It is a curious combination of images, histories, politics and symbols—a Catholic revolutionary, executed for treason, a peculiar heritage in British popular commemoration, a right-wing blog site, a graphic novel, a Hollywood film disowned by the graphic novel’s writer, a mass-produced commodity, internet hackers and a myriad of protest groups. But it is precisely this lack of tangibility that has proved to be part of its appeal. It is hard to pin-down, to locate, to detach from its multiple resonances. As V says in the graphic novel, “Did you think to kill me? There’s no flesh or blood to kill. There’s only an idea. Ideas are bullet-proof”.

Stuart Elden, “V for Visibility“