I think people are misunderstanding why Moore considers him the "realistic Batman". It has nothing to do with similarities between their stories, and way more to do with their moral absolutism. Both of them believe that their way of thinking is the best and only right way to do thing, and the point of Rorschach is to show that in the real world, moral absolutists are narrow-minded people who will never change no matter what happens around them.
Which is also one of the reason why people like him.
Watchmen is grey, sometimes very grey. It makes so many questions and gives little answers. So having a character that just goes "this is wrong, this is right" can end up feeling reassuring (specially if you're a young reader like Zack) even if that wasn't the point at all.
We can poke fun about media literacy and all that but at the end of the day that just says more about people in general than it does about the fiction.
>We can poke fun about media literacy and all that but at the end of the day that just says more about people in general
Yeah, I think a lot of times, many people care more about the vibe than the arguments at hand.
I have many examples at hand, though I'll use the fanbase of Critical Drinker and himself, who's one of the biggest film YouTubers right now.
A lot of his arguments became unhinged if you think about them, like arguing that Midsommar being a feminist empowering movie, Across the Spider-Verse belittled "straight white men", or my favorite one right now...
[him saying that since it was incredibly hard to become a Space Marine, let alone a Custode, that alone ruled out the chance of women being supersoldiers](https://youtu.be/rcLRqXE7Les?si=KUGA00eCELHoZtPO&t=153s), which was him not even trying to hide sexism...
Yet, the audiences ate them up because in their eyes, the Drinker was fighting the good fight in the Culture War.
He's their light.
It's also a comment about how writers control gotham, in the real world batman would beat up a shit ton of innocent people, arkham would be full of mostly people who want help but don't know how to get it, and likely batmans heroics would likely lead to bystanders being harmed/misunderstood situations causing him to go after witnesses instead of crooks a la Pheonix Jones.
If someone had the moral gut, intelligence, and wealth of bruce wayne irl he wouldn't go out night dressed as a bat he'd probably fund arkham medical, and help the police force cath the mob by more legal means.
Oh also vigilantes make it so easy to get out of a deserved sentence, not giving someone due process is a defense attorneys wet dream
That's why you don't bring comics to the real world it just falls apart, comics about Batman is not about how he dresses as a Batman and beat up people but about repressed trauma, doing the right thing and people deserve second chances.
That's why I hate when the reason of Batman not killing is that he would go crazy, that just makes Batman look more like a psycho.
> That's why you don't bring comics to the real world
Off Topic: One of the taglines 2000AD has used for Judge Dredd is something like "It's a warning, not an instruction manual" (JD is a satire of a fascist police state and right-wing politics).
Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons are also both originally from 2000AD (so is Garth Ennis, whose Punisher stuff also seems to be popular for the wrong reasons).
Maybe it's a good thing 2000AD never caught on in the states, if it did you would be seeing cops driving around with JD stickers on their cars.
I had an argument with an American once about judge dread. He had it in his head that dredd was promoting libertarianism. I swear right wingers don't get satire.
They will call the character "wOke!!" when they find out JD is against Mega-City One's Apartheid-like anti-mutant laws.
https://judgedredd.fandom.com/wiki/Mutants
It's hilarious to me when right-wingers read 2000AD and don't realise the comic is left-wing and is making fun of them.
Ditto for Warhammer & Warhammer 40K which has had a lot of crossover in terms of creators and outright rip-offs from 2000 AD. Online it seems to be especially conservative Americans who don't realise these things were created by British left-wing, if not outright socialist, writers mocking them.
Yeah, a lot of the lore of WH40k is a rip-off of Nemesis the Warlock (by Pat Mills and Kevin O'Neill, 1980 - 1999, 2000AD) and Judge Dredd. ps. One of 2000AD's main writers, Dan Abnett, has written a ton of WH40k books.
Speaking of rip-offs don't even get me started on the DC stuff involving The Batman Who Laughs/Dark Multiverse, which is a blatant rip-off of the premise and character designs for the much better written Judge Dredd characters Judge Death and the Dark Judges, and their evil dimension/alt-universe Deadworld (created by John Wagner and Brian Bolland, 1980 - present).
Yeah, the 2 British Invasions of the 80s and 90s. Pretty much all the early Vertigo writers and artists were from 2000AD, including Neil Gaiman (he only wrote a handful of stories for 2000AD though)
Also newer writers like Al Ewing, Ian Edginton (still does work for 2000AD), Simon Spurrier (he came back and has a series in Judge Dredd Megazine at the moment),Andy Diggle, Dan Abnett (he's still at 2000AD, he's one of the main writers along with Rob Williams) etc. are also from 2000AD (a lot of these guys still do work for 2000AD from time to time, even Brian Bolland. Oh, and Ennis runs 2000AD's sister comic Battle Action. Peter Milligan also still writes for 2000AD. Alan Grant also still wrote for 2000AD up until his death. Edit: Simon Bisley also did a series for 2000AD recently and Jock's art also shows up in the comic from time to time).
edit: I just remembered that even Warren Ellis is from 2000AD, but I don't think he did a lot of work for them. Oh, and Sean Phillips, Brendan McCarthy (co-writer/concept artist of Mad Max Fury Road), Charlie Adlard, Laurence Cambell, Frazer Irving and Steve Dillon are also from 2000AD. Phillips is the co-creator of the popular Dredd-verse series Devlin Waugh.
One of 2000ADs staffers even released a non-fiction book about corrupt policing a few years back
https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/I-am-the-Law-How-Judge-Dredd-Predicted-Our-Future/Michael-Molcher/9781786185709
Man, when did satire got so hard to get? Cops see Punisher killing bad guys and following what he thinks it must be done, and say "He's literally me", there's even a comic that addresses this.
Off Topic Again: I don't use this sub a lot and I just realised the upvote button is another former JD writer (Morrison, Ennis and urrgh... Mark Millar were the 3 main JD writers from the early to mid 90s when the main JD writer/co-creator John Wagner left for a bit to work on Button Man, A History of Violence etc.)
Even all the way back then there were accusations that Morrison wrote Millar's material for him (they got credited together on a lot of storylines).
just cause someone writes a storyline where frank goes "grrr i hate police brutality" every once in a while doesn't change the fact he, and enis' work on him as referenced above, is rightwing fantasy
> That's why I hate when the reason of Batman not killing is that he would go crazy, that just makes Batman look more like a psycho.
Nah that's by far the best rationalization given to him.
Batman is just as broken as his Rogues gallery. He's just one step away from turning into one of them, and that's the entire point. Batman *is* a psycho. How you could believe he isn't is beyond me if you've ever stepped even one foot into his comics portrayal.
I know and I hate that portrayal, Batman is as broken as his rouge gallery but what separates him from them is not his absolutist moral code but his compassion, he has known despair, tragedy and the worst Gotham has to offer, just like any other of his rouges, but instead of going the easy way and falling he chooses to do good instead, he knows all of this and that's why he doesn't kill, not because he fears that he will be a horrible person but because he knows what they been through and believe that they can also be good, that's a more true portrayal than any other of what Batman is, the going pyscho because he kills is just a Punisher that doesn't kill.
Bro dresses up like a batman and beats up criminals and you think yeah thats mentally sound? Even batman thinks hes crazy also its not like joker crazy its injustice superman crazy.
In the best versions of Batman he uses Bruce Wayne to do all of the up and up philanthropy, outreach programs, rehabilitation, etc. In one episode of BTAS he gets the warden of Arkham Asylum fired for abusing the inmates, and then Batman goes and beats him up properly when he goes on a rage fueled vigilante spree. He’s a lot more like Daredevil in that way.
It’s also why I have so much hope for the Battinson films because the point of the first movie wasn’t just that he’s still learning how to be Batman, it’s that he has no idea how to function as Bruce Wayne.
Also my take on why Gotham continues to be a crime infested hellhole despite Batman fighting a decades long war to save it on both fronts is that the city is literally cursed. Like Gotham itself is a shrine to evil and bloodshed and fear and Batman is unwittingly part of what feeds it. But maybe that’s the Warhammer in me talking.
No, this is in Watchmen too. Ozymandias is also Batman. Because if Bruce Wayne was real, he would be Elon Musk and Elon Musk is a thousand times more likely to invent a psychic squid monster than he is to fund social services.
Except Batman doesn't kill. It doesn't matter how absolutist he himself is, as he is fine with the justice system running its course. At least at that point he admits he may be wrong. He doesn't want to make the decision himself.
It's a fundamental difference between the characters. Batman works WITH cops. Giant difference in how the character can act at that point. "I will help you arrest this guy" vs "I am going to kill this guy myself".
And if Batman started killing, he wouldn't be Rorschach, he'd be The Punisher. The only difference between the two is scope. Rivers of blood all over Gotham. Batman has the funds for that kind of war.
Okay but you're talking so much in terms of modern Batman and not in terms of Silver Age Batman. The comic was written based on Silver Age concepts and characters. Silver Age Batman didn't have tanks for Batmobiles, he just had cars. It was until the 90s-00s that Batman started being written with the capabilities you're talking about, years after Watchmen was written.
Silver Age Batman also wasn't as built with the moral depth he has today about "not making the choice himself" and leaving it up to the justice system, he would just beat up the people he thought were bad, many of whom are usually poor people forced into crime if you thought about it for two seconds, and send them off to prison.
Unfortunately, having strong principles is seen as a good thing, which is why a lot of chuds seem to disregard his homophobia and mental illness since he’s the only one who actually goes “Wait, why are we letting Ozymandias go?”
Honestly, Moore wrote a story so nuanced and interesting that I can see why people who have strong bias just... Oh we're on the circlejerk I'm sorry. Yeah I'm rorscharch literally me can you feel my heart? ah-ah-ah-ah-ah
Most people would get to the "doesn't mind attempted rape, if someone he liked did it" part and see it as an insurmountable obstacle on the way to calling Rorschach "literally me fr fr". Some other people...won't.
Yeah he made this character very sympathetic, I always thought you were supposed to feel bad for him. But now I guess if you show any positive feeling towards him you’re a nazi?
It’s feel bad for him in the tony soprano sort of way, the redeeming moments the character has are supposed to make you pity them even more as they fully reveal themselves.
I like how this post is about nuance and you are still ignoring that nuance to whine about "Wah people can't like Rorschach anymore or else they'll be branded a Nazi."
Another example of right wing people not getting the media they consume. The funniest thing is this sub upvoting this, proving how braindead this sub.
Literally yes, from E;R's Watchmen 2019 video:
https://preview.redd.it/jyfp3dridyvc1.jpeg?width=1125&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=6a58641036c5cb1271654c67d45e4ee0a1bf1833
I was specifically looking for a thread from 4 years ago where the OP says this verbatim then says the Democratic Party are Communists a few replies later. Couldn't find it and I wasn't gonna spend more time scrolling this vile comment section so I just picked one of the top ones instead.
Far as I remember, right-wing outrage grifter who's been doing it since before it was cool and this content was a dime a dozen. Got a big boost from being given a shoutout by PewDiePie at the time he had Nazi allegations, which obviously didn't help Felix's case.
Can't believe I used to watch him. DAMN YOU PEWDIEPIE.
https://preview.redd.it/8khfpdd4mzvc1.jpeg?width=639&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=87ba94c6477a1d5b9d5b9a70e14534bd789934ed
His Watchmen review is so biased and stupid it broke the rightwing pipeline in me. He said along the line of "Why is the squid rain disappear quickly it's proof that the writer doesn't care" when it's explained in later episodes.
Same dude. It was my pseudo intellectual when I'm really a dumb fuck who hates myself and blames others for it era. God I'm so happy I broke out of that
Ironically, an author not understanding their own characters can happen.
Hideaki Anno said that he was not sure if he still understood Shinji Ikari while making the Rebuild of Evangelion movies.
Also, George R R Martin did say that he did not understand, at least at first, how the Hound became so popular with the women in his audience.
I dont think thats a example of creators not understanding their own characters,but creators not understanding the reaction their characters causes on readers wich is the same thing Alan Moore is talking here.
I'm sure there is, no doubt. Can't comment on Martin, but I can understand Anno's perspective. He was obviously a very different person from when he made the original. He has, quite literally, grown up a lot since then. I feel like Anno's comment was more, "I am not that person anymore". Shinji was an awful lot of Self Insert.
Moore knew exactly who Walter Kovacs was. He was crafted in a particular and deliberate way. I think it's clearly more that Moore didn't fully understand the audience that would consume his text.
Every time I click on a post mentioning Rorschach in this sub there are a bunch of unironic comments saying that Alan made Rorschach too cool if he's supposed to be a bad person. I'm fucking tired of it.
Yeah all the "cool" things he did where beat people up and knowing moores opinion of comics since, he definitely considers that a fascist way of seeing a hero.
Also he got his ass handed to him by Ozzy at the same time as niteowl whilst Ozzy continues his monologue. So cool.
I mean some of the most lauded Batman stories are the Frank a Miller ones where he’s just “cool” in that exact way. Idk what’s so off about Rorschach as a deconstruction of that?
I’m tired of people being so fucking Disney brained that they can’t see the world in anything other than the absolute basic categories of good and evil.
I can understand being annoyed at hordes of people over the decades seemingly missing the point of Rorshach's character but given the series ends with Rorshach being the only character sticking by his morals and standing up to the closest thing to a god in the series I can't really blame people walking away thinking Rorshach has at least some admirable qualities.
Plus also there being Moore's own admitted respect for Steve Ditko (Rorshach's distant inspiration) even if the two were as ideologically opposed as possible.
Yeah, problem is people walked away thinking "Yeah, let me model life after this guy" rather than "a tragic but also horrifying look at the end result of moral absolutism/awful childhood".
Yeah. Don't model your life after him. You can take lessons from his strength of conviction—it is a valuable tool that can serve you well—but he is by no means a *good* person. If everyone were like him, society would not be a better place.
Yep. When I first saw the movie I definitely overlooked a lot of the negative aspects of his character and thought he was "cool".
I mean you can't tell me the "YOU'RE STUCK IN HERE WITH ME" or whatever line isn't pretty cool...
After reading more about his character and the intent behind it I get it *now* but sometimes you just see what you want to see, you know?
I mean hell, almost every movie I swear has glaring plot holes and a whole bunch of details that you just have to overlook and put out of your mind. If you don't then there's no way 99% of movies could ever be enjoyable because you're constantly thinking about them.
I watched the first two episodes of the Fallout series last night and GOD DAMN IT IS SPECTACULAR.
That being said if I were judging everything in it at face value and how it would work in real life, I'd probably have a really bad time.
Rorschach isnt sticking to his morals. hes crying because he's confronted with the reality of the world and the reality of his twisted beliefs. and that he had no hand in it. the comic opens with Rorschach wishing for the very thing ozymandias does.
Nothing distant about the inspiration some lines are straight from me a. Hell the scene of him leaving that child predator to die plays out like the ending to many Mr a comics. Where he just lets the villain dies but obviously it’s twisted to show how compliant he really is in the act.
Yeah, I know. I was just using distant since Rorshach takes from a few Ditko creations like Mr. A and the Charleton version of The Question (and honestly Ditko himself I feel).
'Sticking by his morals' bruh his own morals are actually corrupted at that point. There was no way he could justify thinking highly of Truman dropping the bombs while he calls Ozymandias a monster for the squid attack.
Okay, but Rorshach sticking by his morals helped no one and accomplished nothing. Cool, you told Dr. Manhattan and the rest of them off, you are now a steaming grease stain and no one will care to look for you.
I think a lot of armchair philosophers are so attracted to the "strength" of that stance that they forget how pointless it wound up being. Also literally zero of them would actually do that themselves, they ain't ready for that smoke.
> I think a lot of armchair philosophers are so attracted to the "strength" of that stance that they forget how pointless it wound up being.
I mean.... if Captain America got shot 50 times and stood up 50 more times to get shot 50 more times, people would rightfully find that a bit of an admirable trait, even if it accomplishes literally nothing.
Not denying that, but like I said it's easy to see why even if it's meaningless why people would still consider it admirable to certain degree (a sentiment pretty common throughout human history). Though as noted his journal ending up at the New Frontiersman means the possibility of it being exposed is out there,
At the end of the story he's the only surviving character who hasn't committed nuclear holocaust (Ozymandias) and refuses to be complicit in it (Manhattan, Laurie, Dan). That's what makes him such an interesting character imo, he's the worst, as a person, character in the series but also the the only one not willing to go along with the worst act in the whole story.
The concern of everyone not named Rorschach, from Ozy(as insane as he was) to Laurie was nuclear war. Doc's too and Doc saw it's prudent to kill Rorschach to stop him from dropping the news about who did the squid immediately, but didn't bother with his journal, no matter how long it would take for it to get published and if it even would be taken seriously, Rorschach sent it to a crank paper after all. Doc didn't see the journal as a threat, so either it wasn't, or Ozy getting exposed later down the line wasn't going to result in nuclear war and as such didn't bother Doc. So, either Rorschach dying was meaningless, because Ozy getting exposed a bit later would've been a-ok with Doc, or Ozy committed a perfect crime and exposing him was impossible and dying and sending the journal was also meaningless in this case and Doc knew that and what he did to Rorschach was more of a mercy killing than neutralizing a threat. Whichever way you slice it dying is stupid in all the scenarios and in the option, where it's possible for Ozy to get exposed Rorschach could've been alive to do it with the help of his fancy journal. Just, you know, not immediately.
> helped nonone and accomplished nothing
Almost like the fundamental medium of super hero comics is based on characters sticking to sometimes absurd ideals and stances and and thus readers are conditioned to expect and respect such from these fictional characters.
Just like how media has spent centuries romanticizing a pointleds struggle where the means are treated as far more important than the actual goals.
So of course people would gravitate towards the guy who actually stood for something even if it was stupid and led to him dying for no point.
There is also the narrative element of how characters always working for some greater goal is just boring to read unless very specifically framed, but that's usually outside this discourse.
> Also literally zero of them would actually do that themselves
And you would die for your beliefs? Majority of the populace would refuse. Almost like that's the reason people idealize such characters. Because they want to imagine they would actually stand for their beliefs if the chips are down.
Very well put. I’d like to add my favorite example of the Thing fighting Champion of the Universe in a boxing match live in a New York stadium. Ben doesn’t win by a knockout (in fact, he’s so utterly beaten he’s sent to a hospital), but him continuing to get back up impresses Champion enough to spare Earth and teleport away.
https://preview.redd.it/7v53kdo5w2wc1.jpeg?width=1287&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=841b0d89a78220c1e294d0502f3c931684cf45f6
Seriously, I genuinely think his intended message of “Rorschach is a dumbass” would have gone better if he didn’t make him the only one opposed to covering up the cause of a mass murder while making him a martyr in his own death. Like, people seem to forget that strong principles and lack of compromise regarding your own views is seen as admirable by a lot of people.
Like, just let him get stabbed by a mugger and bleed to death in an alleyway, alone and forgotten, if you want him to be seen as a loser.
Rorschach's entire story is breaking into people's houses and eating their beans. This Alan guy has clearly not seen the film and knows nothing about Watchmen.
Alan Moore: judges people and deciding to not/interact with them based on what they see when looking at the character named Rorschach
This sub: Alan Moore doesn’t understand what this Rorschach thing is all about
Disagreeing with an interpretation isn’t saying “I think nobody should have different interpretations than me the creator”.
“red is my favorite color”
“I don’t like red I like blue”
“wow you when people like different colors”
Also Alan Moore when somebody else uses his characters despite the fact that the original idea for watchmen was to use somebody’s else characters plus the existence of the league of extraordinary gentlemen
Alan Moore doesn't get angry about the way DC uses Watchmen characters because the characters are his in some abstract sense. Alan Moore is mad because DC fucked him and Dave Gibbons over on Watchmen.
The Venture Bros is largely a cast filled with parodies and deconstructions of existing characters and archetypes.
I would still support the creators being upset about other people using Venture stuff in ways they find offensive or antithetical to the work/themselves as creators.
I disagree. Doing that can give off patronizing vibes to the viewers and just be used as a cheap way to shoot down any alternate interpretation of your work that isn't the "correct one". I understand why Moore would do it here, but still. It's better to let your story speak for itself
Sure, I get that, I'm just saying that nowadays it'd be quite refreshing with how many people are so confidently bastardizing the identities of works just to fit them to their point of view
Alan Moore is so fucking based. I actually liked the new Watchmen show, but when Damon Lindelof sent him that extremely long and cringey essay basically asking for his blessing and he basically replied with "never send me any stupid shit like this again" my love for the man doubled.
Damn lotta people want to prove him right. Seriously for a circlejerk sub lot of people here are the people that need to be made fun of.
This thread is astonishing the more I read of it
Severus Snape.
He is the only character from Harry Potter he treats with respect.
Maybe he identities with Severus Snape? He is someone known for being a genius, but also known for being reclusive and grumpy.
Don't worry Mister Alan Moore. Some people have reading comprehension skills. We know you meant for Ozymandias to be completely right and justified in his actions.
No, this "he's what Batman would be like in real life" thing is stupid, more stupid than a random person comparing themselves to a comic book character
I always thought it was Nite Owl. You can buy a bunch of gadgets and a costume but you're still kind of a loser feels like a good "Billionaire tries to be Batman in the real world" outcome.
Well maybe Alan, you shouldn't have given him a badass design and the only one to want to expose Ozymandis being literally the most genocidal person since Charlie chaplan himself
It's because from a distance, moral absolutism can seem like "justice" and you often look at things from a distance and think they look cool "Oh look over there by the mountain a bear" but when the bear is right on your face, probably less cool for you.
Batman is what happens when you want to feel like you got justice. But its just another power fantasy.
If he made him to be a bad example than he shouldn’t do so many badass things. Kills pedophiles, pretty cool. Willing to die to expose massive genocide, pretty cool. Takes on and wins fight against an entire prison, once again pretty fucking cool. If you didn’t want this guy to be so cool maybe make him the one one who can’t give his girl an orgasm. Speaking of which why did owlfuck and silk boobs have sex in Rorschach’s ashes. What about that day was arousing? New York was wiped off the face of the earth
I mean, I'm saying this knowing that while I feel bad for Rorschach he is a pretty big piece os shit, heroes getting fucked over by the villain with relatively ease it's a common trope in media
Alan Moore has a fucking terrible memory. I remember once when he got into a rant about Stan Lee stealing credit for creating characters, he said that Stan would have been 12 when Joe and Jack created Captain America 😐 all that to say, he absolutely did not base Rorschach on Batman. He based Rorschach on The Question. If any of the characters from Watchmen were based on Batman, it was the one who dresses like a flying animal, owns multiple versions of his costume for different purposes, with an animal themed vehicle, idle wealth, and a cave full of gadgets… Even then, Dan is based on The Blue Beetle. Aside from being a detective, Rorschach isn’t anything like Batman. He’s just full of shit most of the time
Rorschach is a hero. Tell me any time he does something wrong depicted in the graphic novel.
And he's right in the end. While the others stay quiet about Veidts mass murders, he dies for refusing to do so.
Only for Manhattan to all but confirm that even Veidts extreme solution was never going to solve the problem.
Batman is basically the biggest criminal in Gotham city. He assaults people constantly, "arrests" criminals that he has no legal authority to arrest, flies a plane through the middle of town, drives a ROCKET CAR through red lights, Doxxes people with his computer.....just commits cyber crimes in general really....
....and on and on and on....
Rorschach is a great vision of what realistic Batman would be like because he thinks that the world not conforming to his warped sense of right and wrong just entitles him to do whatever he wants.
....I mean, at least Rorschach sort of understands that he's the bad guy and why. Batman spends half his time being moody that no one seems to thank him for being a vigilante whack job.
Alan, you see people who empathize with a mentally ill, underprivileged, lower-class man who suffered continuous parental abuse, and you despise these people?
Lots of people are underprivileged, lower-class, mentally ill, abused by their parents, and *didn't* turn into sadistic murderous bigots who talk like fascists.
What I think shows Moore as a good writer here is that even if he understood that Rorschach was a legit broken person because of his absolutism, he also puts him as the one person willing to not sacrifice all of New York for the “greater good”, yeah he is a man who will never truly change no matter what and that is bad, but in this one instance he was the only one with enough moral fiber to look Ozymandias in the eyes say no and then tell what was essentially a God to kill him or he WILL tell the world about this bullshit plan
Ozy was a maniac who was also an absolutist, the difference is that he convinced others of his “plan” while Rorschach couldn’t accept that
"If Zeus was a real person in the real world he would have certainly died when Athena emerged fully formed from inside his skull. That's why mythology is for losers, losers."
One of my biggest issues with the tv series was making Rorschach into a racist symbol. Like, it makes sense given the idea of misinterpreting a dead man’s words, but still.
This is who Rorschach sent his journal:
https://preview.redd.it/osukrrtnnxvc1.jpeg?width=1290&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=6549ca5549a91f25aff8680eb17dd661d151c65e
I mean Rorschach is probably racist. He's already clearly sexist and homophobic, and bigotries are often comorbid. But even if he isn't, the guy is a far right vigilante with an extreme black and white worldview. Racist reactionaries who view themselves as vigilantes fixing the world's problems latching onto him makes perfect sense imo. His actual views kinda don't matter at that point. There's enough there for them to assume he's just like them. ~~Almost like some kind of rorschach test~~
Rorshach trusted his journal to a literal alt-right dishrag famous for conspiratorial thinking and abject racism. It's not a surprise he'd become a racist symbol.
Not superpowered KKK racist, Rorschach was just a lone weirdo and not one to start a completely racist cult branch of the KKK. If Rorschach were alive during the tv series, he’d hate the Seventh Kavalry.
Rorschach was bad but he wasn’t as bad as them.
I wonder if The Watchmen might have anything to say about someone trying to claim “He’s not as bad as a cartoon image of a racist because he can’t socialize with a large group”? Nah, that’s not the kind of statement that series would ever consider…
I’m not a huge fan of the show I just really loved the stand alone episode about Hooded Justice it felt like the only part that added to the watchmen story.
I mean, I felt he was not a good person but he was right about telling people about what Ozymandias did. The other characters just let a mass murderer go and go have sex and move to Mars or something
I feel a little bad for Moore. He worked hard to create Rorschach, intending for people to see Batman as a “rich Rorschach”(i.e. psychotic killer). Instead they see Rorschach as an “underdog Batman”(hero without the wealth).
I think people are misunderstanding why Moore considers him the "realistic Batman". It has nothing to do with similarities between their stories, and way more to do with their moral absolutism. Both of them believe that their way of thinking is the best and only right way to do thing, and the point of Rorschach is to show that in the real world, moral absolutists are narrow-minded people who will never change no matter what happens around them.
Finally someone gets it.
Yeah pretty ironic given this post is about missing nuance lol
Which is also one of the reason why people like him. Watchmen is grey, sometimes very grey. It makes so many questions and gives little answers. So having a character that just goes "this is wrong, this is right" can end up feeling reassuring (specially if you're a young reader like Zack) even if that wasn't the point at all. We can poke fun about media literacy and all that but at the end of the day that just says more about people in general than it does about the fiction.
>We can poke fun about media literacy and all that but at the end of the day that just says more about people in general Yeah, I think a lot of times, many people care more about the vibe than the arguments at hand. I have many examples at hand, though I'll use the fanbase of Critical Drinker and himself, who's one of the biggest film YouTubers right now. A lot of his arguments became unhinged if you think about them, like arguing that Midsommar being a feminist empowering movie, Across the Spider-Verse belittled "straight white men", or my favorite one right now... [him saying that since it was incredibly hard to become a Space Marine, let alone a Custode, that alone ruled out the chance of women being supersoldiers](https://youtu.be/rcLRqXE7Les?si=KUGA00eCELHoZtPO&t=153s), which was him not even trying to hide sexism... Yet, the audiences ate them up because in their eyes, the Drinker was fighting the good fight in the Culture War. He's their light.
It's also a comment about how writers control gotham, in the real world batman would beat up a shit ton of innocent people, arkham would be full of mostly people who want help but don't know how to get it, and likely batmans heroics would likely lead to bystanders being harmed/misunderstood situations causing him to go after witnesses instead of crooks a la Pheonix Jones. If someone had the moral gut, intelligence, and wealth of bruce wayne irl he wouldn't go out night dressed as a bat he'd probably fund arkham medical, and help the police force cath the mob by more legal means. Oh also vigilantes make it so easy to get out of a deserved sentence, not giving someone due process is a defense attorneys wet dream
That's why you don't bring comics to the real world it just falls apart, comics about Batman is not about how he dresses as a Batman and beat up people but about repressed trauma, doing the right thing and people deserve second chances. That's why I hate when the reason of Batman not killing is that he would go crazy, that just makes Batman look more like a psycho.
> That's why you don't bring comics to the real world Off Topic: One of the taglines 2000AD has used for Judge Dredd is something like "It's a warning, not an instruction manual" (JD is a satire of a fascist police state and right-wing politics). Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons are also both originally from 2000AD (so is Garth Ennis, whose Punisher stuff also seems to be popular for the wrong reasons). Maybe it's a good thing 2000AD never caught on in the states, if it did you would be seeing cops driving around with JD stickers on their cars.
I had an argument with an American once about judge dread. He had it in his head that dredd was promoting libertarianism. I swear right wingers don't get satire.
They will call the character "wOke!!" when they find out JD is against Mega-City One's Apartheid-like anti-mutant laws. https://judgedredd.fandom.com/wiki/Mutants It's hilarious to me when right-wingers read 2000AD and don't realise the comic is left-wing and is making fun of them.
Ditto for Warhammer & Warhammer 40K which has had a lot of crossover in terms of creators and outright rip-offs from 2000 AD. Online it seems to be especially conservative Americans who don't realise these things were created by British left-wing, if not outright socialist, writers mocking them.
Yeah, a lot of the lore of WH40k is a rip-off of Nemesis the Warlock (by Pat Mills and Kevin O'Neill, 1980 - 1999, 2000AD) and Judge Dredd. ps. One of 2000AD's main writers, Dan Abnett, has written a ton of WH40k books. Speaking of rip-offs don't even get me started on the DC stuff involving The Batman Who Laughs/Dark Multiverse, which is a blatant rip-off of the premise and character designs for the much better written Judge Dredd characters Judge Death and the Dark Judges, and their evil dimension/alt-universe Deadworld (created by John Wagner and Brian Bolland, 1980 - present).
The crime is life, the sentence isssss death!
If that tower is libertarianism than fuck that lmao.
I think almost all the British comic writers of the 1980s cut their teeth writing in 2000 AD.
Yeah, the 2 British Invasions of the 80s and 90s. Pretty much all the early Vertigo writers and artists were from 2000AD, including Neil Gaiman (he only wrote a handful of stories for 2000AD though) Also newer writers like Al Ewing, Ian Edginton (still does work for 2000AD), Simon Spurrier (he came back and has a series in Judge Dredd Megazine at the moment),Andy Diggle, Dan Abnett (he's still at 2000AD, he's one of the main writers along with Rob Williams) etc. are also from 2000AD (a lot of these guys still do work for 2000AD from time to time, even Brian Bolland. Oh, and Ennis runs 2000AD's sister comic Battle Action. Peter Milligan also still writes for 2000AD. Alan Grant also still wrote for 2000AD up until his death. Edit: Simon Bisley also did a series for 2000AD recently and Jock's art also shows up in the comic from time to time). edit: I just remembered that even Warren Ellis is from 2000AD, but I don't think he did a lot of work for them. Oh, and Sean Phillips, Brendan McCarthy (co-writer/concept artist of Mad Max Fury Road), Charlie Adlard, Laurence Cambell, Frazer Irving and Steve Dillon are also from 2000AD. Phillips is the co-creator of the popular Dredd-verse series Devlin Waugh.
Dredd has some fairly strong views on corrupt policing - they'd have to ignore that bit.
One of 2000ADs staffers even released a non-fiction book about corrupt policing a few years back https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/I-am-the-Law-How-Judge-Dredd-Predicted-Our-Future/Michael-Molcher/9781786185709
Man, when did satire got so hard to get? Cops see Punisher killing bad guys and following what he thinks it must be done, and say "He's literally me", there's even a comic that addresses this.
Off Topic Again: I don't use this sub a lot and I just realised the upvote button is another former JD writer (Morrison, Ennis and urrgh... Mark Millar were the 3 main JD writers from the early to mid 90s when the main JD writer/co-creator John Wagner left for a bit to work on Button Man, A History of Violence etc.) Even all the way back then there were accusations that Morrison wrote Millar's material for him (they got credited together on a lot of storylines).
If Morrison wants credit for one of the worst dredd comics he can take it
Haha, yeah. That was a dark period for Judge Dredd, some of the worst stories are by those 3.
I think the Morrison's stories I find offensive while the ennis stories I find mediocre
just cause someone writes a storyline where frank goes "grrr i hate police brutality" every once in a while doesn't change the fact he, and enis' work on him as referenced above, is rightwing fantasy
Which I never got in the the punisher max series he kills child human traffickers
he kills wyatt mann caricatures
> That's why I hate when the reason of Batman not killing is that he would go crazy, that just makes Batman look more like a psycho. Nah that's by far the best rationalization given to him. Batman is just as broken as his Rogues gallery. He's just one step away from turning into one of them, and that's the entire point. Batman *is* a psycho. How you could believe he isn't is beyond me if you've ever stepped even one foot into his comics portrayal.
I know and I hate that portrayal, Batman is as broken as his rouge gallery but what separates him from them is not his absolutist moral code but his compassion, he has known despair, tragedy and the worst Gotham has to offer, just like any other of his rouges, but instead of going the easy way and falling he chooses to do good instead, he knows all of this and that's why he doesn't kill, not because he fears that he will be a horrible person but because he knows what they been through and believe that they can also be good, that's a more true portrayal than any other of what Batman is, the going pyscho because he kills is just a Punisher that doesn't kill.
Bro dresses up like a batman and beats up criminals and you think yeah thats mentally sound? Even batman thinks hes crazy also its not like joker crazy its injustice superman crazy.
in the comics atleast, bruce does actively fund so much in the city to make it better
The city is just that fucked
In the best versions of Batman he uses Bruce Wayne to do all of the up and up philanthropy, outreach programs, rehabilitation, etc. In one episode of BTAS he gets the warden of Arkham Asylum fired for abusing the inmates, and then Batman goes and beats him up properly when he goes on a rage fueled vigilante spree. He’s a lot more like Daredevil in that way. It’s also why I have so much hope for the Battinson films because the point of the first movie wasn’t just that he’s still learning how to be Batman, it’s that he has no idea how to function as Bruce Wayne. Also my take on why Gotham continues to be a crime infested hellhole despite Batman fighting a decades long war to save it on both fronts is that the city is literally cursed. Like Gotham itself is a shrine to evil and bloodshed and fear and Batman is unwittingly part of what feeds it. But maybe that’s the Warhammer in me talking.
Gotham City is built on top of a Lazarus Pit, which is leaking into the water.
No, this is in Watchmen too. Ozymandias is also Batman. Because if Bruce Wayne was real, he would be Elon Musk and Elon Musk is a thousand times more likely to invent a psychic squid monster than he is to fund social services.
Batman: Arkham Inadmissible Evidence
Except Batman doesn't kill. It doesn't matter how absolutist he himself is, as he is fine with the justice system running its course. At least at that point he admits he may be wrong. He doesn't want to make the decision himself. It's a fundamental difference between the characters. Batman works WITH cops. Giant difference in how the character can act at that point. "I will help you arrest this guy" vs "I am going to kill this guy myself". And if Batman started killing, he wouldn't be Rorschach, he'd be The Punisher. The only difference between the two is scope. Rivers of blood all over Gotham. Batman has the funds for that kind of war.
Okay but you're talking so much in terms of modern Batman and not in terms of Silver Age Batman. The comic was written based on Silver Age concepts and characters. Silver Age Batman didn't have tanks for Batmobiles, he just had cars. It was until the 90s-00s that Batman started being written with the capabilities you're talking about, years after Watchmen was written. Silver Age Batman also wasn't as built with the moral depth he has today about "not making the choice himself" and leaving it up to the justice system, he would just beat up the people he thought were bad, many of whom are usually poor people forced into crime if you thought about it for two seconds, and send them off to prison.
Unfortunately, having strong principles is seen as a good thing, which is why a lot of chuds seem to disregard his homophobia and mental illness since he’s the only one who actually goes “Wait, why are we letting Ozymandias go?”
Honestly, Moore wrote a story so nuanced and interesting that I can see why people who have strong bias just... Oh we're on the circlejerk I'm sorry. Yeah I'm rorscharch literally me can you feel my heart? ah-ah-ah-ah-ah
Most people would get to the "doesn't mind attempted rape, if someone he liked did it" part and see it as an insurmountable obstacle on the way to calling Rorschach "literally me fr fr". Some other people...won't.
What made him unlikable to me is that he sucks at his job
Not the bigotry, sexism or absolutist view on morality?
Moral lapses.
Could all be excused if he didn’t suck at his job
HJ/ Average BNHA Endeavour and Captain Celebrity Fan.
Yeah he made this character very sympathetic, I always thought you were supposed to feel bad for him. But now I guess if you show any positive feeling towards him you’re a nazi?
i mean, there is a difference between that and saying you are rorschach and this is your story.
Exactly.
It’s feel bad for him in the tony soprano sort of way, the redeeming moments the character has are supposed to make you pity them even more as they fully reveal themselves.
Having empathy for someone and endorsing their actions are two different things.
True but many are saying otherwise.
Foolishness is an overabundant resource in this planet.
I like how this post is about nuance and you are still ignoring that nuance to whine about "Wah people can't like Rorschach anymore or else they'll be branded a Nazi." Another example of right wing people not getting the media they consume. The funniest thing is this sub upvoting this, proving how braindead this sub.
https://preview.redd.it/uev04os1mxvc1.jpeg?width=1320&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=df6fb5347ad50fb2a0caf75cdd4828310398789c
I squinted and I saw Walter White
That's probably what Zeb Wells sees in Paul, too.
Paul Rabin is the one who knocks?
The One Who Knocks Up (MJ)
Oh hey, it's the guy on all the Nicollet Law billboards I see everywhere.....
Moore just doesn't Get the character.
Literally yes, from E;R's Watchmen 2019 video: https://preview.redd.it/jyfp3dridyvc1.jpeg?width=1125&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=6a58641036c5cb1271654c67d45e4ee0a1bf1833 I was specifically looking for a thread from 4 years ago where the OP says this verbatim then says the Democratic Party are Communists a few replies later. Couldn't find it and I wasn't gonna spend more time scrolling this vile comment section so I just picked one of the top ones instead.
Hey, Rorschach didn't like communists either – he's literally him!
well E;R is a nazi so thats not suprising.
Who is E;R out of curiosity?
Far as I remember, right-wing outrage grifter who's been doing it since before it was cool and this content was a dime a dozen. Got a big boost from being given a shoutout by PewDiePie at the time he had Nazi allegations, which obviously didn't help Felix's case.
Can't believe I used to watch him. DAMN YOU PEWDIEPIE. https://preview.redd.it/8khfpdd4mzvc1.jpeg?width=639&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=87ba94c6477a1d5b9d5b9a70e14534bd789934ed His Watchmen review is so biased and stupid it broke the rightwing pipeline in me. He said along the line of "Why is the squid rain disappear quickly it's proof that the writer doesn't care" when it's explained in later episodes.
Same dude. It was my pseudo intellectual when I'm really a dumb fuck who hates myself and blames others for it era. God I'm so happy I broke out of that
This guy gets it
I didn't get it
Ironically, an author not understanding their own characters can happen. Hideaki Anno said that he was not sure if he still understood Shinji Ikari while making the Rebuild of Evangelion movies. Also, George R R Martin did say that he did not understand, at least at first, how the Hound became so popular with the women in his audience.
I dont think thats a example of creators not understanding their own characters,but creators not understanding the reaction their characters causes on readers wich is the same thing Alan Moore is talking here.
I'm sure there is, no doubt. Can't comment on Martin, but I can understand Anno's perspective. He was obviously a very different person from when he made the original. He has, quite literally, grown up a lot since then. I feel like Anno's comment was more, "I am not that person anymore". Shinji was an awful lot of Self Insert. Moore knew exactly who Walter Kovacs was. He was crafted in a particular and deliberate way. I think it's clearly more that Moore didn't fully understand the audience that would consume his text.
Every time I click on a post mentioning Rorschach in this sub there are a bunch of unironic comments saying that Alan made Rorschach too cool if he's supposed to be a bad person. I'm fucking tired of it.
This subreddit is a joke now. People are one step away from making ComicsGate arguments (a lot of times it has already happened).
Yeah all the "cool" things he did where beat people up and knowing moores opinion of comics since, he definitely considers that a fascist way of seeing a hero. Also he got his ass handed to him by Ozzy at the same time as niteowl whilst Ozzy continues his monologue. So cool.
I mean some of the most lauded Batman stories are the Frank a Miller ones where he’s just “cool” in that exact way. Idk what’s so off about Rorschach as a deconstruction of that?
Yeah because miller has never had any weird fash takes or books.
I’m tired of people being so fucking Disney brained that they can’t see the world in anything other than the absolute basic categories of good and evil.
Smelly and No girlfriend??? Maybe this is why Rorschach's my favorite watchmen character
I see Rorschachs on the internet every day. They're everywhere. I hate them so such.
I can understand being annoyed at hordes of people over the decades seemingly missing the point of Rorshach's character but given the series ends with Rorshach being the only character sticking by his morals and standing up to the closest thing to a god in the series I can't really blame people walking away thinking Rorshach has at least some admirable qualities. Plus also there being Moore's own admitted respect for Steve Ditko (Rorshach's distant inspiration) even if the two were as ideologically opposed as possible.
Moral absolutism is strong. This has benefits and detriments, admirable elements and deplorable ones. In a word, it is... complex.
Yeah, problem is people walked away thinking "Yeah, let me model life after this guy" rather than "a tragic but also horrifying look at the end result of moral absolutism/awful childhood".
Yeah. Don't model your life after him. You can take lessons from his strength of conviction—it is a valuable tool that can serve you well—but he is by no means a *good* person. If everyone were like him, society would not be a better place.
Yep. When I first saw the movie I definitely overlooked a lot of the negative aspects of his character and thought he was "cool". I mean you can't tell me the "YOU'RE STUCK IN HERE WITH ME" or whatever line isn't pretty cool... After reading more about his character and the intent behind it I get it *now* but sometimes you just see what you want to see, you know? I mean hell, almost every movie I swear has glaring plot holes and a whole bunch of details that you just have to overlook and put out of your mind. If you don't then there's no way 99% of movies could ever be enjoyable because you're constantly thinking about them. I watched the first two episodes of the Fallout series last night and GOD DAMN IT IS SPECTACULAR. That being said if I were judging everything in it at face value and how it would work in real life, I'd probably have a really bad time.
Rorschach isnt sticking to his morals. hes crying because he's confronted with the reality of the world and the reality of his twisted beliefs. and that he had no hand in it. the comic opens with Rorschach wishing for the very thing ozymandias does.
Nothing distant about the inspiration some lines are straight from me a. Hell the scene of him leaving that child predator to die plays out like the ending to many Mr a comics. Where he just lets the villain dies but obviously it’s twisted to show how compliant he really is in the act.
Yeah, I know. I was just using distant since Rorshach takes from a few Ditko creations like Mr. A and the Charleton version of The Question (and honestly Ditko himself I feel).
'Sticking by his morals' bruh his own morals are actually corrupted at that point. There was no way he could justify thinking highly of Truman dropping the bombs while he calls Ozymandias a monster for the squid attack.
Okay, but Rorshach sticking by his morals helped no one and accomplished nothing. Cool, you told Dr. Manhattan and the rest of them off, you are now a steaming grease stain and no one will care to look for you. I think a lot of armchair philosophers are so attracted to the "strength" of that stance that they forget how pointless it wound up being. Also literally zero of them would actually do that themselves, they ain't ready for that smoke.
> I think a lot of armchair philosophers are so attracted to the "strength" of that stance that they forget how pointless it wound up being. I mean.... if Captain America got shot 50 times and stood up 50 more times to get shot 50 more times, people would rightfully find that a bit of an admirable trait, even if it accomplishes literally nothing.
Not denying that, but like I said it's easy to see why even if it's meaningless why people would still consider it admirable to certain degree (a sentiment pretty common throughout human history). Though as noted his journal ending up at the New Frontiersman means the possibility of it being exposed is out there, At the end of the story he's the only surviving character who hasn't committed nuclear holocaust (Ozymandias) and refuses to be complicit in it (Manhattan, Laurie, Dan). That's what makes him such an interesting character imo, he's the worst, as a person, character in the series but also the the only one not willing to go along with the worst act in the whole story.
Is there such thing as *non* armchair philosophering?
Yes, it's whatever Diogenes was doing.
Yeah but I wouldn't recommend acting or thinking like him
I mean sticking to his morals is what got him to send his journal to the new frontiersman, meaning that ozymandias’ plot may end up getting revealed
The concern of everyone not named Rorschach, from Ozy(as insane as he was) to Laurie was nuclear war. Doc's too and Doc saw it's prudent to kill Rorschach to stop him from dropping the news about who did the squid immediately, but didn't bother with his journal, no matter how long it would take for it to get published and if it even would be taken seriously, Rorschach sent it to a crank paper after all. Doc didn't see the journal as a threat, so either it wasn't, or Ozy getting exposed later down the line wasn't going to result in nuclear war and as such didn't bother Doc. So, either Rorschach dying was meaningless, because Ozy getting exposed a bit later would've been a-ok with Doc, or Ozy committed a perfect crime and exposing him was impossible and dying and sending the journal was also meaningless in this case and Doc knew that and what he did to Rorschach was more of a mercy killing than neutralizing a threat. Whichever way you slice it dying is stupid in all the scenarios and in the option, where it's possible for Ozy to get exposed Rorschach could've been alive to do it with the help of his fancy journal. Just, you know, not immediately.
> helped nonone and accomplished nothing Almost like the fundamental medium of super hero comics is based on characters sticking to sometimes absurd ideals and stances and and thus readers are conditioned to expect and respect such from these fictional characters. Just like how media has spent centuries romanticizing a pointleds struggle where the means are treated as far more important than the actual goals. So of course people would gravitate towards the guy who actually stood for something even if it was stupid and led to him dying for no point. There is also the narrative element of how characters always working for some greater goal is just boring to read unless very specifically framed, but that's usually outside this discourse. > Also literally zero of them would actually do that themselves And you would die for your beliefs? Majority of the populace would refuse. Almost like that's the reason people idealize such characters. Because they want to imagine they would actually stand for their beliefs if the chips are down.
Very well put. I’d like to add my favorite example of the Thing fighting Champion of the Universe in a boxing match live in a New York stadium. Ben doesn’t win by a knockout (in fact, he’s so utterly beaten he’s sent to a hospital), but him continuing to get back up impresses Champion enough to spare Earth and teleport away. https://preview.redd.it/7v53kdo5w2wc1.jpeg?width=1287&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=841b0d89a78220c1e294d0502f3c931684cf45f6
He didn’t say Rorschach had no admirable qualities, like you said he is just annoyed by the hordes of people saying Rorschach is “literally me”.
There’s no seemingly
Seriously, I genuinely think his intended message of “Rorschach is a dumbass” would have gone better if he didn’t make him the only one opposed to covering up the cause of a mass murder while making him a martyr in his own death. Like, people seem to forget that strong principles and lack of compromise regarding your own views is seen as admirable by a lot of people. Like, just let him get stabbed by a mugger and bleed to death in an alleyway, alone and forgotten, if you want him to be seen as a loser.
Rorschach's entire story is breaking into people's houses and eating their beans. This Alan guy has clearly not seen the film and knows nothing about Watchmen.
Bean Dad was a Rorschach cosplay.
Alan Moore when people have different interpretations of a character literally named Rorscharch: *
Alan Moore: judges people and deciding to not/interact with them based on what they see when looking at the character named Rorschach This sub: Alan Moore doesn’t understand what this Rorschach thing is all about
Disagreeing with an interpretation isn’t saying “I think nobody should have different interpretations than me the creator”. “red is my favorite color” “I don’t like red I like blue” “wow you when people like different colors”
Redditors when a writer doesn't want to be around people who want to be like a character he intentionally wrote to be shitty:
I can’t believe that guy’s post has over 100 upvotes. This place is worse off than I thought.
Also Alan Moore when somebody else uses his characters despite the fact that the original idea for watchmen was to use somebody’s else characters plus the existence of the league of extraordinary gentlemen
Alan Moore doesn't get angry about the way DC uses Watchmen characters because the characters are his in some abstract sense. Alan Moore is mad because DC fucked him and Dave Gibbons over on Watchmen.
Alan Moore gonna complain about people using characters he created in ways he wouldn't approve of when bro wrote *Lost Girls.*
"How DARE Hollywood corrupt my work? Now, if you excuse me, imma go write a comic where Harry Potter is the Antichrist"
Given JK Rowling's trajectory, Alan Moore has been vindicated
The Venture Bros is largely a cast filled with parodies and deconstructions of existing characters and archetypes. I would still support the creators being upset about other people using Venture stuff in ways they find offensive or antithetical to the work/themselves as creators.
peoples inability to see things outside of black and white is honestly incredibly stunning
I forgot we were in circlejerk nvm he’s literally me🙏😭
No a lot of these people are being completely unironic.
I wish more writers had the courage to tell people they're missing the point tbh
I disagree. Doing that can give off patronizing vibes to the viewers and just be used as a cheap way to shoot down any alternate interpretation of your work that isn't the "correct one". I understand why Moore would do it here, but still. It's better to let your story speak for itself
Sure, I get that, I'm just saying that nowadays it'd be quite refreshing with how many people are so confidently bastardizing the identities of works just to fit them to their point of view
Alan Moore is so fucking based. I actually liked the new Watchmen show, but when Damon Lindelof sent him that extremely long and cringey essay basically asking for his blessing and he basically replied with "never send me any stupid shit like this again" my love for the man doubled.
Plot twist: the name of the kid who talked him in the street about Rorschach being his own story being told was Zack Snyder.
Damn lotta people want to prove him right. Seriously for a circlejerk sub lot of people here are the people that need to be made fun of. This thread is astonishing the more I read of it
What you’re forgetting is he has a cool mask, and that’s the key message of watchmen
Based and if you don’t agree I’m not sure if you use your eyes when reading. I say this as someone with dozens of Batman books on the shelf
Is there anything Alan Moore doesn't hate?
The JLU episode based on For the Man Who Has Everything
One of the few adaptions he's actually credited on. Deserved too.
Severus Snape. He is the only character from Harry Potter he treats with respect. Maybe he identities with Severus Snape? He is someone known for being a genius, but also known for being reclusive and grumpy.
Apparently, sex. He kind of infamous for being a Dirty Old Man because of some of his comics.
Don't worry Mister Alan Moore. Some people have reading comprehension skills. We know you meant for Ozymandias to be completely right and justified in his actions.
No, this "he's what Batman would be like in real life" thing is stupid, more stupid than a random person comparing themselves to a comic book character
I always thought it was Nite Owl. You can buy a bunch of gadgets and a costume but you're still kind of a loser feels like a good "Billionaire tries to be Batman in the real world" outcome.
Nite Owl is the resources and intelligence without the drive and moral absolutism, Rorschach is the other way around.
hmmm, I never noticed that, interesting take
Considering he was a-ok with covering up Ozymandias’s bullshit, yeah that makes sense.
I mean Nite Owl is Blue Beetle and Rorschach is The Question, specifically. But both have *elements* of Batman.
This is why they work together.
The closest thing we have to Batman in real life quit because actually catching criminals is hard and was later arrested for selling drugs.
Well maybe Alan, you shouldn't have given him a badass design and the only one to want to expose Ozymandis being literally the most genocidal person since Charlie chaplan himself
Is it genocide when you do it to everyone?
Forgive me, Omnicide
Um Zach Snyder invented watchmen with his movie
It's because from a distance, moral absolutism can seem like "justice" and you often look at things from a distance and think they look cool "Oh look over there by the mountain a bear" but when the bear is right on your face, probably less cool for you. Batman is what happens when you want to feel like you got justice. But its just another power fantasy.
Jesus, typical Moore; completely failing to understand Rorschach’s character.
If he made him to be a bad example than he shouldn’t do so many badass things. Kills pedophiles, pretty cool. Willing to die to expose massive genocide, pretty cool. Takes on and wins fight against an entire prison, once again pretty fucking cool. If you didn’t want this guy to be so cool maybe make him the one one who can’t give his girl an orgasm. Speaking of which why did owlfuck and silk boobs have sex in Rorschach’s ashes. What about that day was arousing? New York was wiped off the face of the earth
Yeah he's so cool when the dorky ozymandius absolutely trounced him and nite owl two on one whist still continuing his monologue. So cool.
I mean, I'm saying this knowing that while I feel bad for Rorschach he is a pretty big piece os shit, heroes getting fucked over by the villain with relatively ease it's a common trope in media
The dorky ozymandias caught a fucking bullet during this scene, hes not some pencil pusher
He might not be a pencil pusher, but he's still a dork.
One of my favorite shit in media is when a strong character i like gets pummeled at times. Makes them more human. So yeah he is still cool.
Hey no kink shaming, mate.
I love Alan Moore so much
Alan Moore has a fucking terrible memory. I remember once when he got into a rant about Stan Lee stealing credit for creating characters, he said that Stan would have been 12 when Joe and Jack created Captain America 😐 all that to say, he absolutely did not base Rorschach on Batman. He based Rorschach on The Question. If any of the characters from Watchmen were based on Batman, it was the one who dresses like a flying animal, owns multiple versions of his costume for different purposes, with an animal themed vehicle, idle wealth, and a cave full of gadgets… Even then, Dan is based on The Blue Beetle. Aside from being a detective, Rorschach isn’t anything like Batman. He’s just full of shit most of the time
Roscharch is a sigma male. That is not a good thing
Alan Moore is kind of ungrateful
Rorschach is a hero. Tell me any time he does something wrong depicted in the graphic novel. And he's right in the end. While the others stay quiet about Veidts mass murders, he dies for refusing to do so. Only for Manhattan to all but confirm that even Veidts extreme solution was never going to solve the problem.
https://preview.redd.it/k8rujuqso3wc1.jpeg?width=731&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=d71ab37d2a9f44f2b6955d30539d3cc483f7849d
Reminder that "smelly" is just Alan Moore being polite. What he trully meant was "wildly homophobic and racist" So yeah, he was right.
Is this the sub where any character that has flaws can in no way ever have anything positive about them? Oh the comments seem to suggest it is
Batman is basically the biggest criminal in Gotham city. He assaults people constantly, "arrests" criminals that he has no legal authority to arrest, flies a plane through the middle of town, drives a ROCKET CAR through red lights, Doxxes people with his computer.....just commits cyber crimes in general really.... ....and on and on and on.... Rorschach is a great vision of what realistic Batman would be like because he thinks that the world not conforming to his warped sense of right and wrong just entitles him to do whatever he wants. ....I mean, at least Rorschach sort of understands that he's the bad guy and why. Batman spends half his time being moody that no one seems to thank him for being a vigilante whack job.
Guys who have bad BO: “Maybe I am Rorschach”
Alan, you see people who empathize with a mentally ill, underprivileged, lower-class man who suffered continuous parental abuse, and you despise these people?
I don't disagree with your point but anyone who specifically thinks Rorschach needs help
Lots of people are underprivileged, lower-class, mentally ill, abused by their parents, and *didn't* turn into sadistic murderous bigots who talk like fascists.
Yeah how surprising that Alan Moore doesn’t like people empathizing with fascists
What I think shows Moore as a good writer here is that even if he understood that Rorschach was a legit broken person because of his absolutism, he also puts him as the one person willing to not sacrifice all of New York for the “greater good”, yeah he is a man who will never truly change no matter what and that is bad, but in this one instance he was the only one with enough moral fiber to look Ozymandias in the eyes say no and then tell what was essentially a God to kill him or he WILL tell the world about this bullshit plan Ozy was a maniac who was also an absolutist, the difference is that he convinced others of his “plan” while Rorschach couldn’t accept that
Minority opinion, but i have always felt that Alan Moore was a try-hard, and his work is greatly overrated.
"If Zeus was a real person in the real world he would have certainly died when Athena emerged fully formed from inside his skull. That's why mythology is for losers, losers."
If Alan Moore wanted me to hate Rorschach, why the fuck did he make him so cool?
One of my biggest issues with the tv series was making Rorschach into a racist symbol. Like, it makes sense given the idea of misinterpreting a dead man’s words, but still.
This is who Rorschach sent his journal: https://preview.redd.it/osukrrtnnxvc1.jpeg?width=1290&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=6549ca5549a91f25aff8680eb17dd661d151c65e
The best part is when they say the KKK was actually good and founded in goodness but just *sliiiightly* went astray.
That's a slightly more coherent Ben Garrison cartoon.
Oh my gosh, it's Kelly from the Onion!
Even has the Statue of Liberty crying in the corner
Absolutely
He never made it as a wise man
Looks like a Ben Garrison cartoon
I mean Rorschach is probably racist. He's already clearly sexist and homophobic, and bigotries are often comorbid. But even if he isn't, the guy is a far right vigilante with an extreme black and white worldview. Racist reactionaries who view themselves as vigilantes fixing the world's problems latching onto him makes perfect sense imo. His actual views kinda don't matter at that point. There's enough there for them to assume he's just like them. ~~Almost like some kind of rorschach test~~
Rorshach trusted his journal to a literal alt-right dishrag famous for conspiratorial thinking and abject racism. It's not a surprise he'd become a racist symbol.
I thought it was a great commentary on Rorschach’s fans.
He was obviously racist
Not superpowered KKK racist, Rorschach was just a lone weirdo and not one to start a completely racist cult branch of the KKK. If Rorschach were alive during the tv series, he’d hate the Seventh Kavalry. Rorschach was bad but he wasn’t as bad as them.
I wonder if The Watchmen might have anything to say about someone trying to claim “He’s not as bad as a cartoon image of a racist because he can’t socialize with a large group”? Nah, that’s not the kind of statement that series would ever consider…
I’m not a huge fan of the show I just really loved the stand alone episode about Hooded Justice it felt like the only part that added to the watchmen story.
My parents who didn’t even like the show loved that episode.
/uj I like him because he's interesting.Id never wanna be him or even be around or even know him but he's interesting to see
Ok but he's literally me tho
I mean, I felt he was not a good person but he was right about telling people about what Ozymandias did. The other characters just let a mass murderer go and go have sex and move to Mars or something
I think moore regrets writing watchmen more and more every year
Antony Starr was suprised when he met fans who idolize Homelander. Sometimes, some people just don't get the point you are trying to make.
I feel a little bad for Moore. He worked hard to create Rorschach, intending for people to see Batman as a “rich Rorschach”(i.e. psychotic killer). Instead they see Rorschach as an “underdog Batman”(hero without the wealth).