Spent This Week Re-Reading Watchmen

And now I need to be directed to the "Help! Help! I Love Rorschach!" support group.

The first time I read Alan Moore's Watchmen, I believe I was in my twenties. At the time, I came away with a deep respect for Moore's talent -- but also a deep revulsion for the world he had created. After all, at the end of the story, all (save one) of the main characters decide they have no choice but to condone human sacrifice as the price for world peace.

(Oh, yeah, by the way: I'm going to be spoiling the hell out of this graphic novel - but since it's been out for thirty years, I think it's too late for anyone to complain.)

I don't need my protagonists to be perfectly spic and span. I like Tony Stark, for heaven's sake, and he's no flawless angel. But I do like my fictional worlds to allow for at least the possibility of genuine, uncomplicated heroism. To put it simply, I prefer it when good triumphs at the end -- though of course that victory has to come with a real cost.

Obviously, Watchmen doesn't fulfill the above-described preference. The one major character who refuses to accept Ozymandias' grand scheme is vaporized by the closest thing the story has to a god-like being. Hardly a satisfying ending. On the contrary, it's exactly as awful as you could possibly imagine.

But after reading it for the second time, I don't think I can pitch this book into the garbage and just forget about it. You see, Alan Moore is an actual writer; thus, he adds noteworthy layers to Watchmen that, I think, make it something more than a cynical deconstruction of the superhero. If anything, I read it now as both a warning - one that may be even more relevant now than it was in the late 1980's - and a tragic lament.

I could be stretching here; I could be seeing things in the text that Moore did not intend. But I hope you'll have some fun hearing me out.

The Warning

First point: Rorschach. Rorschach lives completely outside the bounds of conventional society, and has done so since childhood. He's ugly, he's smelly, he breaks into people's apartments unannounced, he eats eggs raw, he comes across as just a bit brain damaged, and - oh yes - he seems to overly enjoy inflicting pain on the members of New York's criminal class. "Give me smallest finger on man's hand," he says to Nite Owl in Chapter 10. "I'll produce information." But faced with the murder of millions for the sake of a supposedly "righteous" cause, Rorschach stands alone in his desire to avenge the innocent (which is very nicely foreshadowed in Chapter 10, for example, when he refrains from attacking his former landlady upon seeing her children).

I could - and probably will at some future date - write a post focusing solely on Rorschach. (Like I said, I really need help, apparently, because I adore that nutbar. He's fascinating -- and weirdly noble in his own way when you get right down to it.) (Anyhoo -- focus, Steph, focus!) But for now: What are we to make of the fact that, in this story, it's the dirty lunatic vigilante who sees the truth while all the "respectable" folk just let Ozymandias have his way? Well, right now, I'm interpreting it as a challenge to the very notion of "respectability."

Second point: Tales of the Black Freighter. Why the heck does Moore spend so much time on this comic-within-a-comic? My reading: it's a comment on Ozymandias -- and, more generally, on how good intentions can lead to great evil. The main character in Tales starts off with a noble goal - rescuing his family - but over time becomes a completely deranged killer who's unfit for human society. In like fashion, Ozymandias is so devoted to staving off global catastrophe that he callously writes off half a city as an acceptable exchange. The late Comedian - who stands as a contrast to Ozymandias - was small potatoes; he was just a common murderer and rapist. Ozymandias himself is the real super-villain. Why? Because he's driven by an ideology. And even a small-time chaos agent like the Comedian was able to see the danger in that.

Are you listening, 2019 America? Being nice, polite, and inoffensive is not the same as being good. And your grand crusades to save the environment/end racism/bring about a more "fair" society/etc. can lead to mass graves if they're guided by nothing more than might and will.

The Lament

The other thing I find compelling about Watchmen is its masterful expression of the harm that's been done now that the world has been thoroughly desacralized. Repeatedly, the text voices regret over what has been lost:

• Chapter One (Back Matter): "For my part, all those brilliant and resourceful sleuths and heroes offered a glimpse of a perfect world where morality worked the way it was meant to (...) Which world would you rather live in, if you had the choice?"
• Chapter Three (p. 21): "That night, I slept badly beneath cold, distant stars, pondering upon the cold, distant God in whose hands the fate of Davidstown rested. Was he really there? Had he been there once, but now departed?"
• Chapter Three (Back Matter): "... there just seemed to be a sort of bleak, uneasy feeling in the air. It was as if some essential element of our lives, of all our lives, was vanishing before we knew entirely what it was."
• Chapter Six (p. 26): "Looked at sky through smoke heavy with human fat and God was not there. The cold, suffocating dark goes on forever, and we are alone."

Okay, I'm going to stop with the quotes there, because I think you get the idea. This is all profoundly sad -- and as much as I disagree with the conclusion that God doesn't care or simply doesn't exist, looking at the history of the century in which this book was written, I sympathize completely with the feeling of total abandonment it conveys.

The Upshot

My initial impressions of Watchmen still basically hold. I still don't like it really (except, perhaps, for the character of Rorschach). But I think those of us on the more traditional end of the fan spectrum should avoid dismissing it as tripe. There is far more here than meets the eye.