Il Capitano - Depiction of The Character

Depiction of The Character

The Captain is sometimes depicted without a mask. When a mask is used, it is usually flesh-hued with a large nose and a moustache that is either straight and bristly or turned up at the corners. Sometimes older versions are shown wearing a pair of glasses; although used to compensate for his poor vision, Capitano will insist that it is so the brilliant or fierce glint in his handsome eyes will not outshine the sun.

He is dressed in his military uniform, which is multi-colored and covered in shiny buttons, but often shown patched and looking very worn. In one famous scenario, the Captain makes up a lie regarding the reason for his lack of an undershirt by claiming that it got that way because "I used to be an exceedingly fierce and violent man, and when I was made angry the hair which covers my body in goodly quantity stood on end and so riddled my shirt with holes that you would have taken it for a sieve." The real reason is that he has been too poor to afford one. Sometimes he wears it with a helmet or a bicorne or tricorne hat with a huge plume. Spanish characters often wear an exaggerated large neck-ruff.

He also wears his trademark sword at all times, though it is exclusively for show. If he were to ever work up enough nerve to draw it, it is usually too long to draw easily or too heavy or wobbly to wield properly. Even if he cut somebody with it, he would faint at the very sight of the blood.

When frightened, he often screams in a high and womanly falsetto, or else faints.

Read more about this topic:  Il Capitano

Famous quotes containing the word character:

    When needs and means become abstract in quality, abstraction is also a character of the reciprocal relation of individuals to one another. This abstract character, universality, is the character of being recognized and is the moment which makes concrete, i.e. social, the isolated and abstract needs and their ways and means of satisfaction.
    Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770–1831)