The Watchmen: Classic, duh!

Then again, the lack of characters one can identify with makes Watchmen sort of a "cold" read, and I'm glad Moore has created some sympathetic, likable characters in his other work.

I find a lot of the characters somewhat sympathetic, even if they have very bad sides to them. Even Rorshach comes across like someone who would like a big hug.

This is making me imagine a "Rorshach Goes Raving" comic.

For a lot of people, Watchmen would have been the first comic they ever read

I'm not sure how true this is, but more importantly it would be very unlikely to be the first exposure to superheroes that they ever had.

I definitely considered Rorschach the identification character for the main engine of the plot, yes. But then I don't really understand the need to like the hero of a story.

I'm not sure how true this is, but more importantly it would be very unlikely completely impossible to be the first exposure to superheroes that they ever had.

Liking a character is not the same as identifying with them. You must have some kind of window into their motives in order for their actions to be dramatically compelling, but you can still think they're a bastard (example off the top my head: the Ripley novels).

So, yeah, the characters in Watchmen are not generally that 'likable' (at best weak and confused, at worst HELLO GIANT BRAIN SQUID), but the reader can still identify with every single one of them, with the exception of Doc M who is beyond that sort of thing.

The movie Silk Specter looks like the teenager Incredible!

In the future, we will all look like the teenager Incredible!

I definitely considered Rorschach the identification character for the main engine of the plot, yes. But then I don't really understand the need to like the hero of a story.

But the type of stories Moore is deconstructing in Watchmen are pretty much based on likable heros.

What I meant by fucking with reader identification is, I think Moore assumes the stereotypical Watchmen reader is pretty much like him - liberal, left-leaning, somewhat intellectual. But the types characters this sort of reader would normally sympathize with are either ineffective losers (Dreiberg) or authoritarian maniacs (Veidt), whereas by the end of the story it is the violent right-wing nutso Rorschach whose side most readers are kinda forced to take.

Are the readers really forced to take that side, Tuomas? My read of WATCHMEN is that Rorschach's inability to compromise is what turns him into a physically repellent (living in squalor, unable to connect to most everyone), morally repugnant ("If that made Blake a Nazi, you may as well call me a Nazi too") anti-hero who was not the center of sympathy in the story. Moore was turning the whole notion of the lone vigilante as a good thing on its head. There aren't any "good guys" in WATCHMEN; even Veidt doesn't have the courage of his own convictions and is well on his way to becoming the protagonist of the BLACK FREIGHTER story within a story.

But again, that's my read.

I'm with Matt here. I think Moore assumes his readers are, first and foremost, comic book fans. Remember that this was published in the revionist era of Miller's Dark Knight and at the Punisher's peak of popularity. I think Moore assumes his readers will be most inclined to identify with Rorschach from the very beginning - he's the most consistent with the then-dominant (still dominant?) wounded loner/vigilante antihero archetype. But at the same time, he's trying to get you to question that archetype, to get you to think about what the "loner vigilantes" who crop up in the real world are like. The fact that he refuses to condemn Rorschach, even after making it quite clear that he's a fascist psychopath, is just Moore playing with the gray areas. Travis Bickle looks a lot like a hero at the end of Taxi Driver, too.

I didn't mean to say that people sympathize with Rorschach all the way throughout the story, just that by the end of the story his refusal to accept Veidt's barve new world seems more "heroic" than what the other characters decide to do. I agree that there are multiple readings to the comic though, and of course one function of the Rorschach character is to point out to your typical Batman or Punisher fan what a vigilante crimefighter like that would be like in the "real" world.

I'm not sure I agree, Tuomas. The ending is grey, and while you might sympathise with Rorshach's stand, you also sympathise with Nite Owl's not rocking the boat and starting a nuclear war.

The ending is as ambiguous as they come. Finding a "right answer" out of the situation requires an Alexander to cut through the Gordian Knot of that conclusion, and there isn't one in sight.

It's crazy that I find the discussion of Watchmen more interesting than I ever found the actual comic.

Quick question tho: Assuming this reading of Rorschach as a heroic anti-Veidtian protagonist, what do you do with the Ditko readings? Hasn't it been well accepted that Rorschach was a comment on The Question + Objectivism? (Or am I just tainted by Douglas's reading in his book?)

I don't see how those readings can't coexist. Rorschach is shabby and unseemly for a reason, right? He's the closest to a "traditional" superhero in that he can do no wrong, steadfast and resolute. But he's also crazy, and a murderer (though like a hero, he owns up to that crime, but none of the others hung on him).

I haven't read Douglas' reading of WATCHMEN. I really should get to that sometime.

Well, it just seems like that final resistance is a validation of Objectivism, then.

Death before dishonor? Sure. But how practical is it?

I'm not sure it's a validation. Sure, you can have absolute rightness of purpose, but you've got to give up your sanity in return. (lol davesim cough cough)

But contrast to Bioshock, where the problems with Objectivism aren't laid out as pragmatic problems, but as serious internally inconsistent problems. (Watchmen being 'Fine, it's good. But can you really do it without flipping out?' Bioshock being more 'This shit will corrupt you from the bottom out.')

S/D Pop Culture Object Critiquing Objectivism. :P

What's this "Objectivism" you speak of?

Ah, Wikipedia says it's the Ayn Rand thing. She's pretty much unknown in Europe (before reading about her on ILX I had never even heard of her, despite having studied philosophy and the social sciences) so sometimes I kinda forget how influential(?) she is in America.

xpost

It's Ayn Rand's philosophy - ultra right wing heroic individual bollocks.

I've always wondered abot this Ayn Rand character; she seems to have a big following in the US, yet few people in Europe seem to even know who she is. Is there something about her writings that appeals specifically to Americans?

Yeah, probably her anti-Communism and her plucky, yet heroic fictional individuals.

something about her writings that appeals specifically to Americans

lionization of selfishness

exaltation of selfishness is what i meant, i suppose

Well, she makes the unbridled free market sounds romantic and rugged and individualistic. Like some sort of cowboy wall street. Characters have strong artistic visions, and it's the poor and unenlightened who keep them down.

Is there somewhere else where this is being discussed?

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/26/business/media/26retail.html?ref=technology

arrr.

That guy reading the Black Freighter is too old! He's only a kid in the comic.

he looks like a real hip urban dood...

bah, the film is going to be rubbish, I see it now.

The Black Freighter stuff... I remember back in the day a lot of people thought it all superfluous and used to skip over it, so it's interesting the extent to which critical opinion now focuses on it.

Critics are suckers for text-within-a-text interplay.

^^^^^^this otm

I have never actually read the Black Freighter stuff!

I've always liked it in its own terms... it's a great OH MY GOD, NOOOOOO story. I know there is all this "it is a metaphor for what Rorschach/Ozymandias/the psychiatrist/Sally Jupiter/your mam have become" stuff, but feh.

Yeah, I read it just as an entertaining pastiche/diversion/backdrop-enricher when I first tackled Watchmen aged fourteen or so, and it works fine as that. Subtext aside, the dramatic beats and rhthym of Black Freighter enhance the main storyline nicely as well.

That guy reading the Black Freighter is too old! He's only a kid in the comic.

Comics aren't just for kids any more.

I am less worried this will suck the more stills I see. It might be ruined by audio, tho.

Ooh, Black Freighter is animated!

I've always been like "I skipped 300 for two reasons - it looked like it sucked and I hated the comic." So I was really dubious about the same director making the movie of a comic I love. But maybe his thing is such faithful adaptations that if I'll react the same way to them as I do to the source.

For one precedent, I rewatched the "V" movie recently, and I still think it was a really good take on the original (with the targets of satire switched, of course.)

It's weird. 300 is such a different beast than Watchmen. I'm pretty unwillling to predict Snyder's results on Watchmen based on 300. The plot structures are, y'know, kinda exact opposites. 300 is more or less one narrative thread where the visuals are basically the whole point, while Watchmen has, as Dr Manhattan might say, more moving parts. 300's succeeded in no small part because of its brilliant art direction--though that didn't help Sky Captain.

Ooh, Black Freighter is animated!

Yeah, this sounds cool! Even if it was done for budgetary reasons, I think it's the proper way to do it. In general, I think comic-based movies should be done as animations more often, it's definitely the better format for comic adaptations. I think the animated films made of Corto Maltese and Persepolis were both very good.

http://community.livejournal.com/mad_ape_den/9455.html

In words of three letters or less. MAN!

Fab.

Outstanding:

http://img293.imageshack.us/img293/2706/mmpictm2.jpg

That looks awesome. Why do people ever call Watchmen realistic then bitch about the ending? Dude, Dr Manhattan! It ISN'T realistic! It's a wonderful little sidetrack to the idea 40s (and etc) or so superheroes existed, at most, in HISTORICAL terms. And a magnificent read.

In fact (I may well be the 150000th person to realise this) Dr M's a literal deus ex machina... it 's just annoying seeing so many hate on a perfect superhero story.

does anyone else out there think that the psychiatrist's character arc in "The Abyss Gazes Also" is a bit contrived?

Nah it just points up how completely fucked Rorschach is

Hey people who own Absolute Watchmen, the huge hardcover reprint: Was it worth it? The larger page size, and the extras? I'm undecided if I should get a copy on eBay - so what's your reviews?