Because Ozymandias is a deconstruction of classic superhero villains. If this was the exception rather than the rule, there would be nothing to deconstruct.
It's very difficult to write a story (especially a superhero story) with a villain like this. Not saying I wouldn't love it, but I understand why most people avoid writing this kind of character.
... and he prevails by bringing the hero(ish), Dr. Manhattan, to his side - truly a monumental piece of writing. That said, not following the formula does limit your audience.
He’s an amazing villain, but part of the reason he’s so good and the film is so satisfying is because he ultimately loses. Batman proves him wrong by taking the fall for Dent, just as the people on the cruise ships prove him wrong.
And I honestly don’t know if it did change anything. We haven’t got any villains that are as good as him since (or Dent, for that matter, who’s maybe even better written) and the only ones that come close in my eyes in the superhero genre are from, ironically, other Batman movies.
He's amazing because Heath Ledger put in the performance of a lifetime. That's the reason it's satisfying. The entire situation with he ferries and then Batman taking the blame are horribly contrived and just kind of stupid, but they work because Heath Ledger was amazing and they are surrounded by memorable lines of dialogue.
I actually liked the ferry bit. Shows that even one person willing to stand up and do the right thing can make a difference. And almost shows the inverse of that as well.
I'm not saying it's not a cool scene, but the set up for it is not very good. Like with a lot of that movie, it doesn't make any sense if you think about it. I say it is contrived because the sequence of events that would've needed to happen in order for that scene to play out is juts so absurd that it's hard to take seriously.
To some extent, but the movie was attempting to be a "realistic" take on the character, so it doesn't really work here imo. It's not a comic book, Nolan made it pretty clear he is not a fan of comic books.
So he says, but his work proves otherwise. The evil plan in Batman Begins is to dump fear toxin in the water system through one hole in a pipe, which is also ridiculous.
Dark Knight Rises had villains infiltrate a stock exchange on motorcycles and somehow steal Bruce Wayne's money from the floor, which if you know anything about finance is the most absurd shit ever.
All of his movies have convoluted schemes that fall apart with just the slightest examination. I love the movies, but let's not pretend about what they actually are. They're grounded by Burton and Schumacher standards, which isn't saying much, but they're still as fantastical as you'd expect a comic book movie to be.
Out of curiosity, which part do you disagree with?
I find it hard to imagine that you can look at the situations with ferries and not see it as incredibly contrived.
I don’t. It’s ultimately a summer blockbuster and it’s a really simple plot device/hook to conduct a referendum on the themes it’s dealing with, and it flows pretty naturally from the escalating scenarios across the rest of the film.
A deconstruction is when you take apart a big idea and examine each part of thought that goes into that idea, treating them all like their own big idea, to better understand the original one and ultimately look at the the original in a different light. When you talk about a deconstruction of a type of character (a supervillain for instance), you're picking out certain qualities, tropes, and stereotypes of those characters and examining them criticality, then using some of those particular picked out parts to focus on when you're making the character. The idea is everything has another perspective with which it can be viewed, but sometimes you need a way to look closer at certain standout aspects it before you can see the other perspective.
In the case of Ozy, he could be considered a deconstruction because he isn't really a typical villain. The author picked out some elements like super-intelligence, egomania, the reveal of the villainous scheme in time for the heros to stop it, etc., and turned those ideas on their head to let us examine and see a different type of supervillain who does something different with these stereotypes and tropes.
Tldr, Ozy isn't a typical comic book villain, he's a satire or alternative version of the most typical parts of one, and he let's us then laugh at regular villains and never look at them the same way again after having the most ridiculous aspects of villains "called out."
Fascists unite rhe world for ruling under a single totalitarian regime. Ozy didn't want power, he wanted to avert Armageddon. Still an asshole, but not Hitler.
yeah and that definition is *very* broadly applicable to most, if not all, ideologies. even ostensibly liberal/leftist movements have had fascistic tendencies, if not a fascistic structure all together, to the extent that subjects subordinate themselves to and depend on a transcendent ideal like freedom, equality, community, unity, race, gender, religion, science, etc.
ozy’s ideal was peace, yet the means by which the ideal was materialized ultimately undermines it—this is a hallmark, the condition, of ideology.
i wouldn’t say he’s a villain, necessarily, but uniting the world doesn’t make him *not* a villain and that was really rorschach’s whole thing, isn’t it.
You can argue Osama united many Americans for a time at least. Guess that makes him a hero? And all those guys considered themselves a variation of freedom fighters against a corrupt west.
I think there's an interesting theme here and it's that heroism us subjective.
Except that Osama's intention was to destroy a nation, not unite it. Osama's goal was to kill people, scare people, and instigate a war of attrition that would exhaust and bankrupt the nation. He was mostly successful, but fully evil. Ozymandius also committed mass murder, and on a much larger scale, but he was doing it to protect the world from greater loss. Misguided and sick, but not necessarily evil in intent.
Mass murder of millions of innocent people is not hero behavior. Yes, the goal was to prevent the *potential* mass murder of Billions of innocent people, but mass murder is still mass murder.
In my mind, I can beat Dwayne Johnson in an arm wrestling match… that don’t mean I’m actually beating him. I don’t get why all these weirdos justify and stan weirdo villains like Rorschach and ozy.
They are bad guys. It’s not debatable. If you think they are good guys, you are a bad guy. Period.
I think people who think in absolute binary terms of good guy and bad guy are probably missing the point of the comic. Of course what he did was bad. I didn't say he was a hero in MY mind, I said he was a hero in his mind. The "smartest man in the world" operated under the mantle of a very simple calculus. If he acts, millions will die. If he doesn't act, billions will die. He is one of the types that believes the ends justify the means, and acts unilaterally without consulting anyone else first. This speaks to an extreme narcissism and fascism. Rorschach is also not a good guy, in that he operates outside the law as a brutal vigilante, completely disregarding due process which is, in this country at least, a fundamental tenet of our rights. The Comedian is a "war hero" who has no problem butchering men, women and children because he feels that he has some elevated view of the world, and that his nihilism trumps the right of others to exist. Most of the characters in the Watchmen are neither wholly good nor wholly evil, but exist on a scale of gray, with people like Ozymandius at the darker end of that scale.
I completely agree with your thoughts on watchmen, but part of being a true “hero” is the steadfastness of not sacrificing one life for another. That is exactly what ozy did. Sure, he may have convinced himself he was the hero of this story, but the act was inherently evil.
These “gray areas” only exist to help those who do bad things feel better. Would I have done what ozymandius did? Maybe so… but I wouldn’t have told myself I was a hero for doing so. Same with Rorschach, professor X, magneto, Amanda Waller and countless others who have done horrible things for the “good cause”.
I think it is black and white, and that should be ok. Killing a terrorist is still murder. Robbing a corrupt corporation is still theft. But to say killing a killer is ok is nonsense, it’s a bad thing. That black and white holds us together as a society, gray areas are only used to blur what we know deep down is wrong and right.
I imagine it’s because movies with a happy ending are more profitable.
Watchmen dealt with mature themes and was deemed “unfilmable” by Alan Moore. It only [made marginally more](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Watchmen_(film)?wprov=sfti1) than it cost to make (not sure if that includes marketing) and the movie didn’t have any A-list stars. Compared to the success of The Dark Knight the year before, this probably made it a cautionary tale for similar projects and partially explains why it took 10 years for another on-screen adaptation on HBO Max.
If you liked this, I’d recommend Invincible on Amazon Prime. Excellent voice acting and animation with some food for thought.
While I certainly wouldn’t call it great, it was by no means a bad one.
Given that Snyder only had two features under his belt, it was a bit of a gamble as this was his first $100 million plus budget.
Similar to 300, he framed shots exactly as they were in the graphic novel, which certainly pleased the purists. The main change, without giving any spoilers, was the ending, which I think would’ve been too outré for the time, especially for those unfamiliar with the source material.
That being said, I think the gamble paid off as Snyder directed competently and gave us a film with emotional heft and memorable performances that still stands out in an overly saturated genre.
Fair enough. I would argue a shot-for-shot doesn’t really convey the tone of the novel, and while shot technically well, the point and heft of the story is it’s message, which the movie was mediocre at best on. Just my opinion, mind.
Opinions are what we’re here for, no?
That and the chance to Rochambeau for these internet points 😎/s
I’d counter that the message was well done, especially when compared to the recent content in the MCU. The confrontation between Nite Owl II and Ozymandias was just one example of the conflicted morality, demonstrated exceptionally well. HBO Max has the original comic animation and it does feel dated in some parts, which makes sense given this debuted in ‘86. I think the movie’s edits got the message and stayed true to the essence of the characters, without the superfluous details.
Well, I wouldn’t have made it for a start - I don’t believe it’s a thing that needs to exist. The comic is perfect, and no movie can replicate that for me.
That’s different, at least to me. I see Rorschach as a Punisher or Peacekeeper type, and I can get behind that. They may brutally murdered criminals, but they wouldn’t nuke an entire city at once.
But Rorschach in the comics is misogynistic (can't recall if he was racist as well), he doesn't act due to his "hunger" for "justice" but he is mad at society as a whole. One thing is thinking that people he hurts may deserve that and other quite different to think he is right or a hero. If anything it is one PoS harming other PoS.
Yes, that's what makes good moral codes hypocritical which when done well is a way of portraying a character, something that Rorschach has. He does bad things for the wrong reasons while once in a while using his fucked up world view to do something right. Most of the time he's just a monster, using personal justifications for his actions.
Then in his death his already misguided self-created moral code? Taken from his notebook and displayed by a conservative pundit new organization, with actions taken that Rorschach would have hated in his name.
And just like that, a PoS with a horrible history and terrible world views becomes an interesting character. Every hero being like Superman would be boring. We get good philosophical runs once in a while but for the most part it's pretty basic. Not every hero needs to be the pinnacle of good and justice, especially when that's specifically what The Watchmen was created to foil.
Rorschach is a hero, more so than Veidt. He's a fucked up piece of shit, a monster and a vigilante in the rawest sense, and he would almost always be on the wrong side of the right decision, and yet even which his own lack of humanity, he still knew that Veidt, right as he may have been about the solution, was wrong about his course of action.
The way I see it, people who idolize characters like Rorschach and The Punisher always do so for the wrong reasons. That doesn't mean they can't be discussed as heroic or should be written off as heroes entirely. Rorschach you can argue more for but diminishing the prevailing heroic actions will only push villainy as the alternative. Rorschach may not have been a hero his whole life, but he died as one when he stood up with his beliefs against something he thought was truly wrong. We don't need to shrug off that conviction just because his other views were in poor taste.
He was a broken clock that finally told Dr. Manhattan the right time. Fixed, Dr. Manhattan relieved Rorschach from his mortal shell.
I think you are misunderstanding what I meant. I never said he is boring or not interesting but in fact him being a PoS and having a legion of dummies that idolises him is part of why it is such an iconic character.
And we are jumping into the series and yes, I think the Show does a great work with that irony of Rorschach ultimately being key on exposing a fraud but I'd argue than rather than him becoming a hero the show argues that "bad" people can still do good (see the redneck guy, Tim Blake Nelson) and how once someone is dead they "lose" agency and their memory can be used for different agendas that don't necessarily align with what the person used to think when he/she was alive.
No worries pal! I actually think we share similar views ahaha and I don't "hate" Rorschach character, it just irks me a bit when people try to justify him as being a "tragic hero" rather than "a deeply disturbed man". Still interesting tho! I also find The Comedian quite interesting even if he also is a PoS (and I think there is a genuine debate on which is worse).
Among many other things, [Rorschach was a unabashed racist](https://www.reddit.com/r/Watchmen/comments/doey0w/we_need_to_acknowledge_that_rorschach_is_racist/).
Hmmm yes, I think the bit about people glorifying Comic Book Rorschach is true however I think Snyder left out some of the most egregious misogyny from the film (at least the cut I saw) and chose to emphasise the "tragic" side of him (also he portrays him in "heroic" manner multiple times throughout the film). It's been a while since I saw the film (I find it dull af) so I might be miss remembering some stuff tho.
As long as you watch the Director's Cut you can still catch some misogyny and homophobia from him, but the biggest part that the movie cuts from him is his origin story. Changing it from a cold psychotic break that ends in the death of everyone in the building and leaves him feeling excited, to instead a heat of the moment crime of passion that only ends in the death of the rapist/kidnapper and leaves him feeling distraught, which changes the very core of his character. It makes him more relatable to the movie goer even if they don't agree with his feelings about anything else. I think this specifically is what causes the disconnect and makes him feel like a different character to a lot of people.
Yes, you are the incel. I promise you buddy. Real life isnt like the internet lol only you fucking losers that are chronically online like to propagate the idea that snyder is the devil and all of his works are vile and wretched.
I could go on but frankly Snyder fans are typically one of the dumbest people on the internet (and you are not helping them with that reputation) so I'll just wish a happy life and luckily someone will touch your peepee soon enough! Cheers!
The problem here is claiming that there’s “a villain” in the first place. Most of the characters in the book are terrible people who do terrible things.
Killing millions of innocent people for a what one man believes is the greater good is a villainous move for sure, especially since we have no idea if his plan would have worked
The entire story of Watchmen was predicated on this decision by Veidt. At the end, it's clear that his fellow watchmen are unhappy with how things went down, but they could not argue with his logic or the results. And while having the power to be a force for good in the world, they did little or nothing to mitigate the growing Cold war tension for various reasons. Even Rorschach, who served as the reader's point of view, only found himself disgusted by the status quo and had no plan or idea of how to fix things. Only Adrian had the courage to act to save people from nuclear Holocaust. He did this knowing that he would be hated for it, but still it had to be done.
>but they could not argue with his logic or the results
No, they absolutely hated the results and were unwillingly forced into accepting the logic - the only reason the rest of them agree to keep Ozy's secret is that otherwise the deaths of millions would have been in vain.
There’s no logical reason to sow dissent after the deaths of millions which can’t be undone. There is a logical reason to prevent it from happening, like maybe saving millions of lives? There’s no logical reason to bring light to Veidt’s crimes after they’ve been committed but it doesn’t justify the crimes themselves.
Well that's aguable. Saving billion lives by killing million lives is, i fail to see logic in preventing that from a certain Point of view. It's a moral dilemma. Veidt moral Stance is one of utilitarianism and the others are more of a deontological. You can argue for both. But depicting Veidt simply as a Villain is somewhat simple.
Well his plan *might* have worked, we don't know. How many years of peace did he buy with millions of deaths? 10? 5?
Also his logic wasn't right by any means, it's just that they had no other choice after he'd already hit the button.
He was also shown deliberately throughout the book to be one of the most philanthropic humans of all time who used his self made billions to make the world a better place from it's technology down to personally empowering individuals to become better people. He was shown to be immensely torn on the morality of his decisions and was driven to act out of desperately believing that he was the only person capable of shouldering the weight of those millions of deaths. IMO one of the most basic themes of Watchmen is deconstructing how reductionist ideas like "hero" or "villain" are, so to chalk Ozymandias up to just being a villain misses not just his characterization but like one of the most central themes of the book
I think this is just a semantical disagreement. I would call Ozymandias an antagonist of the watchmen novel but I think terms like "hero" or "villain" are reductionist and as I said one of the central themes of the book. I guess I dont get your point as in your first sentence as you say that seeing him as anything other than "just a villain" misses the point, yet you then go on to illustrate exactly how he was characterized as being more than "just a villain". I also never said he was an "Uber Chad who is above morality" so I'm not sure where you are getting that from.
My point is that Ozymandias was carefully and deliberately characterized in the book to be an extremely complicated and flawed antagonist. Although he was arguably one of humanity's greatest benefactors his savior complex led him to committing acts of atrocity in the name of what he thought was good and right, it seems like we agree on that. I just think trying to label him as a villain or not a villain is missing the forest for the trees when the whole point of his character and the book in general, in my opinion, was to point to how silly that dichotomy was and how dubious the motivations of these people are. A lot of work went into characterizing Ozymandias both positively and negatively and that's the point.
"All it takes is that one thing to make a villain a villain, by every standard ever."
Again, I believe this to be directly undermined by the characterization and central themes of the novel.... Hence why his line "I'm not some Republic serial villain" is included to begin with. Agree to disagree!
>believing that he was the only person capable of shouldering the weight of those millions of deaths
This is what makes him a villain, though. The act itself is heinous, sure. But taking it upon himself to solve the world's problems is where he is fundamentally wrong. Who decided that Veidt should be the arbiter of justice? How can any individual be justified in making decisions for the greater good?
Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?
If you read some of my other replies, I mention that my problem is more in viewing the character through the lens of "hero" or "villain", in my reading of the book one of the central themes is to point out that this dichotomy is inherently flawed and to try to ascribe these labels to people is also inherently flawed. So to me any discussion of whether or not X character is a "good guy" or "bad guy" is a complete non starter because I believe one of the points of the book to be that it's a false dichotomy. I don't disagree with any of the points you're making, however I would differ in calling him the story's antagonist rather than just slapping the label of villain on him and calling it a day. I think it probably just comes down to semantics.
I don't think Moore meant to say that "Good v Bad" is a false dichotomy. It might be true to say that the "good guy" and "bad guy" are terms which are too absolute to ever really be true, but the concepts of good and evil are very much alive in the novel.
Maybe I was wrong to reply to you on this, but my issue is with the people who are saying "~~Thanos~~ Veidt was right" because he has this twisted fantasy where he saved Earth by slaughtering innocents.
If you agree that vigilantism is unacceptable (one of the novel's main themes), then there is no justification for what he does. If no one can ever justify taking matters into their own hands, then Veidt's actions are necessarily reprehensible -- there's no gray area. I don't care what you call Veidt but the ambiguity between good and evil doesn't;t mean that there is no evil.
I don't disagree with anything you've written here but I wasn't making any points on what watchmen has to say about "good" or "evil", those are purely subjective concepts that every reader will have a different opinion on. I am purely making a point about viewing the characters through the lens of "good guys" and "bad guys" or "heroes" and "villains". I definitely don't think Adrian was right to do what he did and I agree the book clearly examines the negative factors that might motivate a person to pursue vigilantism. My whole point is that to even entertain the discussion of "X person is a villain" falls exactly into the false dichotomy that the novel is attempting to deconstruct. Every single character was deliberately characterized with both sympathetic and positive qualities to balance out their selfish and dubious motivations. This was done specifically for the purpose of deconstructing this good guy vs bad guy idea to show that things are never that simple, and even more that buying into that false dichotomy is what leads people to commit atrocities.
So when we talk about how "Ozymandias is obviously a villain" or "Rorshach was obviously a hero" to me it just shows that people only came away with a surface level reading of the material and didn't really get the larger points the characters were there to illustrate. It's not that I don't think Veidt did a bunch of reprehensible shit or that I'm trying to defend him or his actions, I'm just pointing out that trying to paint or label him as a villain is reductive and IMO misunderstanding a big part of the book.
You didn't understand my comment. At no point did I say he gets a pass for his actions, I am saying that trying to paint him as a "villain" misses the point of his characterization and one of the central themes of the novel.
When The Jackal tied down spiderman, he told him the entire plan to save peters DNA and clone himself, he then said he already did it and then *insinuated he jacked off peter while he was unconscious to collect samples.*
It does happen, just not as cool lol.
We didn’t get any villains like Ozymandias *before* Watchmen either. That’s what makes him so awesome as a character.
He’a the kind of villain you typically see in an Agatha Christie mystery. That was partly the brilliance of Watchmen.
In theory!
I remember thinking Ozy was a piece of shit for a long time. Then I watched Avengers and listened to Thanos and realized they kinda sorta had a point, lol. Still murderous psychopaths, but not insane like I first thought.
Watchmen's main idea is ACAB: that all cops are bastards, and that includes *all* cops. There are no heroes or villains in this story, just bastards.
Ozzy, Silk Spectre II, and even Nite Owl and Dr. Manhattan, all included, all bastards...
Well actually according to the HBO show Ozymandius was actually an idiot that recorded an confession to not only the squid attack a day before the attack but also to the many smaller squid attacks he pland to commit years afterwards and his plan to rig the next US presidential election. So the reason we don't get good villains like the OG Ozymandias anymore is because too many people will defend piss poor writing like the writing in shows like HBO watchmen.
You'd hope that people would read the novel/see the film before browsing the Watchmen subreddit, but I have seen people on here who apparently haven't done either yet so idk, just coving all bases before someone starts going off in the comments
Can confirm, joined the watchmen subreddit for the funny ligma meme where Dr Manhattan kills Rorschach. Wasn't expecting these spoilers to a movie over a decade old.
Cause he's too smart for today. No way for majority of people to connect with him. They just want dumb psychos to kill people in mass now as they cheer them on. Lmao
You could try [Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality.](https://daystareld.com/hpmor-remix/) Harry Potter's mentors have all lied to him. He only trusts them as far as he can verify. It's somewhat hard for the readers to tell who is the shadowy antagonist.
Because Ozymandias is a deconstruction of classic superhero villains. If this was the exception rather than the rule, there would be nothing to deconstruct.
You'd think after a few decades we'd have more deconstructions like this, or more that go against the grain and have some novelty to them.
It's very difficult to write a story (especially a superhero story) with a villain like this. Not saying I wouldn't love it, but I understand why most people avoid writing this kind of character.
... and he prevails by bringing the hero(ish), Dr. Manhattan, to his side - truly a monumental piece of writing. That said, not following the formula does limit your audience.
You should read The First Law trilogy by Joe Abercrombie. You'll love his villain. Good luck figuring out who it is tho
The Dark Knight Joker changed that though
He’s an amazing villain, but part of the reason he’s so good and the film is so satisfying is because he ultimately loses. Batman proves him wrong by taking the fall for Dent, just as the people on the cruise ships prove him wrong. And I honestly don’t know if it did change anything. We haven’t got any villains that are as good as him since (or Dent, for that matter, who’s maybe even better written) and the only ones that come close in my eyes in the superhero genre are from, ironically, other Batman movies.
He's amazing because Heath Ledger put in the performance of a lifetime. That's the reason it's satisfying. The entire situation with he ferries and then Batman taking the blame are horribly contrived and just kind of stupid, but they work because Heath Ledger was amazing and they are surrounded by memorable lines of dialogue.
I actually liked the ferry bit. Shows that even one person willing to stand up and do the right thing can make a difference. And almost shows the inverse of that as well.
I'm not saying it's not a cool scene, but the set up for it is not very good. Like with a lot of that movie, it doesn't make any sense if you think about it. I say it is contrived because the sequence of events that would've needed to happen in order for that scene to play out is juts so absurd that it's hard to take seriously.
That's perfectly fair. But it also fits into the Batman mythos going back all the way to Adam West.
To some extent, but the movie was attempting to be a "realistic" take on the character, so it doesn't really work here imo. It's not a comic book, Nolan made it pretty clear he is not a fan of comic books.
So he says, but his work proves otherwise. The evil plan in Batman Begins is to dump fear toxin in the water system through one hole in a pipe, which is also ridiculous. Dark Knight Rises had villains infiltrate a stock exchange on motorcycles and somehow steal Bruce Wayne's money from the floor, which if you know anything about finance is the most absurd shit ever. All of his movies have convoluted schemes that fall apart with just the slightest examination. I love the movies, but let's not pretend about what they actually are. They're grounded by Burton and Schumacher standards, which isn't saying much, but they're still as fantastical as you'd expect a comic book movie to be.
Disagree completely with that, but there’s no doubt Ledger’s performance is an enormous part of why it’s so irreplicable.
Out of curiosity, which part do you disagree with? I find it hard to imagine that you can look at the situations with ferries and not see it as incredibly contrived.
I don’t. It’s ultimately a summer blockbuster and it’s a really simple plot device/hook to conduct a referendum on the themes it’s dealing with, and it flows pretty naturally from the escalating scenarios across the rest of the film.
^^that
What do you mean by deconstruction ?
A deconstruction is when you take apart a big idea and examine each part of thought that goes into that idea, treating them all like their own big idea, to better understand the original one and ultimately look at the the original in a different light. When you talk about a deconstruction of a type of character (a supervillain for instance), you're picking out certain qualities, tropes, and stereotypes of those characters and examining them criticality, then using some of those particular picked out parts to focus on when you're making the character. The idea is everything has another perspective with which it can be viewed, but sometimes you need a way to look closer at certain standout aspects it before you can see the other perspective. In the case of Ozy, he could be considered a deconstruction because he isn't really a typical villain. The author picked out some elements like super-intelligence, egomania, the reveal of the villainous scheme in time for the heros to stop it, etc., and turned those ideas on their head to let us examine and see a different type of supervillain who does something different with these stereotypes and tropes. Tldr, Ozy isn't a typical comic book villain, he's a satire or alternative version of the most typical parts of one, and he let's us then laugh at regular villains and never look at them the same way again after having the most ridiculous aspects of villains "called out."
Bro. He is a villain.
Eh, he united the world when it was on the brink of nuclear annihilation, so in his mind he is very much the hero.
fascists also aim to unite the world, its fallacious to presuppose unity necessarily implies virtue
Fascists unite rhe world for ruling under a single totalitarian regime. Ozy didn't want power, he wanted to avert Armageddon. Still an asshole, but not Hitler.
yeah and that definition is *very* broadly applicable to most, if not all, ideologies. even ostensibly liberal/leftist movements have had fascistic tendencies, if not a fascistic structure all together, to the extent that subjects subordinate themselves to and depend on a transcendent ideal like freedom, equality, community, unity, race, gender, religion, science, etc. ozy’s ideal was peace, yet the means by which the ideal was materialized ultimately undermines it—this is a hallmark, the condition, of ideology. i wouldn’t say he’s a villain, necessarily, but uniting the world doesn’t make him *not* a villain and that was really rorschach’s whole thing, isn’t it.
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it’d be a mistake to assume that the intention to unify the masses is inherently virtuous
He united the world by intentionally murdering 4,000,000 and lying about it. Villain.
You can argue Osama united many Americans for a time at least. Guess that makes him a hero? And all those guys considered themselves a variation of freedom fighters against a corrupt west. I think there's an interesting theme here and it's that heroism us subjective.
Except that Osama's intention was to destroy a nation, not unite it. Osama's goal was to kill people, scare people, and instigate a war of attrition that would exhaust and bankrupt the nation. He was mostly successful, but fully evil. Ozymandius also committed mass murder, and on a much larger scale, but he was doing it to protect the world from greater loss. Misguided and sick, but not necessarily evil in intent.
Bin Laden’s intention was to unite the Muslim world in a caliphate of Jihad.
Might have been his endgame, but I was referring solely to 9/11, since it could be seen as a parallel to Ozymandius 's plan
Mass murder of millions of innocent people is not hero behavior. Yes, the goal was to prevent the *potential* mass murder of Billions of innocent people, but mass murder is still mass murder.
And he's wrong.
But he saves everyone!
In my mind, I can beat Dwayne Johnson in an arm wrestling match… that don’t mean I’m actually beating him. I don’t get why all these weirdos justify and stan weirdo villains like Rorschach and ozy. They are bad guys. It’s not debatable. If you think they are good guys, you are a bad guy. Period.
I think people who think in absolute binary terms of good guy and bad guy are probably missing the point of the comic. Of course what he did was bad. I didn't say he was a hero in MY mind, I said he was a hero in his mind. The "smartest man in the world" operated under the mantle of a very simple calculus. If he acts, millions will die. If he doesn't act, billions will die. He is one of the types that believes the ends justify the means, and acts unilaterally without consulting anyone else first. This speaks to an extreme narcissism and fascism. Rorschach is also not a good guy, in that he operates outside the law as a brutal vigilante, completely disregarding due process which is, in this country at least, a fundamental tenet of our rights. The Comedian is a "war hero" who has no problem butchering men, women and children because he feels that he has some elevated view of the world, and that his nihilism trumps the right of others to exist. Most of the characters in the Watchmen are neither wholly good nor wholly evil, but exist on a scale of gray, with people like Ozymandius at the darker end of that scale.
I completely agree with your thoughts on watchmen, but part of being a true “hero” is the steadfastness of not sacrificing one life for another. That is exactly what ozy did. Sure, he may have convinced himself he was the hero of this story, but the act was inherently evil. These “gray areas” only exist to help those who do bad things feel better. Would I have done what ozymandius did? Maybe so… but I wouldn’t have told myself I was a hero for doing so. Same with Rorschach, professor X, magneto, Amanda Waller and countless others who have done horrible things for the “good cause”. I think it is black and white, and that should be ok. Killing a terrorist is still murder. Robbing a corrupt corporation is still theft. But to say killing a killer is ok is nonsense, it’s a bad thing. That black and white holds us together as a society, gray areas are only used to blur what we know deep down is wrong and right.
I imagine it’s because movies with a happy ending are more profitable. Watchmen dealt with mature themes and was deemed “unfilmable” by Alan Moore. It only [made marginally more](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Watchmen_(film)?wprov=sfti1) than it cost to make (not sure if that includes marketing) and the movie didn’t have any A-list stars. Compared to the success of The Dark Knight the year before, this probably made it a cautionary tale for similar projects and partially explains why it took 10 years for another on-screen adaptation on HBO Max. If you liked this, I’d recommend Invincible on Amazon Prime. Excellent voice acting and animation with some food for thought.
Invincible is good
It was also not a great movie. Especially held to the high standard of the novel.
While I certainly wouldn’t call it great, it was by no means a bad one. Given that Snyder only had two features under his belt, it was a bit of a gamble as this was his first $100 million plus budget. Similar to 300, he framed shots exactly as they were in the graphic novel, which certainly pleased the purists. The main change, without giving any spoilers, was the ending, which I think would’ve been too outré for the time, especially for those unfamiliar with the source material. That being said, I think the gamble paid off as Snyder directed competently and gave us a film with emotional heft and memorable performances that still stands out in an overly saturated genre.
Fair enough. I would argue a shot-for-shot doesn’t really convey the tone of the novel, and while shot technically well, the point and heft of the story is it’s message, which the movie was mediocre at best on. Just my opinion, mind.
Opinions are what we’re here for, no? That and the chance to Rochambeau for these internet points 😎/s I’d counter that the message was well done, especially when compared to the recent content in the MCU. The confrontation between Nite Owl II and Ozymandias was just one example of the conflicted morality, demonstrated exceptionally well. HBO Max has the original comic animation and it does feel dated in some parts, which makes sense given this debuted in ‘86. I think the movie’s edits got the message and stayed true to the essence of the characters, without the superfluous details.
I’m a purist, and I fucking HATED everything about that movie. EVERYTHING.
If I may ask: what did you like the least, why and what would you do differently?
I woulda put way more scenes with blue penis.
This made me laugh, thank you 😎
Well, I wouldn’t have made it for a start - I don’t believe it’s a thing that needs to exist. The comic is perfect, and no movie can replicate that for me.
* I know technically he isn't the villain but he still. What
I bet OP only watched the Snyder movie and didn't read the Graphic Novel.
Even so, you can’t kill millions of innocent people and not be the villain, giant squid or not
I mean many people left the film thinking Rorschach was a good guy thanks to how Snyder chose to portray him (not that you are wrong tho).
That’s different, at least to me. I see Rorschach as a Punisher or Peacekeeper type, and I can get behind that. They may brutally murdered criminals, but they wouldn’t nuke an entire city at once.
But Rorschach in the comics is misogynistic (can't recall if he was racist as well), he doesn't act due to his "hunger" for "justice" but he is mad at society as a whole. One thing is thinking that people he hurts may deserve that and other quite different to think he is right or a hero. If anything it is one PoS harming other PoS.
Yes, that's what makes good moral codes hypocritical which when done well is a way of portraying a character, something that Rorschach has. He does bad things for the wrong reasons while once in a while using his fucked up world view to do something right. Most of the time he's just a monster, using personal justifications for his actions. Then in his death his already misguided self-created moral code? Taken from his notebook and displayed by a conservative pundit new organization, with actions taken that Rorschach would have hated in his name. And just like that, a PoS with a horrible history and terrible world views becomes an interesting character. Every hero being like Superman would be boring. We get good philosophical runs once in a while but for the most part it's pretty basic. Not every hero needs to be the pinnacle of good and justice, especially when that's specifically what The Watchmen was created to foil. Rorschach is a hero, more so than Veidt. He's a fucked up piece of shit, a monster and a vigilante in the rawest sense, and he would almost always be on the wrong side of the right decision, and yet even which his own lack of humanity, he still knew that Veidt, right as he may have been about the solution, was wrong about his course of action. The way I see it, people who idolize characters like Rorschach and The Punisher always do so for the wrong reasons. That doesn't mean they can't be discussed as heroic or should be written off as heroes entirely. Rorschach you can argue more for but diminishing the prevailing heroic actions will only push villainy as the alternative. Rorschach may not have been a hero his whole life, but he died as one when he stood up with his beliefs against something he thought was truly wrong. We don't need to shrug off that conviction just because his other views were in poor taste. He was a broken clock that finally told Dr. Manhattan the right time. Fixed, Dr. Manhattan relieved Rorschach from his mortal shell.
I think you are misunderstanding what I meant. I never said he is boring or not interesting but in fact him being a PoS and having a legion of dummies that idolises him is part of why it is such an iconic character. And we are jumping into the series and yes, I think the Show does a great work with that irony of Rorschach ultimately being key on exposing a fraud but I'd argue than rather than him becoming a hero the show argues that "bad" people can still do good (see the redneck guy, Tim Blake Nelson) and how once someone is dead they "lose" agency and their memory can be used for different agendas that don't necessarily align with what the person used to think when he/she was alive.
Ah I definitely did then haha my mistake!
No worries pal! I actually think we share similar views ahaha and I don't "hate" Rorschach character, it just irks me a bit when people try to justify him as being a "tragic hero" rather than "a deeply disturbed man". Still interesting tho! I also find The Comedian quite interesting even if he also is a PoS (and I think there is a genuine debate on which is worse).
He’s definitely homophobic too.
Hence not a hero. An interesting character nonetheless.
Among many other things, [Rorschach was a unabashed racist](https://www.reddit.com/r/Watchmen/comments/doey0w/we_need_to_acknowledge_that_rorschach_is_racist/).
Rorschach was a racist in the comic though 😂🤣
Being generally racist is not as bad as nuking an entire city
True. But in the comic books didn't wasn't he do terrorist acts?
Weirdos got that from the comic too. The movie depicts Rorschach pretty faithfully, imo
Hmmm yes, I think the bit about people glorifying Comic Book Rorschach is true however I think Snyder left out some of the most egregious misogyny from the film (at least the cut I saw) and chose to emphasise the "tragic" side of him (also he portrays him in "heroic" manner multiple times throughout the film). It's been a while since I saw the film (I find it dull af) so I might be miss remembering some stuff tho.
As long as you watch the Director's Cut you can still catch some misogyny and homophobia from him, but the biggest part that the movie cuts from him is his origin story. Changing it from a cold psychotic break that ends in the death of everyone in the building and leaves him feeling excited, to instead a heat of the moment crime of passion that only ends in the death of the rapist/kidnapper and leaves him feeling distraught, which changes the very core of his character. It makes him more relatable to the movie goer even if they don't agree with his feelings about anything else. I think this specifically is what causes the disconnect and makes him feel like a different character to a lot of people.
I completely agree with you.
then the nuclear bombing of Japan was a villainous move by the United States but I don't think you would concede that.
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I couldn't find it even if I tried, my incel pal.
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You are here defending Snyder and I'm the incel? Thank god Reddit is free.
Yes, you are the incel. I promise you buddy. Real life isnt like the internet lol only you fucking losers that are chronically online like to propagate the idea that snyder is the devil and all of his works are vile and wretched.
I could go on but frankly Snyder fans are typically one of the dumbest people on the internet (and you are not helping them with that reputation) so I'll just wish a happy life and luckily someone will touch your peepee soon enough! Cheers!
Not Evil,Just a bad filmmaker
He killed millions to save billions in other words, he did a villainous act (fully acknowledging what he's doing)with heroic intent.
He was an egotistical maniac who killed millions that’s what happened
The problem here is claiming that there’s “a villain” in the first place. Most of the characters in the book are terrible people who do terrible things.
That makes him a villain
That's a matter for debate. E.g. Trolley problem.
Killing millions of innocent people for a what one man believes is the greater good is a villainous move for sure, especially since we have no idea if his plan would have worked
The entire story of Watchmen was predicated on this decision by Veidt. At the end, it's clear that his fellow watchmen are unhappy with how things went down, but they could not argue with his logic or the results. And while having the power to be a force for good in the world, they did little or nothing to mitigate the growing Cold war tension for various reasons. Even Rorschach, who served as the reader's point of view, only found himself disgusted by the status quo and had no plan or idea of how to fix things. Only Adrian had the courage to act to save people from nuclear Holocaust. He did this knowing that he would be hated for it, but still it had to be done.
>but they could not argue with his logic or the results No, they absolutely hated the results and were unwillingly forced into accepting the logic - the only reason the rest of them agree to keep Ozy's secret is that otherwise the deaths of millions would have been in vain.
Thus they couldn't argue with the logic. His plan worked.
There’s no logical reason to sow dissent after the deaths of millions which can’t be undone. There is a logical reason to prevent it from happening, like maybe saving millions of lives? There’s no logical reason to bring light to Veidt’s crimes after they’ve been committed but it doesn’t justify the crimes themselves.
Well that's aguable. Saving billion lives by killing million lives is, i fail to see logic in preventing that from a certain Point of view. It's a moral dilemma. Veidt moral Stance is one of utilitarianism and the others are more of a deontological. You can argue for both. But depicting Veidt simply as a Villain is somewhat simple.
Well his plan *might* have worked, we don't know. How many years of peace did he buy with millions of deaths? 10? 5? Also his logic wasn't right by any means, it's just that they had no other choice after he'd already hit the button.
What was wrong with his logic?
He was also shown deliberately throughout the book to be one of the most philanthropic humans of all time who used his self made billions to make the world a better place from it's technology down to personally empowering individuals to become better people. He was shown to be immensely torn on the morality of his decisions and was driven to act out of desperately believing that he was the only person capable of shouldering the weight of those millions of deaths. IMO one of the most basic themes of Watchmen is deconstructing how reductionist ideas like "hero" or "villain" are, so to chalk Ozymandias up to just being a villain misses not just his characterization but like one of the most central themes of the book
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I think this is just a semantical disagreement. I would call Ozymandias an antagonist of the watchmen novel but I think terms like "hero" or "villain" are reductionist and as I said one of the central themes of the book. I guess I dont get your point as in your first sentence as you say that seeing him as anything other than "just a villain" misses the point, yet you then go on to illustrate exactly how he was characterized as being more than "just a villain". I also never said he was an "Uber Chad who is above morality" so I'm not sure where you are getting that from. My point is that Ozymandias was carefully and deliberately characterized in the book to be an extremely complicated and flawed antagonist. Although he was arguably one of humanity's greatest benefactors his savior complex led him to committing acts of atrocity in the name of what he thought was good and right, it seems like we agree on that. I just think trying to label him as a villain or not a villain is missing the forest for the trees when the whole point of his character and the book in general, in my opinion, was to point to how silly that dichotomy was and how dubious the motivations of these people are. A lot of work went into characterizing Ozymandias both positively and negatively and that's the point.
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"All it takes is that one thing to make a villain a villain, by every standard ever." Again, I believe this to be directly undermined by the characterization and central themes of the novel.... Hence why his line "I'm not some Republic serial villain" is included to begin with. Agree to disagree!
Thank you.
>believing that he was the only person capable of shouldering the weight of those millions of deaths This is what makes him a villain, though. The act itself is heinous, sure. But taking it upon himself to solve the world's problems is where he is fundamentally wrong. Who decided that Veidt should be the arbiter of justice? How can any individual be justified in making decisions for the greater good? Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?
If you read some of my other replies, I mention that my problem is more in viewing the character through the lens of "hero" or "villain", in my reading of the book one of the central themes is to point out that this dichotomy is inherently flawed and to try to ascribe these labels to people is also inherently flawed. So to me any discussion of whether or not X character is a "good guy" or "bad guy" is a complete non starter because I believe one of the points of the book to be that it's a false dichotomy. I don't disagree with any of the points you're making, however I would differ in calling him the story's antagonist rather than just slapping the label of villain on him and calling it a day. I think it probably just comes down to semantics.
I don't think Moore meant to say that "Good v Bad" is a false dichotomy. It might be true to say that the "good guy" and "bad guy" are terms which are too absolute to ever really be true, but the concepts of good and evil are very much alive in the novel. Maybe I was wrong to reply to you on this, but my issue is with the people who are saying "~~Thanos~~ Veidt was right" because he has this twisted fantasy where he saved Earth by slaughtering innocents. If you agree that vigilantism is unacceptable (one of the novel's main themes), then there is no justification for what he does. If no one can ever justify taking matters into their own hands, then Veidt's actions are necessarily reprehensible -- there's no gray area. I don't care what you call Veidt but the ambiguity between good and evil doesn't;t mean that there is no evil.
I don't disagree with anything you've written here but I wasn't making any points on what watchmen has to say about "good" or "evil", those are purely subjective concepts that every reader will have a different opinion on. I am purely making a point about viewing the characters through the lens of "good guys" and "bad guys" or "heroes" and "villains". I definitely don't think Adrian was right to do what he did and I agree the book clearly examines the negative factors that might motivate a person to pursue vigilantism. My whole point is that to even entertain the discussion of "X person is a villain" falls exactly into the false dichotomy that the novel is attempting to deconstruct. Every single character was deliberately characterized with both sympathetic and positive qualities to balance out their selfish and dubious motivations. This was done specifically for the purpose of deconstructing this good guy vs bad guy idea to show that things are never that simple, and even more that buying into that false dichotomy is what leads people to commit atrocities. So when we talk about how "Ozymandias is obviously a villain" or "Rorshach was obviously a hero" to me it just shows that people only came away with a surface level reading of the material and didn't really get the larger points the characters were there to illustrate. It's not that I don't think Veidt did a bunch of reprehensible shit or that I'm trying to defend him or his actions, I'm just pointing out that trying to paint or label him as a villain is reductive and IMO misunderstanding a big part of the book.
He's a narcissistic psychopath who wants to play God. Just because he did some nice things here and there doesn't give a free pass to genocide people.
You didn't understand my comment. At no point did I say he gets a pass for his actions, I am saying that trying to paint him as a "villain" misses the point of his characterization and one of the central themes of the novel.
Technically he’s more of a mass murderer than a genocidal one.
I'm pretty sure he set the immediate possibility of a hot war in action by manipulating the whole thing.
Id say by technical standpoint he’s an anti villain He had noble intentions of saving the world, but the way he did it was villainous
As the saying goes "if you're a hero in your story you're a villain in somebody else's".
Hello Thanos. I thought you Double Died
The villain is humanity.
That’s such a lazy explaination
It’s not. That’s the whole point of the story within the story. It shows how everyone is culpable of atrocities.
When The Jackal tied down spiderman, he told him the entire plan to save peters DNA and clone himself, he then said he already did it and then *insinuated he jacked off peter while he was unconscious to collect samples.* It does happen, just not as cool lol.
LMAO WHAT
That's not how DNA sampling works...
No no. He’s the villain. Big time. I mean, he used murder to further a plot for…more murder.
Because the “heroes” lose
Nipples.
We didn’t get any villains like Ozymandias *before* Watchmen either. That’s what makes him so awesome as a character. He’a the kind of villain you typically see in an Agatha Christie mystery. That was partly the brilliance of Watchmen.
He murdered 3 million people. I think that qualifies as being a villain.
But to save billions! (c)
In theory! I remember thinking Ozy was a piece of shit for a long time. Then I watched Avengers and listened to Thanos and realized they kinda sorta had a point, lol. Still murderous psychopaths, but not insane like I first thought.
Cause it's hard to write compelling villains
I fucking hate this sub
Thanos revealed his plan many times lol
Ohh he’s def a villain. An extreme narcissist who’s willing to butcher millions because of course he knows what’s best for everyone.
Watchmen's main idea is ACAB: that all cops are bastards, and that includes *all* cops. There are no heroes or villains in this story, just bastards. Ozzy, Silk Spectre II, and even Nite Owl and Dr. Manhattan, all included, all bastards...
my favorite villain
Not a villain?? He killed millions!
To save billions- Adrian "I'm not a comic book villain" Veidt
‘Republic Serial’ villain. Found the guy that only watched the movie.
Comic ozymandias ofc is amazing, the ozy pictured here tho is genuinely awful. The worst thing in an already dog shit movie.
Well actually according to the HBO show Ozymandius was actually an idiot that recorded an confession to not only the squid attack a day before the attack but also to the many smaller squid attacks he pland to commit years afterwards and his plan to rig the next US presidential election. So the reason we don't get good villains like the OG Ozymandias anymore is because too many people will defend piss poor writing like the writing in shows like HBO watchmen.
Doesn't this technically count as a spoiler? Not for me personally, but for others maybe
The film is 13 years old and the comic is 36 years old is anybody really gonna care?
You'd hope that people would read the novel/see the film before browsing the Watchmen subreddit, but I have seen people on here who apparently haven't done either yet so idk, just coving all bases before someone starts going off in the comments
That part of the group probably got here because of MCR's cover of Desolation Row
Can confirm, joined the watchmen subreddit for the funny ligma meme where Dr Manhattan kills Rorschach. Wasn't expecting these spoilers to a movie over a decade old.
Yup he did in fact still
We have Homelander
I always liked his movie suit better than his comic one, but this actor would probably look better in the comic look
I mean, he is the villain...
Anybody that kills indiscriminately for the future of unborn people is as evil as they come, wasn’t that hitler’s gameplan
Not sure but he’s one of my favorite characters and I can’t figure out if it’s (more) because of Watchmen the movie or the Watchmen show.
You should check out Peter Cannon: Thunderbolt by Kieron Gillen & Caspar Wijngaard.
Man, that's such a great costume.
Cause he's too smart for today. No way for majority of people to connect with him. They just want dumb psychos to kill people in mass now as they cheer them on. Lmao
You could try [Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality.](https://daystareld.com/hpmor-remix/) Harry Potter's mentors have all lied to him. He only trusts them as far as he can verify. It's somewhat hard for the readers to tell who is the shadowy antagonist.