Bluebird of Bitterness lays out the forgotten history of Guy Fawkes:

In light of this history, Fawkes is a strange choice to be the face of hacker activists like Anonymous and other anarchist movements. We’ve all seen that stupid mask, the one that looks like Gomez Adams just did it with Morticia.

Fawkes, after all, was first and foremost loyal to the Holy See, which at the time of the foiled plot was being wholly overseen by Pope Paul V, best known as the guy who created the Bank of the Holy Spirit, the first national bank in Europe, and the first bank of any stripe to waive monthly maintenance fees if you paid for two indulgences directly from the account in any 30-day period. (It was Paul V, after all, who finished St. Peter’s Basilica, and those things don’t come cheap. He also placed the entire Venetian Republic under interdict, and if you knew the paperwork involved, you’d be mightily impressed.)

“Guy Fawkes, Call Your Office“

This is fun for historians to read, and self-important Internet HaCkErZ deserve to be twitted for their general ignorance. But ultimately, it’s irrelevant. Guy Fawkes has transubstantiated from an historical person to a meme, partly due to several centuries spent as an effigy being burnt by riotously inebriated Saxons, mostly due to a graphic novel by Alan Moore, V for Vendetta, which gives us an Anarchist Batman wreaking havoc in a fascist fever-dream Britain. The film based on the graphic novel cemented the image. Guy Fawkes is a mask now, one I don’t see as much anymore (all memes have their day), but is still noteworthy.

Fascists are to progressives what counter-revolutionaries are to Communists, what Jews are to Nazis, what witches are to Puritans: the ghost of the Enemy made flesh, the goat that can be laden with your sins. All societies need a Nemesis of some kind, to define the limits of what society is, and if a real one is not available, one will be manufactured. So even if Anarchist Guy Fawkes becomes Debunked, another form of Hero defeating Nemesis, another form of St. George slaying the Dragon, will be created. This is what we do. It will be done by the people or it will be done by the state, but it will be done.