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[Mongrel]

Also, the idea is that Rorschach is "principled" and "uncompromising". There are many people who see themselves in that way; or rather, who would like to see themselves in that way, even if they don't agree with Rorschach's exact principles.

[Büge]

Oh, and:

But let me just say, I think the people who are being negative, I think that's just a really unhealthy reaction. At least wait until the book is in your hands before you go negative.

I am so sick of this attitude. I don't have to risk lung cancer to know smoking is a bad idea.

[Beat Bandit]

also this:

MA: Who do you personally identify with more, Rorschach or The Comedian?

BA: Whaaat?

MA: Well, you mentioned that so many people identify with Rorschach...but I guess that doesn't include you?

BA: Well, I hope not! I guess if I have to choose, I'd say the Comedian, except for that whole "life is one big joke" thing...

Except for that whole "his entire worldview" thing, I'd say I'm most like him.

[Ted Belmont]

Note: Azzarello is the writer responsible for the 'Amazons are sperm-jacking murderous slave-owners' retcon, too.

[Thad]

MA: Yeah, but in the end, he's the only one who really fights for the truth; everyone else is sort of willing to compromise and go along with the lie.

BA: Huh, I never thought of it that way.

That's...a bit baffling, really.  It's not exactly subtle.

But let me just say, I think the people who are being negative, I think that's just a really unhealthy reaction. At least wait until the book is in your hands before you go negative.

I am so sick of this attitude. I don't have to risk lung cancer to know smoking is a bad idea.

Your analogy is bad and you should feel bad.

"Don't prejudge a thing nobody has actually read" is pretty fucking different from "Don't engage in a behavior that decades of scientific research has shown to cause cancer."

Saying "I don't think prequels to Watchmen are a good idea" is valid.  Saying "I don't like Brian Azzarello's work" is also valid.  (I quite liked Banner, and nothing of his I've read since.  I respect his craft but he is not my cup of tea.)

The blanket "These are all going to suck" generalizations, on the other hand, are pretty irritating, and Azzarello's completely correct in saying so.  I still think these books are a terrible idea, and I can't say I plan to buy them -- but I have to admit they've got good teams on them.  (Even Azzarello seems like a good pick for Rorschach -- or at least he did until that bit Ryg quoted above.)

[Büge]

Okay, I overreacted. That phrase really bugs the heck out of me, since it's usually followed by "Well then, why'd you buy it?"

I do think it's a bad idea and these people's talents could be better served elsewhere.

[Zaratustra]

AICN interview with Azzarello

BA: Well, I don't want to speak for any of the other writers, but for me, it's a chance to explore what makes these characters who they are. Rorschach is a really fascinating character; so many people identify with him, and I don't know why. Do you?

The fact that he has to ask this question shows that he doesn't get it. Rorshach was a decisive character. Right or wrong, he made decisions based on a code he followed, even if that code was simplistic, destructive and ultimately unsustainable. Decisive characters are compelling, even if they're absolute scumbags.

In fact, Rorshach is the one closest to a standard comic book superhero in the story. The difference is that normally, superheroes don't have to face the issue of compromising their values (remember the uproar the ONE TIME batman used a gun?)

[Thad]

Or how the question "Can Spider-Man kill the Goblin and still be a hero?" was neatly answered by the Goblin accidentally killing himself with his own glider.

I dunno if I'd go so far as to say Rorschach's the closest to a standard comic book superhero -- he's a lot nastier, more violent, and less generally heroic than pretty much anybody, even considering that by the time he showed up Wolverine and the Punisher had been around for a decade.

As much as anything it's that Rorschach is the result of Alan Moore, a liberal anarchist, trying to get inside the head of Steve Ditko, an Objectivist.  And he does an admirable job of it, even considering that he makes Rorschach the most screwed-up character in an entire cast of screwed-up characters.  Ultimately, there IS something admirable about "Not even in the face of armageddon.  Never compromise." that we can admire even if we think "black and white, no gray" is nonsense.

[Brentai]

And of course there's the argument that the assumption that most people "identify" with Rorschach is flawed.  He's a pretty fun character to mess around with but I can relate to him about as much as I can relate to any other gibbering psychopath.

[Lottel]

So fairly well?

[Thad]

I can relate to him inasmuch as I can see how witnessing a tragedy like he did could break me.

While Rorschach had a fucked-up childhood, I think we're meant to believe he was, more or less, a regular guy before he caught that child-killer.  That a single severe trauma can change a normal person into a gibbering psychopath is a recurring theme in Moore's work.

I would say I identify with Rorschach in the same way that I identify with Winston Smith at the end of 1984: I'm nothing like him, but my mind has the same weaknesses and frailties as any other ordinary person's.  And if I suffered through what he suffered through, I think I'd crack too.

[Brentai]

Eh, I can relate to his worldview suffering a dramatic shift, but I dislike it whenever media treats mental illness as a one-way binary state.  Especially when it makes them kind of stupid.

OH WHAT'S THAT SIR?

YOU DON'T LIKE IT WHEN LITTLE GIRLS ARE REDUCED TO ASHES?

WELL GOOD THING THOSE NUKES ARE REALLY KITTEN DELIVERY SYSTEMS THEN.

[Thad]

Well, and Killing Joke goes in the other direction, of course -- One Bad Day may have done it for Batman and the Joker, but Jim doesn't crack.

There is, of course, more to Rorschach than One Bad Day; I probably trivialized the influence of his childhood more than I should have.  (I don't believe, as some have suggested, that Rorschach was sexually abused as a child -- I'll grant it fits the story but I think it's essential, when he finds the child-killer, to believe that he's never actually encountered anything like this type of depravity up close before.  BUT, his mother was a prostitute and used to hit him and verbally abuse him, if nothing else, and yeah that's not in there to suggest it DIDN'T have an impact on him.)  But I think even the most well-adjusted person, on encountering a man who's raped a little girl and then cut her up and fed her to his dogs, would never be the same again.

Indeed, just HEARING about it pretty much destroys his psychologist's marriage.

If we're to be particularly pretentious about it, Moore is taking the superhero origin story back to the original superman -- Nietzsche's.  Dr. Manhattan is destroyed and reborn stronger than before, while Rorschach gazes into the abyss and the abyss gazes back.

(EDIT TO ADD: Ozymandias destroys and rebuilds himself too, though less literally than Dr. Manhattan -- he refuses his inheritance and starts his life over from nothing.  It's significant that, while the other characters' transformations are accidental, his is deliberate.)

[Mongrel]

Yeah, I think there's the implication that before that event, Rorschach was not normal, but at least someone a normal person could relate to.

Rorschach's friendship and past partnership with Nite Owl is a big part that - these superheroes are "freaks" but they still hang out with (or at least know) each other as would any small group of people who see each other a lot and share a common interest.

Before the child case, Rorschach was implied to be a guy with fairly harsh views, as well as a guy with serious sexual issues, but one who could get along in his own small circle - almost analogous to some of the more troubled gamer/comic books types who are hopeless in regular sociaty, but at least have the small group they game with or whatever. In that way, Rorschach could pass for "normal" among the superheroes at least, and they in turn tolerated him - he was "weird" but not "too weird".

But after the case he stops trying to fit in at all. Almost as if his "No compromise" behaviour is taken to a further extreme - no longer will he pander to people he doesn't like. What hygene he had pretty much goes out the window, he becomes way more reclusive and even refuses to get that damn stain out of his coat.

[Beat Bandit]

his mother was a prostitute and used to hit him and verbally abuse him, if nothing else, and yeah that's not in there to suggest it DIDN'T have an impact on him.)  But I think even the most well-adjusted person, on encountering a man who's raped a little girl and then cut her up and fed her to his dogs, would never be the same again.

It really is the combo that sells him. Anyone would be a shaky adult with that childhood. Just as any person would ,like you said, get at least a little fucked from seeing what he  saw. It's that combination that cracks him though. sexual abuse and what-not aside he thought he knew what the worst childhood was like, and he vowed to stop things like that. These kids had it so much worse than he ever imagined. On top of everything there's the massive potential for survivor's guilt. He made it through what some wouldn't have and was able to solve crimes, but if he had just been as unlucky as these kids no amount of strength would've saved him.

So yeah, he "flips the switch" and decides letting things like that happen just isn't acceptable, and becomes the Rorschach we know. Going forward to Ozymandias, Rorschach knows Ozy is right, he's still smart. The only world view he can see can't accept it though so he goes all I don't want to live on this planet anymore

but, you know, with blowing up.

Before the child case, Rorschach was implied to be a guy with fairly harsh views, as well as a guy with serious sexual issues, but one who could get along in his own small circle - almost analogous to some of the more troubled gamer/comic books types who are hopeless in regular sociaty, but at least have the small group they game with or whatever. In that way, Rorschach could pass for "normal" among the superheroes at least, and they in turn tolerated him - he was "weird" but not "too weird".

This is definitely why people "relate" to him. They're all already awkward and weird, they just wish they were dark and disturbed too. Plus it's hard not to admire someone who can stare the most powerful being in the universe in the face and tell him to kill you on a value call.

[Thad]

Yeah, I think there's the implication that before that event, Rorschach was not normal, but at least someone a normal person could relate to.

Rorschach's friendship and past partnership with Nite Owl is a big part that - these superheroes are "freaks" but they still hang out with (or at least know) each other as would any small group of people who see each other a lot and share a common interest.

Before the child case, Rorschach was implied to be a guy with fairly harsh views, as well as a guy with serious sexual issues, but one who could get along in his own small circle - almost analogous to some of the more troubled gamer/comic books types who are hopeless in regular sociaty, but at least have the small group they game with or whatever. In that way, Rorschach could pass for "normal" among the superheroes at least, and they in turn tolerated him - he was "weird" but not "too weird".

But after the case he stops trying to fit in at all. Almost as if his "No compromise" behaviour is taken to a further extreme - no longer will he pander to people he doesn't like. What hygene he had pretty much goes out the window, he becomes way more reclusive and even refuses to get that damn stain out of his coat.

This is starting to drift a bit far afield, but I just read a fantastic interview with Derf Backderf on the subject of his new comic, My Friend Dahmer.  It's heavy, disturbing stuff -- just the idea that this guy knew Dahmer in high school, that they were part of the same circle of friends, and that everybody thought Dahmer was a little odd but never could have imagined how depraved he would become.  (I mean, honest to Christ, if Frank Miller -- or Alan Moore, for that matter -- put a necrophiliac cannibal serial killer in one of his comics, I'd criticize him for just ticking off all the boxes he could on Shock Value Bingo.  It's hard to imagine ANYONE being like that, let alone someone who you used to hang out with in high school.)

A guy can be pretty odd but still be your friend.  And then something can tip him that makes him something else entirely.

(And of course in fairness, whatever lines Rorschach crossed, he was never Dahmer.  He was the sort of person who killed guys like Dahmer without a second thought.  Hm -- Dexter might be a closer analogue.)

Going forward to Ozymandias, Rorschach knows Ozy is right, he's still smart. The only world view he can see can't accept it though so he goes all I don't want to live on this planet anymore

but, you know, with blowing up.

I'm not so sure.  Don't forget the journal.

On reflection I think Sharkey's probably right -- nobody's actually going to BELIEVE Rorschach's journal once it's published, outside of the fring lunatic audience that buys right-wing conspiracy-theorist tabloids in the first place.  But I don't think Rorschach sees it that way.  He knows the truth is out there, and he doesn't think his sacrifice will be in vain.

[Mongrel]

Well, In fairness to Rorschach's belief, there's also the slim enigmatic hint that Dr. Manhattan gives to Ozymandias right before blasting off again.

If the only indication the journal might see print was the last page, then yeah, I'd go with that theory, but the Dr. Manhattan thing is a crucial bump, to prevent the reader from being able to dismiss the journal so casually and leaving the ending as a true open-ended range of possibilities.

Moore doesn't want you to have the answer. Maybe he himself isn't sure how it will end and likes it just fine that way.

[Beat Bandit]

Implications of the journal aside and, I might be alone in this, I always thought that just wasn't on his mind.

He sent that information out when the puzzle wasn't finished yet. It was his emergency back-up in case things went bad. After everything he learned in such a short time his last thoughts weren't about how the truth will get out, just a mess of slightly disturbed "holyshitholyshitholyshitholyshit".

[Thad]

If the only indication the journal might see print was the last page, then yeah, I'd go with that theory, but the Dr. Manhattan thing is a crucial bump, to prevent the reader from being able to dismiss the journal so casually and leaving the ending as a true open-ended range of possibilities.

Moore doesn't want you to have the answer. Maybe he himself isn't sure how it will end and likes it just fine that way.

Which is why there should never be a true sequel to the thing -- and at least DC seems to understand that at this point.  Whatever our feelings on Before Watchmen, I think we can all agree It Could Have Been Worse.

And I think it bears adding that, while the movie certainly missed the point in places, Snyder et al had the good sense not to fuck with the ending the way the V for Vendetta filmmakers did.  That Ozy wins and Rorschach dies are absolutely essential (like, oh, Finch killing V and Evey putting on the mask).

I'm serious that someone should try releasing a fan edit of Watchmen that cuts all the fight scenes down to a couple of seconds.  (And, okay, cut out Hallelujah too; I liked it for the sheer goofiness but everybody else seems to agree it was terrible.)  I really do think it would make a much stronger film.

[Zaratustra]

(EDIT TO ADD: Ozymandias destroys and rebuilds himself too, though less literally than Dr. Manhattan -- he refuses his inheritance and starts his life over from nothing.  It's significant that, while the other characters' transformations are accidental, his is deliberate.)

Ozymandias, Manhattan and Rorshach all mirror each other in some ways, and the Comedian mirrors all three. They've all gone through several steps of transformation towards their "archetypical" selves, all position themselves somewhere above the law of men.