“Stood in firelight, sweltering. Bloodstain on chest like map of violent new continent. Felt cleansed. Felt dark planet turn under my feet and knew what cats know that makes them scream like babies in night.
Looked at sky through smoke heavy with human fat and God was not there. The cold, suffocating dark goes on forever and we are alone. Live our lives, lacking anything better to do. Devise reason later. Born from oblivion; bear children, hell-bound as ourselves, go into oblivion. There is nothing else.
Existence is random. Has no pattern save what we imagine after staring at it for too long. No meaning save what we choose to impose. This rudderless world is not shaped by vague metaphysical forces. It is not God who kills the children. Not fate that butchers them or destiny that feeds them to the dogs. It’s us. Only us. Streets stank of fire. The void breathed hard on my heart, turning its illusions to ice, shattering them. Was reborn then, free to scrawl own design on this morally blank world.
Was Rorschach.
Does that answer your Questions, Doctor?”
The first time I came across Watchmen was with the adaptation directed by Zack Snyder (2009) and it blew my mind. A world with heroes who have their moral compass in a gray zone and inner demons that are always lurking inside one's mind. And when I read the graphic novel written by Alan Moore, Dave Gibbons and John Higgins there was so many topics inside of it that I could talk for hours about them. However, I would like to focus on the character who is the most "heroic" one for me, despite the fact that most, if not all of the characters in Watchmen, are anti-heroes.
Rorschach is the one I chose. He did not come from another planet, he did not have his parents murdered in front of him, he did not have superspeed or a ring. Rorschach is just an everyman who had a tough life, a troubled child with many issues to deal with... And still, he grew up to fight crime. Heroes are usually considered as that because they never kill, a hero can be judge and jury, but never the executioner. This method has always been the most common, however Walter Kovacs (aka Rorschach) crosses the line that is supposed to never be crossed: He kills. So this leads to the question... Why is he the best (morally speaking) character in this graphic novel?
The world is a complex and dark place, and in Watchmen the demons have no wings or horns, but they are made of flesh, they are... us. The crimes flooded the city, owned the night and Kovacs chose to do something about it. Solitude, wrath and power of will were the tools he had to stand up and try to put a stop to all that senseless chaos in the world. Evil cannot be extinguished if not extracted from the root. It is like a cancer growing in the body of the city and Rorschach is the one who can cure that illness.
Does Rorschach approve the killing of rapists and murderers? Yes
Does Rorschach try to leave a better world behind? Yes
Does he do it for the glory? No
Does he do it because someone has to? Yes
Kovacs is obscure and disturbed, but I believe that he had to became the darkness to fight the darkness. Fire with fire just to bring some hope in a godless place. Killing is wrong, but some people do not deserve to live. Those people are parasites infecting other people's happiness, sometimes just for the sake of being bad.
Is murder justice? In Watchmen the way to put a stop to crime and avoid horrible scenes from happening such as having a daughter kidnapped, a mother raped, a brother killed is destroying the ones who bring such horrors. And I agree with this. Vigilantism has taken a new level, and if cities had someone like Rorschach making a true difference in this twisted ground, a lot of things would be different.
Alan Moore with Watchmen has given us a whole new experience about heroes, that are not so heroic and are just like us: Beings who are looking for something more, some broken, some alone, some happy, some completed, some empty... some with dreams or nightmares that, in the case of Rorschach, are willing to sacrifice everything to leave a better world behind and that we can always find, as a song says, ''hope within hatred''.
One of my favorites scenes from the film adaptation.
References:
Moore, A., & Gibbons, D. (1987). Watchmen (Book club ed.). New York: DC Comics.
Watchmen [Motion picture]. (2009). Paramount Home Entertainment.
No hay comentarios:
Publicar un comentario