What Alignment is Rorschach?

[WizarDru]

In particular, I believe Moore was wrong about virtually everything, and that he'd totally misread the time that he was in. He got it all wrong.

I'm not sure what you mean by this? Do you think that Moore was actually predicting World War III by proxy in a story with a blue man who walks on Mars and genetically engineered tigers? As far most people I knew were concerned, Moore was deconstructing the superhero and addressing things like Manichean thought. I'm not arguing whether or not there were people who were not concerned about the fear of a nuclear conflict...what I'm arguing is that it very much was on many people's minds and all over the pop culture of the time (which you yourself admit to not being very in touch with). Or at least the pop culture of the US, since you were in a third-world country at the time...which wasn't the market in which the Watchmen was released nor was intended to be read in.

Take Sting's "[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4rk78eCIx4E"]Russians[/ame]". It's a very clear anti-war song that makes its case that our fate depends on 'if the Russians love their children, too', which is intimates that they do and that's what keeps us from a nuclear war. Released around the same time is the "Two Minutes to Midnight" from Iron Maiden, a single that actually reference the Doomsday Clock directly, the same clock that is used in the Watchmen. Because it was topical. Rush's "Manhattan Project" song about the creation of the atom bomb and nuclear fear also came out at this time. OMD's "Enola Gay" was another one. A central conceit of the movie 'Project X' with Matthew Broderick was radiation testing on chimps to better guage how long US pilots would survive during a 'second-strike' nuclear war scenario. The first Terminator movie features an apocalyptic future in which Skynet triggers a nuclear war. And so on.

The point is not whether or not some people were not concerned. Nor is the point I'm making that Moore, Reagan or anyone else was right or wrong (which is a subject of significant debate). The point is that it was very much in people's imaginations and concerns and I would argue that it was a concern to more Americans than not. It's pretty obvious that movies, television, music and art throughout the 80s was inundated with references to nuclear war.

It sounds like some folks are claiming that Moore was some wingnut who solely imagined fear of a nuclear war in his work that was out-of-step with reality and the times, which is demonstrably wrong. If you're arguing that his work is postulating things about the US and USSR that are wrong, that's fine. I'm not discussing the political ramifications of the politics of the era. I'm simply suggesting that nuclear fear and/or knowledge of the nuclear brinkmanship and it's wider effects was a constant background noise in the 80s, especially the first half of the decade.

 

[Krensky]

I'm afraid it is. I can't construct a counter-narrative to what you describe without broaching alot of topics which will be political.

That's perfectly fine, because no counter-narrative is needed. This is literary analysis, not historical examination. What needs to be examined is what the author and audience knew and believed about events and their world, not a hypothetical observer from the future would think of their beliefs. This is important in all (well, there are a few exceptions, but no one's doing or veering into that area of literary analysis in this thread) literary analysis, but especially so in speculative fiction. Criticizing the nuclear threat aspect of Watchmen as silly and saying it renders the work bad is analogous to complaining that War of the Worlds is a bad novel because there aren't any Martians on Mars, or that Asimov's work is bad because the vague hardware descriptions he give for the Positronic Brain don't make any sense. In both of these cases, the 'silly' thing from out future perspective is not the central point of the story, it's a conceit for dealing with other issues.

Both Alan Moore and his audience believed there was a serious threat of nuclear war, not an imminent one, just a serious one. This made the threat of nuclear war a plausible component of the antagonist's plot for both Moore and his audience. Doctor Manahattan's existence, along with his (and to a lesser degree, Blake's) actions and effects on the alternate world's history. Note the parts regarding his effect on the Vietnam war, and Blake's 'resolution' of the Iran hostage crisis.

The primary focus of Watchmen is not nuclear war, or even close to it. It's a convienent and plausible threat for the antagonist to act against. The focus of the novel is in examining the nature of masked adventurers and how they relate to each other and the rest of the world and looking at comic book morality, with special intrest in the emerging morality of the Iron (or Modern) Age of comics, which was essentially continuing the trend from the Bronze Age and contrasting them with the Gold and Silver ages.

 

[Krensky]

Double post

 

[pawsplay]

In a sense, Rorshach is the only one of the Watchmen who could colorably be described as a hero. He's not a mass murderer of random innocent people (like Ozymandias), he's not an inhuman amoral creature (like Dr. Manhattan), he's not a brutal government stooge who apparently killed his own child (like the Comedian), and he's not a limp opportunist who condones mass murder because it is difficult to oppose or expose (like silk stalking or the nite owl). He's the only one who is willing to die rather than participate in the cover up of the murder of millions. Yes, he is objectionable in many ways, but in the end, he is the only one who can even be colorably termed a "hero".

I agree. I have no problem saying Rorschach is rather heroic without condoning his chosen path. It's the same thing with Mad Max, or some version of Victor von Doom, or Conan.

Or as Walter would say, "Say what you will about the tenets of National Socialism, at least it's an ethos."

 

[HardcoreDandDGirl]

Something about this thread tickles me. I mean assigning alignment to any character has always been hard, but watchmen even more so.

I mean are any of them ‘good’ they all have there dark streaks. Heck the movie added Night Owl reacting the way he did, in the book he pretty much just went with it.

We have a god not sure what his place is, an egotistical madman blowing up part of the world to save it, two ex vigilantes that seam to go along with said egomaniac, and a sociopath that might, just might be the hero of the story.

I would put all of them as unaligned...