It inspired a lot of copy-cat authors who wrote their own adventures for Quixote (basically the OG fan fic). But Cervantes hated these, as they often misunderstood his character (and were cutting into his royalties…).

Most definitely on the mark! I'm with you 100% here.

So Cervantes wrote a sequel, where Quixote actually confronts one of these knock-off versions of himself as an imposter claiming to be Don Quixote. Cervantes has the "real" Quixote battle the "fictional" Don Quixote that existed in somebody else's novel. lol

You may know this already. From your style of writing, I assume you're about my age. So don't be offended if you do and have a nice week.

Anyway -

That part is more metafictional than most modern audiences get since chivalric romances are largely unread and untranslated.

That was a response to Amadis knockoffs, not really DQ knockoffs. And some other stuff.

Pretty much everyone who could read, had read a romance called Amadis of Gaul. It was like the Dan Brown of the early modern period. Multiple authors regularly wrote books with the character. The one who wrote the best ones was Garci Rodríguez de Montalvo (at least from Cervantes perspective and most literary scholars). GRdM got the character from an earlier book, or invented it. Amusing sidenote, "Las sergas de Esplandián" the sequel is where the word "California" comes from.

That was partially lampshading the satirical and parodic aspects of Don Quixote (and his character's sense of chivalry) which were clearly modeled on the Amadis of Gaul chivalric romance series which were quite popular and preceded DQ and the inferior quality of derivative titles.

Which may in fact be somewhat wrongheaded since Amadis could be a Disney style public domain swipe, unless the found manuscript bit is a lie, which is pretty likely too in this time period. So who knows.

Have a nice week!