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Alan Moore wrote Rorschach for a fucking reason and it wasn't because "Rorschach was right!"
Moore was clearly aware of people who are sympathetic to great causes but would undermine them and destroy society just to be able to say that they were right.
Rorschach was right in many ways, but he spent his time looking down on everyone and anything else. His hate for the world was visceral and colored his perception. He was happy to destroy the world just so he could prove to himself that the world was beyond redemption.
-Rorschach from Moore's Watchmen
He doesn't support these movements because they're filled to the gills with fucking Rorschachs.
V for Vendetta had a similar message. V was really not all that much better than the people he was fighting. He tortured the fuck out of Evey in order to get her to do his bidding. I'm sure it pissed him off to a huge degree that people started adopting Guy Fawkes masks as an actual symbol of revolution. Moore chose that mask for a reason. That reason is that Guy Fawkes was both fighting oppression and trying to turn England into a theocracy.
The issue with subtle critiques of facists is that facists will enjoy them non ironically.
See Watchmen, V for vendetta, starship troopers, warhammer 40k, on and on.
40k isn't a critique any more, and I'd argue it stopped the moment the Emperor became an actual strongman who is the bestest and smartest and handsomest immortal wizard human to ever live who guards humanity in its sleep uwu step on me daddy~~~~
Compared to the original, first edition version, where everything was at the whims of unreliable narration and it was understood that whatever the Emperor was in 30k, and that is a very big question, he's a corpse on a throne in 40k.
Starship Troopers stopped being a critique the minute the first film ended, and the book never was.
That's why you gotta watch movies like Inglorious Basterds. Make it impossible for them to claim that shit.
It really is unfortunate.
There's also the factor that the movie is very different from the original comic, and the folks who adopted the Guy Fawkes mask as a hacktivist icon mostly just saw the movie.
He still tortures the shit out if Evie in the film
To radicalize her, yeah.
Which makes V just as bad if not worse than the society he's fighting against.
V admits this in the story. That's why he sacrificed himself. He knows he's not fit for the world he's trying to create by taking out the people who are just like him.
How?
How is torture bad...?
How is a man torturing one woman equal to or worse than a fascist regime guilty of ethnic cleansing?
Please do not get involved in revolutionary movements if you cannot understand how violently torturing someone into slavery/submission is morally incorrect.
First of all, I'm not sure that's an accurate description of the text of the film. V did not torture Evey into servitude, he didn't break her spirit, she did not become dependent on or obedient to him. Shortly after, she is free to leave his company, which she does, after thanking him.
Second of all, I'm not sure she would have thanked the Fingermen who were going to rape and murder her for being out after curfew at the beginning of the film.
Just because there are other bad people does not make V good. Moore would tell you this himself.
Granted, though I woudl consider motives as well as deeds when attempting to label someone "good" or "bad." Else you end up saying goofy shit like "The allies were just as bad as the Nazis in World War 2 because they used guns to kill people and killing people is wrong."
And torturing someone to achieve moral goals is still immoral
I mean all you've really done there is set up the trolley problem.
The countdown clock on the doomsday machine is ticking, you've got one hour until it burns the earth sterile, a pair of pliers, and the only person who knows the deactivation code strapped to a table. You're gonna tell me you're not pulling his toenails out because torture bad?
How about this one: You're a doctor, you've got a syringe loaded with a dose of a vaccine that will grant immunity to a deadly viral disease, thing is it HURTS. It causes a burning sensation at the injection site, it'll leave a scar like the smallpox vaccine did. Your patient is a 7 year old child. You stick that needle in her arm, and she's gonna scream in pain, but she'll be immune from sharkpox for the rest of her life.
V believes - at least somewhat correctly - that he's breaking down Evey's deep seated fears that allow the fascist government to keep her cowed. He pushes her to the point she truly believes she's going to be killed, and that she holds some ideal more precious than her own life, that she's willing to face death for, this will enable her to right a revolution against said fascist government. After which she thanks him. It's as immoral as drafting soldiers for war; the question boils down to why are you in the fight at all?
This isn't a trolley problem because V has no clue if his methods would work. He just tortures someone.
Every hypothetical ypu list is a false equivalence as again V has no certainty that what he is doing will work.
Torture is always bad. It never gives reliable information gecause tortured people will tell you whatever you want to hear to make it stop.
There’s like a dozen in this very thread lmao
Moore hates idol worship. I wouldn’t be surprised if he’d personally fist fight anyone that idolized him.
This is slander, he'd clearly cast a tantric curse on them.
Slander is spoken, in print it's libel
Rorschach was very conservative and anti sex, much like the maga base. The attractive thing about that is that there's a clear right and wrong.
Later on he'd rather be killed than to admit ozymandias being right. His diary field the hateful marginal right-wing maga-crowd that had their anger taken away by the world peace that had materialized.
Ozymandias was wrong.
He wanted power over a world scared of an "outside" threat that didn't exist. As soon as anyone with any knowledge was able to debunk the 'attack', regardless of how, it would get even worse. The difference was only how far in the future. Rorschach didn't die because Ozy was right. He died because he couldn't be complicit in a world where evil got to win.
Ozymandias wanted to believe a heroic ideal as much as Rorschach - one that's just as self-deluded. He wanted to believe that there was an end to "history". He wanted to decide when the future began. But he forgot just one fact that Rorschach at least was cognizant of:
Nothing ever ends, Adrian.
None of those characters were right.
that's the magic of it, to me.
Totally agree with this. It's part of why I dislike that DC writers sometimes import traits from the Watchmen into their Charlton counterparts. Obviously, if you scratch the surface of Rorschach, you find the Question staring back. If you look at Silk Spectre the right way, you see Black Canary. Nite Owl 1 & 2 are the Blue Beetle (I'm glad that Moore never got to adapt Jaime).
I want most of my superheroes to be clean and honest. I want to know that when I read a story, the Question follows leads responsibly (even if they do sometimes involve aglets) - whether that's Vic or Renee under the no-face. I want to know that Dinah Lance comes from a loving family, has a man she loves and trusts, and is dedicated to being a hero and a mentor to those who aren't in the same place. And so it goes for all of them. I want those characters to be heroes and in the right - or at least, in the realm of responsibility.
Their true purpose is sinister...
well put
Didn't say Ozymandias was right, I said Rorschach chose to die rather than submit to Ozymandias. And, like Ozymandias, he had already put into play his trump card, but he couldn't tell him that, so he decided to take it to his grave.
Both are cases of misplaced heroïsm. Neither are sure what the future will bring.
The way you said "rather die than admit ozy was right" was stated quite matter of fact-ly
You're right, it's a small difference. Rorschach couldn't admit that there was a point, there was a path to harmony. Like oz he'd put his plan into working before too.
He couldn't admit to oz being right, because he morally was disagreeing with the method. But in fact he disagreed because it made himself unviable. He counts in humanity to find conflict to disturb peace.
So ultimately Rorschach is right.
He also basically tortured Moloch for no reason. No matter how many times Moloch told him he didn't have the information. He just repeatedly beat the shit out of a dying old man for information the old man didn't have.
A dying old man yes, but no less an evil bastard for it. The problem is that Rorschach was deluded by Ozymandias. The evidence he had about the death of a friend pointed to Moloch. He pursued the lead. And like any human, he got angry because someone he'd respected had been murdered and thought he had a lead on the murderer. And the murderer was someone who'd killed in the past.
"Any human" would not repeatedly beat the shit out of a guy who kept insisting he had no information.
Also, The Comedian was not his friend. In any way.
What part of rorschach's views are revolutionary? Rorschach is a chud. Maybe his views are extreme but not revolutionary. False equivalence be wilin