TM Challenge: Watchmen
OOC: Contains spoilers for Watchmen. The mun also apologises in advance for the muse's insane ramblings.
"Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?" ("Who watches the watchmen?")
There's a new movie out. Watchmen. He hasn't heard of it before, but he rather likes superhero movies - for reasons both obvious and not - so, one evening, he goes to a late showing at the Midtown Multiplex. (It's nothing like the side-street cinemas he remembers as a child; all velvet-lined with sparkling lights and mysterious men in smart outfits. Now it's all glowing posters and seventeen screens; functional in its goal to bring vaguely overpriced entertainment to the masses, but… somehow not half as magical. He supposes it's the price of progress, and progress is always good. Right?)
He's seen pretty much all of the recent spate of superhero movies here, to mixed response. He has too great of a childhood connection to Batman to not have liked those new releases, although of course he wouldn't admit this, and he certainly wouldn't admit how unnerving he found them. Especially The Dark Knight. Life isn't like that, he told himself over and over, driving home from the showing. Superheroism isn't like that.
It is, of course. The more obvious it gets, the more he denies it, except… well.
Except when he's not alone.
Most of the other movies were more of a joke than anything else - Spider-Man seemed set on the idea that people would object to having a hero to protect their city, which was just silly, whilst X-Men (despite having the quite delicious Halle Berre in a pleasingly prominent role) had both its heroes and its villains in hiding, until they all came out, make a great big mess of things, and then went away again.
And Superman? Well. The hero-villain relationship was plausible (sometimes alarmingly so) but, again, the need to hide? He really doesn't understand that.
He really couldn't, after all. Not given how prominent he needs to be in society.
So when Watchmen comes out, he decides he ought to go and see it. He doesn't really know what it's about - comic books are so nerdy and everyone knows nerds are dangerous (and all those comic books he's got secreted back in his overly large house are just mementos of his tragic childhood) - but it's a superhero movie and it looks to have some chick in latex and also a blond guy and apparently he likes them blond, which is odd because with the chicks, he much preferred brunettes. And redheads.
He goes to see it.
When it finishes, he waits for everyone else to leave and then sneaks out the back, to avoid the crowded foyer. He never avoids the crowded foyer. On the contrary, he loves them. Mostly because they love him.
Tonight he goes out the back. Heads out into the alleyway behind the thrumming multiplex, hit by the rush of cold air and the echo of the cars on the roads beyond the building. It's dark and vaguely damp, from all the rain earlier, and he leans back against the wall beside the door, looking up at the stars, only half-hidden by the clouds.
He breathes. Deep. Tries to get his mind to stop racing. A few months ago, he knows he wouldn't have had this reaction. Knows he would probably have mentally filed the experience under "more insane superhero movies that don't quite get it" and then headed off somewhere filled with loud music and scantily-clad women. Which is how nights like this are supposed to end.
Were supposed to end.
There are several reasons why he's currently leaning on a wall, on his own, trying to focus. He's a lot more susceptible to violent movies nowadays, ever since… the Incident… mostly because he appears to have regained the ability to understand them. Before… pain was as fantastic as giant orcs or massive spaceships. Now… it's sort of real. And… and that other thing that he IS NOT THINKING ABOUT RIGHT NOW.
Oh, that just makes it worse.
But if the violence affected him, then the plot… he wonders if he'll ever completely get over that. Ever get over something so… alarmingly, alarmingly plausible, which is quite a thing to think when it involved a giant naked blue man building some sort of magical energy machine that turned out to work nicely as a multiple-nuclear weapon. Or something.
He doesn't do science. He can ask Billy later.
Besides. It isn't that part which is getting to him. That… well, that's plot. Narrative. It's what happens whilst you sing, but it isn't why you sing.
No. When you take that out of the way, what he's left with… is a picture alien and familiar in equal measure. Once again there are superheroes in hiding, but this… well, this is different. In all the other movies, the superheroes lived in hiding pretty much from day one. For whatever reason - in some cases no obvious reason at all. But this… the very idea of heroes being forced into hiding… oh, that unnerves him a lot. The very idea of a city actually turning on those who took the time to save lives on a regular basis, who took the time to protect and serve and all that other meaningful stuff… that is a little scary.
Plausibility is scary. It's easy not to get wound about giant multiple-nuclear thingies, because… well, they aren't real. He thinks. Definitely need to ask Billy later.
He liked the heroes. For the most part. He still doesn't quite get the guy with the funny mask whose name he can't quite pronounce; actually, he doesn't get him at all, but on one level he supposes that's the point, and there's other people to distract him from the rather unnerving concept of a faceless superhero. Mostly his attention is drawn by the final scenes between the lead hero and the villain; all the fighting and the shouting and... and those little moments where he sort of thinks that maybe...
...there are people who think like this all the time on the internet. Sometimes he runs into them. They scare him. Except when he thinks perhaps they're right.
He's not going to admit he likes it. He does. He understands it, too. (There's nothing like a near-death experience to make a man more self-aware. Though some would argue it's awareness of other selves that he needs help with.) He watches the mental and physical dance of one around the other; light and dark, good and evil. Hero and villain. That's what it's all about, in the end. That's what it means, to walk their world. His world. Ordinary people can live in shades of grey. Heroes and villains... can't.
Except, they do. And that's what's so unnerving. The line between hero and villain is blurred so deeply that, when Ozymandias (really, what IS it with the blond ones?) turns out to be the ultimate villain of the piece... he hardly blinks. The other heroes, too - the weird masked guy especially - do things so unheroic that at times he wonders if there's really a line at all.
Perhaps the only difference is perception. People don't want to be blown up, so someone who blows people up is a villain. But people do like the idea of criminals being cut down for their crimes... so someone who does that is a hero. Even if their motivation is hardly heroic.
...Oh, he's got to stop listening to his therapist. At this rate, he'll be posting this sort of thing on the internet, and THEN where will he be?
What matters? Act or intent? If he saves people because it's fun, does that still make it good?
Definitely overthinking it. He stares up at the sky once more, and watches the clouds start to gather again, covering the stars one by one.
What defines a hero? The man himself (or woman; girl heroes are good too. Especially in latex) or those that the hero protects?
Who decides?
And what does that make him?
He doesn't know.
It starts to rain.
"Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?" ("Who watches the watchmen?")
There's a new movie out. Watchmen. He hasn't heard of it before, but he rather likes superhero movies - for reasons both obvious and not - so, one evening, he goes to a late showing at the Midtown Multiplex. (It's nothing like the side-street cinemas he remembers as a child; all velvet-lined with sparkling lights and mysterious men in smart outfits. Now it's all glowing posters and seventeen screens; functional in its goal to bring vaguely overpriced entertainment to the masses, but… somehow not half as magical. He supposes it's the price of progress, and progress is always good. Right?)
He's seen pretty much all of the recent spate of superhero movies here, to mixed response. He has too great of a childhood connection to Batman to not have liked those new releases, although of course he wouldn't admit this, and he certainly wouldn't admit how unnerving he found them. Especially The Dark Knight. Life isn't like that, he told himself over and over, driving home from the showing. Superheroism isn't like that.
It is, of course. The more obvious it gets, the more he denies it, except… well.
Except when he's not alone.
Most of the other movies were more of a joke than anything else - Spider-Man seemed set on the idea that people would object to having a hero to protect their city, which was just silly, whilst X-Men (despite having the quite delicious Halle Berre in a pleasingly prominent role) had both its heroes and its villains in hiding, until they all came out, make a great big mess of things, and then went away again.
And Superman? Well. The hero-villain relationship was plausible (sometimes alarmingly so) but, again, the need to hide? He really doesn't understand that.
He really couldn't, after all. Not given how prominent he needs to be in society.
So when Watchmen comes out, he decides he ought to go and see it. He doesn't really know what it's about - comic books are so nerdy and everyone knows nerds are dangerous (and all those comic books he's got secreted back in his overly large house are just mementos of his tragic childhood) - but it's a superhero movie and it looks to have some chick in latex and also a blond guy and apparently he likes them blond, which is odd because with the chicks, he much preferred brunettes. And redheads.
He goes to see it.
When it finishes, he waits for everyone else to leave and then sneaks out the back, to avoid the crowded foyer. He never avoids the crowded foyer. On the contrary, he loves them. Mostly because they love him.
Tonight he goes out the back. Heads out into the alleyway behind the thrumming multiplex, hit by the rush of cold air and the echo of the cars on the roads beyond the building. It's dark and vaguely damp, from all the rain earlier, and he leans back against the wall beside the door, looking up at the stars, only half-hidden by the clouds.
He breathes. Deep. Tries to get his mind to stop racing. A few months ago, he knows he wouldn't have had this reaction. Knows he would probably have mentally filed the experience under "more insane superhero movies that don't quite get it" and then headed off somewhere filled with loud music and scantily-clad women. Which is how nights like this are supposed to end.
Were supposed to end.
There are several reasons why he's currently leaning on a wall, on his own, trying to focus. He's a lot more susceptible to violent movies nowadays, ever since… the Incident… mostly because he appears to have regained the ability to understand them. Before… pain was as fantastic as giant orcs or massive spaceships. Now… it's sort of real. And… and that other thing that he IS NOT THINKING ABOUT RIGHT NOW.
Oh, that just makes it worse.
But if the violence affected him, then the plot… he wonders if he'll ever completely get over that. Ever get over something so… alarmingly, alarmingly plausible, which is quite a thing to think when it involved a giant naked blue man building some sort of magical energy machine that turned out to work nicely as a multiple-nuclear weapon. Or something.
He doesn't do science. He can ask Billy later.
Besides. It isn't that part which is getting to him. That… well, that's plot. Narrative. It's what happens whilst you sing, but it isn't why you sing.
No. When you take that out of the way, what he's left with… is a picture alien and familiar in equal measure. Once again there are superheroes in hiding, but this… well, this is different. In all the other movies, the superheroes lived in hiding pretty much from day one. For whatever reason - in some cases no obvious reason at all. But this… the very idea of heroes being forced into hiding… oh, that unnerves him a lot. The very idea of a city actually turning on those who took the time to save lives on a regular basis, who took the time to protect and serve and all that other meaningful stuff… that is a little scary.
Plausibility is scary. It's easy not to get wound about giant multiple-nuclear thingies, because… well, they aren't real. He thinks. Definitely need to ask Billy later.
He liked the heroes. For the most part. He still doesn't quite get the guy with the funny mask whose name he can't quite pronounce; actually, he doesn't get him at all, but on one level he supposes that's the point, and there's other people to distract him from the rather unnerving concept of a faceless superhero. Mostly his attention is drawn by the final scenes between the lead hero and the villain; all the fighting and the shouting and... and those little moments where he sort of thinks that maybe...
...there are people who think like this all the time on the internet. Sometimes he runs into them. They scare him. Except when he thinks perhaps they're right.
He's not going to admit he likes it. He does. He understands it, too. (There's nothing like a near-death experience to make a man more self-aware. Though some would argue it's awareness of other selves that he needs help with.) He watches the mental and physical dance of one around the other; light and dark, good and evil. Hero and villain. That's what it's all about, in the end. That's what it means, to walk their world. His world. Ordinary people can live in shades of grey. Heroes and villains... can't.
Except, they do. And that's what's so unnerving. The line between hero and villain is blurred so deeply that, when Ozymandias (really, what IS it with the blond ones?) turns out to be the ultimate villain of the piece... he hardly blinks. The other heroes, too - the weird masked guy especially - do things so unheroic that at times he wonders if there's really a line at all.
Perhaps the only difference is perception. People don't want to be blown up, so someone who blows people up is a villain. But people do like the idea of criminals being cut down for their crimes... so someone who does that is a hero. Even if their motivation is hardly heroic.
...Oh, he's got to stop listening to his therapist. At this rate, he'll be posting this sort of thing on the internet, and THEN where will he be?
What matters? Act or intent? If he saves people because it's fun, does that still make it good?
Definitely overthinking it. He stares up at the sky once more, and watches the clouds start to gather again, covering the stars one by one.
What defines a hero? The man himself (or woman; girl heroes are good too. Especially in latex) or those that the hero protects?
Who decides?
And what does that make him?
He doesn't know.
It starts to rain.