So when you think of superheroes, like Spider-Man, Batman,
Superman, what do you think of?
Do you think of a Victorian era woman wearing a corset inventing them?
Well, probably not.
They all have very famous creators.
But what we're going to be talking about today is the fact that it
Victorian era woman, yes, wearing a corset and floor-length skirts,
invented modern superheroes.
So my name is Ellie Dashwood.
And this is my channel where I talk about classic literature and history.
If you like either of those topics, please subscribe.
So today we'll be talking about the Scarlet Pimpernel
written by Baroness Orczy.
Yes, she was a real baroness.
She was Hungarian.
She lived during the Victorian era, into the Edwardian era and even through
world war one and world war two.
She wrote both a play and a book called The Scarlet Pimpernel around 1904.
So first I want to clarify that obviously, when anyone makes a claim
of, "Oh, this person invented this.
Or this was the first person to do that."
There's a million people out there, that's like, "No, this person did that before
them, or this was like that over there."
And I also want to say, Thomas Edison did not invent the concept of the light bulb.
He just made one that worked and then sold really, really well.
And that is what changed the world.
Right?
If it wasn't for Thomas Edison, then some other guy would have had to
come up with it, hopefully, or we'd all be sitting here in the dark.
But Thomas Edison's light bulb is the one that changed the world.
And likewise, the book we'll be talking about today also
changed the superhero world.
So The Scarlet Pimpernel like you may have heard me talk about in my video,
"Five Classic Books That Are Nothing Like Their Movies" tells the story of a British
aristocrat named Sir Percy Blakeney.
Cause he's a baronet.
And if you want to know more about Baronets.
The definitely check out my video,"What is an English Lord?"
But Sir Percy is a very rich man.
He is really, really dumb and not good at anything other
than being very well dressed.
Which during the Regency times, when this book was set was
being called a fop or foppish.
Which was guys who were all about their clothes.
It was a trend in society at the time, but not to get too sidetracked on that.
Really, Sir Percy was just using his foppish Playboy idiotic persona as a
cover for secretly being a hero that goes into France and rescues poor
French members of the aristocracy before they are killed by Madame Guillotine.
So now what makes this character so important in the
development of superheroes?
Well, it's because before Sir Percy Blakeney, if you look at a lot of
superheroes and literature, they're either characters like Greek gods or the Greek
heroes, like Achilles.And that's sort of the classical thinking around heroes.
But Sir Percy introduced a lot of tropes and standard trademarks
that we see in almost all of the superheroes that come after him.
So really Baroness Orczy created what we usually think of today as
the modern superhero, which is so different from of course Achilles.
If you compare Spiderman to Achilles, yeah, they have some things in common.
But a lot of these important factors Baroness Orczy invented
in the character of The Scarlet Pimpernel.Let's talk about them.
So the very first one, which is incredibly important is that the
Scarlet Pimpernel had secret identity.
And he had a hero name and his secret identity name, Sir Percy
Blakeney and the Scarlet Pimpernel.
So we can think of Bruce Wayne and Batman, Clark Kent and Superman,
Peter Parker and Spider-Man and the list just goes on and on and on.
Because if you think about classic heroes, what do you call Achilles?
You can call him Achilles.
What do you call Hercules?
Yeah.
Call him Hercules, no matter who you are or where you're at.
So he had this persona that was covering up his secret
identity with a superhero name.
So what was his alter ego, Sir Percy like?
Well, he was dumb.
He was all about his clothes.
He wasn't really good or reliable at anything.
Basically all of the characteristics that would lead someone to believe
that there's no chance that guy's secretly the Scarlet Pimpernel.
Cause Scarlet Pimpernel is smart and brave and good at stuff.
Right?
And that's exactly what we see in these alter ego personas of superheroes.
Think about Peter Parker, Clark Kent, Bruce Wayne, all of their personas
have characteristics designed to throw people off the trail of the fact
that they're secretly superheroes.
And had invented this most basic concept of modern superheroes?
Again, a Victorian era woman.
And if you're interested in learning more about what it was like to be
a Victorian era housewife, then check out my video, "10 signs That
So Sir Percy also has other defining characteristics.
For example, he has his boat called the Day Dream, which is
the equivalent Batman's Batmobile.
He has a standard sword fighting style and he uses wit and ingenuity to out-think
his arrivals, which is something we see in a lot of modern superheroes.
For example, Peter Parker is always having to use both his wit and ingenuity
and his standard fighting style of well being a spider guy to stop people.
So he has a archnemesis named Chauvelin.
Just like, Superman has an archnemesis named Lex Luther.
And also Sir Percy leaves a calling card at the scene of his heroism.
For example, he leaves a Scarlet Pimpernel and Spiderman leaves
a note saying, "Courtesy of your friendly neighborhood Spider-Man."
And too, what would a superhero be without that leading lady
in his life that he loves.
And yet the fact that he loves her, always leads to her being in danger and the arch
nemesis, trying to kidnap and/or kill her.
They all have them.
And Sir Percy's is his wife, Lady Blakeney.
So ultimately here we see a very long list of characteristics that we
see in almost all modern superheroes written after the Scarlet Pimpernel,
that Baroness Orczy invented in 1904.
So next time you look at a modern superhero, just know they wouldn't be
who they are if a Victorian era, a woman with a great imagination, didn't sit
down at her writing desk and scratch out The Scarlet Pimpernel for us.
And keep being awesome because you're awesome.
Bye.
Also, he has an arch nemesis called Chauvelin.
Just like how Superman has that guy.
Alexa, who is Superman's arch-nemesis?
Lex Luther is considered to be Superman's arch nemesis.