Watchmen tells its story amazingly well, but it’s not an enjoyable one. It may be that I want a hero, I want someone who I can like, and Moore makes that impossible. While I’m sure there’s a reason for this, in the end I like likable characters and some part of me believes that these characters and their flaws are somehow wrong.
To start with, Doctor Manhattan certainly offers an interesting character arc in his simultaneous increase in emotional distance from humanity, and his ultimate understanding that humanity is worth saving. But his ease of accepting Veidt’s atrocity renders his new-found love for humans worthless. How could someone who can see atoms so quickly accept that the only way to save humanity is by deceiving them into thinking an alien entered their universe and killed millions?
Veidt is too easy to hate – his money, his egotism, his final plot. And why did he have to kill his servants? Couldn’t he have just kept them on in his frozen palace until they died naturally?
Laurie drives me crazy. She’s useless, except as a girlfriend, and she’s not even good at that. She’s a kept woman by Dr. Manhattan and then runs off to Nite Owl and makes out with him the same night she leaves Dr. Manhattan. Really? She’s a sex symbol who occasionally fights, but only when there’s a man at her side. She doesn’t want to go along with Nite Owl’s new-found heroic desires, but does anyway and we never really know why. My thought is that she can’t function without a man and needs to follow one around in order to even exist in the Graphic Novel at all. She gets her happily ever after, which I suppose is perfect since that’s all she was ever after – the American Dream, complete with husband and a hint that little ones might be on the way.
Nite Owl is a little easier to like as he gains his confidence back through his heroic acts, but he’s really a push-over who only sometimes has his own thoughts. He falls back into heroism when Laurie and him decide to take Archie out and then happens to see a burning building. He did not leave with the intention of doing something heroic. Similarly, he wasn’t the one investigating the killings, but he does get Rorschach out of prison, seemingly only so he continue his new-found confidence. But the end is the real killer (pun intended), because he ultimately accepts Veidt’s plot and Dr. Manhattan’s murder of his crime-fighting partner.
Rorschach was a psychopath who handed out judgments too severely. His understanding of humanity is as far-off as Dr. Manhattan’s. It is easier to like him because he is the only hero who wants to be a hero for the same reason as the Dark Knight, and that desire to right wrongs is something I think most people admire. He also has the best line in the entire Graphic Novel when in prison: “None of you understand. I’m not locked up in here with you; you’re locked up in here with me.” But he crosses a line that the Dark Knight was careful not to cross; he kills people, and does so with a vengeance. He seems to think that killing people is the only way to deal justice and he constantly takes note of any small moral infraction. It is strange to me, then, that he is the one who cannot accept Veidt’s plot. He seems to be the only one who we are set up to believe would accept it.
Moore has set me up to think that I will like some of the characters, but he has left me in the lurch. I’m certain it’s on purpose.
I agreed with so much of this. (Rorschach’s prison line = BEST LINE EVER. I told several people who hadn’t read Watchmen about it. Apparently, it’s not as effective unless you’ve read it.)
Veidt was too easy to hate, but before the reader knows to hate him, he just seems boring, useless even though he’s so intelligent, and opportunistic. I wasn’t shocked when he was made the “big bad guy,” but I didn’t have anything more than indifference for him.
I did like Dr. Manhattan for some reason. I think his constant questioning of whether or not people are worth saving at all deals with a social commentary in the same way that we saw people turning despicable when all Hell broke lose in DKR. It’s the question of whether or not we can be inherently good, I think.
With Laurie and Night Owl, I thought it was interesting that Night Owl was rendered ineffective in more areas than one unless he took on his superhero persona. Being Dan wasn’t good enough. He had to be the fan boy who could fight or he was, well…upright, and boring, and just a fan of Hollis. What you said about Laurie I agree with. She does have to jump from one place/guy to another predictably. I did think it was interesting that they, once they reached the homey couple level, decided to give being a real superhero (with guns added) before they do they whole children thing. Did anyone else see this as being beans? I see them more with the American dream, as you called it, having kids and thereby being out of the superhero game, like Hollis talked about in his diaries when Laurie’s mother had her.
Overall, Rorschach was the only character I really loved reading about. His background story, his take on things–I really enjoyed him and the nuances he had.
I think Moore’s depiction of the world is exceedingly bleak…so bleak that it leads some critics to characterize Watchmen as deeply cynical and misanthropic. Whether this dark world is too over the top or not, I think the characters fit it pretty well. Like Dark Knight, Watchmen is challenging what the medium can do, and a big part of that is testing and criticizing the idea of stereotypical superheroes. Traditionally, superheroes are designed as role models to be rooted for unquestionably in any situation. Their flaws are usually gimmicky and more endearing than anything (socially awkward Clark Kent and Peter Parker, womanizing Tony Stark, et cetera). Conversely, Moore is constantly prodding the reader, making us question whether or not we should be rooting for them at all. That ambiguity that makes us so uncomfortable is really important to the book, which is deeply concerned with our need for heroes in the first place. A big theme is the public’s questioning the existence of these vigilantes (Who Watches the Watchmen?), and in the end, half of New York is slaughtered as a result of a super hero saving the world. The point is, these people are just as complicated and screwed up as anyone else, if not more so, so we should question trusting them with our fate.
Still, despite how thematically important it is for us to closely scrutinize these people, the fact remains: a work of fiction that can’t engage us with its characters has failed in a major way. So, Lindsay, Watchmen failed for you, to a large extent. It worked for me because I found the protagonists to be psychologically complex, and their redeeming features were enough to keep them from being completely repulsive. Rorschach’s suffering at the hands of his mother, his strange and often funny relationship with Dan. John’s remorse regarding Janey Slater and his revelation that human life has value. Those details combine with the flaws you mentioned to create pretty complex characters, especially for a 1980s comic book. I find Dan particularly endearing. He’s got the bumbling thing going on, but his care for Rorschach, his naïve approach to romance, his friendship with Hollis Mason—as my fiancé would say, he’s “just a really good guy.” Admittedly, when I first read Watchmen, Laurie struck me as being pretty shallow, like the gimmicky comic book love interest. Considering how Moore handles her mother, it’s clear that the book is self conscious of the “female super hero sex icon” cliché, so I wish he’d played more on that with Laurie. But reading it again, I think her interesting relationship with her mother and her various daddy issues with the Comedian lend her adequate depth, even if she’s still not the best drawn character of the bunch.
Lindsay, it seems like a lot of your distaste for the characters stems from how they reacted to the finale. I can definitely see why it made you feel this way, but there’s an important distinction to make. Talking about John and Dan, you make it sound like they gave up and consented to Veidt’s plan; really, though, all the people had been murdered before they had a chance to do anything. I think it’s pretty clear, through what they do and say, that they both oppose the plan vehemently. But it’s too late. Moore’s real problem, in my opinion, is in rushing the explanation that revealing Veidt’s actions would undo the peace he created. This section goes by so fast that it’s hard for us as readers to accept the scenario as true, and on top of that, we don’t really get to see the characters grapple with it.
Anyway, I’m sorry that the flawed characters turned people off of the book. Nonetheless, I think it’s cool that they prodded us to scrutinize them and criticize them in such detail—I think that’s just want Moore wanted.
I’d agree with Jay that Moore doesn’t really care whether we like his characters. Whether or not we find them compelling, now that’s a different question. Arguably the nicest guy—the original Nite Owl—is barely interesting, while the most ruthless, Rorschach, seems to be more compelling and engaging for readers.
What I find worth noting in these discussions of characters is how the Comedian invariably drops out. I don’t know why that is. I’d argue, though, that he plays a central role in Watchmen, and not just as a figure whose death sets the whole book in motion….
In Rosen’s article on “Nostalgia.” Moore considered the effect of violence on the genre and concluded “‘Look, you know, get over Watchmen, get over the 1980’s.’ It doesn’t have to be depressing, miserable grimness from now until the end of time. It was only a bloody comic. It wasn’t a jail sentence.” I think he has a take it or leave it attitude by which he makes his characters as autonomous as he is.