It's a... book. Yeah, it's a book.


INTRODUCTION, COUNTERCULTURE SYMBOLS
I love Alan Moore's stories, V for Vendetta and Watchmen. I've watched both movies and read Watchmen, and I've been thinking about how the stories are similar. Both stories feature a violent ideological character who becomes a tragic figure and they themselves become idealized by young men. A similar thing happens with Fight Club. The characters are compelling and memorable, but the story is also beautiful, and the mix makes something sexy and desirable to the audience, and makes radicalism palatable. Your heroes are political martyrs, essentially. 

Though, if art reflects life, and "artists use lies to tell the truth," maybe it's not the story that changes people, but that people use stories and symbols to recognize truths in their life. If V for Vendetta had never been published, there might be a lot less Anonymous fans, but just as likely there would be another substitute for the Guy Fawkes mask, some other symbol for them. "If you take away the guns, they'll kill each other with machetes." It's not about the symbol, it's about the people and the ideas behind it that always exist in some form. (Does the media form new values, or reinforce ones we already had? Maybe both.)

Before we had Alan Moore, we had Homer and Hercules. The popular myths embody our values and teach them. Right now in the U.S. we have completely contrasting values, and I think a great example of this is the divergence in popular media. You can see the shifts in filmmaking between art films and blockbusters, between 80s films and post 9/11, post Columbus Shooting films. The stories we tell reflect us, and the audience chooses which stories are propagated, because those stories reflect that particular audience. That's a cult film. That's also mainstream Americana. Culture and values.

What do these stories reflect about their fans? Well, what are the stories about?

JUSTIFIED VIOLENCE IS A JOKE?
In Watchmen, there's a running theme of the human joke and the doomsday clock. Humanity is unable to avoid nuclear conflict and total self-destruction because of their savage nature and technological advancements. For the Comedian, a character in the book, the joke is the savage nature of humanity: even with the American Dream come true, there will still be revolts and dissatisfaction and crime, because that's what humanity does. Think of how many healthy, happy people still go to Vegas or turn to drugs to throw their life away.

"The Comedian saw it and chose to be a parody of it." All vigilantes ironically reflect the human joke -- they're government approved violence against criminals and dissidents. It begs the question of if they are really "good guys," if their violence is justified. For the Comedian, none of it is justified, and none of it matters, it's all a joke to him. He just loves violence. Ozymandias is the extreme of justified violence. He justifies his genocide as saving the human race and defeating its savage nature by providing an illusion of a common enemy, killing millions in the process. Rorschach cannot allow this to go unpunished because of his ideals, but to say that he values life is ironic considering he is a serial killer who breaks arms for hints.

It reminds me of a scene in Grosse Point Blank, where two government agents are waiting to kill an assassin until after he completes his hit. The assassin used to be a government agent, and they were given the lead by a competing hitman.

"Why don't we do *his job so we can do *our job and get the fuck out of here."

"Do his job? Do his job?! We're not assassins, we work for the U.S. government."

"Oh, Ok. So let me get this straight. If we do *his job, we're the bad guy. But if we do *our job, we're the good guys."

"Yes."
(Pause. Both laugh)

The whole thing is arbitrary. It's still murder, but one side is justified and the other is not. The justification is sourced from the government which leads to the question of where the government gets the authority to justify murder. Another quote, from the Departed: "When I was a kid, they told me you could be a cop or a criminal. What I'm saying to you now is this: when you're facing a loaded gun, what's the difference?" The vigilantes and the villains aren't so far apart. For the Comedian, the closest thing he has to a friend is his archenemy.

When the government stops allowing vigilantes to punish criminals it displays the difference in their character. for Silk Specter and Night Owl, they stop. Even though they still believe in punishing criminals (even just for dopamine), they need the justification and support from the government. Whereas Rorschach continues by himself, even against the government and police officers. His internal justification is stronger than his respect for law or authority, making he himself one of the criminals he kills.

IDEAS AREN'T BULLETPROOF, THEY'RE WORTH KILLING FOR
V and the vigilantes are all idealistic, and their ideals and hopes for a better world drive them to kill, maim and murder. Their ideals justify their violence, and their cynicism requires them to do violence, because they believe there is no other way to progress. If they were not idealistic or optimistic in their belief that they can change the world through their actions (as in violence), they would not act at all. That's the difference between Night Owl and Rorschach and all the retired vigilantes: Rorschach still believes that he can make a change. Even if he believes the world is completely rotten, he continues to fight. If he were to stop fighting and accept the decay he sees around him, he would be just as guilty.

For V, initially it was hate and a desire for vengeance that drove him, but then he claims to have found a higher purpose, stronger even than the will to survive. That's his idealism of freedom and changing the country. But his practice is to kill Parliament, blow up a building, and overthrow the government. And of course, it was hate that drove V at first from the injustice that was done to him, which was transmutated into a lofty sense of purpose. His idealism could still be founded on animalistic hate, disguised as something more refined.

His story is also a tragedy, because the very circumstances and character traits that make him who he is eventually draw him to Evey, and then to his own death. Given the chance to choose life, he chooses vengeance, and chooses to be Mercedes and the monster. He rejects life for his idealism, which is what we classically find admirable in our heroes, but something terrible and tragic here. Rorschach chooses the same path. He could never have chosen otherwise and avoided his death, because he was the one who lived the quote: "Never give in, not even in the face of Armageddon." They were men who believed in their causes enough to die for them, men of conviction who were martyrs. 

It might be called lunacy, but think of how many so-called "great men" had similar temperaments. We love outstanding devotion in our myths.

So, I guess the question is, do the ends justify the means? When is violence justified? Are these ideologues justified in their violent struggle for a better world? Or are we better off meekly accepting our fate?

THE COMEDIAN
If Rorschach is the character we follow in the Watchmen, the Comedian is the ghost. The Comedian convinces Ozymandias to turn to genocide as a solution, reveals to Dr. Manhattan that he is losing touch with humanity, investigates Ozymandias first and then is killed which leads Rorschach to begin his investigation, and is the father of the Silk Specter who in turn convinces Dr. Manhattan to return to Earth through the contradiction of her conception and the beauty of her existence. 

That scene is amazing by the way. She herself is the proof of life for him, but he fails to see the thermodynamic miracle in front of his eyes, until he does and it brings his whole crystal palace down. I didn't understand this scene until I rewatched it, so while the Watchmen is a tragedy for Rorschach, it is a comedy for the Specter and Night Owl in the continuance of life and even Dr. Manhattan goes to create life somewhere else. The Specter even reconnects with her mother. The message is the value of life that we fight for even in a lie and in pointlessness, even when your father was a rapist.

One final note: The very front cover is the Comedian's button, a cartoon smile of innocence smeared with blood that symbolizes his jaded views and sarcastic smile. But it's the Comedian who drops it, Rorschach who picks it up, and passes it on to Night Owl, just like the Comedian discovers the conspiracy, passes it to Rorschach, who then is survived by the Night Owl. I know that delusional idiots love to invent meaningful coincidences like this, but hey, "I don't believe in coincidences anymore." On my first read through I basically ignored the Comedian, but even though he's dead from the very beginning he's a catalyst for a lot of the action.

WOULD YOU?
The big ethical question at the end is: If someone founded peace based on a lie and the murder of millions, if you tell the truth, then those deaths will be for nothing. In Watchmen, we get to see how the vigilantes react to the dilemma, but since Rorschach left his journal and evidence with a magazine, it becomes the magazine's decision whether to publish the truth. The story ends there on a cliffhanger, though it's likely they'll publish it just for the money. For V, like Rorschach, the perpetrators have to be punished, but he kills them in secret and never spreads the truth of the disease, that question is left to a detective.

I think Alan Moore is communicating that the truth is dangerous, but ultimately he leaves the choice to the people and to average citizens. It's our choice whether to believe the lies and conform to tranquility or shatter the peace with the truth. Government will go to any lengths to secure peace and idealogues will go to any lengths for truth and justice. It's good 'ol Rebels versus Authority.

Somehow I glossed over the ending of V for Vendetta: blowing up Parliament is a choice he leaves to Evey, to someone else. He leaves his entire lifetime's work to someone else to decide. And when Detective Finch arrives, he also chooses to allow the bombing to go through. While Moore's revolutionaries are the dramatic expression of their idealism, our choices as citizens are equally important.

CONCLUSION
If there's a conclusion, it's to believe in something. People who believe are dangerous, and symbols are their weapons.

"Any citizen who refuses to partake in revolution (on either side) will be disenfranchised." - Solon's Laws

ALLURE OF VIOLENCE

Guys like these characters because their violence is justified. In civilization, appreciating raw violence is unacceptable and monstrous, so we're allowed to like violence when it's the good guy kicking ass. 

Violence is nowhere and everywhere. You're not allowed to start fights in school, but we should bomb Israel. You shouldn't support violence in movies, except John Wick is totally cool. It's conflicting and confusing -- violence is sexy, but also immoral.

Violence is the ultimate competition. The strong victor lives, the weak loser dies. Guys want to be the winner. Young, insecure, unaccomplished, poor, depressed males have a deep desire to achieve but no (perceivable) method for accomplishment. Violence is the ultimate competition, and through violent heroes we can experience victory by proxy and express frustration with the world.

Guys inherently want to prove themselves but the desire is repressed. The repressed desire and myth of "toxic masculinity" generates anxiety, frustration, depression, and a desire for purpose. This desire for purpose leads them to identify with radical ideologies and thus, violent ideological heroes. (Fight Club)

 Who are they proving themselves to? Women. Biological insecurity and need to reproduce (The Departed, Ghost in the Shell), a dirty little truth we like to call "love." But it's funny... the hero gets the girl, doesn't he? Usually by proving himself somehow with violence, or preventing it! Love and violence are two of the most dramatic human experiences, are they not? The completion of the story is stopping the bad guy, getting married, having kids. Except this narrative has been completely upturned, destroyed, annihilated! The happy ending is impossible! Divorce, materialism, nihilism, cynicism, violence, drugs, affairs, infant death, organized crime -- so we return to antiheroes.

Right now, there's a large number of these people. Disconnected from reality and achievement and confidence. Poor whites have an especially hard time in a liberal climate that hates whites and loves minorities, and hates men and loves women. So when you live in the cross section of prime enemy material, some of them become Taters, or Marxists, or Trannies, or whatevadafuck. My issue with this is that they rely on an external source of purpose instead of an internal sense of purpose. 

Overall, it seems to be compensation for insecurity. Male (human?) need for accomplishment and reproduction.

Repressed violence is an issue when you want to do violence, but now can't name the issue or find the outlet.

It's fine, needs have to be met. As long as you know what you need and are getting it in a safe way, great. If you find a way to not need it anymore, cool. But now you have been informed.