What I'm about to say is going to make me sound like an edgelord, so brace yourselves:
Does anybody else really identify with, and by extension, sympathise with Rorschach?
He's a man who's moral compass is so strong, and his sense of right and wrong so black and white, he's driven insane by it. His turning point in life is when he turned from master detective superhero into a vigilante after finding that the missing child he was looking for was raped, murdered, butchered and fed to dogs, he literally lost all faith in humanity. In the comic he talks about the kitty Genovese case, and how most people don't care about what happens to others, so long as it doesn't happen to themselves.
He feels lost in a world where we're led to believe people are good by nature, but in reality, that is not the case.
He is a person who believes that ends do not justify means, which is something I personally agree with. In the end when Adrian's plan has been executed, he is so distraught at the idea of living this lie, he is torn up than so many people had to die, that this new society will be built on the deaths of millions of innocents, that his best friend is willing to comply with such an evil world, he never would have been able to live in veidts utopia, he is a dead breed of person who values human life, the idea of living this lie and existing in this sick world is so painful for him, he practically begs to be killed and taken off this godforsaken planet.
Rorschach is introduced to us in the story as a maniac, a twisted deranged person.
But in the end he turned out to be the most good-hearted and human of all of them.
Jace Phillips
>He is a person who believes that ends do not justify means
He does though which is the tragedy of Rorschach.
In the book where you have his report as a child you see that he agrees with Truman's decision to drop the bomb, and later he commits suicide by cop (Manhattan) and is sad he can't live up to this black and white code of morality he's been trying to build as a masked Vigilante.
Jayden Moore
What's the matter op, didn't get enough (You)'s when you posted this on Sup Forums?
Nicholas Baker
he kills himself because he thinks Adrian is right and he can't reconcile this with his morality code
Parker Harris
Rorshach's entire problem is he started out pragmatic and willing to make comprimises to do the right thing and the murder+rape+kidnapping of a, what 6ish year old girl drove him insane due to his inability to stop it.
He has has an obsession with strength, with being masculine. To the degree he bluntly ignores the fact that the world has no room for black and white morality. The ends don't justify the means but the moral system he's come up with has no room for being human in.
He couldn't cope with his own weaknesses and basic humanity so he discarded his humanity and refused to comprimise to create a world that's...you know habitable for normal people.
Sympathizing with him is fine I guess but he's barely human by the time he enters the narrative in watchmen and that's a deliberate choice on his part.
Ian Nelson
>Sup Forums poster on my beloved Sup Forums get out
Jack Moore
the only part of the movie I remember is the sex scene
Ian Cox
Armchair psychoanalyst get out
Wyatt Ross
He is 5'6" like me so yeah I sympathise with him a lot.
Adrian Ortiz
>to create a world that's habitable for normal people
Juan Murphy
This is actually a copypaste that's been around ages. I don't know why OP put it here, maybe it puts his feeling towards the character into words perfectly.
You browse Sup Forums?
Get out.
Joseph Cook
...
Logan Moore
>Does anybody else really identify with, and by extension, sympathise with Rorschach?
Like 80-90% of people who read Watchmen thought Rorschach was the hero of the comic. 'Cause he is. Alan Moore has lamented afterwards that it didn't come out like he hoped he would, but I'm going to call bullshit on that because he's way too experienced a storyteller to fail to notice that R is consistently presented as the moral centerpoint of the comic.
Jason Diaz
>paranoid psychopath who can't deal with the world not being black and white so he kills himself >"moral centerpoint of the comic"
How could ANYONE think that unless they were also a paranoid psychopath? Rorscach was also hypocritical as fuck by endorsing nuking japan and letting Moloch off the hook because he had cancer.
Julian James
He wasn't a psychopath though, technically his condition was the polar opposite.
Mason Richardson
>character confirmed manlet >all that pent up aggression and macho bullshit as a result of height insecurity and inferiority shorties stay mad
Julian Garcia
off subject, but who hopes Rorschach retroactively didn't actually get killed in the end of the book by Dr. Manhattan, but just transported to post rebirth DC
Hunter Clark
OP, his values are bullshit for exactly the reason you describe.
If the ends don't justify the means and you value human life, you can't go around killing people. Either the ends DO justify the means and it's okay to kill people to save people, or the ends DON'T justify the means and you have to rein in your passion to do "justice" in exchange for due process; or you don't value human life and just put your own ego above other people's lives. But if you both value human life and say the ends don't justify the means, you can't go around killing people.
In both cases what he's doing is just a small scale version of what Veidt is doing. His character is basically an angsty teenager who built a self-contradictory ideology to justify his anger (hint hint Randroids)
Cooper Walker
>Armchair psychoanalyst get out
It's correct though.
Charles Powell
I'm an amoral nihilist. I hated him.
I'm also a utilitarian humanist so I rooted for and identified with Ozymandias in the end.
At least he went down with his "honor" in tact. Or something. I hated him less for that.
Lincoln Bell
>pasta
fuck off, please just fuck off
Anthony Martin
But he's killing people he's deemed evil, they made their decision, he believes they deserve to die.
He's doesn't believe ends justify means in the sense that he doesn't agree with: Killing millions of innocents to potentially save billions of innocents.
He doesn't agree with making human life a matter of mathematical equations.
Brayden Lewis
I have no idea who this guy is, but he sounds like a fucking faggot.
Thomas Russell
Then why did he say that nuking innocent Japs to for the greater good was a good thing?
Easton Price
I can't see someone thinking that unless they were put on the spot and asked who was the hero and Rorschach was the first person to come to mind because he's the first character we're familiarized with. We're given a lot of background on him, but unless someone stops reading before the halfway mark, there's no way you can identify him as the hero. By the end, it's clear he's just an embodiment of one view of morality, which, literally and figuratively, can't survive in society.
Jeremiah Bell
You are an amoral nihilist, a utilitarian humanist and a walking talking oxymoron.
Isaac Harris
I disagree. He didn't go down with his honor in tact. He realized observing his view of morality would result in a greater evil than compromising it and sought death instead of reassessing his perspective, which is the coward's way out.
>>utilitarian humanist >>amoral nihilist seriously, pick one. Are you a depressed robot or a celebratory one?
Michael Jackson
>he doesn't believe the ends justify the means >he values human life >it's okay to extra-judiciously kill criminals That's called a contradiction,, user.
If the ends don't justify the means then you can't justify extra-judiciously killing people "because they're evil".
Parker Turner
Can't you see? He's a nihilist and a humanist, he's amoral and a utilitarian!
He's an idiot who doesn't understand contradictions.
Mason Sanders
That's the thing, his viewpoints took a 180 later in life. Had he been a kid when Ozy enacted his plan, he probably would've agreed with him.
Landon Davis
There is no moral centerpoint, that's the point. All these "heroes" be crazy
Don't mistake someone having a black and white view of the world as having "strong moral values." Having strong morals means knowing when to compromise for the good of others
For instance, you can acknowledge that what Oz did was wrong without instigating a nuclear apocalypse
Ethan Jackson
no he still respects Truman, it's like one of his first lines. as the point is they're all fucked up
Zachary Rivera
Because he was a fucking kid when he wrote that. The Nips were warned in advanced to surrender anyway.
Did any of the millions of people Adrian murder know that a genetically engineered psychic bomb squid was going to blow up in the middle of NYC?
Christopher Wright
>he's barely human
>"As long as there is life, there is hope"
Go fuck yourself
Thomas Cooper
Glad someone else gets it.
Parker Ramirez
I hope you realize that Alan Moore hates it when people "identify" with Rorschach and thinks anyone who does so is a fucking nutcase.
Luis Perry
Certainly not gonna side with the faggot that killed millions for temporary peace. What kinda queer wears a circlet anyhow?
Thomas King
>Sacrificing yourself for the good of humanity What he did took a great deal more courage than what Adrian did.
Nathan Reed
What about what I said implied he "sacrificed" himself?
Also, what he did did not take more courage than Adrian. That in itself is a matter of opinion so I can't say that's wrong, but designing and following through on a plot to kill millions of people to avoid the death of billions, with even a literal god there who could foil your plans should you commit even the smallest error takes a pretty hefty pair of courage stones.
Joshua Edwards
That raises some interesting questions...
Hudson Taylor
I like Rory because it pisses Alan Moore off that I like Rory.
Parker Parker
Why would I care If a nut thinks other people are nuts?
Cameron Harris
I wanna see a pic of the question being killed by captain atom
Jaxson Morales
>Moloch off the hook because he had cancer. Off the hook for what? By this time he was a free man, having served his sentence, and was working for one of Veidt's dummy companies. He wasn't wanted by the police for anything. You think because he had a bottle of Laetrile, Rorschach, or the cops would have anything to do with him? You're put of your fucking tiny mind, kiddo.
Aaron Davis
rorschach is 100% correct in the movie
Josiah Nelson
>I can't see someone thinking that You obviously weren't around back when the book came out. All the angsty teens and the social misfits were crazy about Rorschach. He was "totally awesome cool!!!" He was the next Wolverine in some people's eyes
The rest of us recognized what Moore was doing with the character. And we knew that the idea was that none of the "good guys" in the book were truly "good". (In the sense that Superheroes were intrinsically pure and righteous and without blame. Thus the deconstruction of the archetype.)
Liam Brown
>in tact Fucking morons.
Julian Powell
>I like Rory because it pisses Alan Moore off that I like Rory. What are you, like 5 years old or something? >Rory Yeah I thought so.
Julian Nguyen
If her body was fed to dogs and never recovered, how do we know she was raped?
Plotholes ahoy, Alan Moore is a hack.
Kayden Gutierrez
You identify with a homeless sociopath who thinks the mask is his real face, is filthy and mooches off his best friend that he constantly berates, that can not accept the changes in the world which does not function on his insane little black and white premise and that hates women because they are a "distraction"?
If you really identify with Rorscharch, you are the kind of person that will kill people in a nightclub next. Comedian was more human than Rorscharch.
Landon Smith
this is fucking leftist crap spit all over the thread
Jacob Howard
Sup Forums.org/pol/
Christian Nelson
I always read it as less that he thinks Adrian is right, and more that it'd be wrong to undo world peace to expose the truth. He can't reconcile the two, so, suicide.
Anthony Brooks
I'm as far from left as possible, but everything that was said there was right. Roscharch was cool, but he was nowhere near a good guy, or someone anyone should ever identify with.
Austin Gomez
>t hates women because they are a "distraction" That's not why he hates women.
Adrian Flores
fucking normies get off my BOOOOOAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRD
Cameron Bell
I thought it was more he realized he was going to die. He failed. Everyone was against him. There was no way they'd let him get the word out. Not a good day.
Jayden Rogers
How dense is Moore, seriously? Rorschach walks into the bar, everyone collectively shits their fucking pants.
Of course readers end up thinking he's a badass.
Isaac Gonzalez
I guess he thought making him a smelly sexless manlet would've done the trick.
Andrew Clark
>manlet walks into a bar. >Snickers all around.
Christian Ortiz
I honestly wouldn't believe anything Moore says post 2000, he's become super self depreciating, and ever since movies have been made from his most famous books, he's grown to loath everything he's ever made, he's a guy who believes comics should be comics, movies movies, books books etc. He hates adaptation, which is highly hypocritical seeing as how he made the league of extraordinary gentlemen.
Recently he's said he regrets making watchmen because it ushered in a new age of dark comics and that he dislikes the killing joke and that it's a heap of shit and anybody trying to read into it is on a wild goose chase.
He basically shuts down any praise his works get.
So when people admire Rorschach, he says rorschach was constructed to be the epitome of everything wrong with the world, and anybody who likes him is deluded. Which is wrong considering he was written as being super sympathetic and as the opposition to ozy, who's written as an evil narcissist. He's just trolling at this point. Rorschach even gets the last laugh.
It's funny because watch men's artist, Dave gibbons who had lots of input on the characters has the opposite opinions to Moore. He liked the movie and supported the prequel comics.
Brian Bolland, the killing jokes artist said TKJ was the best comic he ever worked on.
Moore is just jaded.
He ever said that anybody who ever bought any of the watchmen prequels is a parasite and not a true fan of the original. So, yeah.
Lincoln Lopez
> it's better to be a crazy rapist than a crazy man of justice Ok.
Luke Brown
>But in the end he turned out to be the most good-hearted and human of all of them.
Not really. He was a sick man, raised by terrible people, dumped in to a system that only barely ensures survival until adulthood, and left to his own devices such that he became a serial killer who only got away with it because he killed some really terrible people.
Josiah Diaz
He was probably a better person than you, with the exeption that he killed criminals and rapists.
Bentley Ross
Just how old and/or autistic are you?
Hudson Cooper
This may be pasta but i agree with you op
Wyatt Rivera
I agree with the last statement though
Jeremiah Lewis
You missed the part where you see his upbringing? He was dealt the shittest hand imaginable. He's seen the worst shit we humans are capable you wonder why he has a black and white morality. Because he has seen the black that's for sure. He stared into the abyss too long and instead of making him a nihilist asshole like the Comedian it made him dedicate his life to fight it. Guys like you are like his psychiatrist; fat, wealthy. Thing you have the world figured out from the comfort of your suburbs.
Jayden Mitchell
Bollocks.
Grayson Foster
>made him dedicate his life to fight it. For all the good that did him or his world.
Jeremiah Carter
Blame the whores and politicians
Cameron Butler
How is it bollocks? Have you been keeping up with Moore's craziness as of the last ten years?
Andrew Roberts
>ozy, who's written as an evil narcissist.
Maybe if you watched the movies instead of reading the book.
Caleb Richardson
Rorschach finds her panties in the furnace. It seems pretty implied that she was raped.
Parker Morris
I identified with him very strongly when I was about 18 years old.
My worldview has shifted a lot since then.
Now I think he's an emotionally stunted dipshit.
Jayden Campbell
I like Rorscharch (i read only the comic). He was a true hero. Ozymandias was evil.
Jace Gray
I didn't remember that. On what info he bases his decision about the bomb ? Why did he approve of it ?
Ryan Martinez
That doesn't imply rape. That implies they threw her clothes, the evidence, into the furnace.
Nicholas Peterson
How is he not a narcissist in the books?
Camden Bell
How is he? And how is he an evil one?
Andrew Lee
>Tries to take the reigns of Metropolis' Crimebusters idea >Starts his master stroke and personally murders Comedian to spite him >Only regards Doc Manhattan's opinions on his plan since he's the only person who can beat his 'Smartest Man in the World' title >Conviniently doesn't even think about the affects of joining people through fear because he's so caught up in 'saving humanity' >You think I don't feel bad for all those people I killed? I feel SO bad. You have know idea. So so bad.
Dude was full of himself. They exemplified it in the movie but he was still up his own ass in the comic.
Evil is subjective though.
Nolan Morgan
None of what you've described suggests narcissism, except we're you've slanted it to suggest that.
Jason Lopez
>being stripped naked against her will after being kidnapped doesn't imply rape
Joseph Taylor
It doesn't. The dogs can't eat clothing, so she had to be naked.
Aiden Morris
All the characters exemplify an ideology, but Rorsharch is the only "heroic" one. Comedian is a nihilist. Dreiberg is a passive man-child. Manhattan is alien. SIlk Specter is more of a second role, and is almost only explored through her relationship to the three characters above. Ozy... maybe heroic in his own way, but I don't see anyone identifying or sympatising with a perfect, hyper-intelligent megalomaniac.
Rorcharch is as flawed as the rest of the team, but he presents the heroic qualities found in most capes. The others don't. It's no surprise that he can come out as a "positive" figure in this comic.
Levi Martinez
So you're saying this guy kidnapped a girl and chained her to his heater with the sole intention of killing her?
Josiah Myers
Ozy is utilitarianism, or pragmatism. And all characters, Rorschach included are deconstructions of super-heroic ideals.
I'm saying there's nothing that explicitly implies rape. Why does there need to be? He kidnapped a girl and fed her to dogs. That's evil enough.
Also he kidnapped her to ransom her. He thought she was from a rich family.
Aiden Reed
Obligatory
Christopher Hernandez
I, too, struggle with Aspergers, OP.
Owen Peterson
Because his mom didn't like Truman. Literally.
Sebastian Morris
But right is existentialism
Daniel Richardson
The dogs might not eat clothes generally speaking but that doesn't mean they can't digest them - wolves and bears are perfectly capable of eating non-nude hikers, campers, etc.
Hudson Sullivan
But right is absurdism.
Brayden King
>>Starts his master stroke and personally murders Comedian to spite him It's been a long, long time since I've read Watchmen, so I'll admit I might be wrong, but didn't he kill the Comedian because the Comedian knew of his plans and might've gone public with them?
Nolan Nelson
Wolves and bears do not eat the entire hiker, which is exactly what he wants the dogs to do. Wolves and bears also tear off the clothing. We never see him take her cloths off so maybe this is exactly what happens, the dogs rip her clothes and later he burns the evidence.
Anyway none of this implies rape directly.
Julian Robinson
>extreme selfishness, with a grandiose view of one's own talents and a craving for admiration, as characterizing a personality type. How does that not describe a man who murdered millions because he thought he saw the writing on the wall and decided to take the reigns of the world? There's implication it was also petty revenge for beating him up when he mistook him as a criminal in his early days.
Zachary Reyes
The problem is he values human life too much, and believes that undeserving authority fogures like the rich and god are entitled to boss people around with an iron fist. However, i did almost cry when he discover that girls leg getting chewed by dogs, and totally agree that rapists and child murderders should be killed in the most grusesome ways possible. So yeah, i partially agree with him, yet mostly am against his values.
Noah Anderson
Nothing you've said indicates your theory about the clothes is correct either. He could just as much put the clothes in the furnaces to destroy DNA evidence of rape.
I'm not the user who started arguing with you about this but I'd say at best it's left up to interpretation.
Michael Phillips
Because it doesn't? It doesn't describe that. Those two things aren't intrinsically linked.
Christian Torres
But there's nothing there to interpret that suggests rape.