Guy Fawkes Day

File:V.jpg

## History

On November 4th, 2016, the Old Bailey is destroyed in an explosive display of fireworks and the booming sounds of the *1812 Overture* by Tchaikovsky. The city is rocked by this and the state, knowing it was the work of a terrorist and afraid of inciting panic, downplay it as a controlled demolition and surprise spectacle for the people.

Adam Sutler puts his Minister of Investigations (aka: "The Nose"), Eric Finch in charge of finding the one responsible for the Old Bailey's destruction and making sure he's never heard from again. In no time at all Finch finds surveillance video of a man in a Guy Fawkes mask saving a woman from harassment by several of Creedy's Fingermen. Finch has the woman identified as Evey Hammond and goes to speak with her.

Evey Hammond is a young woman, an intern at BTN. She's had a rough life due to Sutler and his regime, but she is too afraid to do anything about it. She was considering reporting the strange man who saved her from the Fingermen but ultimately thought no one would believe her if she did and she'd be sent off to an asylum like her mother had been when she was a girl.

The next day at work, is Guy Fawkes day, and Evey arrives to work without her ID. She realizes she must have lost it the night before but she is let in all the same by a security officer who recognizes her. Partway through her day, she is surprised by the arrival of Eric Finch, the Nose, who asks to speak with her about the masked man. Evey is about to say all when the airwaves are hijacked by emergency frequency by this mysterious masked man. Finch knows this could only happen if the man were at BTN itself and he leaves Evey to find the broadcast.

The masked man identifies himself as V and declares this over the air:

*"Remember, remember!*

*The fifth of November,*

*The Gunpowder treason and plot;*

*I know of no reason*

*Why the Gunpowder treason*

*Should ever be forgot!"*

He then continues:

*"Good evening, London. Allow me first to apologize for this interruption. I do, like many of you, appreciate the comforts of every day routine- the security of the familiar, the tranquility of repetition. I enjoy them as much as any bloke. But in the spirit of commemoration, whereby those important events of the past, usually associated with someone's death or the end of some awful bloody struggle, a celebration of a nice holiday, I thought we could mark this November the 5th, a day that is sadly no longer remembered, by taking some time out of our daily lives to sit down and have a little chat. There are of course those who do not want us to speak. I suspect even now, orders are being shouted into telephones, and men with guns will soon be on their way. Why? Because while the truncheon may be used in lieu of conversation, words will always retain their power. Words offer the means to meaning, and for those who will listen, the enunciation of truth. And the truth is, there is something terribly wrong with this country, isn't there? Cruelty and injustice, intolerance and oppression. And where once you had the freedom to object, to think and speak as you saw fit, you now have censors and systems of surveillance coercing your conformity and soliciting your submission. How did this happen? Who's to blame? Well certainly there are those more responsible than others, and they will be held accountable, but again truth be told, if you're looking for the guilty, you need only look into a mirror. I know why you did it. I know you were afraid. Who wouldn't be? War, terror, disease. There were a myriad of problems which conspired to corrupt your reason and rob you of your common sense. Fear got the best of you, and in your panic you turned to the now high chancellor, Adam Sutler. He promised you order, he promised you peace, and all he demanded in return was your silent, obedient consent. Last night, I sought to end that silence. Last night, I destroyed the Old Bailey, to remind this country of what it has forgotten. More than four hundred years ago a great citizen wished to embed the fifth of November forever in our memory. His hope was to remind the world that fairness, justice, and freedom are more than words, they are perspectives. So if you've seen nothing, if the crimes of this government remain unknown to you, then I would suggest you allow the fifth of November to pass unmarked. But if you see what I see, if you feel as I feel, and if you would seek as I seek, then I ask you to stand beside me one year from tonight, outside the gates of Parliament, and together we shall give them a fifth of November that shall never, ever be forgot."*

It is shortly after this that Finch busts into the broadcast room and though V manages to slip out in the confusion, having dressed the hostages up like V himself, Finch manages to catch up to V and head him off, blocking his escape. V is about to draw his daggers to silence Finch when Evey strikes Finch from behind and gives V a moment to knock the Nose out. Evey and V then flee together to V's lair, the Shadow Gallery.

At the Shadow Cabinet, which is both a home and a museum of relics and art V has liberated from Sutler's Ministry of Questionable Works, V asks Evey why she risked so much to help him and she said that they had already identified her as being complicit in the Old Bailey's destruction and since she didn't actually know anything to actually bargain with, she would be dead anyway. She had nothing to lose by helping V... that and she liked his fancy speech on the TV.

## Trivia and Notes

### Notes

* Events from *V for Vendetta* are based on the movie version. As Roy explains: *A quick side note, I prefer the film over the comic. It's just a tighter story, more relevant to me, and it has more logic to it than the book does. I tend to find this rather common when Hollywood adapts Moore's works as Moore tends to be a bit nihilistic and over the top in the manner in which he perceives humanity*.
	+ Adam Sutler's name is the movie version of the name. In the comic he's named Adam Susan.
	+ In the movie the virus epidemic allowed Norsefire to rise. In the comics it was a nuclear war between the USA and USSR, and the devastation after it.
	+ In the film, V destroys the Old Bailey in the beginning. In the comics he destroys the Houses of Parliament.