/lit/ - Literature

>>18508378
Sorry, Jew. This is a Watchmen thread now.
>>18510813
>>18508571
Manhattan is the Superman as the Superman. Power beyond that of mortal man. But his phenomenal power divorces him from common man, to the point where he's entirely trapped within his own fate. Thus, he fails, even on his own metrics.

The Comedian is superhero as government agent, a man who just takes orders and thus becomes a monster. But even a monster has his limits, and when faced with Armageddon, he can't follow through and he dies without understanding, unable to laugh at the final punchline.

Dan's the superhero as everyman, the spidey style Superhero Who Could Be You. And since he's a regular schlub with erectile dysfunction, when the stakes get big enough, he has no idea what to do with himself. Thus he and Laurie just drop out.

And Ozy? The superhero as the overman, the one who has reached the limitations of humanity, and therefore, a man cut off from his peers and the common rules, driven only by the ends. Which means, of course, that if the ends fail (which they might), he has nothing. The smartest man on the cinder.

Rorschach, though, is different. He's the uncompromising hero, the one with a strict moral code that others may not understand (Like approving of Hiroshima while disdaining Ozy's similar solution), but that he can't ever step away from. There's no wavering on that point. It's fixed like the stars.

And in the end, when following his code means his own death or the end of the world? Well. That's just how it has to be. He's an unpleasant, smelly, miserable human being with no understanding of mercy, but he was at least able to stand by his beliefs to the end. The biggest failure as a human being was the only one who didn't fail in following his beliefs to their conclusion.

Their grim, horrifying, tragic, and probably futile conclusion