A review by notwellread
Watchmen by Alan Moore

5.0

At its core, Watchmen is an exploration and deconstruction of the superhero genre, but also demonstrates its untapped potential. Explored largely within a political context that is further exposed by the author’s own comments on the work, it criticises the typical portrayal of the superhero as ultimately fascistic, based on the ideal of a supposedly superior breed of person who relies on violence to confront society’s problems and suppress its undesirable class. This aspect is considered in tandem with the genre’s widespread popularity, examining the reasons for its appeal. However, although the basis for the text lies in satire, the seriousness of the tone increases as the narrative unfolds, and ultimately makes many deeply profound philosophical points in earnest.

Naturally, we are led to question what justifies the position of the self-appointed ‘super-heroes’ of society, and in particular what gives them their authority. This is examined through the lens of how they justify their position through demonstrations of their supremacy and thus their worthiness of this status:

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the most obvious example of this is Veidt, who is shown to be the most arrogant in his self-image, believing that he alone can change the world for the better, but he is also the character who is the most objectively superior, being physically attractive, a self-made billionaire, reputedly ‘the smartest man in the world’, and even fast enough to catch a bullet, a statement that would be considered hyperbolic if not for the fact that we actually see him do it. Rorschach, in a notable contrast, rationalises his superiority through his moral compass, viewing crime as the by-product of a degenerate, diseased society, the underbelly of which he has distanced himself through his own efforts, values, and moral backbone — or, in other words, he thinks he’s better than other people because he wears a mask and he hasn’t had sex. Rorschach believes that by abandoning his human identity, avoiding the moral weaknesses and licentiousness of others, and becoming entirely a symbol of righteous judgement, he’s no longer subject to the same vulnerabilities as ordinary people — “free from fear, or weakness, or lust” — but this is more explicitly undermined in the text as we gradually see him more clearly for the man he really is

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Rather than creating the idealised (and clearly objectively superior) heroes standard in comics (Superman and Batman) or even more relatable figures with power thrust upon them (Spiderman), Moore conceives characters who are relatable but not wholly sympathetic: the sort of people who would realistically become masked vigilantes if such activities became common, pursuing it out of boredom, fame-hunger, or a simple lack of personal fulfilment. Only two characters,

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Rorschach and Veidt

, pursue it with ethical or philosophical motivations like traditional heroes. Since the average Joe usually wouldn’t have the time and money for such pursuits, these characters tend to belong to the privileged classes, placing their attacks on the social underclass in a rather disturbing social context, a criticism often made of Batman. The vigilante is rejected as an alternative to the police, although Moore, being an anarchist, is hardly a fan of the latter, and repeatedly conveys the police as authoritarian, bigoted, and incompetent, interlacing this portrayal with his more nuanced view of vigilantism. However, the portrayal of these characters demonstrates how vigilantism also manifests as a privileged class beating down an oppressed class, mirroring allegations of bigotry and brutality so often made towards the police in the US.

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A perplexing nuance, however, lies in Rorschach’s character, who despite being the most aggressive towards and contemptuous towards this underclass, is also the only character who hails from that background himself — presumably this is meant to reflect his self-hatred in his shame for his own wretched beginnings, and his desperation to disassociate himself from them

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The character who has most captured my imagination is Rorschach, so I would like to take some time to focus on him. I also think he is the character whose development best exemplifies how the text evolves from its original ideas and principles into something much more complex, and how subjectivity of interpretation affects both the author’s attitude to the work and the reception of the character by readers. Originally intended as a send-up of Steve Ditko’s character ‘The Question’, whom Ditko used as a vehicle to espouse his Randian objectivist viewpoints, and also to exemplify certain characteristics of Batman (others of which Nite Owl and Ozymandias are also used to reflect). Despite these honourable intentions, this dark, disturbed, perhaps sinister character is regularly received by readers of Watchmen much more positively than intended, and remains controversial to this day. This is all explicit in Alan Moore’s comments on the subject, which have become well-known:

“I wanted to…make [Rorschach] as like, ‘this is what Batman would be like in the real world’. But I have forgotten that actually to a lot of comic fans, ‘smelling’, ‘not having a girlfriend’, these are actually kind of heroic! So Rorschach became the most popular character in Watchmen. I made him to be a bad example. But I have people come up to me in the street and saying, ‘I AM Rorschach. That is MY story’. And I’d be thinking: ‘Yeah, great. Could you just, like, keep away from me, never come anywhere near me again as long as I live?’”

However, I am often left feeling that there is something of a lack of imagination in our discourse on the character. I realise that this is a big statement to make, but after much deliberation I honestly think Moore’s writing made the character more sympathetic than he originally intended. Rorschach is the central character (and largely the narrator), has the most tragic backstory, and gets all the best lines. He is, in my view, the most compelling character by far. There is also a clear difference in sympathy of portrayal, for instance, in comparing the first chapter (in which we only see him say a few prejudiced things and torture someone by breaking the fingers of an interrogation subject), and, say,

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his backstory in prison, or his reconciliation with Nite Owl

later on. Even his far-right views are contextualised in a sympathetic way:

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the reference to President Truman on the first page seems baffling at the beginning, but is later contextualised when we find out his parents’ division over his presidency was the reason they broke up — in fact, this is more or less all that Kovacs knows about his father. He clings to this particular facet of identity because he has no other way to identify himself as his father’s son, and thus dissociate himself from his abusive and licentious mother.

It seems that, the closer the reading, the more sympathetic his character becomes. I’ve noticed a similar problem around readings of [b:The Catcher in the Rye|5107|The Catcher in the Rye|J.D. Salinger|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1398034300l/5107._SY75_.jpg|3036731]: a lot of people miss the significance of, or forget about, the passages where Holden discusses his brother’s death, but they’re massively significant for understanding the headspace he’s in. Often an author’s views are treated as ‘word of God’ and as the objectively correct interpretation of the text, and that’s certainly been the case with Rorschach, but I think there might be a failure to empathise in how Moore responds to those who proclaim “I AM Rorschach. That is MY story” — obviously this is not meant literally, and, as Moore himself acknowledges, there is a reason the character resonates so strongly with a certain type of person. Then there’s the influence of the film adaptation: Zack Snyder is — guess what — a Randian objectivist, so of course he views the character as an edgy antihero type rather than a critique of supposedly ‘heroic’ characters, as a played-straight version of what he was originally meant to parody. (There also might be an element of book purism among those who rally against this interpretation of the character.) The distinction between identifying with the character and admiring the character gets lost in the discourse, perhaps also because of the general dislike of such people, which brings us full circle back to their own identification with Rorschach. Personally, I think that what you take from this character (and from Watchmen more generally) is largely dependent on your own political attitudes, and your capacity to sympathise with someone like him.

Even more nuance is expressed within Rorschach’s relationship with his ideals:

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Much like the anarchist vigilante ‘V’ in [b:V for Vendetta|5805|V for Vendetta|Alan Moore|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1343668985l/5805._SY75_.jpg|392838], he attempts to divorce himself from humanity and become wholly a symbol of pure ideology, but ultimately does not succeed. This is crucial because the characters on whom he is based (Batman, Mr. A, the Question etc.) represent ideals rather than realistic, flawed human beings, but when Rorschach’s mask is pulled off we see that he is only a man. He stresses that he will “never compromise” and never show mercy to criminals, but we see him decide not to kill Moloch, who is only a helpless old man, and spares his landlady out of empathy for her children. This may also be a commentary on the hypocrisy shown by Batman, who similarly proclaims that he will always punish criminals but repeatedly lets Catwoman go because of his feelings for her. He also reminds me of Werther in [b:The Sorrows of Young Werther|16640|The Sorrows of Young Werther|Johann Wolfgang von Goethe|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1386920896l/16640._SY75_.jpg|746264], who tries to live up to the rather different archetype of the Romantic hero but is repeatedly thwarted by the ugliness of reality. In this exploration of the abandonment of one’s identity, it’s clear that self-hatred is a central theme here, and yet one rarely discussed — he literally says he can’t bear to see his own face in the mirror. There’s also the need to dissociate from one’s own shame: on the first page he justifies his methods by stating that every criminal chose their own path; this is how he distinguishes himself from his own wretched beginnings, knowing that he comes from the same world but, in fighting against it, has declared war on that part of his own identity

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This element particularly colours our interpretation of the climax:

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Personally, I can’t entertain Veidt’s plan as a philosophical problem because I simply don’t believe it would ever work. Despite all that Veidt has to recommend him, Moore clearly believes no amount of superiority can justify killing so many people for the sake of one’s vision, as his characterisation of Rorschach has already demonstrated: under the mask he is no one of consequence. We only see him kill rapists and murderers, but all the same, who is he to decide who lives and dies? By this point it is clear that he has realised his failure to live up to his standards for himself — he accepts his fate, making the ultimate sacrifice to uphold his ideals one last time, and insists that he has lived life free from compromise, though the reader knows this not to be the case. However, he chooses to take off his mask and die as a man — as Walter Kovacs, not as Rorschach. He claims he has no regrets and “steps into the shadow without complaint”, yet we see him break down in tears. Perhaps he also hoped that his ideals would survive him, and he may ultimately find a legacy and ‘win’ the ideological battle through his journal, but the failure he perceives himself is the ultimate one: the failure to live up to his ideals

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In the end, returning to the original themes of the work,

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the surviving characters ultimately decide that superhero-ing, fun as it is, is childish and unrealistic — the reality is that, much like the first generation of heroes, they’re getting old and the world doesn’t really have a place for them any more. Perhaps there’s a commentary on the increasing societal cynicism towards played-straight morally ideal superheroes, with modern interpretations relying on darker and grittier portrayals, but this is a shift that Moore seems to have anticipated rather than reflected upon. It’s easy to question this trope in portal fantasy — would a child really choose to return to a mundane earthly society after experiencing a world of magic and wonder? — but these adult characters living in the real world, who have to confront the realities of ageing. They can’t really ‘live’ this fantasy in 1980s New York City, any more than we can live it now

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I realise that much of what I’m saying here has already been said elsewhere, but I wanted to put down the key points while adding some of my own thoughts (which I hope are somewhat original), and to make my thoughts somewhat useful to both newcomers and seasoned readers. I will end simply by saying that everyone should read this book, and that I hope there are still many more conversations to be had on its subjects.