Devils and Black Sheep, Really Bad Eggs: Villainy in Watchmen
I wrote this for a Graphic Novel literature class. In the original titles are italicized and italics are used for emphasis. I'll add them at some point, but I'm too tired right now XD
English 344
December 14, 2010
Devils and Black Sheep, Really Bad Eggs: Villainy in Watchmen
In traditional comic books, identifying the villain would be very easy. The character attempting to take over the world or even merely attacking an innocent person is the villain. The character saving the innocent person and fighting the villain to preserve safety, peace and freedom is the hero.
Things are not so clear in Alan Moore’s Watchmen. Rorschach is among the “good guys,” those who seek to rid the city of the criminals justice can’t touch. This he does with gusto, not retiring as other masked adventurers had, but maintaining his quest against criminal activity even once it becomes illegal to do so. But is he heroic? His methods are brutal, sometimes horrific. What’s more, he sees things in plain black and white. He is incapable of considering that an elderly man may have a good reason for owning a gun, illegal or not. Ozymandias kills a million people, making him the most obvious figure of villainy, but his ends are arguably noble: He wants to save the world from itself and bring about a new utopia. The old means of determining who is The Bad Guy and who is The Good Guy do not work. Among the humans in Watchmen are layers and gray areas. To find a villain, the reader must think in terms of ideas and attitudes.
When the main plot of Watchmen takes place, masked vigilantism has been outlawed. A few work for the government, the rest either give up their identities publicly (unless, like Adrien Veidt, they had already done so) or simply retire. Except for Rorschach, whose personal code does not allow him to fade away, expose himself, or work for a system he considers corrupt and inept. “Because there is good and there is evil, and evil must be punished” (Moore). It is the closest thing Rorschach has to a motto, and it sounds fairly heroic. But it is also disturbing. Who exactly gets to decide which is good and which is evil? What gives Rorschach the right to make that call; to decide who deserves punishment and what punishment is just? Rorschach, without any authority granted by the people or bestowed upon him by the government representing the people, elects himself as judge. He sets himself apart from, even above, the common folk, the “whores and politicians” (Moore). When he discovers a man who has murdered a child before feeding her to his dogs, Rorschach cuffs him and prepares to burn the building down, giving the man a choice between sawing his hand off or burning to death. The criminal did something horrific and immoral; however Rorschach’s response was also horrific and immoral. No one had given him the authority to judge the man in this way, he simply took it. In reaction to the Keene act, which made costumed adventuring illegal, Rorschach murders a rapist, leaving his corpse outside police headquarters along with the written message “Never.” Tony Spanakos explains how this conveys Rorschach’s relationship to the government: “(1) The state is permanently flawed (hence ‘never,’ rather than ‘not until there is a new president); (2) the state lacks the capacity to execute the law…. And (3) the state lacks the moral clarity necessary for judgment and punishment….” (Spanakos). It does not matter what the voting citizenry want; Rorschach knows better. In his attitude towards the general populace and the government authority representing it, Rorschach is as villainous as Ozymandias.
Adrien Veidt, alias Ozymandias, may be the most obvious villain figure in Moore’s book. He is a turncoat who kills (or attempts to kill) his former friends and allies, putting on a charming front while secretly harboring feelings of contempt and superiority. He does not make small gestures of defiance against the government, rather expressing his feelings of moral superiority in one grand gesture which kills millions. While Rorschach is limited by his circumstances to merely prowling the streets, taking out thugs and wrong-doers as he finds them, Veidt “is a megalomaniac who wants to emulate Alexander the Great, the ancient conqueror who ruled almost the entire world ‘without barbarism’” (Spanakos). Veidt is wealthy, powerful, and very smart while Rorschach is poor and anonymous from obscure origins and with questionable education. They both flout government authority and ignore the will of the people, but Veidt is much more dangerous because of his status and abilities. Rorschach must work in secret to undermine the establishment, however “Ozymandias does not subvert the established order, he supercedes it, thus becoming the establishment…or at least an establishment” (Dubose). Veidt’s master stroke is essentially the same as Rorschach’s actions against the child-killer, except on a much larger scale. However, Veidt does not even have the decency to target people whom he knew did something evil as Rorschach did. Nor does he give them even a semblance of a chance at survival. Additionally, Veidt’s action is public (public notice being the whole point) while Rorschach’s was virtually private.
But it is not only those who act against the government who do bad things in the novel. Legitimate authority through the government does not stop Watchmen characters from behaving villainously and it doesn’t save them from being judged as villainous by the novel. Dr. Manhattan and The Comedian (Edward Blake) both work for the government, fighting for the U.S. in the Vietnam War. They do not act outside of government authority as Veidt and Rorschach do, but they do behave immorally towards normal people in a scene in which Blake murders his pregnant Vietnamese lover. Blake kills her in cold blood, and Dr. Manhattan, perhaps the most powerful being in the universe, allows him to. The woman’s life is just not important enough for either of them to spare, any more than criminals (or those he judges to be criminals) are to Rorschach or innocent New Yorkers are to Veidt. It is not just disobeying the law of the land which is villainous in Watchmen, it is disrespect for the common people. J. Robert Loftis concludes that “The ultimate target of the comic’s critique is authoritarianism, the idea that anyone should set himself or herself up as a guardian of society” (Loftis).
An authoritarian is someone who is “Favourable to the principle of authority as opposed to that of individual freedom” (“Authoritarian”). Someone who views themselves as worthy to judge everyone else, whether guiding them to do the right thing (as they see it) or punishing them for wrong doing (as they see it). Veidt definitely espouses this, believing “it is his responsibility to save mankind from itself” (Hughes). And there is our villain: The belief that one can simply decide that it is their duty to punish or reward others without any authority from the citizenry. It is obviously wrong when Veidt does it, taking it upon himself to murder millions. Rorschach’s vigilante activities are also clearly wrong. Neither of these men have been elected or appointed into positions of authority which would give them the right to judge or punish. But it is also wrong when characters who do work under the government do something immoral out of a sense of superiority. Blake is a sexist and a racist, which allows him to simply shoot a pregnant woman. Dr. Manhattan is a withdrawn superbeing, less human all the time, and this makes it possible for him to watch Blake murder the pregnant Vietnamese woman. But the novel’s anti-authoritarianism does not stop there, it goes all the way to the top. President Nixon himself (along with the other members of his government) is a very unsympathetic if not downright villainous figure. It is strongly implied that he organized President Kennedy’s assassination along with murders of reporters Woodward and Bernstein, who would have exposed the Watergate scandal. This cements Watchmen not as a book merely concerned with vigilantes like Rorschach and Adrien Veidt taking the law into their own hands, but also with people working under the government and the head of the government himself and the ways in which they abuse the powers given to them by the citizens. Watchmen is against anyone who thinks they are superior beings, worthy of making themselves gods, whether in large ways or small.
Works Cited
“Authoritarian.” The Oxford English Dictionary. 2010. Web. 6 Dec. 2010
Dubose, Mike S. “Holding Out for a Hero: Reaganism, Comic Book Vigilantes, and Captain America.” Journal of Popular Culture 40.6 (2007). EBSCO. Web. 6 Dec. 2010.
Hughes, Jamie A. “’Who Watches the Watchmen?’: Ideology and ‘Real World’ Superheros.” Journal of Popular Culture 39.4 (2006). EBSCO. Web. 7 Dec. 2010.
Loftis, J. Robert. “Means, Ends, and the Critique of Pure Superheroes.” Watchmen and Philosophy. Ed. Mike D. White. New Jersey: Wiley, 2009. 63-77. Print.
Moore, Alan. Watchmen. New York: DC Comics, 1886. Print.
Spanakos, Tony. “Super-Vigilantes and the Keene Act.” Watchmen and Philosophy. Ed. Mike D. White. New Jersey: Wiley, 2009. 33-46. Print.
English 344
December 14, 2010
Devils and Black Sheep, Really Bad Eggs: Villainy in Watchmen
In traditional comic books, identifying the villain would be very easy. The character attempting to take over the world or even merely attacking an innocent person is the villain. The character saving the innocent person and fighting the villain to preserve safety, peace and freedom is the hero.
Things are not so clear in Alan Moore’s Watchmen. Rorschach is among the “good guys,” those who seek to rid the city of the criminals justice can’t touch. This he does with gusto, not retiring as other masked adventurers had, but maintaining his quest against criminal activity even once it becomes illegal to do so. But is he heroic? His methods are brutal, sometimes horrific. What’s more, he sees things in plain black and white. He is incapable of considering that an elderly man may have a good reason for owning a gun, illegal or not. Ozymandias kills a million people, making him the most obvious figure of villainy, but his ends are arguably noble: He wants to save the world from itself and bring about a new utopia. The old means of determining who is The Bad Guy and who is The Good Guy do not work. Among the humans in Watchmen are layers and gray areas. To find a villain, the reader must think in terms of ideas and attitudes.
When the main plot of Watchmen takes place, masked vigilantism has been outlawed. A few work for the government, the rest either give up their identities publicly (unless, like Adrien Veidt, they had already done so) or simply retire. Except for Rorschach, whose personal code does not allow him to fade away, expose himself, or work for a system he considers corrupt and inept. “Because there is good and there is evil, and evil must be punished” (Moore). It is the closest thing Rorschach has to a motto, and it sounds fairly heroic. But it is also disturbing. Who exactly gets to decide which is good and which is evil? What gives Rorschach the right to make that call; to decide who deserves punishment and what punishment is just? Rorschach, without any authority granted by the people or bestowed upon him by the government representing the people, elects himself as judge. He sets himself apart from, even above, the common folk, the “whores and politicians” (Moore). When he discovers a man who has murdered a child before feeding her to his dogs, Rorschach cuffs him and prepares to burn the building down, giving the man a choice between sawing his hand off or burning to death. The criminal did something horrific and immoral; however Rorschach’s response was also horrific and immoral. No one had given him the authority to judge the man in this way, he simply took it. In reaction to the Keene act, which made costumed adventuring illegal, Rorschach murders a rapist, leaving his corpse outside police headquarters along with the written message “Never.” Tony Spanakos explains how this conveys Rorschach’s relationship to the government: “(1) The state is permanently flawed (hence ‘never,’ rather than ‘not until there is a new president); (2) the state lacks the capacity to execute the law…. And (3) the state lacks the moral clarity necessary for judgment and punishment….” (Spanakos). It does not matter what the voting citizenry want; Rorschach knows better. In his attitude towards the general populace and the government authority representing it, Rorschach is as villainous as Ozymandias.
Adrien Veidt, alias Ozymandias, may be the most obvious villain figure in Moore’s book. He is a turncoat who kills (or attempts to kill) his former friends and allies, putting on a charming front while secretly harboring feelings of contempt and superiority. He does not make small gestures of defiance against the government, rather expressing his feelings of moral superiority in one grand gesture which kills millions. While Rorschach is limited by his circumstances to merely prowling the streets, taking out thugs and wrong-doers as he finds them, Veidt “is a megalomaniac who wants to emulate Alexander the Great, the ancient conqueror who ruled almost the entire world ‘without barbarism’” (Spanakos). Veidt is wealthy, powerful, and very smart while Rorschach is poor and anonymous from obscure origins and with questionable education. They both flout government authority and ignore the will of the people, but Veidt is much more dangerous because of his status and abilities. Rorschach must work in secret to undermine the establishment, however “Ozymandias does not subvert the established order, he supercedes it, thus becoming the establishment…or at least an establishment” (Dubose). Veidt’s master stroke is essentially the same as Rorschach’s actions against the child-killer, except on a much larger scale. However, Veidt does not even have the decency to target people whom he knew did something evil as Rorschach did. Nor does he give them even a semblance of a chance at survival. Additionally, Veidt’s action is public (public notice being the whole point) while Rorschach’s was virtually private.
But it is not only those who act against the government who do bad things in the novel. Legitimate authority through the government does not stop Watchmen characters from behaving villainously and it doesn’t save them from being judged as villainous by the novel. Dr. Manhattan and The Comedian (Edward Blake) both work for the government, fighting for the U.S. in the Vietnam War. They do not act outside of government authority as Veidt and Rorschach do, but they do behave immorally towards normal people in a scene in which Blake murders his pregnant Vietnamese lover. Blake kills her in cold blood, and Dr. Manhattan, perhaps the most powerful being in the universe, allows him to. The woman’s life is just not important enough for either of them to spare, any more than criminals (or those he judges to be criminals) are to Rorschach or innocent New Yorkers are to Veidt. It is not just disobeying the law of the land which is villainous in Watchmen, it is disrespect for the common people. J. Robert Loftis concludes that “The ultimate target of the comic’s critique is authoritarianism, the idea that anyone should set himself or herself up as a guardian of society” (Loftis).
An authoritarian is someone who is “Favourable to the principle of authority as opposed to that of individual freedom” (“Authoritarian”). Someone who views themselves as worthy to judge everyone else, whether guiding them to do the right thing (as they see it) or punishing them for wrong doing (as they see it). Veidt definitely espouses this, believing “it is his responsibility to save mankind from itself” (Hughes). And there is our villain: The belief that one can simply decide that it is their duty to punish or reward others without any authority from the citizenry. It is obviously wrong when Veidt does it, taking it upon himself to murder millions. Rorschach’s vigilante activities are also clearly wrong. Neither of these men have been elected or appointed into positions of authority which would give them the right to judge or punish. But it is also wrong when characters who do work under the government do something immoral out of a sense of superiority. Blake is a sexist and a racist, which allows him to simply shoot a pregnant woman. Dr. Manhattan is a withdrawn superbeing, less human all the time, and this makes it possible for him to watch Blake murder the pregnant Vietnamese woman. But the novel’s anti-authoritarianism does not stop there, it goes all the way to the top. President Nixon himself (along with the other members of his government) is a very unsympathetic if not downright villainous figure. It is strongly implied that he organized President Kennedy’s assassination along with murders of reporters Woodward and Bernstein, who would have exposed the Watergate scandal. This cements Watchmen not as a book merely concerned with vigilantes like Rorschach and Adrien Veidt taking the law into their own hands, but also with people working under the government and the head of the government himself and the ways in which they abuse the powers given to them by the citizens. Watchmen is against anyone who thinks they are superior beings, worthy of making themselves gods, whether in large ways or small.
Works Cited
“Authoritarian.” The Oxford English Dictionary. 2010. Web. 6 Dec. 2010
Dubose, Mike S. “Holding Out for a Hero: Reaganism, Comic Book Vigilantes, and Captain America.” Journal of Popular Culture 40.6 (2007). EBSCO. Web. 6 Dec. 2010.
Hughes, Jamie A. “’Who Watches the Watchmen?’: Ideology and ‘Real World’ Superheros.” Journal of Popular Culture 39.4 (2006). EBSCO. Web. 7 Dec. 2010.
Loftis, J. Robert. “Means, Ends, and the Critique of Pure Superheroes.” Watchmen and Philosophy. Ed. Mike D. White. New Jersey: Wiley, 2009. 63-77. Print.
Moore, Alan. Watchmen. New York: DC Comics, 1886. Print.
Spanakos, Tony. “Super-Vigilantes and the Keene Act.” Watchmen and Philosophy. Ed. Mike D. White. New Jersey: Wiley, 2009. 33-46. Print.