TL;DR; trying to suggest Rorschach is not a bad guy but a complex character when he hand waves rape, victims blames rape victims and the victims of hate crimes (contextually a lesbian woman), refers to women as whores, is a fascist and really only manages to do a single heroic thing in his entire worthless existence is ridiculous. Next you’ll try to tell me Trump is a hebephile.
Great, great.
So let’s list off some things that I’ve dredged up about Rorschach, not from memory mind you — I simply started looking up what good things and what bad things Rorschach has done.
Let’s start with the bad:
As an 11 year old he writes about idolizing Harry Truman for dropping the nukes on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
He’s an avid reader of ‘The New Frontiersman’ which is revealed to be a far-right conspiracy theory and racism peddler. These are the people he leaves his journal with.
He refers to the first Silk Spectres rape as a ‘moral lapse’ by the Comedian, and I’m pretty sure it’s implied he blames her for her assault. Not only that, he likely said this because he idolizes the Comedian.
He refers to the victim of a hate crime as a ‘victim of her indecent lifestyle’ — the dude is fucking homophobic.
Killed a bunch of dogs for being fed the remains of a little girl. Fucked up, very fucked up circumstance but the fact remains — revenge on the man is one thing, revenge on the dogs is another. I don’t think they killed the little girl.
He’s a misogynist. He frequently refers to certain women as whores.
Let’s move to the good:
He punishes his idea of ‘evil’ which leads to him taking out rapists, murderers and other criminals. He likely didn’t know about the Comedians crimes, yet he definitely just doesn’t give a shit considering what I’ve already established.
He decides not to confiscate Moloch’s medication.
He decides to heroically kill himself. The single heroic thing he achieves in the story.
I cannot find more examples of him being good, and it’s hard to say ‘being heroic’ is good in this context.
So, are good guys homophobic? Are good guys misogynistic? Do they victim blame victims of rape or hate crimes? Would a good guy violently kill a bunch of dogs for being victims of their owner’s crime? Can you be a good guy and be on the far right? Do good guys handwave rape for their idols?
I’m not arguing whether he’s a good or bad character in regards to the role he plays in the full story. If the conversation were about that then you may have some footing. The question is ‘Was Rorschach a good guy or a bad guy’. He was absolutely a bad guy, despite being the protagonist and the closest thing to a ‘hero’ the story has.
I get it. You care immensely about Rorschach. But please, go actually read the thread we’re in. Go re-read our conversation.
We’re not having a conversation about Rorschach being good or evil. Only you are discussing that and you are doing it alone.
We’re having a conversation about whether or not insisting that things can only be analyzed along a “good versus evil” axis, be it implicitly as the comic engages in the fallacy, or explicitly, as you engage in the fallacy; that the insistence that things have to be analyzed along a good versus evil axis is inherently reductionist: Rorschach being good or evil isn’t a part of our conversation, in-spite of your (reductionist) efforts to make that the conversation.
The entire point was to demonstrate that you don’t have to accept reductionist framing to do media analysis. Even if the creator of that media rely on such simplistic analysis, you can reject that, and assert a more nuanced view, which I showed you by giving some analysis that didn’t rely on a simplistic good versus evil framing. Thinking of the world as “good versus evil”, especially in a piece of content as nuanced as The Watchmen, its reductionist to the point of ruining the meaning of the story. Its a framing not even worth engaging with, because those who insist on doing so are either children with no perspective, or media/ literature illiterate, or religious fanatics.
The Watchmen isn’t a fantastic piece of literature because its a battle of good versus evil; its a fantastic because it is its exactly not a battle of good versus evil, and all parts of the story evoke this theme. Its messy, and its complicated, and no one is wholly pure while no-one else is purely tainted. The Watchmen stood out as a piece of literature precisely because it broke comics out of the extraordinarily linear trope of good-versus-evil, and allowed characters to be much more like the real life, where they are flawed, but redeemable; where morality is subjective and dependent on the position of the observer.
If you insist in agreeing with the comic we’re analyzing: Its like you genuinely didn’t understand The Watchmen or why it matters as a piece of content. Because its also clear that the author of the comic also didn’t genuinely understand The Watchmen.
I’ve got 3 copies. And I’ve pirated the moving comic version.
Thanks though.
TL;DR; trying to suggest Rorschach is not a bad guy but a complex character when he hand waves rape, victims blames rape victims and the victims of hate crimes (contextually a lesbian woman), refers to women as whores, is a fascist and really only manages to do a single heroic thing in his entire worthless existence is ridiculous. Next you’ll try to tell me Trump is a hebephile.
Great, great.
So let’s list off some things that I’ve dredged up about Rorschach, not from memory mind you — I simply started looking up what good things and what bad things Rorschach has done.
Let’s start with the bad:
As an 11 year old he writes about idolizing Harry Truman for dropping the nukes on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
He’s an avid reader of ‘The New Frontiersman’ which is revealed to be a far-right conspiracy theory and racism peddler. These are the people he leaves his journal with.
He refers to the first Silk Spectres rape as a ‘moral lapse’ by the Comedian, and I’m pretty sure it’s implied he blames her for her assault. Not only that, he likely said this because he idolizes the Comedian.
He refers to the victim of a hate crime as a ‘victim of her indecent lifestyle’ — the dude is fucking homophobic.
Killed a bunch of dogs for being fed the remains of a little girl. Fucked up, very fucked up circumstance but the fact remains — revenge on the man is one thing, revenge on the dogs is another. I don’t think they killed the little girl.
He’s a misogynist. He frequently refers to certain women as whores.
Let’s move to the good:
He punishes his idea of ‘evil’ which leads to him taking out rapists, murderers and other criminals. He likely didn’t know about the Comedians crimes, yet he definitely just doesn’t give a shit considering what I’ve already established.
He decides not to confiscate Moloch’s medication.
He decides to heroically kill himself. The single heroic thing he achieves in the story.
I cannot find more examples of him being good, and it’s hard to say ‘being heroic’ is good in this context.
So, are good guys homophobic? Are good guys misogynistic? Do they victim blame victims of rape or hate crimes? Would a good guy violently kill a bunch of dogs for being victims of their owner’s crime? Can you be a good guy and be on the far right? Do good guys handwave rape for their idols?
I’m not arguing whether he’s a good or bad character in regards to the role he plays in the full story. If the conversation were about that then you may have some footing. The question is ‘Was Rorschach a good guy or a bad guy’. He was absolutely a bad guy, despite being the protagonist and the closest thing to a ‘hero’ the story has.
I get it. You care immensely about Rorschach. But please, go actually read the thread we’re in. Go re-read our conversation.
We’re not having a conversation about Rorschach being good or evil. Only you are discussing that and you are doing it alone.
We’re having a conversation about whether or not insisting that things can only be analyzed along a “good versus evil” axis, be it implicitly as the comic engages in the fallacy, or explicitly, as you engage in the fallacy; that the insistence that things have to be analyzed along a good versus evil axis is inherently reductionist: Rorschach being good or evil isn’t a part of our conversation, in-spite of your (reductionist) efforts to make that the conversation.
The entire point was to demonstrate that you don’t have to accept reductionist framing to do media analysis. Even if the creator of that media rely on such simplistic analysis, you can reject that, and assert a more nuanced view, which I showed you by giving some analysis that didn’t rely on a simplistic good versus evil framing. Thinking of the world as “good versus evil”, especially in a piece of content as nuanced as The Watchmen, its reductionist to the point of ruining the meaning of the story. Its a framing not even worth engaging with, because those who insist on doing so are either children with no perspective, or media/ literature illiterate, or religious fanatics.
The Watchmen isn’t a fantastic piece of literature because its a battle of good versus evil; its a fantastic because it is its exactly not a battle of good versus evil, and all parts of the story evoke this theme. Its messy, and its complicated, and no one is wholly pure while no-one else is purely tainted. The Watchmen stood out as a piece of literature precisely because it broke comics out of the extraordinarily linear trope of good-versus-evil, and allowed characters to be much more like the real life, where they are flawed, but redeemable; where morality is subjective and dependent on the position of the observer.
If you insist in agreeing with the comic we’re analyzing: Its like you genuinely didn’t understand The Watchmen or why it matters as a piece of content. Because its also clear that the author of the comic also didn’t genuinely understand The Watchmen.