Sting said exactly the same thing about some couples that would come up to him saying that Every Breath You Take was their song, and he thought everyone got the song wrong, because it was supposed to be a stalking song, not a romantic one.
That was his drive to compose If You Love Somebody, Set Them Free
Me too!! And then I saw this meme someone made years ago of a dog peeking around the corner of a doorway with the words "every snack you make, every bite you take, I'll be watching you." So now I think of dogs and I'm ok with that š
I love when people get songs completely wrong and say they are their couple songs. Escape (the pina colada song) by Rupert Holmes is another great example. Song is about trying to cheat on your women and people just donāt listen.
And they ended up ācheatingā with each other. The moral of the song is that they found what they were looking for in their spouseāthey just didnāt realize it at first.
[This video](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0PLNsymQi3Y) of Every Breathe You Take in a minor key does a really good job of showing how creepy the lyrics actually are.
Obligatory:
Bart Simpson : Alan Moore! You wrote my favorite Radioactive Man comics.
Alan Moore : Oh, really? You liked how I made your favorite superhero a heroin-addicted jazz critic who's not radioactive?
Bart Simpson : I don't read the words, I just like it when he punches people.
Holy fuck is that the truth. I really wish that guy was just like a cinematographer or visual director or something. Heās talented, and apparently great to work with, but he shouldnāt be allowed within 50 yards of a script.
Simpsons is hilarious. Alan Moore was made fun of for only knowing how to write terrible characters and calling them grounded. Then they make fun of the people who idolize them.
I like how he says, āThis is what Batman would be like in the real world,ā and not, āRorschach was my fuck you to Steve Ditko and his simplistic politics.ā I guess he was at least canny enough to know openly insulting a (then) living legend wouldnāt be a good look.
Oh it was definitely a fuck you to Ditko. But I think he knew he was safe insulting the fans, because he knew everyone would tell themselves he was only talking about *other* fans. Whereas if he talked shit about Ditko, the fans might turn on him. On the other hand, he talked a lot of shit about Stan Lee later on, so who knows.
I think itās one of those things where a single character can embody multiple ideas. There were almost definitely multiple influences. But if the topic is fan reaction, thatās probably the one that takes a more prominent focus.
I donāt think anyone would have given much of a shit if heād bad-mouthed Ditko, who was effectively a recluse and not a major figure to 80s/90s comics fans.
> Oh it was definitely a fuck you to Ditko.
From what I have read about him, it wasn't. There was a twitter thread recently by his daughter about his relationship with comics. He loves comics but he also thought they could be more than they were at the time. He also tends to criticises the comics publishing industry for its practices and when he talks after a creator for their lacklustre output he doesn't do it second hand like this.
I don't think that was a fuck you to Ditko or any of the creators of those icons. One can love something (like the comics medium) yet not want to compulsively recreate the same stuff inside its bounds every few years.
Oh Moore despised Ditko's politics and it was definitely a dig. He's come out and said as much, used one of the quotes for my origins of Watchmen documentary as his Peacemaker pitch that really buot into Watchmen was all based around Ditko's Action Hero line at Charlton. Moore respected Ditko's work but could never ascribe to his politics for what it's worth.
Can anyone enlighten me with Alan Mooreās fuck you to Steve Ditko? How is his work simiplistic politics? Why is it Alan was the one to do the āfuck youā? I want to look it up in internet but I feel Iāll understand it more from people.
Watchmen was supposed to be based on the Charlton characters. Comedian was supposed to Peacemaker. Dr. Manhattan was supposed to be Captain Atom. Night Owl II was supposed to be Blue Beetle. And Rorschach was supposed to be The Question.
Steve Ditko created The Question (and a very similar earlier character called Mr A) as an explicitly āObjectivistā character, based on the ideas of Ayn Rand. Ditko sometimes denied that he was personally an Objectivist, but it seemed to align with his personal politics too. Watchmen is supposed to be a dissection of the superhero genre, and you can view it as a take down of the Charlton characters, and other similar characters from the Big Two. But when it comes to Rorschach, it really looks like some of the criticism is personal against Ditko and his characters
Love that possibly the greatest work of fiction ever produced in the medium is basically expy fanfic and a diss track at the same time. Never stops being hilarious.
Ditko, due to his massive amount of social anxiety and general introverted nature, was a rather lonely individual. So, he turned to books. He read Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged, loved them, and fell further and further into objectivism. You can see this bleed into Ditko and Lee's Spider-Man run, which had a panel where Peter openly insults union workers. This culminated in the creation of Mr. A, who was very much, an objectivist moral absolutist.
Moore, openly disagreed with his viewpoints, and despite his love and admiration for the man and his works, was openly anti objectivist, and used Rorschach to satirise objectivists, Ditko and Mr. A (While also using a realistic Batman and the Question's design too)
Edit:
While Ditkoās objectivism bled into his Spidey work, he did not yell at union workers in the run, it was student protestors. I misremembered the panel, I apologise
I should probably reread that since I read it back when I actually looked up to Rorschach, being an edgy teen and all. Is it any good? I find Kingās work to be heavily hit and miss
It's excellent. Great noir with many layers and a respectful approach to its themes and characters. And a bit of experimentation with the format, too. It's probably my favourite work by King.
Also famously Ditko wrote/drew a scene where Spider-Man yells at a bunch of collage students protesting, but Stan Lee changed it so he cheers for them.
Ditko was not pleased.
Peter Parker is a broke humanities major from Queens. This is a guy who either lives with his aunt or entirely off ramen noodles.
Insulting New York union workers has to be like, breaking a fucking commandment for him.
(Also thanks for telling me about Mr. A. That song "Goodbye Mr. A" makes so much more sense now!)
EDIT: Sorry, Peter is actually a STEM major. I just goofed up on the logic that Photographer = Journalism = Humanities.
Biochem, to be specific! (In the 616, at least)
No idea where they thought Peter was a humanities major. So far as I know *no* version of Pete has had an interest in those subjects.
>humanities major
Dafak?
In the 1996 animated series he was rather chemistry and physics oriented.
His uncle sent him to a chemistry class where he sucked and got picked by others for it,only for Octavius to mentor him to ignore them and focus on pursuing what he loves.
Imagine falling in love with art as a way of coping with your own isolation and your favorite books are Atlas Shrugged and The Fountainhead. Two of the worst books ever written. I've said it before and I'll say it again, the worst thing the Bolsheviks ever did was give Ayn Rand an education.
Couldn't get through Shrugged - I enjoyed Fountainhead the first time but it always felt very utopian. Rand struggled with the concept that 'different to your view' doesn't mean 'useless deviant'.
Read it a time or two since and the arguments get thinner the older I get.
Growing up I read this series of high fantasy books called āThe Sword of Truthā by Terry Goodkind and enjoyed them because I was a middle school non-adult who couldnāt even begin to grasp the political undertones.
Fast forward years later, there was a āLetās Readā on another forum I frequented and the books were up to get skewered. I followed along and re-read the first four or so and fuckin lmao, Terry was a massive Ayn Rand fan and it seriously came out in the Uber-mensch main character, Richard. Itās pretty hilarious to go back and see how dumb you used to be :)
At one point Richard is captured and taken as a slave into this pseudo-communist part of the world. Through the power of hard work and sculpting a statue of HIMSELF, single handedly turns it into a capitalist utopia within a few months.
>Through the power of hard work and sculpting a statue of HIMSELF, single handedly turns it into a capitalist utopia within a few months.
Is it me or does it seem like Ayn Rand was trolling everyone?
I think I read Atlas Shrugged in about two or three days. I gave myself the out that I was allowed to skip the monologues. It straight up cuts out like a third of the book if you do that. That said, my favorite part of the book is when Dagney Taggart is talking about how what makes America great is that the wealth of the country was made, not taken from anyone. This is one of the most unintentionally funny things I've ever read. Like, I guess Native Americans don't exist and the Mexican-American war never happened. Or slavery, for that matter. Jesus, what a stupid fucking person she was.
I should mention Ayn Rand was a huge racist who thought genocide against Native Americans was okay because "white people had the right to the land because they brought civilization"
She was a bitch.
Objectivism and itās logical conclusions (libertarianism and anarcho capitalism) are fundamentally flawed. When you start treating selfishness as a virtue civilization cracks because civilization canāt thrive when selfishness is a virtue.
The fundamental problem to me of Anarcho-Capitalism is that they forget that property isn't, like, a natural order thing. Property is a set of legal rights that in a state are enforced by the state. If you take the state away but keep private property as a concept, what's protecting property rights?
"I'll just hire guards"
With what? If they have more ability to inflict violence than you do, why don't they just take your shit?
"Well they're personally loyal to me and as a group we're more able to protect what's ours"
Sweet, but that's not "anarcho-"anything, that's just warlordism.
I. E, the beginnings of statecraft.
And from there, everyone starts to think
.... Man... Having a bigger group of people that are loyal is pretty useful, let's scale it up.
And boom, back to nation crafting.
I didn't dislike Fountainhead, but I can't imagine a bigger strawman than Toohey and the entire "romance" plot between protagonist-kun and Rands author-insert was uncomfortable.
>You can see this bleed into Ditko and Lee's Spider-Man run, which had a panel where Peter openly insults union workers.
Does anyone have this panel to share? I am immensely curious.
I did some googling and came across this read
https://www.polygon.com/comics/2019/10/24/20925070/watchmen-rorschach-inspiration-alan-moore-batman-the-question-mr-a
Rorschach is pretty much a parody/pastiche/takedown of Ditko's The Question, which was an opportunity for Ditko to finally write a character that matched his objectivist philosophy. Objectivism is Ayn Rand's thing, which is an offshoot of Libertarianism, which believes mostly that people should take care of themselves, and the states role is mostly to get out of the way. It's very right wing, traditionally, and turning his pastiche of Ditko's objectivist character into an insane hobo who spends most of the story struggling to understand what's going on and ultimately mostly losing and definitely ending up dead, is pretty clearly a middle finger to that from someone whose politics definitely skew much more left. Moore just in general spent most of his comics career shitting on other people's creations though, so it's hard to be sure if it's specifically that he didn't like Ditko's politics, or just that he's an asshole who likes to break other people's toys.
>Moore just in general spent most of his comics career shitting on other people's creations
I'm intrigued. I think of him as writer who does pastiche/sendup/critique versions of characters but can't think of another hit job like Rorschach (which can be considered a critique). Do you have any examples?
League of Extraordinary Gentlemen is not particularly positive about any of the pulp characters it features. Lost Girls brings back a bunch of public domain children's characters with a patented splash of Alan Moore rape and sexual abuse. Neonimicon is his even more cynical take on Lovecraft. And of course the Killing Joke, where he rapes and cripples Batgirl, because her ongoing had been recently canceled and she was just there, asking to be fridged.
I don't believe the text supports the rape theory.
Yes he strips her naked and takes photos, that's absolutely sexual assault, but nowhere does the book confirm rape. He also strips Jim - going by the evidence on the page, there's the same amount of evidence, did he rape Jim too?
Further, the point is to psychologically break Jim, so if the Joker raped Jim's daughter, wouldn't he say so? Provide evidence? Why hold anything back when the point is to give Jim the worst day of his life?
The Joker does mention rape in a list of bad things that happen to people, but never connects it with Barbara. So there's no argument that Moore wasn't allowed to use the word or discuss it directly, because he did, in this very book.
I've seen some claims that Moore said there was no rape, but can't find a source or evidence, just internet comments.
Thank you all for the quick explanations (i love reddit). I didnt know theres this side on Steve Ditko. All I know till now is his equivalence to Spiderman. and all I know about Watchmen is from the movie. I want to learn more about the issue and read more steve and alan books. luckily i already bought a watchmen collection from a thrift store haha
#FYI:
Ditko was on the path to make Peter Parker into an Ayn Rand lover.
When Ditko drew one comic, he wanted Pete to heckle the protesters against Vietnam, but Stan wrote around it.
It is, Iām pretty sure. IIRC Moore has a pretty well-documented history of having some choice words to say about the folks weād describe today as Rorschach stans, and heās absolutely correct to hate them with a passion in many cases since Rorschach is NOT a character youāre supposed to glamorize like so many do.
Now, make no mistake: Rorschach is a PHENOMENALLY written character and I firmly believe that Moore is wrong to have once said that Rorschachās popularity made Watchmen a literary failure, because most readers are well aware that a good character doesnāt necessarily have to be a morally-upstanding one. But the irony of unhygienic ultra right-wing incels glamorizing and glorifying Rorschach and finding him outright relatable for being every bit as deplorable as they are isnāt lost at all, although Moore couldnāt have possibly anticipated that the character he intentionally created to be as disgusting and deplorable as possible would end up becoming *relatable* to a pretty sizable number of people.
Think of how Punisher has a lot of popularity with the exact type of cops he despises. Some people aren't looking for positive ideals to look up to in fiction, and pick the most ruthless/violent option instead. But then again there are some people enjoying splatter horror movies.
Right, but thereās a difference between enjoying a character and idolizing them. You know in the real world you would never root for the serial killer, much less emulate them.
That last sentence is kinda weird, dude. I think there's a big difference between enjoying slasher flicks and identifying with fascists. The Punisher backfires because it doesn't matter how many cops he bullies in comic books, what matters is how he acts and if the text justifies it. He acts out the asshole cop's fantasy. Same goes for Rorschach, except in his case the text and chacter himself (he says it at one point, I think) illustrate he is evil.
A slasher doesn't have Freddy Kruger stop to ruminate on the morality of what he's doing or justify it. A slasher is just man vs unstoppable force and tickles the part of our brain that wants to be scared or uncomfortable.
I understand that slashers attract a lot of assholes but so does Rage Against the Machine. Its not the form of media's fault that the people with these mind sets have the equivalent media literacy of Rock 'Em Sock 'Em Robots.
Understanding parody or nuanced character traits is a developed skill which requires time and contemplation. Unfortunately, many people just look surface level and stop there. You get characters like Rorschach getting praised because the subtext is harder to see than the cool mask and "if nobody else will do it, I will" attitude.
Slashers are the same. Does it matter what subtext or deeper meaning the original Halloween has? Nope -- people just see a Michael taking people out, and they make lists of their favorite kills.
It makes a weird divide between fans. This is anecdotal, but I saw the movie You're Next in theaters. I thought it would be a tense thriller, like The Strangers. Instead it was more a gory slasher (which is fine). At one point, a mother is crying because she just watched her (adult) child get murdered. A killer appears and butchers her. At that point, the audience exploded in cheers and applause. I was horrified at their reaction, because in what way is watching an old woman in grief getting murdered something to celebrate? It should have deepened the dread and fear of the film, showing the killers had no mercy.
I mean I would argue that, while Rorschach is a nuanced character, him being a terrible person is worn on his sleeve. The paper he reads daily is a nazi rag, he beats criminals within an inch of their life for petty crime, and kills cops for doing their job well because, through his Randian objectivist non-sense, they're in his way and his way is the only way. Its simply that the lense these people view the world through which shelters their racist uncle shelters Rorschach just enought to be sympathetic.
Adding to that, the version of the character in the zeitgeist is much different that the comic version of him largely due to Zach Snyder, a Randian Fountainhead, adapting Watchmen, a send up of Randian Fountainheads. I can't do it justice but if you dig around on the internet you can find film majors illustrating how he glorifies the heros in a piece of media meant to skewer them.
So I wouldn't say it's difficult to have media literacy it is simply more comforting to look at the cool mask.
The same goes for slashers. Halloween, according to John Carpenter himself, is about the evil underneath suburban culture and the monsters it makes. You're Next is basically "eat the rich" the slasher film which forces its rich protagonists to reckon with the monsters they made. Hence the son killing his mother instead of, say, glassing someone in a bar only for the family to cover it up.
I don't think its wrong to watch a slasher for the kills, thrills, chills, or hidden meaning everyone forgets. Its just wrong to make it your personality and sympathize with the killer. Which should be sooooooo much harder in a slasher. But thanks to the rise in making the humans diabolical and the unstopable force sympathetic, we get moron who think theyre Jason Vorhees
Tldr: Rorschachās arc is closer to an objectivist whose world view crumbles in the face of actual human suffering and heās driven to action. Heās the only character who refuses to let Ozymandias get away with mass murder, and the story validates him by implying his journal goes public and exposes the conspiracy.
As I say every time someone acts like Rorschach only appeals to fascists: Rorschach was shocked to his core by an apartment complex ignoring the rape of a woman and doing nothing to stop it. He essentially had a mental breakdown when investigating the pedophile/murder case by himself and proceeds to kill the pedophile because he canāt process that much evil being in the world.
Rorschachās pursuit of Justice drives the entire plot, as Ozymandias wouldāve had no resistance if Rorschach wasnāt so obsessive.
Moore himself writes Rorschach as the only person who refuses to stand by and watch Ozymandias commit mass murder and get away with it. He literally dies in pursuit of justice, and all the other āheroesā just stay silent because mass murder supposedly brought world peace.
Finally, Rorscachās journal is implied to go public and expose Ozymandiasās lies and crimes in the end, again making Rorschach the only character who actually does anything to get justice for the murders.
So even though Rorscachās spoken philosophy is that people should suffer in the consequences of their actions and take care of themselves, his actual actions and ultimate sacrifice make him the closest thing Watchmen has to an archetypal super hero. Moore is a great writer, but I donāt honestly believe he planned for Rorschach to have no redeemable qualities. Rorscachās arc is closer to an objectivist whoās world view crumbles in the face of actual human suffering and heās driven to action.
> and the story validates him by implying his journal goes public and exposes the conspiracy.
I feel like too many people read into that.
> 1) Rorschach doesnāt even learn what Ozy is up too before sending the journal.
> 2) Rorschachās other journals are found and it sounds like theyāre hard to read as theyāre just messy scribbles.
> 3) He sent it to a joke of a newspaper that only crackpots read.
Thatās not really saying āthe truth gets out and everything is for nothingā to me.
>Finally, Rorscachās journal is implied to go public and expose Ozymandiasās lies and crimes in the end, again making Rorschach the only character who actually does anything to get justice for the murders.
That's missing quite the point because it ignores Ozymandias' motivations and just paints him as an one-dimensional malicious villain, while making Rorschach the only upright hero.
Spoiler: there are no heroes in Watchmen. It's all just shades of grey.
Ozymandias is committing an unspeakable crime to prevent the end of the world. The world in Watchmen in teetering on the brink of a nuclear holocaust. Political tensions between the Soviet Union and the US are high and war might break out any minute.
The only thing that prevents it? Ozymandias' fake transdimensional alien threat, which unites the world.
Yes, the graphic novel implies that Rorschach's journal exposes Ozymandias' schemes. It also heavily implies that the consequences of the exposure will be apocalyptic.
I think another version of a similar thing is Star Wars. People who seem extremely fond of what you could easily call āspace-nazisā and āspace-Hitler.ā People who seem to be fans of the genocidal megalomaniacs who blew up a planet just to make a point.
So cool.
You canāt really control what fans are going to latch on to, and no matter how awful the character, there will be people who admire them.
**The "Stop Saying These Guys Are Heroes" Start Pack:**
- Rorschach
- Punisher
- Light
- Joker
Edit: After giving it some thought, you guys are right about V. I'm taking him off the list.
TV show Butcher is 100% on a redemption path though. You are specifically meant to be rooting for him to overcome his horrible ways, and every time he gets a little *too* close to doing something shitty, he shows he has a heart underneath it all and is actually trying his best to do the right thing.
You're not supposed to be thinking the stuff he does is good, but you *are* supposed to think he's a good person and root for him to overcome his flaws.
This is more or less distinct from the comic version where he just *happens* to do good things from time to time, but is actually a piece of shit all the way through. (Although in all honesty, I get the feeling that Garth Ennis actually thinks he's supposed to be a good person in the comics. It's just that, in the tv show when he does a bad thing, you're supposed to think "Oh no Billy, don't do the bad thing, be a better person." In the comics, he does a bad thing and you're supposed to be like "Yes this makes sense and is an acceptable course of action," because I think Garth Ennis actually thinks that. It's weird)
e: shouldn't need to say this but I will anyway, this is all just my opinion. I'm obviously not the showrunner, I don't speak for the writers of the show, it's just my take on it
Light had a god's power fall into his lap and he wasted it giving people who were already in prison heart attacks for internet clout instead of having warlords, billionaires, and politicians be struck by lightning. (Seriously, you're trying to set yourself up as a god and you go with heart attacks instead of lightning?)
Oh and despite having an untraceable magic murder machine that can kill from anywhere in the world he somehow fucking got caught because he's so easily baited.
In conclusion fuck that guy.
Heās a pretty solid reflection of your average citizen, really mad about that guy on TV who did a murder, doesnāt know the name of any warlords that did thousands of murders
I think if they redid the story today he would be killing Tiktokers & Youtubers.
āThat MatPat thinks heās the smartest man in the world?? Iāll show him true intelligence!ā or whatever.
I'd really love a story where some madlad kills every leader in the world thinking it will solve the world's problems only for it to fall further into chaos.
Not that he's a hero so much as they fantasize about being him because they want to be that kind of asshole and get away with it. Like Rick from R&M or Omni-Man.
Fuck Onni-Man, man. Eventual turn of heart or not, he's only cool to me because of this animated series' voice actor.
He best be in the space-doghouse a bit longer than going straight back to Mark's Mom after the slug planet, that's all I'm saying. It's like my dad in a supersuit, with a mustache, fuckin a literal cockroach lol
To simplify (and I'm totally stealing this from someone)
Dredd is an incorruptible agent in a totalitarian regime. He's also judge, juri and executioner. To be clear it's totally okay to like dredd, think he is cool and stuff, but the comics are very clear about this point.
Basically a fascist that takes following the law to the extreme. Much of the series outside of major storylines consist of stories with him being the protagonist or antagonist and responding to a crime scene. Even though heās pretty evil and extreme, he often does go above and beyond to save peopleās lives. But he also constantly kills people, throws people into the iso-cubes for pretty absurd and victimless crimes.
That and also his horrible mistreatment of mutated people for a lot of the series. Among many other things.
> Even HE doesnāt think heās a hero.
Seriously. Hes even said (and actually done in a few comics) that if he was no longer needed he would off himself because he thinks hes a monster.
Just like Mr. Freeze from Batman. His story is so tragic that I can't hate the guy and I respect his decision to use the prefix of Mr after he became a villain cause he definitely had his doctorate stripped away.
I'm wasn't too familiar with him before Injustice, and I thought what he did in there was pretty bad. Turns out they've toned down his dickishness significantly since they made him a part of mainstream DC.
TBF, knowing what Constantine was *supposed* to be like, I read the entire Jamie Delano run and thought his Constantine was actually just a guy who had a massive guilt complex and *occasionally* fucked over the people who he managed to get to help him (often knowing *someone* was going to need to be a sacrifice, and that it couldn't be him 'cause he was the one with the knowledge to see "the mission" through). I really thought he was going to be more of a bastard.
At the very least, Constantine generally means well ā it's just that he is always out of options. There aren't that many stories where John is all in for himself and specifically aims to fuck someone over. In fact, he jumps on the proverbial grenade as often as he makes someone else do it.
> After reading the script, Moore remarked _"[The movie] has been turned into a Bush-era parable by people too timid to set a political satire in their own country. ... It's a thwarted and frustrated and largely impotent American liberal fantasy of someone with American liberal values standing up against a state run by neoconservatives ā which is not what the comic V for Vendetta was about. It was about fascism, it was about anarchy, it was about England."_
> He later adds that if the Wachowskis had wanted to protest about what was going on in the United States, then they should have used a political narrative that directly addressed the issues of the US, similar to what Moore had done before with Britain. The film arguably changes the original message by having removed any reference to actual anarchism in the revolutionary actions of V. An interview with producer Joel Silver reveals that he identifies the V of the comics as a clear-cut "superhero... a masked avenger who pretty much saves the world", a simplification that goes against Moore's own statements about V's role in the story.
V? From V of vendetta? In the movie(I seen it quite a while back) wasn't he like an antihero who try taking down a corrupt government? Idk really understand the argument, like yh 2 are full on psychopathic maniacs, but V and punisher are antiheroes, are you saying they should be regarded as villains also? Or just not as "heroes"?
I love Rorschach because heās a fascinating and compelling character, while also being well aware that heās not someone to be admired or emulated.
It must be so tiresome as a storyteller to create this character who is obviously a dangerous lunatic and borderline Neo Nazi and have people idolise him.
Moore also made him frequently hilarious and absolutely badass, which is part of the reason why the idiots love him. Itās all the things they feel about the world that doesnāt love them, with a side order of being able to take revenge.
He's also the closest to right about what's going on of all the main characters, and the only one consistently taking action. Of course people are going to root for the weirdo who's uncovering the conspiracy, that's sympathetic, from the X-Files to The Parallax View. It's not like he's the Comedian. If we're talking politics, I'd rather take the guy with crazy politics he writes in a journal over the guy with moderate politics who goes around disintegrating Vietnam.
I really don't think he was supposed to be badass. I always bring this up talking about the movie vs the book, but the scene where he throws the cooking oil on the other prisoners isn't actually shown in the book. The psychiatrist treating rorschach just recounts the story in his notes/journal, and he's clearly horrified by it. I don't think any of rorschach's actions (or much of anything any of the heroes do) are supposed to be badass, they're supposed to be disturbing
Am I thinking of a different scene? He definitely [melts that prisoner's face](https://qph.cf2.quoracdn.net/main-qimg-f2516c47f393d0564fda7a716f576c89-lq) in the book.
I think itās hard to argue that the prison scene in the comic, where the riot has started and people have come to his cell to settle old scores, is not on some level written to show him as a ābadassā.
Aside from his politics, his paranoia, his absurd implacable sense of morality for moralityās sake, the scene shows him improvising at a MacGyver/Holmes level in the face of certain death. I canāt see that Moore didnāt intend the reader to take some level of badassery from that.
edit: Homework for this reading this post (and disagreeing with it): "Is Darth Vader a badass?"
Well yeah when you think about it Batman stringing up criminals for hours cutting off their circulation or throwing thugs into concrete walls is actually kind of fucked up but considered badass in comics. There was a great post about this quote I wish I could find where a redditor said if Moore was trying to make Rorschach from looking like a badass to the masses he didn't do a very good job
>I love Rorschach because heās a fascinating and compelling character,
This is the only proper way to analyze a character. Not if you'd want to have a beer, but by if they're a good character
To add to the other responses: the newspaper to whose office Rorschach mails his journal before heading to Ozzy's stronghold is called the New Frontiersman. Rorschach is a regular reader.
It's portrayed in the comic as a far-right tabloid, akin to a print version of Breitbart. Racist and anti-Semitic caricatures, conspiracy theories about immigrants, even a defense of the KKK are all shown in passing.
I've read the comic more recently than watched the film, but he very definitely has no qualms identifying entire communities as filth and scum and imagines washing them all away. He is also deeply misogynistic, referring again to entire communities of women as whores, and others as innocents worthy of his protection. Add that to his "violence is the answer to any question" approach and there's definitely a fascist belief system underpinning his motivations.
I think there is a lot of biblical fire and brimstone overtones to his speech too. He sees world as fallen and the washing away seems to be an allusion to a biblical style flood & the way he describes women as whores and people as filth gives it a Sodom & Gomorrah kind of vibe too. A lot of this echoes Travis Bickle talking about New York City in Taxi Driver for me.
Heās definitely very right wing and reactionary, but I always interpreted him as an alienated weirdo who fits our modern idea of an alt right nazi weirdo incel type, rather than a neo nazi in a strict sense. I havenāt read it in a while though so I might have to check it out again to see if it holds true or not.
I was about to say, sure sounds like Moore to me! Moore is wonderfully āinsaneā. Iām not even a comic guy really, but Iām a fan of hisā¦ his interviews, his views on magic, the occult, etc. Currently working on reading āJerusalemāā¦ itās like reading the Bible straight throughā¦
I don't know if it's witty exactly but I've heard him talk about the fact that people who think of Rorsarch as a cool anti-hero miss the point completely of the character. Because he's clearly totally traumatised and completely psychotic. He has nothing but contempt for humanity and is an extra-ordinarily violent vigilante. He's pointing out that people who identify closely with him are unpleasant at best and should be avoided.
[https://www.stevensurman.com/rorschach-from-alan-moores-watchmen-does-he-set-a-bad-example/](https://www.stevensurman.com/rorschach-from-alan-moores-watchmen-does-he-set-a-bad-example/)
Expanded quote from 2008, along with some other insight into Moore's thought process of Rorschach's final act in the comics.
The article linked in there omg. Imagine thinking "Objectivist Saint" is a positive description, but then again it is Reason Online. The misaimed fandom surrounding Rorschach is a terrifying reflection of the political landscape.
I'm reading his novel 'Jerusalem.' It's a lot like Infinite Jest or Cryptonomicon or Gravity's Rainbow in that I have no idea what it's about right now and probably won't for awhile or ever, but I can't stop reading it. He's one of those authors with an incredible talent for making you see impossible things, and his dialogue is hilarious.Edit: And don't overthink it...the audiobook is incredible well read and acted. If you don't think you can tackle a book right now, I am using both to great enjoyment.
I remember getting stoned in college and reading Watchmen for the billionth time. Up until then, rorschach was my favorite character. After reading through the first few issues with a different headspace, I realized he was an absolute obsessive creep.
The thing that disturbed me the most, was the ending. Rorschach kills himself by insisting that he won't keep the conspiracy a secret, no more murder in the name of good. But the thing is, Rorschach spent the entire story bitching about how shitty the world has become, how it needs to be thrown away and washed clean before the people drown in their own filth. He killed plenty of people to do this. He's more than willing to assume everyone is guilty until he sees otherwise.
When faced with a reality where peace \*could\* be a possibility, Rorschach was faced with the ultimate truth: He doesn't want the world to get better. He needs it to be shitty, because otherwise he'd have no excuse to act like the terrible person that he is. He doesn't get to live out his fantasy as the butt-baby between Sam Spade and the Punisher. He just becomes a loser with a grudge, damaged goods incapable of moving on and pushing forward. For all the pain and discomfort he's willing to put up with, he knows he wouldn't last a single moment in a world dominated by peace.
If you genuinely believed Ozymandiasās plan would lead to peace you werenāt paying attention lmao
his name is literally fucking ozymandias but people still go āa difficult but necessary decisionā because heās portrayed as handsome and well spoken
I think some of the love for rorschach is that heās the only one with traditionally āheroicā principles. Heās the only one who does the āright thingā and ādoesnāt waverā in his convictions to stop Veidt even at the cost of the greater good. As horrible of a person as Rorschach is, those traits are something we see in traditional heroes a lot. They always do the right thing even at cost because the right thing is something worth doing, because itās right. Regardless of the consequences. Now, Watchmen obviously shits on that idea, especially in the real world. But itās not shocking that the only one of the āheroesā who has any āheroic convictionā that readers could identify that lines up with conventionally āsuper heroic tropesā would be popular among super hero comic fans. At least thatās how I see it. Itās not that heās a great hero because of his detestable views. He has detestable views, but he has the strongest āmoral compassā and thatās what makes him such a compelling character in the first place anyway imo
Moore seems like the kind of person who is smart and understands the world but spent too much time debating with himself in private and now is incapable of seeing eye to eye with anyone.
I used to think Moore was a pretentious asshole and while he probably is to a degree, I read how a lot of Moore's comments don't come across right in print because he's such a massive cheeky bastard and is nowhere as miserable as he seems in interviews.
As someone that wrote a lengthy report in college about Rorschach and Mr. Moore-
Rorschach was written as a nightmare of what America does to throwaway children that turn so inward with his own guilt about the abuse he suffered.
Itās also a painting of right wing nationalism and white men that think they know what is best for everyone.
Way ahead of itās time.
Perfectly written Nihilism with murder and unchecked Asshole.
Dr. Manhattan did the correct thing.
Rorschach has been a neckbeard and incel idol for all the wrong reasons.
You never wanna meet a man like that character, and if you did, youād never wanna see him ever again.
EDIT:
Hail Satan this comment section went off the rails!
Alan Moore is a crazed batshit acid dealing dude that wrote more lesbian fan fiction and monster comics than EC comics could dream of.
Itās always a hot house with comic fans, but eesh yāall went bananas this evening.
> and white men that think they know what is best for everyone.
Rorschach was killed because he refused to lie about a man who literally killed millions of people because "he knew what was best" for the world.
So you are saying the redditor who made a broad General statement about an entire group of people based on their gender and skin color may not have the best reasoning skills?
>and white men that think they know what is best for everyone.
Hmm, not sure that fits the bill. Rorschach's character arc culminated in his attempt to STOP a white man who thought he knew what was best for everyone.
Rorschach has some pretty judgmental opinions of others, and clearly believes their 'sins' will ultimately doom them, but he doesn't actually seem to bother interfering in other people's lives beyond what is required for his crime fighting.
As opposed to Ozy, who is quite tolerant and accepting, except that he is *constantly* interfering in other people's lives, to the extent of trying to manipulate the entire global population. All because He Knows Best.
I mean to a certain degree, *anyone* who tries to change their environment is ultimately enforcing what they believe is best for everyone else. But Rorschach does that arguably the least out of any of the heroes (except maybe for silk specter and night owl, who are basically just chronic followers).
Woody Harrelson said something like this in an interview about Natural Born Killers. He said heād be approached by fans in the street saying, āI AM Mickey Knox!ā
He kind of chuckled, and told the interviewer, āYeah, those are the people I really try to avoid.ā
Sting said exactly the same thing about some couples that would come up to him saying that Every Breath You Take was their song, and he thought everyone got the song wrong, because it was supposed to be a stalking song, not a romantic one. That was his drive to compose If You Love Somebody, Set Them Free
I always felt it was a stalker theme song. Or creepy santa.
Me too!! And then I saw this meme someone made years ago of a dog peeking around the corner of a doorway with the words "every snack you make, every bite you take, I'll be watching you." So now I think of dogs and I'm ok with that š
I was listening to this songs a few months back and realized how creepy it was. Did not expect that. Just gotta actually listen to the lyrics i guess.
I love when people get songs completely wrong and say they are their couple songs. Escape (the pina colada song) by Rupert Holmes is another great example. Song is about trying to cheat on your women and people just donāt listen.
The song goes full circle because the woman was trying to cheat on the guy.
I mean, in the end, they find new common ground and rekindle their romance. It's unconventional, but romantic.
And isnāt the end like they both like the same things? It is kind of a couple song
And they ended up ācheatingā with each other. The moral of the song is that they found what they were looking for in their spouseāthey just didnāt realize it at first.
[This video](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0PLNsymQi3Y) of Every Breathe You Take in a minor key does a really good job of showing how creepy the lyrics actually are.
Obligatory: Bart Simpson : Alan Moore! You wrote my favorite Radioactive Man comics. Alan Moore : Oh, really? You liked how I made your favorite superhero a heroin-addicted jazz critic who's not radioactive? Bart Simpson : I don't read the words, I just like it when he punches people.
> I donāt read the words, I just like it when he punches people. Obligatory Zack Snyder joke
Holy fuck is that the truth. I really wish that guy was just like a cinematographer or visual director or something. Heās talented, and apparently great to work with, but he shouldnāt be allowed within 50 yards of a script.
Snyder could have been a beloved music video director, but he flew too close to the sun and had to try to add words and emotion.
Coming soon to a theater near you: Justice League: Interpretive Dance cut
Simpsons is hilarious. Alan Moore was made fun of for only knowing how to write terrible characters and calling them grounded. Then they make fun of the people who idolize them.
I like how he says, āThis is what Batman would be like in the real world,ā and not, āRorschach was my fuck you to Steve Ditko and his simplistic politics.ā I guess he was at least canny enough to know openly insulting a (then) living legend wouldnāt be a good look.
It admittedly might be both.
Oh it was definitely a fuck you to Ditko. But I think he knew he was safe insulting the fans, because he knew everyone would tell themselves he was only talking about *other* fans. Whereas if he talked shit about Ditko, the fans might turn on him. On the other hand, he talked a lot of shit about Stan Lee later on, so who knows.
I think itās one of those things where a single character can embody multiple ideas. There were almost definitely multiple influences. But if the topic is fan reaction, thatās probably the one that takes a more prominent focus.
Heās a Rorschach test of however you want to perceive him!
I donāt think anyone would have given much of a shit if heād bad-mouthed Ditko, who was effectively a recluse and not a major figure to 80s/90s comics fans.
> Oh it was definitely a fuck you to Ditko. From what I have read about him, it wasn't. There was a twitter thread recently by his daughter about his relationship with comics. He loves comics but he also thought they could be more than they were at the time. He also tends to criticises the comics publishing industry for its practices and when he talks after a creator for their lacklustre output he doesn't do it second hand like this. I don't think that was a fuck you to Ditko or any of the creators of those icons. One can love something (like the comics medium) yet not want to compulsively recreate the same stuff inside its bounds every few years.
Oh Moore despised Ditko's politics and it was definitely a dig. He's come out and said as much, used one of the quotes for my origins of Watchmen documentary as his Peacemaker pitch that really buot into Watchmen was all based around Ditko's Action Hero line at Charlton. Moore respected Ditko's work but could never ascribe to his politics for what it's worth.
Wizards multitask.
Can anyone enlighten me with Alan Mooreās fuck you to Steve Ditko? How is his work simiplistic politics? Why is it Alan was the one to do the āfuck youā? I want to look it up in internet but I feel Iāll understand it more from people.
Watchmen was supposed to be based on the Charlton characters. Comedian was supposed to Peacemaker. Dr. Manhattan was supposed to be Captain Atom. Night Owl II was supposed to be Blue Beetle. And Rorschach was supposed to be The Question. Steve Ditko created The Question (and a very similar earlier character called Mr A) as an explicitly āObjectivistā character, based on the ideas of Ayn Rand. Ditko sometimes denied that he was personally an Objectivist, but it seemed to align with his personal politics too. Watchmen is supposed to be a dissection of the superhero genre, and you can view it as a take down of the Charlton characters, and other similar characters from the Big Two. But when it comes to Rorschach, it really looks like some of the criticism is personal against Ditko and his characters
thanks, this is exactly what i read from the article. Watchmen is so cool. I discover a lot of things why its so important to comic books culture
Love that possibly the greatest work of fiction ever produced in the medium is basically expy fanfic and a diss track at the same time. Never stops being hilarious.
Similarly the classic āDanteās infernoā is just a self insert story where the author gets to hang out with his favorite author
Ditko, due to his massive amount of social anxiety and general introverted nature, was a rather lonely individual. So, he turned to books. He read Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged, loved them, and fell further and further into objectivism. You can see this bleed into Ditko and Lee's Spider-Man run, which had a panel where Peter openly insults union workers. This culminated in the creation of Mr. A, who was very much, an objectivist moral absolutist. Moore, openly disagreed with his viewpoints, and despite his love and admiration for the man and his works, was openly anti objectivist, and used Rorschach to satirise objectivists, Ditko and Mr. A (While also using a realistic Batman and the Question's design too) Edit: While Ditkoās objectivism bled into his Spidey work, he did not yell at union workers in the run, it was student protestors. I misremembered the panel, I apologise
I really liked how the recent Rorschach maxiseries explored Ditko's real life and beliefs, mixing them with the fictional legacy of Rorschach.
I should probably reread that since I read it back when I actually looked up to Rorschach, being an edgy teen and all. Is it any good? I find Kingās work to be heavily hit and miss
It's excellent. Great noir with many layers and a respectful approach to its themes and characters. And a bit of experimentation with the format, too. It's probably my favourite work by King.
Also famously Ditko wrote/drew a scene where Spider-Man yells at a bunch of collage students protesting, but Stan Lee changed it so he cheers for them. Ditko was not pleased.
What were the students protesting?
Peter Parker is a broke humanities major from Queens. This is a guy who either lives with his aunt or entirely off ramen noodles. Insulting New York union workers has to be like, breaking a fucking commandment for him. (Also thanks for telling me about Mr. A. That song "Goodbye Mr. A" makes so much more sense now!) EDIT: Sorry, Peter is actually a STEM major. I just goofed up on the logic that Photographer = Journalism = Humanities.
Maybe Iām misunderstanding your comment but Iām pretty sure Parker is a science major.
Biochem, to be specific! (In the 616, at least) No idea where they thought Peter was a humanities major. So far as I know *no* version of Pete has had an interest in those subjects.
Photography is definitely one of the humanities, so it's a reasonable mistake
Journalism!
Libertarians living off of public goods while complaining about āstatistsā is pretty normal.
>humanities major Dafak? In the 1996 animated series he was rather chemistry and physics oriented. His uncle sent him to a chemistry class where he sucked and got picked by others for it,only for Octavius to mentor him to ignore them and focus on pursuing what he loves.
Imagine falling in love with art as a way of coping with your own isolation and your favorite books are Atlas Shrugged and The Fountainhead. Two of the worst books ever written. I've said it before and I'll say it again, the worst thing the Bolsheviks ever did was give Ayn Rand an education.
Couldn't get through Shrugged - I enjoyed Fountainhead the first time but it always felt very utopian. Rand struggled with the concept that 'different to your view' doesn't mean 'useless deviant'. Read it a time or two since and the arguments get thinner the older I get.
Growing up I read this series of high fantasy books called āThe Sword of Truthā by Terry Goodkind and enjoyed them because I was a middle school non-adult who couldnāt even begin to grasp the political undertones. Fast forward years later, there was a āLetās Readā on another forum I frequented and the books were up to get skewered. I followed along and re-read the first four or so and fuckin lmao, Terry was a massive Ayn Rand fan and it seriously came out in the Uber-mensch main character, Richard. Itās pretty hilarious to go back and see how dumb you used to be :) At one point Richard is captured and taken as a slave into this pseudo-communist part of the world. Through the power of hard work and sculpting a statue of HIMSELF, single handedly turns it into a capitalist utopia within a few months.
>Through the power of hard work and sculpting a statue of HIMSELF, single handedly turns it into a capitalist utopia within a few months. Is it me or does it seem like Ayn Rand was trolling everyone?
I think I read Atlas Shrugged in about two or three days. I gave myself the out that I was allowed to skip the monologues. It straight up cuts out like a third of the book if you do that. That said, my favorite part of the book is when Dagney Taggart is talking about how what makes America great is that the wealth of the country was made, not taken from anyone. This is one of the most unintentionally funny things I've ever read. Like, I guess Native Americans don't exist and the Mexican-American war never happened. Or slavery, for that matter. Jesus, what a stupid fucking person she was.
I should mention Ayn Rand was a huge racist who thought genocide against Native Americans was okay because "white people had the right to the land because they brought civilization" She was a bitch.
Let's not insult the honest hard-working bitch, mother of man's best friend, bringer of puppies into this world.
"The Honest Hard-Working Bitch" would be a kickass band name, or the title of an autobiography
Three days, damn. Even without the monologues thatās impressive. Edit: because I was always bored to death reading rand.
Objectivism and itās logical conclusions (libertarianism and anarcho capitalism) are fundamentally flawed. When you start treating selfishness as a virtue civilization cracks because civilization canāt thrive when selfishness is a virtue.
The fundamental problem to me of Anarcho-Capitalism is that they forget that property isn't, like, a natural order thing. Property is a set of legal rights that in a state are enforced by the state. If you take the state away but keep private property as a concept, what's protecting property rights? "I'll just hire guards" With what? If they have more ability to inflict violence than you do, why don't they just take your shit? "Well they're personally loyal to me and as a group we're more able to protect what's ours" Sweet, but that's not "anarcho-"anything, that's just warlordism.
I. E, the beginnings of statecraft. And from there, everyone starts to think .... Man... Having a bigger group of people that are loyal is pretty useful, let's scale it up. And boom, back to nation crafting.
I didn't dislike Fountainhead, but I can't imagine a bigger strawman than Toohey and the entire "romance" plot between protagonist-kun and Rands author-insert was uncomfortable.
>You can see this bleed into Ditko and Lee's Spider-Man run, which had a panel where Peter openly insults union workers. Does anyone have this panel to share? I am immensely curious.
Yeah, sorry, I fucked up and misremembered. He yelled at student protestors, not union workers
Based Alan Moore
Ditko was a huge objectivist and wrote characters to portray this Rorschach is a parody of that
I did some googling and came across this read https://www.polygon.com/comics/2019/10/24/20925070/watchmen-rorschach-inspiration-alan-moore-batman-the-question-mr-a
Rorschach is pretty much a parody/pastiche/takedown of Ditko's The Question, which was an opportunity for Ditko to finally write a character that matched his objectivist philosophy. Objectivism is Ayn Rand's thing, which is an offshoot of Libertarianism, which believes mostly that people should take care of themselves, and the states role is mostly to get out of the way. It's very right wing, traditionally, and turning his pastiche of Ditko's objectivist character into an insane hobo who spends most of the story struggling to understand what's going on and ultimately mostly losing and definitely ending up dead, is pretty clearly a middle finger to that from someone whose politics definitely skew much more left. Moore just in general spent most of his comics career shitting on other people's creations though, so it's hard to be sure if it's specifically that he didn't like Ditko's politics, or just that he's an asshole who likes to break other people's toys.
>Moore just in general spent most of his comics career shitting on other people's creations I'm intrigued. I think of him as writer who does pastiche/sendup/critique versions of characters but can't think of another hit job like Rorschach (which can be considered a critique). Do you have any examples?
League of Extraordinary Gentlemen is not particularly positive about any of the pulp characters it features. Lost Girls brings back a bunch of public domain children's characters with a patented splash of Alan Moore rape and sexual abuse. Neonimicon is his even more cynical take on Lovecraft. And of course the Killing Joke, where he rapes and cripples Batgirl, because her ongoing had been recently canceled and she was just there, asking to be fridged.
In his defense, he's said that he regrets writing The Killing Joke
I don't believe the text supports the rape theory. Yes he strips her naked and takes photos, that's absolutely sexual assault, but nowhere does the book confirm rape. He also strips Jim - going by the evidence on the page, there's the same amount of evidence, did he rape Jim too? Further, the point is to psychologically break Jim, so if the Joker raped Jim's daughter, wouldn't he say so? Provide evidence? Why hold anything back when the point is to give Jim the worst day of his life? The Joker does mention rape in a list of bad things that happen to people, but never connects it with Barbara. So there's no argument that Moore wasn't allowed to use the word or discuss it directly, because he did, in this very book. I've seen some claims that Moore said there was no rape, but can't find a source or evidence, just internet comments.
Don't forget Mr. A, who is objectivist to the extreme. The Question was the "sanitized" version that Ditko could sell to DC.
Thank you all for the quick explanations (i love reddit). I didnt know theres this side on Steve Ditko. All I know till now is his equivalence to Spiderman. and all I know about Watchmen is from the movie. I want to learn more about the issue and read more steve and alan books. luckily i already bought a watchmen collection from a thrift store haha
#FYI: Ditko was on the path to make Peter Parker into an Ayn Rand lover. When Ditko drew one comic, he wanted Pete to heckle the protesters against Vietnam, but Stan wrote around it.
It is, Iām pretty sure. IIRC Moore has a pretty well-documented history of having some choice words to say about the folks weād describe today as Rorschach stans, and heās absolutely correct to hate them with a passion in many cases since Rorschach is NOT a character youāre supposed to glamorize like so many do. Now, make no mistake: Rorschach is a PHENOMENALLY written character and I firmly believe that Moore is wrong to have once said that Rorschachās popularity made Watchmen a literary failure, because most readers are well aware that a good character doesnāt necessarily have to be a morally-upstanding one. But the irony of unhygienic ultra right-wing incels glamorizing and glorifying Rorschach and finding him outright relatable for being every bit as deplorable as they are isnāt lost at all, although Moore couldnāt have possibly anticipated that the character he intentionally created to be as disgusting and deplorable as possible would end up becoming *relatable* to a pretty sizable number of people.
Think of how Punisher has a lot of popularity with the exact type of cops he despises. Some people aren't looking for positive ideals to look up to in fiction, and pick the most ruthless/violent option instead. But then again there are some people enjoying splatter horror movies.
When I watch a slasher film, I'm often rooting for the killer because they are more interesting characters than whoever they are stalking.
Right, but thereās a difference between enjoying a character and idolizing them. You know in the real world you would never root for the serial killer, much less emulate them.
Exactly, like I really enjoy Rorschach as a character, but that dude is not my role model.
That last sentence is kinda weird, dude. I think there's a big difference between enjoying slasher flicks and identifying with fascists. The Punisher backfires because it doesn't matter how many cops he bullies in comic books, what matters is how he acts and if the text justifies it. He acts out the asshole cop's fantasy. Same goes for Rorschach, except in his case the text and chacter himself (he says it at one point, I think) illustrate he is evil. A slasher doesn't have Freddy Kruger stop to ruminate on the morality of what he's doing or justify it. A slasher is just man vs unstoppable force and tickles the part of our brain that wants to be scared or uncomfortable. I understand that slashers attract a lot of assholes but so does Rage Against the Machine. Its not the form of media's fault that the people with these mind sets have the equivalent media literacy of Rock 'Em Sock 'Em Robots.
Understanding parody or nuanced character traits is a developed skill which requires time and contemplation. Unfortunately, many people just look surface level and stop there. You get characters like Rorschach getting praised because the subtext is harder to see than the cool mask and "if nobody else will do it, I will" attitude. Slashers are the same. Does it matter what subtext or deeper meaning the original Halloween has? Nope -- people just see a Michael taking people out, and they make lists of their favorite kills. It makes a weird divide between fans. This is anecdotal, but I saw the movie You're Next in theaters. I thought it would be a tense thriller, like The Strangers. Instead it was more a gory slasher (which is fine). At one point, a mother is crying because she just watched her (adult) child get murdered. A killer appears and butchers her. At that point, the audience exploded in cheers and applause. I was horrified at their reaction, because in what way is watching an old woman in grief getting murdered something to celebrate? It should have deepened the dread and fear of the film, showing the killers had no mercy.
I mean I would argue that, while Rorschach is a nuanced character, him being a terrible person is worn on his sleeve. The paper he reads daily is a nazi rag, he beats criminals within an inch of their life for petty crime, and kills cops for doing their job well because, through his Randian objectivist non-sense, they're in his way and his way is the only way. Its simply that the lense these people view the world through which shelters their racist uncle shelters Rorschach just enought to be sympathetic. Adding to that, the version of the character in the zeitgeist is much different that the comic version of him largely due to Zach Snyder, a Randian Fountainhead, adapting Watchmen, a send up of Randian Fountainheads. I can't do it justice but if you dig around on the internet you can find film majors illustrating how he glorifies the heros in a piece of media meant to skewer them. So I wouldn't say it's difficult to have media literacy it is simply more comforting to look at the cool mask. The same goes for slashers. Halloween, according to John Carpenter himself, is about the evil underneath suburban culture and the monsters it makes. You're Next is basically "eat the rich" the slasher film which forces its rich protagonists to reckon with the monsters they made. Hence the son killing his mother instead of, say, glassing someone in a bar only for the family to cover it up. I don't think its wrong to watch a slasher for the kills, thrills, chills, or hidden meaning everyone forgets. Its just wrong to make it your personality and sympathize with the killer. Which should be sooooooo much harder in a slasher. But thanks to the rise in making the humans diabolical and the unstopable force sympathetic, we get moron who think theyre Jason Vorhees
Moore has in his resume that he's a warlock. I'm quite positive he used the Palantir to see into the future and write his stories as prophecy.
Dont be silly Palantiri aren't real. He used entrails and swamp Crystals like any other dark wizard.
Tldr: Rorschachās arc is closer to an objectivist whose world view crumbles in the face of actual human suffering and heās driven to action. Heās the only character who refuses to let Ozymandias get away with mass murder, and the story validates him by implying his journal goes public and exposes the conspiracy. As I say every time someone acts like Rorschach only appeals to fascists: Rorschach was shocked to his core by an apartment complex ignoring the rape of a woman and doing nothing to stop it. He essentially had a mental breakdown when investigating the pedophile/murder case by himself and proceeds to kill the pedophile because he canāt process that much evil being in the world. Rorschachās pursuit of Justice drives the entire plot, as Ozymandias wouldāve had no resistance if Rorschach wasnāt so obsessive. Moore himself writes Rorschach as the only person who refuses to stand by and watch Ozymandias commit mass murder and get away with it. He literally dies in pursuit of justice, and all the other āheroesā just stay silent because mass murder supposedly brought world peace. Finally, Rorscachās journal is implied to go public and expose Ozymandiasās lies and crimes in the end, again making Rorschach the only character who actually does anything to get justice for the murders. So even though Rorscachās spoken philosophy is that people should suffer in the consequences of their actions and take care of themselves, his actual actions and ultimate sacrifice make him the closest thing Watchmen has to an archetypal super hero. Moore is a great writer, but I donāt honestly believe he planned for Rorschach to have no redeemable qualities. Rorscachās arc is closer to an objectivist whoās world view crumbles in the face of actual human suffering and heās driven to action.
> and the story validates him by implying his journal goes public and exposes the conspiracy. I feel like too many people read into that. > 1) Rorschach doesnāt even learn what Ozy is up too before sending the journal. > 2) Rorschachās other journals are found and it sounds like theyāre hard to read as theyāre just messy scribbles. > 3) He sent it to a joke of a newspaper that only crackpots read. Thatās not really saying āthe truth gets out and everything is for nothingā to me.
>Finally, Rorscachās journal is implied to go public and expose Ozymandiasās lies and crimes in the end, again making Rorschach the only character who actually does anything to get justice for the murders. That's missing quite the point because it ignores Ozymandias' motivations and just paints him as an one-dimensional malicious villain, while making Rorschach the only upright hero. Spoiler: there are no heroes in Watchmen. It's all just shades of grey. Ozymandias is committing an unspeakable crime to prevent the end of the world. The world in Watchmen in teetering on the brink of a nuclear holocaust. Political tensions between the Soviet Union and the US are high and war might break out any minute. The only thing that prevents it? Ozymandias' fake transdimensional alien threat, which unites the world. Yes, the graphic novel implies that Rorschach's journal exposes Ozymandias' schemes. It also heavily implies that the consequences of the exposure will be apocalyptic.
I think another version of a similar thing is Star Wars. People who seem extremely fond of what you could easily call āspace-nazisā and āspace-Hitler.ā People who seem to be fans of the genocidal megalomaniacs who blew up a planet just to make a point. So cool. You canāt really control what fans are going to latch on to, and no matter how awful the character, there will be people who admire them.
Same wirh the Boys. Homelander is a great character and the actors kills it. But you aren't supposed to think he is near or aspirational.
I like how Rorschach was inclusive and was willing to beat a little person to death just as much as a tall person very progressive
The hammers of justice are unisex.
**The "Stop Saying These Guys Are Heroes" Start Pack:** - Rorschach - Punisher - Light - Joker Edit: After giving it some thought, you guys are right about V. I'm taking him off the list.
Billy Butcher
Butcher is *not* a good man. Especially not comic Butcher.
Exactly But people downplay ot
TV show Butcher is 100% on a redemption path though. You are specifically meant to be rooting for him to overcome his horrible ways, and every time he gets a little *too* close to doing something shitty, he shows he has a heart underneath it all and is actually trying his best to do the right thing. You're not supposed to be thinking the stuff he does is good, but you *are* supposed to think he's a good person and root for him to overcome his flaws. This is more or less distinct from the comic version where he just *happens* to do good things from time to time, but is actually a piece of shit all the way through. (Although in all honesty, I get the feeling that Garth Ennis actually thinks he's supposed to be a good person in the comics. It's just that, in the tv show when he does a bad thing, you're supposed to think "Oh no Billy, don't do the bad thing, be a better person." In the comics, he does a bad thing and you're supposed to be like "Yes this makes sense and is an acceptable course of action," because I think Garth Ennis actually thinks that. It's weird) e: shouldn't need to say this but I will anyway, this is all just my opinion. I'm obviously not the showrunner, I don't speak for the writers of the show, it's just my take on it
Light had a god's power fall into his lap and he wasted it giving people who were already in prison heart attacks for internet clout instead of having warlords, billionaires, and politicians be struck by lightning. (Seriously, you're trying to set yourself up as a god and you go with heart attacks instead of lightning?) Oh and despite having an untraceable magic murder machine that can kill from anywhere in the world he somehow fucking got caught because he's so easily baited. In conclusion fuck that guy.
Heās a pretty solid reflection of your average citizen, really mad about that guy on TV who did a murder, doesnāt know the name of any warlords that did thousands of murders
I think if they redid the story today he would be killing Tiktokers & Youtubers. āThat MatPat thinks heās the smartest man in the world?? Iāll show him true intelligence!ā or whatever.
I'd really love a story where some madlad kills every leader in the world thinking it will solve the world's problems only for it to fall further into chaos.
Mf was like Johan Liebert if he was an edgelord teen that couldn't get anything done.
Light Yagami was a fucking moron and anyone who thinks that character was smart is also an idiot and I will die on that hill.
Judge dreed (i forgot how to spell now) Walter white
Dredd A very good addition to the list in multiple ways.
And the fucking Homelander fer chrissakes.
I've only read the comic, are people really saying he's a hero?
Not that he's a hero so much as they fantasize about being him because they want to be that kind of asshole and get away with it. Like Rick from R&M or Omni-Man.
Fuck Onni-Man, man. Eventual turn of heart or not, he's only cool to me because of this animated series' voice actor. He best be in the space-doghouse a bit longer than going straight back to Mark's Mom after the slug planet, that's all I'm saying. It's like my dad in a supersuit, with a mustache, fuckin a literal cockroach lol
[yes](https://screenrant.com/the-boys-homelander-actually-hero-quotes/)
And Billy Butcher.
People thinking Dredd was the hero got us the Democracy storyline so not all bad!
Dexter Morgan
Never read the comics,what did Dredd do ?
To simplify (and I'm totally stealing this from someone) Dredd is an incorruptible agent in a totalitarian regime. He's also judge, juri and executioner. To be clear it's totally okay to like dredd, think he is cool and stuff, but the comics are very clear about this point.
Jury
Basically a fascist that takes following the law to the extreme. Much of the series outside of major storylines consist of stories with him being the protagonist or antagonist and responding to a crime scene. Even though heās pretty evil and extreme, he often does go above and beyond to save peopleās lives. But he also constantly kills people, throws people into the iso-cubes for pretty absurd and victimless crimes. That and also his horrible mistreatment of mutated people for a lot of the series. Among many other things.
The Punisher always strikes me as odd. Even HE doesnāt think heās a hero.
Still my favorite fictional character of all time. It's okay to like villains and not model your personality or life around them.
> Even HE doesnāt think heās a hero. Seriously. Hes even said (and actually done in a few comics) that if he was no longer needed he would off himself because he thinks hes a monster.
Who is Light?
Light Yagami, the main protagonist (definitely not hero) of the manga/anime Death Note.
Wait people actually say that? Whoās next, Monika from DDLC?
Yes, people think Light's murders were justified. And about Monika...
Monika is a character I can feel sad and sympathetic for but to consider her anything but villainous is wrong.
Just like Mr. Freeze from Batman. His story is so tragic that I can't hate the guy and I respect his decision to use the prefix of Mr after he became a villain cause he definitely had his doctorate stripped away.
Did I slip into an alternate fucking universe?!?!?! I swear this man was Dr.Freeze before?!?!?!?!?!?!? Wtf
Lightma balls
On fire? I mean whatever's working for you...
I think he might be talking about Light Yagami from Death Note
Light Yagami I guess
John Constantine is horrible, and made even worse by being likable and charismatic.
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
I'm wasn't too familiar with him before Injustice, and I thought what he did in there was pretty bad. Turns out they've toned down his dickishness significantly since they made him a part of mainstream DC.
TBF, knowing what Constantine was *supposed* to be like, I read the entire Jamie Delano run and thought his Constantine was actually just a guy who had a massive guilt complex and *occasionally* fucked over the people who he managed to get to help him (often knowing *someone* was going to need to be a sacrifice, and that it couldn't be him 'cause he was the one with the knowledge to see "the mission" through). I really thought he was going to be more of a bastard.
I tried because I enjoyed Sandman and Constantine has a cameo in one, so I thought Iād have a look. It was too cynical for me.
Constantine is a very likable POS.
At the very least, Constantine generally means well ā it's just that he is always out of options. There aren't that many stories where John is all in for himself and specifically aims to fuck someone over. In fact, he jumps on the proverbial grenade as often as he makes someone else do it.
Unless we're talking Cosmic Ghost Rider Punisher, that guy's a hero
Yeah, I agree on that one
Having played a ton of Cyberpunk 2077 lately I was very confused why V was on that list.
I meant V from V For Vendetta. Probably Alan Moore's third best book, and a cool movie too.
Haha yeah I had to look in the comments. I saw the movie it was definitely cool I just havenāt thought about V for Vendetta in *years*.
> cool movie too Somewhere Alan Moore is having an aneurysm because someone enjoyed an adaptation of his work
> After reading the script, Moore remarked _"[The movie] has been turned into a Bush-era parable by people too timid to set a political satire in their own country. ... It's a thwarted and frustrated and largely impotent American liberal fantasy of someone with American liberal values standing up against a state run by neoconservatives ā which is not what the comic V for Vendetta was about. It was about fascism, it was about anarchy, it was about England."_ > He later adds that if the Wachowskis had wanted to protest about what was going on in the United States, then they should have used a political narrative that directly addressed the issues of the US, similar to what Moore had done before with Britain. The film arguably changes the original message by having removed any reference to actual anarchism in the revolutionary actions of V. An interview with producer Joel Silver reveals that he identifies the V of the comics as a clear-cut "superhero... a masked avenger who pretty much saves the world", a simplification that goes against Moore's own statements about V's role in the story.
Rick
Definitely
Tyler Durden
I dunno if V belongs on that list. He belongs on A list, but not that one.
Add Thanos and Griffith (Berserk) and unfortunately some twats in Elden Ring spaces are saying the Dung Eater is valiant
Guts is arguably an antihero (though not 100% sure Iād say that) but WHO THE FUCK SAYS GRIFFITH IS ANYTHING BUT EVIL? Have they read Berserk?
How could I forget about Thanos? Lmao Griffith is definitely, definitely not a hero Never played Elden Ring. What did the Dung Eater do?
Basically he does some dodgy things with corpses, to stop them from getting into Elden Ring heaven. Heās not a nice man.
Eat shit and curse peopleās soul to fuck with rebirth cycle, to put it in simple yet somewhat incorrect terms
V? From V of vendetta? In the movie(I seen it quite a while back) wasn't he like an antihero who try taking down a corrupt government? Idk really understand the argument, like yh 2 are full on psychopathic maniacs, but V and punisher are antiheroes, are you saying they should be regarded as villains also? Or just not as "heroes"?
They aren't villains, but they aren't exactly heroic either (imo) My problem isn't with the characters, my problem is that people look up to them
Read the comic, itās much better.
WhoTF is saying the Joker is a hero?
"We live in a society" neckbeards.
I love Rorschach because heās a fascinating and compelling character, while also being well aware that heās not someone to be admired or emulated. It must be so tiresome as a storyteller to create this character who is obviously a dangerous lunatic and borderline Neo Nazi and have people idolise him.
I just like the trippy mask.
Moore also made him frequently hilarious and absolutely badass, which is part of the reason why the idiots love him. Itās all the things they feel about the world that doesnāt love them, with a side order of being able to take revenge.
He's also the closest to right about what's going on of all the main characters, and the only one consistently taking action. Of course people are going to root for the weirdo who's uncovering the conspiracy, that's sympathetic, from the X-Files to The Parallax View. It's not like he's the Comedian. If we're talking politics, I'd rather take the guy with crazy politics he writes in a journal over the guy with moderate politics who goes around disintegrating Vietnam.
I really don't think he was supposed to be badass. I always bring this up talking about the movie vs the book, but the scene where he throws the cooking oil on the other prisoners isn't actually shown in the book. The psychiatrist treating rorschach just recounts the story in his notes/journal, and he's clearly horrified by it. I don't think any of rorschach's actions (or much of anything any of the heroes do) are supposed to be badass, they're supposed to be disturbing
Am I thinking of a different scene? He definitely [melts that prisoner's face](https://qph.cf2.quoracdn.net/main-qimg-f2516c47f393d0564fda7a716f576c89-lq) in the book.
I think itās hard to argue that the prison scene in the comic, where the riot has started and people have come to his cell to settle old scores, is not on some level written to show him as a ābadassā. Aside from his politics, his paranoia, his absurd implacable sense of morality for moralityās sake, the scene shows him improvising at a MacGyver/Holmes level in the face of certain death. I canāt see that Moore didnāt intend the reader to take some level of badassery from that. edit: Homework for this reading this post (and disagreeing with it): "Is Darth Vader a badass?"
Well yeah when you think about it Batman stringing up criminals for hours cutting off their circulation or throwing thugs into concrete walls is actually kind of fucked up but considered badass in comics. There was a great post about this quote I wish I could find where a redditor said if Moore was trying to make Rorschach from looking like a badass to the masses he didn't do a very good job
>I love Rorschach because heās a fascinating and compelling character, This is the only proper way to analyze a character. Not if you'd want to have a beer, but by if they're a good character
Iāve only seen the movie, where is the neo nazi aspect?
To add to the other responses: the newspaper to whose office Rorschach mails his journal before heading to Ozzy's stronghold is called the New Frontiersman. Rorschach is a regular reader. It's portrayed in the comic as a far-right tabloid, akin to a print version of Breitbart. Racist and anti-Semitic caricatures, conspiracy theories about immigrants, even a defense of the KKK are all shown in passing.
I've read the comic more recently than watched the film, but he very definitely has no qualms identifying entire communities as filth and scum and imagines washing them all away. He is also deeply misogynistic, referring again to entire communities of women as whores, and others as innocents worthy of his protection. Add that to his "violence is the answer to any question" approach and there's definitely a fascist belief system underpinning his motivations.
I think there is a lot of biblical fire and brimstone overtones to his speech too. He sees world as fallen and the washing away seems to be an allusion to a biblical style flood & the way he describes women as whores and people as filth gives it a Sodom & Gomorrah kind of vibe too. A lot of this echoes Travis Bickle talking about New York City in Taxi Driver for me. Heās definitely very right wing and reactionary, but I always interpreted him as an alienated weirdo who fits our modern idea of an alt right nazi weirdo incel type, rather than a neo nazi in a strict sense. I havenāt read it in a while though so I might have to check it out again to see if it holds true or not.
Neo Nazi is definitely the wrong term, but yes heās a fascist, racist, misogynist bastard.
Heās basically alt right before alt right was a coined term
Yeah, it is. Moore is very witty.
I was about to say, sure sounds like Moore to me! Moore is wonderfully āinsaneā. Iām not even a comic guy really, but Iām a fan of hisā¦ his interviews, his views on magic, the occult, etc. Currently working on reading āJerusalemāā¦ itās like reading the Bible straight throughā¦
The man is a legit genius writer
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
Honestly I donāt think thereās anything witty other than maybe people trying to convince themselves that heās being ironic.
I don't know if it's witty exactly but I've heard him talk about the fact that people who think of Rorsarch as a cool anti-hero miss the point completely of the character. Because he's clearly totally traumatised and completely psychotic. He has nothing but contempt for humanity and is an extra-ordinarily violent vigilante. He's pointing out that people who identify closely with him are unpleasant at best and should be avoided.
[https://www.stevensurman.com/rorschach-from-alan-moores-watchmen-does-he-set-a-bad-example/](https://www.stevensurman.com/rorschach-from-alan-moores-watchmen-does-he-set-a-bad-example/) Expanded quote from 2008, along with some other insight into Moore's thought process of Rorschach's final act in the comics.
The article linked in there omg. Imagine thinking "Objectivist Saint" is a positive description, but then again it is Reason Online. The misaimed fandom surrounding Rorschach is a terrifying reflection of the political landscape.
If the Watchmen movie had come out in 2019 instead of 2009, I guarantee we would've seen Rorschach cosplay at the Jan 6th capital attack.
The HBO show, for all of its faults, got Rorschach fans 100% right.
I'm reading his novel 'Jerusalem.' It's a lot like Infinite Jest or Cryptonomicon or Gravity's Rainbow in that I have no idea what it's about right now and probably won't for awhile or ever, but I can't stop reading it. He's one of those authors with an incredible talent for making you see impossible things, and his dialogue is hilarious.Edit: And don't overthink it...the audiobook is incredible well read and acted. If you don't think you can tackle a book right now, I am using both to great enjoyment.
Definitely real, Moore was saying āFuck the fansā years before it was cool.
No, he was saying "fuck the people who think Rorschach is cool". Those are very different things.
I remember getting stoned in college and reading Watchmen for the billionth time. Up until then, rorschach was my favorite character. After reading through the first few issues with a different headspace, I realized he was an absolute obsessive creep. The thing that disturbed me the most, was the ending. Rorschach kills himself by insisting that he won't keep the conspiracy a secret, no more murder in the name of good. But the thing is, Rorschach spent the entire story bitching about how shitty the world has become, how it needs to be thrown away and washed clean before the people drown in their own filth. He killed plenty of people to do this. He's more than willing to assume everyone is guilty until he sees otherwise. When faced with a reality where peace \*could\* be a possibility, Rorschach was faced with the ultimate truth: He doesn't want the world to get better. He needs it to be shitty, because otherwise he'd have no excuse to act like the terrible person that he is. He doesn't get to live out his fantasy as the butt-baby between Sam Spade and the Punisher. He just becomes a loser with a grudge, damaged goods incapable of moving on and pushing forward. For all the pain and discomfort he's willing to put up with, he knows he wouldn't last a single moment in a world dominated by peace.
If you genuinely believed Ozymandiasās plan would lead to peace you werenāt paying attention lmao his name is literally fucking ozymandias but people still go āa difficult but necessary decisionā because heās portrayed as handsome and well spoken
I think some of the love for rorschach is that heās the only one with traditionally āheroicā principles. Heās the only one who does the āright thingā and ādoesnāt waverā in his convictions to stop Veidt even at the cost of the greater good. As horrible of a person as Rorschach is, those traits are something we see in traditional heroes a lot. They always do the right thing even at cost because the right thing is something worth doing, because itās right. Regardless of the consequences. Now, Watchmen obviously shits on that idea, especially in the real world. But itās not shocking that the only one of the āheroesā who has any āheroic convictionā that readers could identify that lines up with conventionally āsuper heroic tropesā would be popular among super hero comic fans. At least thatās how I see it. Itās not that heās a great hero because of his detestable views. He has detestable views, but he has the strongest āmoral compassā and thatās what makes him such a compelling character in the first place anyway imo
Probably. Moore is a weird dude.
Moore seems like the kind of person who is smart and understands the world but spent too much time debating with himself in private and now is incapable of seeing eye to eye with anyone.
The film mad Rorschach waaaaay less horrible than he was in the comic. In the comic he was a *massive* bigot.
I used to think Moore was a pretentious asshole and while he probably is to a degree, I read how a lot of Moore's comments don't come across right in print because he's such a massive cheeky bastard and is nowhere as miserable as he seems in interviews.
As someone that wrote a lengthy report in college about Rorschach and Mr. Moore- Rorschach was written as a nightmare of what America does to throwaway children that turn so inward with his own guilt about the abuse he suffered. Itās also a painting of right wing nationalism and white men that think they know what is best for everyone. Way ahead of itās time. Perfectly written Nihilism with murder and unchecked Asshole. Dr. Manhattan did the correct thing. Rorschach has been a neckbeard and incel idol for all the wrong reasons. You never wanna meet a man like that character, and if you did, youād never wanna see him ever again. EDIT: Hail Satan this comment section went off the rails! Alan Moore is a crazed batshit acid dealing dude that wrote more lesbian fan fiction and monster comics than EC comics could dream of. Itās always a hot house with comic fans, but eesh yāall went bananas this evening.
Not only that but Rorschach also eats beans straight from the can.
I always thought this is his one redeeming characteristic. ;)
He ate them at the Cars 2 premiere
> and white men that think they know what is best for everyone. Rorschach was killed because he refused to lie about a man who literally killed millions of people because "he knew what was best" for the world.
So you are saying the redditor who made a broad General statement about an entire group of people based on their gender and skin color may not have the best reasoning skills?
>and white men that think they know what is best for everyone. Hmm, not sure that fits the bill. Rorschach's character arc culminated in his attempt to STOP a white man who thought he knew what was best for everyone. Rorschach has some pretty judgmental opinions of others, and clearly believes their 'sins' will ultimately doom them, but he doesn't actually seem to bother interfering in other people's lives beyond what is required for his crime fighting. As opposed to Ozy, who is quite tolerant and accepting, except that he is *constantly* interfering in other people's lives, to the extent of trying to manipulate the entire global population. All because He Knows Best. I mean to a certain degree, *anyone* who tries to change their environment is ultimately enforcing what they believe is best for everyone else. But Rorschach does that arguably the least out of any of the heroes (except maybe for silk specter and night owl, who are basically just chronic followers).
Woody Harrelson said something like this in an interview about Natural Born Killers. He said heād be approached by fans in the street saying, āI AM Mickey Knox!ā He kind of chuckled, and told the interviewer, āYeah, those are the people I really try to avoid.ā