The Crime of Watchmen

About 1.5% ago, I completed Watchmen. The cover of my copy advertises it as one of the New York Times’ 100 best novels, and I don’t disagree with the Times on this one. Watchmen is beautiful. Watchmen is literature. Watchmen is a mastery of an art form. Watchmen is a classic, but Watchmen is wrong. I would like to stress how much I found value in reading this book – “Enjoyed” is not exactly the right word, but that is not the word one uses in reading Gatzby or Caufield, so perhaps joy isn’t always the best scale to measure things by.

There is a certain control of flow allowed only to comic books; there is a definite passage of time from panel to panel, but all that happens within a panel is simultaneous. This is utilized expertly in scenes containing multiple strings of words: multiple conversations occuring at the same time, but in different locations, or the monologue of a news-vendor while a boy near him reads a comic book about a pirate. There are multiple threads of words being portrayed, but truly only one string of ideas. Although done in metaphor, the Tales of the Black Freighter are a direct narration of the lives of New York’s more and less spectacular inhabitants.

Warning: Here there be spoilers.

I don’t even find fault with that narration, whether it is Shea’s graphic novel or Jon’s chronologically-disrespectful memories on Watchmaking. Until the end, though, there does not appear to be a unified stance on any specific issue: Each character has their own perspective on (G/g)od, philosophy, politics, or whatever else is important to them, and although the feeling seems to be generally pessimistic, the ensemble cast is allowed to be an ensemble – of multiple characters with distinct and unique minds. The pursuit of the mystery and the fights are arguments in a great debate, generally with the topic of the end of the world – Jon argues that it is meaningless to a god, the newsvendor that it is imminent, and Veidt that it should be prevented, no matter what the cost.

Characters make more specific points on other topics, but the fear of nuclear holocaust drives most of the play. This is fine. This is great. This is what literature should be – the symbolic elaboration of an idea. But at the time that this book was written, the world was yet un-nuked, given that there were humans around to produce it, so it was written without hindsight – the only statements that the book was in a position to make was speculation, and that was all it did for most of the book, but as of chapter twelve, page nineteen, these philosophies are put to the test, and that is where Alan Moore steps over the line.

The best way to illustrate this point, and the gravity of Moore’s crime, is to also spoil “Inception”. If you haven’t seen inception, go do so. Seriously. At the conclusion of Inception, the main character, Cobb, spins a top on his dining room table, and leaves it. The top is his “totem”, an object that will tell him whether or not he is in a dream. Up to this moment, we are presented with two possible scenarios – one, that Cobb has awoken from his dreams and is now in reality, in America, where he has a blank criminal record, and can again see his kids, or that he has entered what is called “limbo”, a violent and broken state of trance caused by being lost in a dream. Everything that the audience has been taught indicates that this is a negative outcome – great pains are taken to avoid this situation throughout the story, so there is weight behind whether he is awake or not. As Cobb walks away to be with his family, the camera slowly zooms in onto the spinning top, while the audience waits, tensely, to see whether or not it falls. But, just as it seems like it is about to topple, and relieve the audience with assurance that he is in the real world, the screen goes black. The movie ends. The audience is left only with their speculation. Despite what many would like to say, this is the only way that the movie could end. To see the top fall would make the story shallow, and to leave the top definitively spinning would simply be depressing. The spinning top leaves the audience to wonder, to worry, to speculate, to think. There will be multiple opinions about how the story truly ends, but it is not for us to say. We don’t know. We can’t know. We are not allowed hindsight.

And thus, neither is Watchmen. This great debate on the end of humanity is not to be decided by men, as the book often seems to state. When men make these decisions, they make themselves gods, and the only god in the book expends great energy not making that decision. Veidt spends most of the book setting up his plan, assuming that a third entity to unite against will cause the fighting nations to find peace. This is a man making himself a god – his superheroic brain allows him to make the descision for all the world, knowing that it will lead to peace, supposedly. If the book had ended there, that would have been fine. There are millions of people dead, amongst which are Hollis, Jacobi, Veidt’s servants, and the comedian. Veidt has caused innumerable deaths, deciding that these should die so that nuclear war might not erupt, as opposed to previously when it might not have erupted. This was a violation of many human laws, but this has not yet violated the laws of fiction. The author has complete knowledge of his characters, and until now he has stated what his characters would do when placed in the situation that they were. When the televisions behind Ozymondias begin to speak of peace, however, is when Alan Moore leaves the position of author, and enters that of god. He has decided how the world, all of humanity, would react, a world that he does not and cannot understand in full. As Veidt screams “I did it!”, Moore screams “Veidt is right!” along with him – Moore has decided that the philosophy that he has imbued in Veidt is the one best fit to predict humanity, and this is where the story changes from art to propaganda – a work designed to declare an idea correct where it has no authority to. The other characters react rather calmly to this development. As Viedt smugly asserts his success, the other characters simply accept his rightness and act accordingly. Veidt has decided that these deaths were worth world peace, and the other characters must agree, because he is right. The only one that doesn’t is Rorschach – while world peace may have been created, it is peace achieved through evil achieved, and must be stopped. He would rather put the nuclear war back on than let Veidt’s crime win, and Jon, apparently on the other side now, kills him. Future Mr. and Mrs. Hollis walk off to cry and have sex, while Veidt goes to his golden throne to meditate. Returning from his murder, god sees their love as quaint, and goes to Veidt to tell him he’s leaving. Upon being asked whether he did the right thing, in the end, god simply states that it does not end. Veidt is racked with uncertainty, but is unpunished. The author decided that he had an answer to one of life’s big questions – that of human nature – and wraps up the story arcs, along with a token uncertainty to make the story feel not so decisive, but the decision has already been made: The U.S. Military didn’t see it as probably an attack from Russia and press “fire” on the nukes, and god smiled quaintly and left, as man has found the answer.

This is probably one of those ones that I won’t link to too much.

Why you’re here

The reason you consume media is worth analyzing. This is a thought that’s been articulated before, but I think I’d like to contribute to its discussion. The core idea here is this: there are particular reasons you watch a movie, play a game, or read a book, and these reasons are different for each game, book, or movie you “consume”. Halo and Portal are both first-person shooters, but you play them for entirely different reasons. Avatar and the Polar Express both have fantastical settings and motion-capture actors, but you didn’t go see Avatar because it reminded you of Christmas. This genre-independent aspect of media (games, specifically), is better explored and explained by someone who is not me, but I did think of another interesting example today, and I thought I’d mention it.

This particular idea exists, as I discovered it, in at least two bits of entertainment, one of which I’ve already mentioned, and that one will be obvious when I mention the second one, should you know very much at all of both items. The second one is Nights: Journey of dreams, and likely its prequel, but I’ve only played the second, so I’m going to keep my mouth shut about it so I don’t say something stupid and wrong. If you haven’t guessed yet, the other bit of media I was mentioning is James Cameron’s Avatar. Neither of these things exist for their story, I hope, as I could write the rest of Avatar by watching its first five minutes, and I could write Nights by taking some drugs, writing a script, and then splicing it together with pages from assorted children’s books. Nights sure doesn’t exist for its gameplay – or, I should specify, complex gameplay, and similarly, Avatar doesn’t exist for its fascinating use of cinematography or subtle, award-winning acting. No, these things exist to allow their audience to fantasize, and to be beautiful. Avatar was a great movie because you want to live on Pandora, and because look at the blue people oh my god it’s like they’re real and also pretty. Nights is fun because flying is, and because it is the polar opposite of Call of Honor: Modern Battlefield. Namely, the color brown may or may not exist in Nights. It is true that there is a level set in a desert, but it is a desert with levitating spin-puff-balls and a rollercoaster.

So that’s those things. Many other games and things lend themselves to this kind of analysis: Red Faction: Geurilla is fun because it’s fun to break stuff, Bastion is worth playing because of dat narration, and Portal makes you think, which is rewarding when successful, gives you a toy that’s ridiculously fun to play with, and tells you a story worth paying attention to. Do what you will with this idea, if it is new, and maybe use it in the future when choosing what to spend your time on. -Shnazzy sign off.

Where the Ragged People Go

About 5.11% ago, my English class read various bits of the Spoon River Anthology, a collection of poems that are posthumous monologues for the inhabitants of a particular fictional town. After the reading, we were told to write a poem in that style: the instruction wasn’t painfully specific, essentially “write a poetic monologue”, but the assumed instruction was basically to do what you need to do to make it good. I’m actually pretty proud of mine, so here it is. It is tentatively titled “Where the Ragged People Go”.

 

I should have guessed that I wouldn’t be winning

the evidence was plain from the very beginning.

The name “El Labrador” didn’t exhude

a persona of smashy, trashy and rude.

But darn it, I jumped up onto those wires

and barked, while my counter set ablaze the fire

that had replaced his soul, that which now employed him.

I honestly swallowed that I could destroy him.

My manager told me, completely straight-faced

that “Krunch” might just let me move up in this race

if I gave it my all, and just kept on yipping

that this mask and mannerism; caninily skipping

would get me a knock-out, if in the third round

but it appears that my fate was already bound

for the ground, or the floor, one soon after the other

as Krunch grabbed my collar, slammed, and began to smother

my face to the canvas, my ears filled with his roar

although the encounter left me quite more than sore.

I was paid off in cash, long before the fight

on the floor ‘neath the table, leaving me copious rights

were I injured. Which happened. I won’t leave you to wonder.

Wrestling festival XXII was my life’s greatest blunder.

“Brain damage. Concussion” were the words of the doctor.

in the ER of the hospital that was just down the block and for

that very reason the fights all happened here.

Losers crawled off to get fixed, while the winners shared beers.

although “fixed” would not be my final condition.

The bleeding, the swelling, only went to remission.

for a month or so, while I tried and tried to explain

to my family and friends, what was up with my brain.

and my face, and my legs, and the both of my arms.

spine, neck, skull – Oh please, don’t be alarmed.

It was painless, the crippling, probably thanks to the drugs

although my doctors, on my soul, were all wearing bugs

so the lizards could hear just how I was doing.

So I sabotaged them; all they heard was mooing.

They got me in the end, those blue slimy men.

and I would have despaired, were it not thanks to my friend

mr. Clock boy, the seventh, the earl of sandwhalesich.

Who would watch me at night, although not scratch the pale itch

that I wrote to this wall. And you see, that is all

That would be before blackness, and lackness of breath

To this boxer’s hot madness came the cool salve of death.