Reminds me of how he wrote Rorschach as a unimaginably far right-wing objectivist/nationalist take on Steve Ditko characters (e.g. The Question), and when critics hailed the character as the greatest Watchmen character, Moore declared the book a failure of art.
when critics hailed the character as the greatest Watchmen character, Moore declared the book a failure of art.
“noooo you’re supposed to have contempt for the lumpenprole underdog”
Yes, they love him because he’s lumpenprole and not because he’s a savage vigilante butcher or anything
They like him because he’s basically the protagonist for most of the series. He’s the guy with a goal that he’s pursuing and it turns out his investigation isn’t insane, it’s bang on the money. Maybe it’s just that I’m living in a post-Dexter world, but it just seems so quaint that Moore thinks that Rorschach’s flaws were going to turn people off.
Even the whole “he smells and doesn’t have a girlfriend” doesn’t really make a lot of sense - those are ascetic values that most societies are trained to respect, at least on an abstract level.
I mean, you’re supposed to not praise him as an actual hero, since he spends the entire book harassing, assaulting, and looking down on working class and poor folks for no reason other than they are poor and not “American” while simultaneously hating himself and his upbringing for not being fascist/nationalist enough and not being rich like Ozymandias.
The final scene in the book gives Rorschach a patina of virtue that the other heroes lack. I think this was Moore’s ultimate fuck-up. He presented Rorschach as uncompromisingly stubborn in the face of a horrifying conspiracy to commit mass murder, and that gave him the appearance of “the last good cop” rather than “belligerent asshole who can’t admit he’s lost”.
The HBO show does a lot to castigate Rorschach as bad based on his racist legacy, rather than his stubborn personality. Mirror Mask ends up being the Rorschach that Rorschach should have been, while the cult of personality he leaves behind is exposed as equally genocidal.
Yeah, that’s a good point about Rorschach at the end; had he just shrugged his shoulders and said that it was for the best, it would have been a better show of how he views the necessity of genocidal actions if they lead to his wanted outcomes.
Would have been funny if he had asked Ozymandias why he didn’t just kill all the brown and communist people.
Also, interesting info about the show, haven’t watched it, maybe I should…
now do Iron Man
