[ SECRET POST #3824 ]

[case]

⌈ Secret Post #3824 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

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[BoJack Horseman]


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06.
[Horizon Zero Dawn]


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09. [WARNING for possible discussion of harassment/sexual assault?]



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10. [WARNING for discussion of rape]

(Bill Cosby and Keshia Knight Pulliam)


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11. [WARNING for discussion of harassment/cyberbulling, abortion, child sexual abuse]















Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 00 pages, 00 secrets from Secret Submission Post #547.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 1 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Comments

[(Anonymous)]

Now this argument promises to be much more fun: I think Rorschach might be the closest thing to a hero in watchmen. He's the one unbending character. Didn't do the heroe thing to get a hard-on, or because his mother told him to do it, or because it gave him a chance to kill people. He's veiw or right and wrong was bent, but he stuck to it in a way that only true heroes and true villains do.

Like.... it may be true that he's the "closest" thing to a hero, in some extremely tortured sense. I don't think that there's anyone I would argue is more of a hero. And it's certainly true that there's some dignity in sticking to a clear set of ethics.

But I think he's still so far away from being a hero that it's inaccurate to call him one. And, more broadly, I think part of the point of Watchmen is a sustained critique of the ideas of power and heroism as they exist in superhero comics, from top to bottom, and Rorschach is as much implicated in that as any other character - Dan's lack of moral clarity, Ozymandias' moral monstrousness and ultimate futility, Comedian's complete callous monstrosity, Doctor Manhattan's detachment from human perspectives, and then you have Rorschach, who is brutal and insane and accomplishes nothing.

Specifically with regards to Rorschach as a character, I think it's important to note, first, that Alan Moore probably would not agree with the idea that consistently sticking to an abstract code of ethics is actually good, and would certainly disagree with the actual code of ethics that Rorschach endorses. Second, I think it's important to point out that Rorschach's code of ethics and his commitment to it are both very closely tied up with the fact that he is, you know, a vicious sociopath with profound emotional issues. Third, I think it's important to note that Rorschach's moral commitment is ultimately as meaningless as Dan's moral acquiescence. So that would be my response to the idea that Rorschach is in any sense the hero of Watchmen.

Please note that I haven't read the book in a couple years, so some of the details might be slightly off, but I think I would stand by all of the broad strokes there.

[thewakokid]

Well, the way I see it the whole thing is supposed to be a twisted funhouse mirror of the super hero genre, and as such, identifying the hero who has been twisted to resemble a villian, and identifying the villian who has been twisted to appear heroic is the hardest part. Looking a their motivations and actions, we either have Rorschach or Adrien as the hero / Villain. For me, I'm trying to see, once the funhouse mirror is taken away which one would be the hero, and I come out with Rorschach, who, btw, didn't start out as a psychopath. He started out damaged, but became fully broken. If he was working in DC main universe he would never have fallen as far as he did. but going through Moores lense on the superhero genre, along with all the child rape and murder that goes with that turned him into the lunatic he became.

I suppose in any other universe rorschach as he's written would be a clear anti-hero, and by the measure of our world he's not very much of a hero at all, but in the context of his own universe he is a hero.

Like batman, if he existed in out world, would be a villian by any stretch, but the nature of the world he is in makes him a heroe.

I agree about his commitment being useless, but isn't that what heroes do? The do the right thing, as they see it, even if it won't achieve anything?

[(Anonymous)]

I think the idea about the funhouse mirror is interesting, but I'm just don't think I agree. Ultimately, I don't think Moore is inverting the values of the superhero genre, so much as he's dismantling them, to the point that no character is a hero. I think Ozymandias and Rorschach are diametrically opposed in interesting ways, but that doesn't mean that one's the hero and one's the villain - rather, I think it means that they're both equally figures incapable of being heroes in the true superheroic sense. After all, in a sense, Ozymandias is also doing what heroes do - he's saving the day. In a ghastly and transformed sense, of course, but the same could be said of Rorschach.

I agree about his commitment being useless, but isn't that what heroes do? The do the right thing, as they see it, even if it won't achieve anything?

I don't agree with this, and I definitely don't think that Alan Moore agrees with it at all. I think he would point out - and arguably he does point out - that there's actually something kind of horrific about someone consistently sticking to a brutal and evil set of ethics. And there's something kind of horrific about Rorschach in exactly that sense - I mean, he's basically right next door to being a serial killer. So it's an interesting idea, but really not what the book is endorsing, I think.

And of course, Ozymandias follows the same logic in exactly the opposite direction - he tries to act for the greater good so much that he does this profoundly monstrous thing. So both extremes of the scale are, in a sense, equally condemned by Moore - which points to the idea that it's a negation, not an inversion, of the superhero genre.

ManWatchmen rules I need to reread it

[thewakokid]

Watchmen does rule. Hell, however I feel about moore (spoiler: I do not care for him as a person) the man has written some of the best graphic novel stories of all time.

So, if you consider both Ozzy and Rory to be duel villian on each end of the scale, would that mean that the hero is the character who is the least driven? Would that make Manhattan the hero? being the center point to the extremists? It fits, being the only one with super powers in a story that's twisting the SUPER hero genre.

[(Anonymous)]

I don't think anyone is the hero. I think there are no heroes in the world of Watchmen, and I think that's basically the point. They're all, in their own ways, completely incapable of being heroes - they can't play the role as it's conceived in the superhero drama. Doc Manhattan definitely can't - to be so beyond the human scale that you lose all relation to it, that's not heroism.

The one character I haven't really thought through is Laurie, and I don't remember exactly the tone of her ending off the top of my head, so I don't want to make any definitive statement there about that. But in general, I don't think any of the characters in Watchmen succeed in heroic terms.