Pop Culture References of Wizard101: Khrysalis – Inquisitor Ximenez

Inquisitor Ximenez – Cardinal Francisco Jiménez de Cisneros and the Spanish Inquisition and the Monty Python Spanish Inquisition sketch.
https://wiki.wizard101central.com/wiki/Creature:Inquisitor_Ximenez
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francisco_Jim%C3%A9nez_de_Cisneros
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish_Inquisition
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Spanish_Inquisition_(Monty_Python)
https://youtu.be/D5Df191WJ3o?si=YzKfsaIlwdLx_Tl0

Inquisitor Ximenez is a Spider Mage. He is currently interrogating Taylor Coleridge about your wizard’s whereabouts and what your plans are.

“I’ll ask again and again and again. How did you get here? Where is the Wizard? What is your plan? :Trrr: What’s that? :Trrr: Wait, who are you? Some new Warlord sent by Warden Benthamic? No, you’re the Wizard!”
“:Trrr: Nobody expects the… Oh never mind.”

MONSTROLOGY TOME DESCRIPTION
Nobody is expected to withstand a Ximenez inquisition.

Francisco Jiménez de Cisneros, OFM (1436 – November 8, 1517) was a Spanish cardinal, religious figure, and statesman. Starting from humble beginnings he rose to the heights of power, becoming a religious reformer, twice regent of Spain, Cardinal, Grand Inquisitor, promoter of the Crusades in North Africa, and founder of the Alcalá University. Among his intellectual accomplishments, he is best known for funding the Complutensian Polyglot Bible, the first printed polyglot version of the entire Bible. He also edited and published the first printed editions of the missal (in 1500) and the breviary (in 1502) of the Mozarabic Rite, and established a chapel with a college of thirteen priests to celebrate the Mozarabic Liturgy of the Hours and Eucharist each day in the Toledo Cathedral.

Cardinal Cisneros’ life coincided with, and greatly influenced, a dynamic period in the history of Spain during the reign of Ferdinand II of Aragon and Isabella I of Castile. During this time Spain underwent many significant changes, leading it into its prominent role in the Spanish Golden Age (1500–1700). Modern historian John Elliott said as far as any particular policies that can be attributed to Spain’s rise, they were those of King Ferdinand and Cardinal Cisneros.

In 1499 Cisneros accompanied the court of the Spanish Inquisition to Granada, and there interfered with Hernando de Talavera’s efforts to peacefully convert its Muslim inhabitants to Christianity. Talavera favored slow conversion by explaining to the Moors, in their language, the truths of the Catholic religion, but Cisneros said that this was “giving pearls to pigs”, and proceeded with forced mass conversion. He ordered the public burning of all Arabic manuscripts that could be found in Granada — 5,000 is the lowest figure the contemporary sources give — except those dealing with medicine.

The Tribunal of the Holy Office of the Inquisition (Spanish: Tribunal del Santo Oficio de la Inquisición), commonly known as the Spanish Inquisition (Inquisición española), was established in 1478 by the Catholic Monarchs, King Ferdinand II of Aragon and Queen Isabella I of Castile. It began toward the end of the Reconquista and was intended to maintain Catholic orthodoxy in their kingdoms and to replace the Medieval Inquisition, which was under papal control. It became the most substantive of the three different manifestations of the wider Catholic Inquisition, along with the Roman Inquisition and the Portuguese Inquisition. The “Spanish Inquisition” may be defined broadly as operating in Spain and in all Spanish colonies and territories, which included the Canary Islands, the Kingdom of Naples, and all Spanish possessions in North America and South America. According to some modern estimates, around 150,000 people were prosecuted for various offences during the three-century duration of the Spanish Inquisition, of whom between 3,000 and 5,000 were executed, approximately 2.7 percent of all cases. The Inquisition, however, since the creation of the American courts, has never had jurisdiction over the indigenous. The King of Spain ordered “that the inquisitors should never proceed against the Indians, but against the old Christians and their descendants and other persons against whom in these kingdoms of Spain it is customary to proceed”.

“The Spanish Inquisition” is an episode and recurring segment in the British sketch comedy TV series Monty Python’s Flying Circus, specifically series 2 episode 2 (first broadcast 22 September 1970), that satirizes the Spanish Inquisition. The sketches are notable for the catchphrase, “Nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition!”, which has been frequently quoted and become an Internet meme.

This recurring sketch is predicated on a seemingly unrelated narrative bit in which someone exclaims that they “didn’t expect a Spanish Inquisition!”, often in irritation at being vigorously questioned by another. The first appearance of Monty Python’s “Spanish Inquisition” characters occurs in a drawing room set in “Jarrow, 1912”, with a title card featuring a modern British urban area with a nuclear power plant. A mill worker (Graham Chapman) enters the room and tells a woman sitting on a couch knitting (Carol Cleveland) in a thick accent that “one of the cross beams has gone out askew on the treadle”. When Cleveland says that she cannot understand what he’s talking about, Chapman repeats the line without the thick accent, then grows defensive and says, “I didn’t expect a kind of Spanish Inquisition!” Suddenly, the Inquisition—consisting of Cardinal Ximénez (Michael Palin) and his assistants, Cardinal Biggles (Terry Jones) (who resembles his namesake Biggles wearing a leather aviator’s helmet and goggles) and Cardinal Fang (Terry Gilliam)—bursts into the room to the sound of a jarring musical sting. Ximénez shouts, with a particular and high-pitched emphasis on the first word: “No-body expects the Spanish Inquisition!”.

The current list of all the (known) Khrysalis references can be found here.

Although I am well versed in Pop Culture references but I do not claim to have caught them all. Let me know your favorites in the comments and if I’ve missed one you caught, let me know so I can add it to the list.

Text for this article is excerpted from the linked wiki pages

Inquisitor Ximenez image is from Wizard101, and is copyright of KingsIsle Entertainment.

Cardinal Cisneros and the Inquisition etching are borrowed from Wikipedia. They are in the public domain.

The Monty Python Live image is copyright Eduardo Unda-Sanzana. It is borrowed from Wikipedia and is shared under the CC BY 2.0 Creative Commons license.

Image usage qualifies as fair use under US copyright law.