“Someone's Got to Save the World”

“Watchmen” is a novel that introduces a world based on ours but with a slight change, there were hooded men who actually made a difference.  

  

The Watchmen world, is a world in which sins are always present, just as it is in ours. Their world do not requires Heroes, their world demands, claims, screams for something beyond, thus the Watchmen (aka Minutemen/Crimebusters) are summoned, not heroes but rather anti-heroes.

 

After reading so many comics of superheroes who followed a strict moral code of “never kill”, “Watchmen” becomes the oasis of the desert. At last, a story in which things get done. If there are people willingly to hurt the innocent, the ‘sane’ thing to do is to get rid of them. Otherwise, the people worth protecting will continue to suffer until it is too late, thus, the cancer needs to be removed from the system.

Of all the Crime Busters, there are three characters that deserve the title of anti-hero. First, the broken joke “The Comedian”, the second one "Rorschach" and finally “Ozymandis” the second coming of Alexander ‘The Great’. 

Ozymandis, the man considered by many to be the villain of the story, is shown as a successful, cold man and at the same time as the smartest man on the planet. 

In his youth, Ozymandis believes that the best way to save the world is through fighting the bad guys, so he joins the group of vigilantes who attempt to make a difference... until the Comedian talks the truth of what was happening to the world.

Ozymandis, through the Comedian’s words, have finally seen the truth. Humanity was heading towards annihilation. Something needed to done; hence, he began planning the greatest scheme.  The “smartest man of the cinder” did not think of hope, he could not afford it; he was convinced that humanity was in imperil, an unavoidable peril caused by no other than themselves.

 

After the second World War, mankind was at the edge of the abyss, west and east were ready to start holocaust. The nuclear shells were about to set target. Ozymandis, aware of this, planned to trick and frighten the world in such manner that humanity will not attempt to harm each other again, just as Alexander The Great as done so before. And for this he thought that the best way to make two or more entities that hate each other stopped doing so, it is by presenting them a third party strong enough (Dr. Manhattan in the case of the movie) or unknown enough (The monster/alien in the case of the novel) to take them both down.

Ozymandis saw this as the unique solution to the equation; hope was not enough for the smartest man alive. Once the two entities (East-West) found themselves being threaten by another more powerful entity, their only solution will be to join forces and face that threat together. 

For us humans, peace and war are born from catastrophe. Therefore, if we are in a state of war we need something catastrophic that send sideways our stupid disputes. 

 

That is why I think of this man to be the real “””hero””” of the story, he does what humanity needed to be done. At the cost of his humanity, mind and soul he commits the greatest sin, for the sake of his own race. The truth and the words are useful, no doubt there; however, when everything is at stake, things need to be done, words do not heal hate… or at least not fast enough.     

The world does not need saving, the world needs to save itself. That is the only way ‘saving’ will actually matter.  

  

Bibliography:

• Hughes A., (2006). “Who watches the watchmen?: Ideology and ‘real world’ superheroes.”.

• Moore A. & Gibbons D., (1987). Watchmen (Book club ed.). New York: DC Comics.