilize the various heroes to adapt to the dynamic tactics of the game. Webster went on to cite the atmosphere of "Overwatch" as a reason for the game's approachability, writing, "The first thing that makes "Overwatch" world appealing and approachable is, well, its world. This isn't the dour brown-and-grey shooter you might be used to. Instead, it's bright and colorful, with a cast of characters that's eclectic and diverse." Caty McCarthy of "Kill Screen" echoed similar thoughts, writing "When playing "Overwatch", the player is absorbed by its radiating positivity. It's a world filled with lively color and energetic, playful competition, much like Nintendo's creative kid-friendly ink-shooter "Splatoon"." Mike Minotti of "VentureBeat" commending the team-based gameplay, the game's diverse character roster, and colorful settings, as well as the unlockable cosmetics earned through level progression and the smooth server connection. Referencing its similarities to "Team Fortress 2", Minotti confirmed that "["Overwatch" has] distinct classes, the team- and objective-based combat, and a bright, cartoon-like art style," and that ""Overwatch" certainly takes plenty of inspiration from Valve online shooter series," but opines that "["Overwatch" is] just better." Daniel Tack of "The News & Observer" positively received the game, expressing that "no matter what happens – win or lose – you're going to have fun," adding that "the game's strength lies in its simplicity and polish." Tack went on to praise the game's characters, writing "Unforgettable characters are the lifeblood and driving force of "Overwatch"." "The Denver Post" Hugh Johnson lauded the game for its emphasis on characters, rather than focusing on traditional first-person shooter tropes, such as weapon load-outs and incremental level upgrades. Johnson went on to insist that the characters are balanced writing, "The big question with class-based shooters like these is whether or not the characters are balanced," expressing that "some characters are naturally better, but no character is so overpowered that their mere presence spells doom for their opponents." In June 2016, "Vulture" Joshua Rivera listed "Overwatch" as one of the "best video games of 2016 (so far)," writing, "It's hard to separate "Overwatch" the game from Overwatch the phenomenon—and why bother, both are fascinating."


title: Overwatch (video game)

text: The online magazine "Inverse", while expressing an overall positive reception for the game, pointed out the balance of McCree, teams composed of only one character, issues with matchmaking, and the Play of the Game as problems that should be fixed by the game's development team. Gabe Gurwin of "Digital Trends", directed criticism at Blizzard, for their decision to exclude the story from the game, which left players "with a great game, a great story, and no way to reconcile the two."


title: Overwatch (video game)

text: Shortly after the game's competitive play mode was released, "Kotaku" Nathan Grayson stated that ""Overwatch" competitive mode [is not] all that bad, for how new and unpolished it is," but opined that "high-stakes competition and toxicity tend to go hand-in-hand, and "Overwatch" competitive mode already has an ugly toxic stain." Grayson concluded his piece with ""Overwatch" is, most of the time, a feel-good team game. Introducing high-stakes competition with a muddled message about the importance of individual skill drags the game into confused, oftentimes negative territory. If Blizzard wants this thing to work, they're gonna have to figure out a competitive framework that's true to "Overwatch" spirit, rather than just the spirit of competition." Kaplan acknowledged that with the introduction of competitive mode that the whole of the "Overwatch" community has become more toxic, and they are continually adapting elements behind the scenes to help deal with aggressive players more responsibly, while trying to promote more enjoyable matches.


title: Overwatch (video game)

text: A week from its launch, Blizzard reported over seven million "Overwatch" players with a total accumulated playtime of 119 million hours; Blizzard reported more than 10 million players by mid-June and has reported continued increases in the player base, with 60 million players as of April 2021. The NPD Group, a video game industry tracking firm, reported that "Overwatch" was the third best-selling retail video game (nb. discounting digital sales through Battle.net) in the US in May 2016 on the month of its release, and was the top-selling game in June 2016; the NPD Group later reported it was the 7th highest selling game by revenue (excluding Battle.net sales) in the United States for all of 2016. With digital sales, "Overwatch" was the fastest-selling game during its release month. SuperData Research estimated that "Overwatch" brought in more than $269 million in revenues from digital sales worldwide in May, and over $565 million in sales on personal computers along by the end of 2016, making it the highest-grossing paid game for personal computers that year.


title: Overwatch (video game)

text: In Activision-Blizzard's quarterly earnings report for Q1 2017, the company reported that "Overwatch" revenues had exceeded one billion dollars, the eighth such property owned by the company to do so. In June 2016, Gametrics, a South Korean internet cafe survey website, reported that "Overwatch" overtook "League of Legends" as the most popular game played across 4,000 of South Korea's PC bangs at the time. In 2018, "Overwatch" raised over $12.7 million for the Breast Cancer Research Foundation, which they generated from selling a special pink-colored Mercy skin where all proceeds went towards it. By July 2019, total in-game spending in "Overwatch" exceeded one billion dollars as estimated by SuperData, the sixth Activision-Blizzard product line to reach this metric.


title: Overwatch (video game)

text: While the developers were aiming to avoid sexualization of the characters, there was some criticism of the female characters of the game during its development. In February 2015, Anita Sarkeesian commented on the lack of diversity in the female heroes' body types from the game's first twelve revealed characters, while Nathan Grayson of "Kotaku" remarked that ""Overwatch" women are mostly super slim and clad in cat suits." In March 2015, the development team revealed a new character, Zarya, who is a female Russian bodybuilder with a muscular body, and pledged commitment to diversity.


title: Overwatch (video game)

text: Following promotional images featuring the female character Tracer in March 2016, a thread on Blizzard's official forums drew attention to one of Tracer's victory poses, which was criticized by a user as out of character and oversexualized. Kaplan apologized for the pose, stating "The last thing we want to do is make someone feel uncomfortable, under-appreciated or misrepresented," and confirmed that Blizzard planned to replace the pose. Kaplan's response drew mixed reactions from the gaming community, with many claiming Blizzard had forgone its creative control over the game and censored its content to placate one offended user, while others praised Blizzard's willingness to listen to the community and adhere to standards for portraying a character according to their personality. Kaplan later stated that the team was already unsure of the pose and was thinking of changing it. The following week, a replacement pose was released, although it was noted to be similar to the original pose. The replacement pose was alleged to be influenced by Billy DeVorss cheesecake pin-up art. The pose was replaced during the game's beta period.


title: Overwatch (video game)

text: Following the game's release, some of the alternative outfits for characters had come under criticism for using cultural stereotypes, such as a Native American headdress option for the character of Pharah, who seemed to be primarily of Egyptian origin. Kaplan noted that they had considered if these outfits were appropriate, and believed they were respecting the cultures of the characters they had created and would make necessary changes if they felt there were valid concerns. Kaplan commented that many players have responded positively to these outfits and feel they fit in appropriately with the idealized version of Earth. Later game developments showed that Pharah was set out as a half-Egyptian/half-Native American character, making such outfits appropriate in hindsight.


title: Overwatch (video game)

text: In July 2016, the President of the Universal Society of Hinduism (Rajan Zed) urged Blizzard to remove two of Symmetra's hero cosmetic items from the game since they could be seen as inappropriate and not accurate towards the beliefs and practices of Hinduism. In Hinduism, devotees put their destinies in the hands of their gods and goddesses; this is a stark contrast to how he believes they are portrayed within the game. Zed has in the past commented on other video game depictions of Hindu-inspired gods, such as in the multiplayer online battle arena (MOBA) game "Smite".


title: Overwatch (video game)

text: In "Overwatch" Asia servers, there were problems with numerous players using cheats tied to the growing number of younger players using PC bangs in South Korea that allowed them to play "Overwatch" on an inexpensive hourly rate rather than purchasing the game. As these players do not need permanent accounts, they can use disposable Battle.net accounts and employ game hacks without repercussions, and if that account is banned, they can quickly make another and continue playing. Blizzard continues to block these accounts at a rate of thousands per day, but have not been able to find a more permanent solution. Subsequently, Blizzard announced that players from South Korea would be required to log into a Battle.net account to play the game from February 2017 onward, which requires a difficult-to-spoof resident registration number among other unique information, which Blizzard believes would help to alleviate the problem.


title: Overwatch (video game)

text: As to maintain a fair competitive field on consoles, Blizzard has spoken out against the use of input converters that would allow console players to use keyboard/mouse controllers, believing this gives an advantage to players that can afford the converter. Some players have criticized the ability to use these converters, as players with them often populate the top of the competitive ranking ladders. Though Blizzard has appealed to Sony and Microsoft to either prevent such converters, or to detect when such converters are used as to be able to segregate players into servers based on this, disabled players have spoken out against such action, as many need to use such converters to play the game on consoles lacking the ability to use a normal controller.


title: Overwatch (video game)

text: After a year from its release, journalists observed that the player community was becoming more toxic, disrupting the enjoyment of playing the game. It was believed this came from the nature of the game that requires teamwork, and when teammates see players unwilling to switch to different heroes to balance the team or otherwise play for individual gains, this would cause the teammates to become angry and lash out at the player, become griefers and throw the match, or other harmful behavior that would spread over time, particularly in the game's competitive mode. Players are able to report malicious users with in-game tools, and Blizzard can ban players for egregious actions, but they do not attempt to segregate out bad actors from the larger pool (a method used by other developers in multiplayer games), instead keeping an inclusive community for all non-banned players, which is believed to contribute to the growing toxicity. Kaplan said in a September 2017 update that Blizzard was very well aware of the problem, and have worked to improve their in-game player behavior reporting tools to help combat the toxicity, but because they have had to put greater effort into this, they are distracted from developing new features and content for the game. Kaplan urged the community to consider how they can improve individually and as a whole to help combat the situations.


title: Overwatch (video game)

text: In November 2017, the Belgian Gaming Commission announced that it was investigating "Overwatch" alongside "Star Wars Battlefront II" to determine whether loot boxes constituted unlicensed gambling. Many Asian and European countries view loot boxes as a form of gambling and have since decided to make them illegal for companies to sell directly to their consumers in their games. Blizzard has chosen to work with these regions to follow their gambling laws while staying true to their microtransaction focused business model. Within China, Blizzard has allowed their players to purchase in-game currency and receive loot boxes as a "gift." In addition to this loot box change, China has required Blizzard to publicly disclose the exact odds of winning each tier of item within said loot box. While initially loot boxes were not seen as gambling within the United States; the US Federal Trade Commission has recently decided to investigate the legality of the projected soon to be 50 billion dollar industry of microtransactions.


title: Overwatch (video game)

text: "Overwatch" won numerous awards in 2016, including being named Game of the Year at The Game Awards 2016, D.I.C.E. Awards, and Game Developers Choice Awards, as well as several awards and nominations highlighting its game direction and as a leading multiplayer game. Several publications, including "IGN", "GameSpot", Game Revolution, EGMNow, "GamesTM", "The Escapist", "Game Informer" and "Eurogamer", named "Overwatch" the best game of 2016, receiving 102 "game of the year" awards across critics and reader polls.


title: Overwatch (video game)

text: Giant Bomb gave it the awards for "Best Debut" and "Best Multiplayer", and put it in third place for "Game of the Year". "Polygon" and "Slant Magazine" also put the game in third place for "Game of the Year", while "PC Gamer" gave it the award for "Best Multiplayer". Besides "Game of the Year", "The Escapist" gave it the awards for "Best Shooter and Multiplayer". "Game Informer" gave it the awards for "Best Competitive Multiplayer" and "Best Shooter". At IGN's Best of 2016 Awards, the game won the awards for "Best Shooter", "Best eSports Game", "Best Multiplayer", and "PC Game of the Year". In IGN's Best of 2017 Awards, the game won the People's Choice Award for "Best Spectator Game", while "Game Informer" gave it the award for "Best Shooter as Service" in their 2017 Shooter of the Year Awards.


title: Overwatch (video game)

text: In the years since its release, "Overwatch" has continued to be nominated and awarded for its strength as an esports game, as well as the ongoing content added to the title.


title: Overwatch (video game)

text: "Overwatch" fan base has been noted to be generally kind and supportive; Daniel Starkey of "Wired" wrote, "where many fresh games struggle with an endless stream of player complaints and developer-prodding, "Overwatch" community is vivacious and jubilant." A gamer with cerebral palsy publicly praised the game's customizable controls, which let him make his first snipe in a video game. One of Blizzard's artists, Roman Kenney, drew concept art based on one player's daughter's original "Overwatch" character design. Blizzard altered one of the game's maps to include a tribute to an avid Chinese fan of the game who died from injuries while trying to stop a motorcycle theft on the day before the game's public release.


title: Overwatch (video game)

text: Blizzard has encouraged fans of "Overwatch" to make artistic content based on the game. To support this, Blizzard released the hero reference kit before release, providing official colors and costume and weapon designs for all 21 heroes present at the game's launch. Fans have used these, the game's animated media, and other assets to create a large amount of content, including art, cosplay, and anime opening-style music videos. Some "Overwatch" concepts have created internet memes such as "Gremlin D.Va", which focuses on the character D.Va, portrayed through Western gamer stereotypes. In some cases, Blizzard has reciprocated these fan creations back into the game, such as an emote for D.Va, based on the Gremlin meme. At the 2017 D.I.C.E. Summit in February 2017, Kaplan said that much of "Overwatch" narrative is now being borne out of the game's fans, adding "We love it, that it belongs to them...We're just the custodians of the universe." Kaplan recognizes that he himself is seen as an "Overwatch" character within the fan community, and following similar steps that "Hearthstone" lead designer Ben Brode has done, has continued to engage with the fan community.


title: Overwatch (video game)

text: Pornographic fan art of the game is popular, with Pornhub searches of "Overwatch" characters partaking in sexual activities spiking by 817% shortly after the release of the open beta. A large amount of such pornographic fan works are created with Valve's Source Filmmaker tool and make use of the game's assets, which were ripped from the game during its closed beta and consequently spread over the internet. Blizzard made efforts to remove the works. Kaplan stated that while the studio does not want to infringe on anyone's freedom of expression, Blizzard is mindful that many players are not adults and would hope the community would try to keep such imagery away from them.


title: Overwatch (video game)

text: Blizzard opted to tell the story of "Overwatch" across various mediums, rather than include a story mode; Chu stated, "One of the things that's really great is we're able to leverage the strengths of these different mediums to tell different parts of the story," citing Soldier: 76's appearances in fake news reports, an animated video narrated from his perspective, as well as the "Hero" short.


title: Overwatch (video game)

text: In March 2016, Blizzard announced that they would be releasing comics and animated shorts based on "Overwatch" in 2016. The related media included plans for a since-cancelled graphic novel called "Overwatch: First Strike", which would have focused on the story of several in-game characters, including Soldier: 76, Torbjörn, Reaper, and Reinhardt.


title: Overwatch (video game)

text: Blizzard began releasing the series of animated shorts in March 2016; the shorts maintained the style of the game's cinematic trailer, which centered on a battle in which Tracer and Winston fought Reaper and Widowmaker in the Overwatch Museum. A collection of these cinematic sequences played in movie theaters across the United States as part of the game's launch event. The first episode of the animated short series, "Recall", was released on March 23. It centers on Winston and Reaper, and features flashbacks to Winston's childhood.


title: Overwatch (video game)

text: Blizzard published three digital comic series during "Overwatch" 2016–2022 run: "Overwatch", "Tracer - London Calling", and "New Blood". These comics were also printed on hard cover through Dark Horse Comics. Further "Overwatch" literature including an art book, cook book, short stories, and novelizations were also published.


title: Overwatch (video game)

text: "Overwatch" characters and elements have been brought over to the crossover MOBA game "Heroes of the Storm".


title: Overwatch (video game)

text: Various toy and figurine manufacturers produced merchandise lines featuring "Overwatch" characters. These manufacturers included Funko, Good Smile Company, Nerf and its parent company Hasbro, as well as The Lego Group.


title: Overwatch (video game)

text: "Overwatch" was not developed with any dedication towards esports, focusing on "building a great competitive game" first and foremost, according to Morhaime, though they recognized that the game had potential as an esports game through internal testing. Kaplan stated that while esports was not a design goal, they included and planned for features for the game to support the competitive community. This included the introduction of the game's competitive mode some months after the game's launch after seeing how players took towards "Overwatch"; Blizzard saw the ladder-approach they used as a means for skilled players to reach high ranks as to be noticed by esport team organizers. Dan Szymborski writing for ESPN stated that "Overwatch" was poised as the next big esport for having a sufficiently different look and playstyle from established esports games like "" and "Call of Duty", enough variety in maps and characters, and strong support from Blizzard to maintain the game for a long time. Bryant Francis writing for "Gamasutra" noted the speed and short match times of "Overwatch" make the game highly favorable for viewership, further supporting the game as an esports title.


title: Overwatch (video game)

text: Just before the game's release, "PC Gamer" writer Stefan Dorresteijn contacted professional esports players and hosts for their opinions. Longtime esports host Paul Chaloner stated that "["Overwatch"] needs a much better spectator system," going on to elaborate, "Right now, it's incredibly difficult for commentators and viewers to see the skills of the players: who used their ultimates and how did they interact? Who is on cooldown and who has changed hero?" Fellow esports player Seb Barton and Michael Rosen criticized the game's map designs and game modes; Barton remarked that "the game modes are a little hit and miss," adding that "King of the hill [Control] is super exciting and fast-paced but then you have the payload [Escort] maps, which are just a snoozefest for everyone involved." Rosen expressed a need for tweaking to the maps used for the control game mode, as they are "just too prone to the snowball effect. The moment the attacking team captures the first control point they don't just have the momentum but also the last advantage for the second and final capture point."


title: Overwatch (video game)

text: The first organized, prize-winning competitions for "Overwatch" started in mid-2016, a few months after launch. In November 2016, Blizzard hosted their own Overwatch World Cup, allowing users to vote for teams to represent their nation or region, with finals taking place during their BlizzCon event. "Overwatch" grew increasingly in South Korea since it was released. It topped gaming cafes in Korea in terms of player count, surpassing that of "League of Legends".


title: Overwatch (video game)

text: At the 2016 BlizzCon, Blizzard announced their plans for their "Overwatch" League, using an organization of permanent teams in league placements similar to more traditional North American professional sports leagues, rather than the use of promotion and relegation used in a series like "League of Legends" Championship Series. The OWL would being preseason play in December 2017, with its first season taking place in 2018.


title: Overwatch (video game)

text: "Overwatch 2", a standalone sequel, was announced at BlizzCon on November 1, 2019, and was released on October 4, 2022 as a free-to-play player-versus-player (PvP) game for Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Windows, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X and S, with player-versus-environment content releasing in 2023.


title: Overwatch (video game)

text: Originally, it was planned for "Overwatch" and "Overwatch 2" to have a "shared multiplayer environment" between it and the original "Overwatch", so that the players in either game could compete together in the existing player versus player (PvP) modes, retaining all unlocked cosmetics and other features, but with the transition to free-to-play, "Overwatch"s servers were shut down on October 3, 2022, in favor of the sequel, and all players were transitioned to "Overwatch 2".


title: Overwatch (video game)

text: A significant departure will be moving to a five-versus-five PvP mode, with a restriction of only allowing one tank in play on a team as to help improve the perceived speed of gameplay. To this end, many heroes will have their skill kit reworked, or in some cases, will be reclassified into a new hero class.


title: Overwatch (video game)

text: The game will have persistent player versus environment modes (PvE). These are similar to the special seasonal events, which will feature four-player cooperative missions against computer-controlled opponents. In this mode, players can gain experience for the hero they are using, and at certain experience levels, unlock new passive skills called talents that boost the hero's current abilities, allowing them to customize how the hero plays.


title: Overwatch (video game)

text: Another change in the transition to free to play was the elimination of loot boxes in favor of a season pass. As part of the transition, Blizzard ended purchases of loot boxes on August 30, 2022 (though players were still able to earn these as drops in-game), and any unopened loot boxes in a player's inventory on "Overwatch 2" release were automatically opened and contents credited to the player.


title: Candide

text: ' ( , ) is a French satire written by Voltaire, a philosopher of the Age of Enlightenment, first published in 1759. The novella has been widely translated, with English versions titled Candide: or, All for the Best (1759); Candide: or, The Optimist (1762); and Candide: Optimism""' (1947). It begins with a young man, Candide, who is living a sheltered life in an Edenic paradise and being indoctrinated with Leibnizian optimism by his mentor, Professor Pangloss. The work describes the abrupt cessation of this lifestyle, followed by Candide's slow and painful disillusionment as he witnesses and experiences great hardships in the world. Voltaire concludes Candide with, if not rejecting Leibnizian optimism outright, advocating a deeply practical precept, "we must cultivate our garden", in lieu of the Leibnizian mantra of Pangloss, "all is for the best" in the "best of all possible worlds".


title: Candide

text: "Candide" is characterized by its tone as well as by its erratic, fantastical, and fast-moving plot. A picaresque novel with a story similar to that of a more serious coming-of-age narrative ("Bildungsroman"), it parodies many adventure and romance clichés, the struggles of which are caricatured in a tone that is bitter and matter-of-fact. Still, the events discussed are often based on historical happenings, such as the Seven Years' War and the 1755 Lisbon earthquake. As philosophers of Voltaire's day contended with the problem of evil, so does Candide in this short theological novel, albeit more directly and humorously. Voltaire ridicules religion, theologians, governments, armies, philosophies, and philosophers. Through "Candide", he assaults Leibniz and his optimism.


title: Candide

text: "Candide" has enjoyed both great success and great scandal. Immediately after its secretive publication, the book was widely banned because it contained religious blasphemy, political sedition, and intellectual hostility hidden under a thin veil of naïveté. However, with its sharp wit and insightful portrayal of the human condition, the novel has since inspired many later authors and artists to mimic and adapt it. Today, "Candide" is considered as Voltaire's "magnum opus" and is often listed as part of the Western canon. It is among the most frequently taught works of French literature. The British poet and literary critic Martin Seymour-Smith listed "Candide" as one of the 100 most influential books ever written.


title: Candide

text: A number of historical events inspired Voltaire to write "Candide", most notably the publication of Leibniz's "Monadology" (a short metaphysical treatise), the Seven Years' War, and the 1755 Lisbon earthquake. Both of the latter catastrophes are frequently referred to in "Candide" and are cited by scholars as reasons for its composition. The 1755 Lisbon earthquake, tsunami, and resulting fires of All Saints' Day, had a strong influence on theologians of the day and on Voltaire, who was himself disillusioned by them. The earthquake had an especially large effect on the contemporary doctrine of optimism, a philosophical system founded on the theodicy of Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, which insisted on God's benevolence in spite of such events. This concept is often put into the form, "all is for the best in the best of all possible worlds" (). Philosophers had trouble fitting the horrors of this earthquake into their optimistic world view.


title: Candide

text: Voltaire actively rejected Leibnizian optimism after the natural disaster, convinced that if this were the best possible world, it should surely be better than it is. In both "Candide" and ("Poem on the Lisbon Disaster"), Voltaire attacks this optimist belief. He makes use of the Lisbon earthquake in both "Candide" and his to argue this point, sarcastically describing the catastrophe as one of the most horrible disasters "in the best of all possible worlds". Immediately after the earthquake, unreliable rumours circulated around Europe, sometimes overestimating the severity of the event. Ira Wade, a noted expert on Voltaire and "Candide", has analyzed which sources Voltaire might have referenced in learning of the event. Wade speculates that Voltaire's primary source for information on the Lisbon earthquake was the 1755 work by Ange Goudar.


title: Candide

text: Apart from such events, contemporaneous stereotypes of the German personality may have been a source of inspiration for the text, as they were for , a 1669 satirical picaresque novel written by Hans Jakob Christoffel von Grimmelshausen and inspired by the Thirty Years' War. The protagonist of this novel, who was supposed to embody stereotypically German characteristics, is quite similar to the protagonist of "Candide". These stereotypes, according to Voltaire biographer Alfred Owen Aldridge, include "extreme credulousness or sentimental simplicity", two of Candide's and Simplicius's defining qualities. Aldridge writes, "Since Voltaire admitted familiarity with fifteenth-century German authors who used a bold and buffoonish style, it is quite possible that he knew as well."


title: Candide

text: A satirical and parodic precursor of "Candide", Jonathan Swift's "Gulliver's Travels" (1726) is one of "Candide"s closest literary relatives. This satire tells the story of "a gullible ingenue", Gulliver, who (like Candide) travels to several "remote nations" and is hardened by the many misfortunes which befall him. As evidenced by similarities between the two books, Voltaire probably drew upon "Gulliver's Travels" for inspiration while writing "Candide". Other probable sources of inspiration for "Candide" are (1699) by François Fénelon and (1753) by Louis-Charles Fougeret de Monbron. "Candide"s parody of the is probably based on , which includes the prototypical parody of the tutor on whom Pangloss may have been partly based. Likewise, Monbron's protagonist undergoes a disillusioning series of travels similar to those of Candide.


title: Candide

text: Born François-Marie Arouet, Voltaire (1694–1778), by the time of the Lisbon earthquake, was already a well-established author, known for his satirical wit. He had been made a member of the Académie Française in 1746. He was a deist, a strong proponent of religious freedom, and a critic of tyrannical governments. "Candide" became part of his large, diverse body of philosophical, political, and artistic works expressing these views. More specifically, it was a model for the eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century novels called the "contes philosophiques". This genre, of which Voltaire was one of the founders, included previous works of his such as "Zadig" and "Micromegas".


title: Candide

text: It is unknown exactly when Voltaire wrote "Candide", but scholars estimate that it was primarily composed in late 1758 and begun as early as 1757. Voltaire is believed to have written a portion of it while living at Les Délices near Geneva and also while visiting Charles Théodore, the Elector-Palatinate, at Schwetzingen for three weeks in the summer of 1758. Despite solid evidence for these claims, a popular legend persists that Voltaire wrote "Candide" in three days. This idea is probably based on a misreading of the 1885 work by Lucien Perey (real name: Clara Adèle Luce Herpin) and Gaston Maugras. The evidence indicates strongly that Voltaire did not rush or improvise "Candide", but worked on it over a significant period of time, possibly even a whole year. "Candide" is mature and carefully developed, not impromptu, as the intentionally choppy plot and the aforementioned myth might suggest.


title: Candide

text: There is only one extant manuscript of "Candide" that was written before the work's 1759 publication; it was discovered in 1956 by Wade and since named the "La Vallière Manuscript". It is believed to have been sent, chapter by chapter, by Voltaire to the Duke and Duchess La Vallière in the autumn of 1758. The manuscript was sold to the Bibliothèque de l'Arsenal in the late eighteenth century, where it remained undiscovered for almost two hundred years. The "La Vallière Manuscript", the most original and authentic of all surviving copies of "Candide", was probably dictated by Voltaire to his secretary, Jean-Louis Wagnière, then edited directly. In addition to this manuscript, there is believed to have been another, one copied by Wagnière for the Elector Charles-Théodore, who hosted Voltaire during the summer of 1758. The existence of this copy was first postulated by Norman L. Torrey in 1929. If it exists, it remains undiscovered.


title: Candide

text: Voltaire published "Candide" simultaneously in five countries no later than 15 January 1759, although the exact date is uncertain. Seventeen versions of "Candide" from 1759, in the original French, are known today, and there has been great controversy over which is the earliest. More versions were published in other languages: "Candide" was translated once into Italian and thrice into English that same year. The complicated science of calculating the relative publication dates of all of the versions of "Candide" is described at length in Wade's article "The First Edition of "Candide": A Problem of Identification". The publication process was extremely secretive, probably the "most clandestine work of the century", because of the book's obviously illicit and irreverent content. The greatest number of copies of "Candide" were published concurrently in Geneva by Cramer, in Amsterdam by Marc-Michel Rey, in London by Jean Nourse, and in Paris by Lambert.


title: Candide

text: "Candide" underwent one major revision after its initial publication, in addition to some minor ones. In 1761, a version of "Candide" was published that included, along with several minor changes, a major addition by Voltaire to the twenty-second chapter, a section that had been thought weak by the Duke of Vallière. The English title of this edition was "Candide, or Optimism, Translated from the German of Dr. Ralph. With the additions found in the Doctor's pocket when he died at Minden, in the Year of Grace 1759." The last edition of "Candide" authorised by Voltaire was the one included in Cramer's 1775 edition of his complete works, known as , in reference to the border or frame around each page.


title: Candide

text: Voltaire strongly opposed the inclusion of illustrations in his works, as he stated in a 1778 letter to the writer and publisher Charles Joseph Panckoucke:


title: Candide

text: Despite this protest, two sets of illustrations for "Candide" were produced by the French artist Jean-Michel Moreau le Jeune. The first version was done, at Moreau's own expense, in 1787 and included in Kehl's publication of that year, "Oeuvres Complètes de Voltaire". Four images were drawn by Moreau for this edition and were engraved by Pierre-Charles Baquoy. The second version, in 1803, consisted of seven drawings by Moreau which were transposed by multiple engravers. The twentieth-century modern artist Paul Klee stated that it was while reading "Candide" that he discovered his own artistic style. Klee illustrated the work, and his drawings were published in a 1920 version edited by Kurt Wolff.


title: Candide

text: "Candide" contains thirty episodic chapters, which may be grouped into two main schemes: one consists of two divisions, separated by the protagonist's hiatus in El Dorado; the other consists of three parts, each defined by its geographical setting. By the former scheme, the first half of "Candide" constitutes the rising action and the last part the resolution. This view is supported by the strong theme of travel and quest, reminiscent of adventure and picaresque novels, which tend to employ such a dramatic structure. By the latter scheme, the thirty chapters may be grouped into three parts each comprising ten chapters and defined by locale: I–X are set in Europe, XI–XX are set in the Americas, and XXI–XXX are set in Europe and the Ottoman Empire. The plot summary that follows uses this second format and includes Voltaire's additions of 1761.


title: Candide

text: The tale of "Candide" begins in the castle of the Baron Thunder-ten-Tronckh in Westphalia, home to the Baron's daughter, Lady Cunégonde; his bastard nephew, Candide; a tutor, Pangloss; a chambermaid, Paquette; and the rest of the Baron's family. The protagonist, Candide, is romantically attracted to Cunégonde. He is a young man of "the most unaffected simplicity" (), whose face is "the true index of his mind" (). Dr. Pangloss, professor of "" (English: "metaphysico-theologo-cosmolonigology") and self-proclaimed optimist, teaches his pupils that they live in the "best of all possible worlds" and that "all is for the best".


title: Candide

text: All is well in the castle until Cunégonde sees Pangloss sexually engaged with Paquette in some bushes. Encouraged by this show of affection, Cunégonde drops her handkerchief next to Candide, enticing him to kiss her. For this infraction, Candide is evicted from the castle, at which point he is captured by Bulgar (Prussian) recruiters and coerced into military service, where he is flogged, nearly executed, and forced to participate in a major battle between the Bulgars and the Avars (an allegory representing the Prussians and the French). Candide eventually escapes the army and makes his way to Holland where he is given aid by Jacques, an Anabaptist, who strengthens Candide's optimism. Soon after, Candide finds his master Pangloss, now a beggar with syphilis. Pangloss reveals he was infected with this disease by Paquette and shocks Candide by relating how Castle Thunder-ten-Tronckh was destroyed by Bulgars, that Cunégonde and her whole family were killed, and that Cunégonde was raped before her death. Pangloss is cured of his illness by Jacques, losing one eye and one ear in the process, and the three set sail to Lisbon.


title: Candide

text: In Lisbon's harbor, they are overtaken by a vicious storm which destroys the boat. Jacques attempts to save a sailor, and in the process is thrown overboard. The sailor makes no move to help the drowning Jacques, and Candide is in a state of despair until Pangloss explains to him that Lisbon harbor was created in order for Jacques to drown. Only Pangloss, Candide, and the "brutish sailor" who let Jacques drown survive the wreck and reach Lisbon, which is promptly hit by an earthquake, tsunami, and fire that kill tens of thousands. The sailor leaves in order to loot the rubble while Candide, injured and begging for help, is lectured on the optimistic view of the situation by Pangloss.


title: Candide

text: The next day, Pangloss discusses his optimistic philosophy with a member of the Portuguese Inquisition, and he and Candide are arrested for heresy, set to be tortured and killed in an "" set up to appease God and prevent another disaster. Candide is flogged and sees Pangloss hanged, but another earthquake intervenes and he escapes. He is approached by an old woman, who leads him to a house where Lady Cunégonde waits, alive. Candide is surprised: Pangloss had told him that Cunégonde had been raped and disemboweled. She had been, but Cunégonde points out that people survive such things. However, her rescuer sold her to a Jewish merchant, Don Issachar, who was then threatened by a corrupt Grand Inquisitor into sharing her (Don Issachar gets Cunégonde on Mondays, Wednesdays, and the sabbath day). Her owners arrive, find her with another man, and Candide kills them both. Candide and the two women flee the city, heading to the Americas. Along the way, Cunégonde falls into self-pity, complaining of all the misfortunes that have befallen her.


title: Candide

text: The old woman reciprocates by revealing her own tragic life: born the daughter of Pope Urban X and the Princess of Palestrina, she was kidnapped and enslaved by Barbary pirates, witnessed violent civil wars in Morocco under the bloodthirsty King Moulay Ismaïl (during which her mother was drawn and quartered), suffered constant hunger, nearly died from a plague in Algiers, and had a buttock cut off to feed starving Janissaries during the Russian capture of Azov. After traversing all the Russian Empire, she eventually became a servant of Don Issachar and met Cunégonde.


title: Candide

text: The trio arrives in Buenos Aires, where Governor Don Fernando d'Ibarra y Figueroa y Mascarenes y Lampourdos y Souza asks to marry Cunégonde. Just then, an "alcalde" (a Spanish magistrate) arrives, pursuing Candide for killing the Grand Inquisitor. Leaving the women behind, Candide flees to Paraguay with his practical and heretofore unmentioned manservant, Cacambo.


title: Candide

text: At a border post on the way to Paraguay, Cacambo and Candide speak to the commandant, who turns out to be Cunégonde's unnamed brother. He explains that after his family was slaughtered, the Jesuits' preparation for his burial revived him, and he has since joined the order. When Candide proclaims he intends to marry Cunégonde, her brother attacks him, and Candide runs him through with his rapier. After lamenting all the people (mainly priests) he has killed, he and Cacambo flee. In their flight, Candide and Cacambo come across two naked women being chased and bitten by a pair of monkeys. Candide, seeking to protect the women, shoots and kills the monkeys, but is informed by Cacambo that the monkeys and women were probably lovers.


title: Candide

text: Cacambo and Candide are captured by Oreillons, or Orejones; members of the Inca nobility who widened the lobes of their ears, and are depicted here as the fictional inhabitants of the area. Mistaking Candide for a Jesuit by his robes, the Oreillons prepare to cook Candide and Cacambo; however, Cacambo convinces the Oreillons that Candide killed a Jesuit to procure the robe. Cacambo and Candide are released and travel for a month on foot and then down a river by canoe, living on fruits and berries.


title: Candide

text: After a few more adventures, Candide and Cacambo wander into El Dorado, a geographically isolated utopia where the streets are covered with precious stones, there exist no priests, and all of the king's jokes are funny. Candide and Cacambo stay a month in El Dorado, but Candide is still in pain without Cunégonde, and expresses to the king his wish to leave. The king points out that this is a foolish idea, but generously helps them do so. The pair continue their journey, now accompanied by one hundred red pack sheep carrying provisions and incredible sums of money, which they slowly lose or have stolen over the next few adventures.


title: Candide

text: Candide and Cacambo eventually reach Suriname where they split up: Cacambo travels to Buenos Aires to retrieve Lady Cunégonde, while Candide prepares to travel to Europe to await the two. Candide's remaining sheep are stolen, and Candide is fined heavily by a Dutch magistrate for petulance over the theft. Before leaving Suriname, Candide feels in need of companionship, so he interviews a number of local men who have been through various ill-fortunes and settles on a man named Martin.


title: Candide

text: This companion, Martin, is a Manichaean scholar based on the real-life pessimist Pierre Bayle, who was a chief opponent of Leibniz. For the remainder of the voyage, Martin and Candide argue about philosophy, Martin painting the entire world as occupied by fools. Candide, however, remains an optimist at heart, since it is all he knows. After a detour to Bordeaux and Paris, they arrive in England and see an admiral (based on Admiral Byng) being shot for not killing enough of the enemy. Martin explains that Britain finds it necessary to shoot an admiral from time to time ""pour encourager les autres"" (to encourage the others). Candide, horrified, arranges for them to leave Britain immediately. Upon their arrival in Venice, Candide and Martin meet Paquette, the chambermaid who infected Pangloss with his syphilis. She is now a prostitute, and is spending her time with a Theatine monk, Brother Giroflée. Although both appear happy on the surface, they reveal their despair: Paquette has led a miserable existence as a sexual object, and the monk detests the religious order in which he was indoctrinated. Candide gives two thousand piastres to Paquette and one thousand to Brother Giroflée.


title: Candide

text: Candide and Martin visit the Lord Pococurante, a noble Venetian. That evening, Cacambo—now a slave—arrives and informs Candide that Cunégonde is in Constantinople. Prior to their departure, Candide and Martin dine with six strangers who had come for the Carnival of Venice. These strangers are revealed to be dethroned kings: the Ottoman Sultan Ahmed III, Emperor Ivan VI of Russia, Charles Edward Stuart (an unsuccessful pretender to the English throne), Augustus III of Poland (deprived, at the time of writing, of his reign in the Electorate of Saxony due to the Seven Years' War), Stanisław Leszczyński, and Theodore of Corsica.


title: Candide

text: On the way to Constantinople, Cacambo reveals that Cunégonde—now horribly ugly—currently washes dishes on the banks of the Propontis as a slave for a Transylvanian prince by the name of Rákóczi. After arriving at the Bosphorus, they board a galley where, to Candide's surprise, he finds Pangloss and Cunégonde's brother among the rowers. Candide buys their freedom and further passage at steep prices. They both relate how they survived, but despite the horrors he has been through, Pangloss's optimism remains unshaken: "I still hold to my original opinions, because, after all, I'm a philosopher, and it wouldn't be proper for me to recant, since Leibniz cannot be wrong, and since pre-established harmony is the most beautiful thing in the world, along with the plenum and subtle matter."


title: Candide

text: Candide, the baron, Pangloss, Martin, and Cacambo arrive at the banks of the Propontis, where they rejoin Cunégonde and the old woman. Cunégonde has indeed become hideously ugly, but Candide nevertheless buys their freedom and marries Cunégonde to spite her brother, who forbids Cunégonde from marrying anyone but a baron of the Empire (he is secretly sold back into slavery). Paquette and Brother Giroflée—having squandered their three thousand piastres—are reconciled with Candide on a small farm () which he just bought with the last of his finances.


title: Candide

text: One day, the protagonists seek out a dervish known as a great philosopher of the land. Candide asks him why Man is made to suffer so, and what they all ought to do. The dervish responds by asking rhetorically why Candide is concerned about the existence of evil and good. The dervish describes human beings as mice on a ship sent by a king to Egypt; their comfort does not matter to the king. The dervish then slams his door on the group. Returning to their farm, Candide, Pangloss, and Martin meet a Turk whose philosophy is to devote his life only to simple work and not concern himself with external affairs. He and his four children cultivate a small area of land, and the work keeps them "free of three great evils: boredom, vice, and poverty." Candide, Pangloss, Martin, Cunégonde, Paquette, Cacambo, the old woman, and Brother Giroflée all set to work on this "commendable plan" () on their farm, each exercising his or her own talents. Candide ignores Pangloss's insistence that all turned out for the best by necessity, instead telling him "we must cultivate our garden" ().


title: Candide

text: As Voltaire himself described it, the purpose of "Candide" was to "bring amusement to a small number of men of wit". The author achieves this goal by combining wit with a parody of the classic adventure-romance plot. Candide is confronted with horrible events described in painstaking detail so often that it becomes humorous. Literary theorist Frances K. Barasch described Voltaire's matter-of-fact narrative as treating topics such as mass death "as coolly as a weather report". The fast-paced and improbable plot—in which characters narrowly escape death repeatedly, for instance—allows for compounding tragedies to befall the same characters over and over again. In the end, "Candide" is primarily, as described by Voltaire's biographer Ian Davidson, "short, light, rapid and humorous".


title: Candide

text: Behind the playful façade of "Candide" which has amused so many, there lies very harsh criticism of contemporary European civilization which angered many others. European governments such as France, Prussia, Portugal and England are each attacked ruthlessly by the author: the French and Prussians for the Seven Years' War, the Portuguese for their Inquisition, and the British for the execution of John Byng. Organised religion, too, is harshly treated in "Candide". For example, Voltaire mocks the Jesuit order of the Roman Catholic Church. Aldridge provides a characteristic example of such anti-clerical passages for which the work was banned: while in Paraguay, Cacambo remarks, "[The Jesuits] are masters of everything, and the people have no money at all …". Here, Voltaire suggests the Christian mission in Paraguay is taking advantage of the local population. Voltaire depicts the Jesuits holding the indigenous peoples as slaves while they claim to be helping them.


title: Candide

text: The main method of "Candide"s satire is to contrast ironically great tragedy and comedy. The story does not invent or exaggerate evils of the world—it displays real ones starkly, allowing Voltaire to simplify subtle philosophies and cultural traditions, highlighting their flaws. Thus "Candide" derides optimism, for instance, with a deluge of horrible, historical (or at least plausible) events with no apparent redeeming qualities.


title: Candide

text: A simple example of the satire of "Candide" is seen in the treatment of the historic event witnessed by Candide and Martin in Portsmouth harbour. There, the duo spy an anonymous admiral, supposed to represent John Byng, being executed for failing to properly engage a French fleet. The admiral is blindfolded and shot on the deck of his own ship, merely "to encourage the others" (, an expression Voltaire is credited with originating). This depiction of military punishment trivializes Byng's death. The dry, pithy explanation "to encourage the others" thus satirises a serious historical event in characteristically Voltairian fashion. For its classic wit, this phrase has become one of the more often quoted from "Candide".


title: Candide

text: Voltaire depicts the worst of the world and his pathetic hero's desperate effort to fit it into an optimistic outlook. Almost all of "Candide" is a discussion of various forms of evil: its characters rarely find even temporary respite. There is at least one notable exception: the episode of El Dorado, a fantastic village in which the inhabitants are simply rational, and their society is just and reasonable. The positivity of El Dorado may be contrasted with the pessimistic attitude of most of the book. Even in this case, the bliss of El Dorado is fleeting: Candide soon leaves the village to seek Cunégonde, whom he eventually marries only out of a sense of obligation.


title: Candide

text: Another element of the satire focuses on what William F. Bottiglia, author of many published works on "Candide", calls the "sentimental foibles of the age" and Voltaire's attack on them. Flaws in European culture are highlighted as "Candide" parodies adventure and romance clichés, mimicking the style of a picaresque novel. A number of archetypal characters thus have recognisable manifestations in Voltaire's work: Candide is supposed to be the drifting rogue of low social class, Cunégonde the sex interest, Pangloss the knowledgeable mentor, and Cacambo the skillful valet. As the plot unfolds, readers find that Candide is no rogue, Cunégonde becomes ugly and Pangloss is a stubborn fool. The characters of "Candide" are unrealistic, two-dimensional, mechanical, and even marionette-like; they are simplistic and stereotypical. As the initially naïve protagonist eventually comes to a mature conclusion—however noncommittal—the novella is a "bildungsroman", if not a very serious one.


title: Candide

text: Gardens are thought by many critics to play a critical symbolic role in "Candide". The first location commonly identified as a garden is the castle of the Baron, from which Candide and Cunégonde are evicted much in the same fashion as Adam and Eve are evicted from the Garden of Eden in the Book of Genesis. Cyclically, the main characters of "Candide" conclude the novel in a garden of their own making, one which might represent celestial paradise. The third most prominent "garden" is El Dorado, which may be a false Eden. Other possibly symbolic gardens include the Jesuit pavilion, the garden of Pococurante, Cacambo's garden, and the Turk's garden.


title: Candide

text: These gardens are probably references to the Garden of Eden, but it has also been proposed, by Bottiglia, for example, that the gardens refer also to the "Encyclopédie", and that Candide's conclusion to cultivate "his garden" symbolises Voltaire's great support for this endeavour. Candide and his companions, as they find themselves at the end of the novella, are in a very similar position to Voltaire's tightly knit philosophical circle which supported the : the main characters of "Candide" live in seclusion to "cultivate [their] garden", just as Voltaire suggested his colleagues leave society to write. In addition, there is evidence in the epistolary correspondence of Voltaire that he had elsewhere used the metaphor of gardening to describe writing the . Another interpretative possibility is that Candide cultivating "his garden" suggests his engaging in only necessary occupations, such as feeding oneself and fighting boredom. This is analogous to Voltaire's own view on gardening: he was himself a gardener at his estates in Les Délices and Ferney, and he often wrote in his correspondence that gardening was an important pastime of his own, it being an extraordinarily effective way to keep busy.


title: Candide

text: "Candide" satirises various philosophical and religious theories that Voltaire had previously criticised. Primary among these is Leibnizian optimism (sometimes called "Panglossianism" after its fictional proponent), which Voltaire ridicules with descriptions of seemingly endless calamity. Voltaire demonstrates a variety of irredeemable evils in the world, leading many critics to contend that Voltaire's treatment of evil—specifically the theological problem of


title: Candide

text: its existence—is the focus of the work. Heavily referenced in the text are the Lisbon earthquake, disease, and the sinking of ships in storms. Also, war, thievery, and murder—evils of human design—are explored as extensively in "Candide" as are environmental ills. Bottiglia notes Voltaire is "comprehensive" in his enumeration of the world's evils. He is unrelenting in attacking Leibnizian optimism.


title: Candide

text: Fundamental to Voltaire's attack is Candide's tutor Pangloss, a self-proclaimed follower of Leibniz and a teacher of his doctrine. Ridicule of Pangloss's theories thus ridicules Leibniz himself, and Pangloss's reasoning is silly at best. For example, Pangloss's first teachings of the narrative absurdly mix up cause and effect:


title: Candide

text: Following such flawed reasoning even more doggedly than Candide, Pangloss defends optimism. Whatever their horrendous fortune, Pangloss reiterates "all is for the best" ("") and proceeds to "justify" the evil event's occurrence. A characteristic example of such theodicy is found in Pangloss's explanation of why it is good that syphilis exists:


title: Candide

text: Candide, the impressionable and incompetent student of Pangloss, often tries to justify evil, fails, invokes his mentor and eventually despairs. It is by these failures that Candide is painfully cured (as Voltaire would see it) of his optimism.


title: Candide

text: This critique of Voltaire's seems to be directed almost exclusively at Leibnizian optimism. "Candide" does not ridicule Voltaire's contemporary Alexander Pope, a later optimist of slightly different convictions. "Candide" does not discuss Pope's optimistic principle that "all is right", but Leibniz's that states, "this is the best of all possible worlds". However subtle the difference between the two, "Candide" is unambiguous as to which is its subject. Some critics conjecture that Voltaire meant to spare Pope this ridicule out of respect, although Voltaire's "Poème" may have been written as a more direct response to Pope's theories. This work is similar to "Candide" in subject matter, but very different from it in style: the "Poème" embodies a more serious philosophical argument than "Candide".


title: Candide

text: The conclusion of the novel, in which Candide finally dismisses his tutor's optimism, leaves unresolved what philosophy the protagonist is to accept in its stead. This element of "Candide" has been written about voluminously, perhaps above all others. The conclusion is enigmatic and its analysis is contentious.


title: Candide

text: Voltaire develops no formal, systematic philosophy for the characters to adopt. The conclusion of the novel may be thought of not as a philosophical alternative to optimism, but as a prescribed practical outlook (though it prescribes is in dispute). Many critics have concluded that one minor character or another is portrayed as having the right philosophy. For instance, a number believe that Martin is treated sympathetically, and that his character holds Voltaire's ideal philosophy—pessimism. Others disagree, citing Voltaire's negative descriptions of Martin's principles and the conclusion of the work in which Martin plays little part.


title: Candide

text: Within debates attempting to decipher the conclusion of "Candide" lies another primary "Candide" debate. This one concerns the degree to which Voltaire was advocating a pessimistic philosophy, by which Candide and his companions give up hope for a better world. Critics argue that the group's reclusion on the farm signifies Candide and his companions' loss of hope for the rest of the human race. This view is to be compared to a reading that presents Voltaire as advocating a melioristic philosophy and a precept committing the travellers to improving the world through metaphorical gardening. This debate, and others, focuses on the question of whether or not Voltaire was prescribing passive retreat from society, or active industrious contribution to it.


title: Candide

text: Separate from the debate about the text's conclusion is the "inside/outside" controversy. This argument centers on the matter of whether or not Voltaire was actually prescribing anything. Roy Wolper, professor emeritus of English, argues in a revolutionary 1969 paper that "Candide" does not necessarily speak for its author; that the work should be viewed as a narrative independent of Voltaire's history; and that its message is entirely (or mostly) it. This point of view, the "inside", specifically rejects attempts to find Voltaire's "voice" in the many characters of "Candide" and his other works. Indeed, writers have seen Voltaire as speaking through at least Candide, Martin, and the Turk. Wolper argues that "Candide" should be read with a minimum of speculation as to its meaning in Voltaire's personal life. His article ushered in a new era of Voltaire studies, causing many scholars to look at the novel differently.


title: Candide

text: Critics such as Lester Crocker, Henry Stavan, and Vivienne Mylne find too many similarities between "Candide"s point of view and that of Voltaire to accept the "inside" view; they support the "outside" interpretation. They believe that Candide's final decision is the same as Voltaire's, and see a strong connection between the development of the protagonist and his author. Some scholars who support the "outside" view also believe that the isolationist philosophy of the Old Turk closely mirrors that of Voltaire. Others see a strong parallel between Candide's gardening at the conclusion and the gardening of the author. Martine Darmon Meyer argues that the "inside" view fails to see the satirical work in context, and that denying that "Candide" is primarily a mockery of optimism (a matter of historical context) is a "very basic betrayal of the text".


title: Candide

text: Though Voltaire did not openly admit to having written the controversial "Candide" until 1768 (until then he signed with a pseudonym: "Monsieur le docteur Ralph", or "Doctor Ralph"), his authorship of the work was hardly disputed.


title: Candide

text: Immediately after publication, the work and its author were denounced by both secular and religious authorities, because the book openly derides government and church alike. It was because of such polemics that Omer-Louis-François Joly de Fleury, who was Advocate General to the Parisian parliament when "Candide" was published, found parts of "Candide" to be "contrary to religion and morals".


title: Candide

text: Despite much official indictment, soon after its publication, "Candide"s irreverent prose was being quoted. "Let us eat a Jesuit", for instance, became a popular phrase for its reference to a humorous passage in "Candide". By the end of February 1759, the Grand Council of Geneva and the administrators of Paris had banned "Candide". "Candide" nevertheless succeeded in selling twenty thousand to thirty thousand copies by the end of the year in over twenty editions, making it a best seller. The Duke de La Vallière speculated near the end of January 1759 that "Candide" might have been the fastest-selling book ever. In 1762, "Candide" was listed in the "Index Librorum Prohibitorum", the Roman Catholic Church's list of prohibited books.


title: Candide

text: Bannings of "Candide" lasted into the twentieth century in the United States, where it has long been considered a seminal work of Western literature. At least once, "Candide" was temporarily barred from entering America: in February 1929, a US customs official in Boston prevented a number of copies of the book, deemed "obscene", from reaching a Harvard University French class. "Candide" was admitted in August of the same year; however by that time the class was over. In an interview soon after "Candide"s detention, the official who confiscated the book explained the office's decision to ban it, "But about 'Candide,' I'll tell you. For years we've been letting that book get by. There were so many different editions, all sizes and kinds, some illustrated and some plain, that we figured the book must be all right. Then one of us happened to read it. It's a filthy book".


title: Candide

text: "Candide" is the most widely read of Voltaire's many works, and it is considered one of the great achievements of Western literature. However, "Candide" is not necessarily considered a true "classic". According to Bottiglia, "The physical size of "Candide", as well as Voltaire's attitude toward his fiction, precludes the achievement of artistic dimension through plenitude, autonomous '3D' vitality, emotional resonance, or poetic exaltation. "Candide", then, cannot in quantity or quality, measure up to the supreme classics." Bottiglia instead calls it a miniature classic, though others are more forgiving of its size. As the only work of Voltaire which has remained popular up to the present day, "Candide" is listed in Harold Bloom's "". It is included in the Encyclopædia Britannica collection "Great Books of the Western World". "Candide" has influenced modern writers of black humour such as Céline, Joseph Heller, John Barth, Thomas Pynchon, Kurt Vonnegut, and Terry Southern. Its parody and picaresque methods have become favourites of black humorists.


title: Candide

text: Charles Brockden Brown, an early American novelist, may have been directly affected by Voltaire, whose work he knew well. Mark Kamrath, professor of English, describes the strength of the connection between "Candide" and "Edgar Huntly; or, Memoirs of a Sleep-Walker" (1799): "An unusually large number of parallels...crop up in the two novels, particularly in terms of characters and plot." For instance, the protagonists of both novels are romantically involved with a recently orphaned young woman. Furthermore, in both works the brothers of the female lovers are Jesuits, and each is murdered (although under different circumstances). Some twentieth-century novels that may have been influenced by "Candide" are dystopian science-fiction works. Armand Mattelart, a French critic, sees "Candide" in Aldous Huxley's "Brave New World", George Orwell's "Nineteen Eighty-Four", and Yevgeny Zamyatin's "We", three canonical works of the genre. Specifically, Mattelart writes that in each of these works, there exist references to "Candide"s popularisation of the phrase "the best of all possible worlds". He cites as evidence, for example, that the French version of "Brave New World" was entitled ().


title: Candide

text: Readers of "Candide" often compare it with certain works of the modern genre the Theatre of the Absurd. Haydn Mason, a Voltaire scholar, sees in "Candide" a few similarities to this brand of literature. For instance, he notes commonalities of "Candide" and "Waiting for Godot" (1952). In both of these works, and in a similar manner, friendship provides emotional support for characters when they are confronted with harshness of their existences. However, Mason qualifies, "the must not be seen as a forerunner of the 'absurd' in modern fiction. Candide's world has many ridiculous and meaningless elements, but human beings are not totally deprived of the ability to make sense out of it." John Pilling, biographer of Beckett, does state that "Candide" was an early and powerful influence on Beckett's thinking. Rosa Luxemburg, in the aftermath of the First World War, remarked upon re-reading "Candide": "Before the war, I would have thought this wicked compilation of all human misery a caricature. Now it strikes me as altogether realistic."


title: Candide

text: The American alternative rock band Bloodhound Gang refer to "Candide" in their song "Take the Long Way Home", from the American edition of their 1999 album "Hooray for Boobies".


title: Candide

text: In 1760, one year after Voltaire published "Candide", a sequel was published with the name . This work is attributed both to Thorel de Campigneulles, a writer unknown today, and Henri Joseph Du Laurens, who is suspected of having habitually plagiarised Voltaire. The story continues in this sequel with Candide having new adventures in the Ottoman Empire, Persia, and Denmark. "Part II" has potential use in studies of the popular and literary receptions of "Candide", but is almost certainly apocryphal. In total, by the year 1803, at least ten imitations of "Candide" or continuations of its story were published by authors other than Voltaire.


title: Candide

text: "Candide" was adapted for the radio anthology program "On Stage" in 1953. Richard Chandlee wrote the script; Elliott Lewis, Cathy Lewis, Edgar Barrier, Byron Kane, Jack Kruschen, Howard McNear, Larry Thor, Martha Wentworth, and Ben Wright performed.


title: Candide

text: The operetta "Candide" was originally conceived by playwright Lillian Hellman, as a play with incidental music. Leonard Bernstein, the American composer and conductor who wrote the music, was so excited about the project that he convinced Hellman to do it as a "comic operetta". Many lyricists worked on the show, including James Agee, Dorothy Parker, John Latouche, Richard Wilbur, Leonard and Felicia Bernstein, and Hellman. Hershy Kay orchestrated all the pieces except for the overture, which Bernstein did himself. "Candide" first opened on Broadway as a musical on 1 December 1956. The premier production was directed by Tyrone Guthrie and conducted by Samuel Krachmalnick. While this production was a box office flop, the music was highly praised, and an original cast album was made. The album gradually became a cult hit, but Hellman's libretto was criticised as being too serious an adaptation of Voltaire's novel. "Candide" has been revised and reworked several times. The first New York revival, directed by Hal Prince, featured an entirely new libretto by Hugh Wheeler and additional lyrics by Stephen Sondheim. Bernstein revised the work again in 1987 with the collaboration of John Mauceri and John Wells. After Bernstein's death, further revised productions of the musical were performed in versions prepared by Trevor Nunn and John Caird in 1999, and Mary Zimmerman in 2010.


title: Candide

text: "" (1977) or simply is a book by Leonardo Sciascia. It was at least partly based on Voltaire's "Candide", although the actual influence of "Candide" on is a hotly debated topic. A number of theories on the matter have been proposed. Proponents of one say that is very similar to "Candide", only with a happy ending; supporters of another claim that Voltaire provided Sciascia with only a starting point from which to work, that the two books are quite distinct.


title: Candide

text: The BBC produced a television adaptation in 1973, with Ian Ogilvy as Candide, Emrys James as Dr. Pangloss, and Frank Finlay as Voltaire himself, acting as the narrator.


title: Candide

text: Nedim Gürsel wrote his 2001 novel "Le voyage de Candide à Istanbul" about a minor passage in "Candide" during which its protagonist meets Ahmed III, the deposed Turkish sultan. This chance meeting on a ship from Venice to Istanbul is the setting of Gürsel's book. Terry Southern, in writing his popular novel "Candy" with Mason Hoffenberg adapted "Candide" for a modern audience and changed the protagonist from male to female. "Candy" deals with the rejection of a sort of optimism which the author sees in women's magazines of the modern era; "Candy" also parodies pornography and popular psychology. This adaptation of "Candide" was adapted for the cinema by director Christian Marquand in 1968.


title: Candide

text: In addition to the above, "Candide" was made into a number of minor films and theatrical adaptations throughout the twentieth century. For a list of these, see (1989) with preface and commentaries by Pierre Malandain.


title: Candide

text: In May 2009, a play titled "Optimism", based on "Candide" opened at the CUB Malthouse Theatre in Melbourne. It followed the basic story of "Candide", incorporating anachronisms, music, and stand up comedy from comedian Frank Woodley. It toured Australia and played at the Edinburgh International Festival. In 2010, the Icelandic writer Óttar M. Norðfjörð published a rewriting and modernisation of "Candide", titled .


Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian, or simply Night at the Museum 2, is a 2009 American fantasy action comedy film written by Robert Ben Garant and Thomas Lennon, produced by Chris Columbus, Michael Barnathan and Shawn Levy and directed by Levy. The film stars Ben Stiller in the lead role, Amy Adams, Owen Wilson, Steve Coogan, Hank Azaria, Christopher Guest, Alain Chabat, Jon Bernthal and Robin Williams. It is the second installment in the "Night at the Museum" series, following the original film. The film was released theatrically on May 22, 2009 by 20th Century Fox. Like its predecessor, it received mixed reviews and became a box office success, grossing $413 million on a $150 million budget.


title: Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian

text: A live-action sequel, "" was released on December 19, 2014, and an animated sequel, "", was released on the streaming service Disney+ in 2022.