I’m glad to see that it’s not just me who has always found the symbolism and rhetoric around the holiday convoluted. The whole attitude and celebration of the holiday is inverted. To celebrate his failure to blow up Parliament we name the holiday after him, we wear Guy Fawkes masks, children collect “Penn[ies] for Guy” and we set off explosives (just like he wanted, but failed, to do). All of these actions are the opposite of what one would normally expect. We’re celebrating that he tried to do something bad and we stopped him, we’re not supposed to be celebrating his attempt.

Can you imagine if we behaved similarly on other holidays?

The Fourth of July would be known as King George day and we’d all wear red coats and tri-corner hats while stomping on American flags.

V-E day would be known as Hitler day and we’d wear Hitler masks while dance through the streets spraying “gas” on disfavored ethnic and political groups.

September 11th would be known as Osama bin Laden day and we’d all wear white robes and hang around in caves learning how to fly airplanes.

It’s a baffling holiday.

well, it's sort of like purim, when jews bake hamentashen in the shape of hamen's tri-corner hat. (he tried to kill us, so what else is new?)