Why does Rorschach cry before his death

I guess this particular incident in Watchmen (graphic novel) involving Rorschach bursting out in tears just before his death is a very significant one! It's significant not just because this is the first time that Rorschach actually shows some emotions, but also because Rorschach himself pretty much "orders" (or permits, in a way) Dr. Manhattan (Jonathan Osterman) to kill him! The two words that Rorschach speaks before his death - "DO IT" - make him pretty much one of the wisest of the characters in the Watchmen super heroes!

Before I further elaborate on this, let me remind you that Rorschach is the only super hero in Watchmen known for his singular Black & White view of the world. He feels that there is either absolute right or absolute wrong and there are not gray areas! This somehow contradicts the basic theme of Watchmen book that IS pretty much about the gray areas in our lives! You will note that this also makes Rorschach more like DC's Batman whose view of the world, again, is black & white! No wonder, Rorschach is often referred to as Watchmen's Batman or real world Batman (or Batman is sometimes referred to a fantasy Rorschach for that matter)!

Unfortunately, sometimes doing the right thing be bad in the long term and Rorschach's "black & white" ideology proves to be his undoing towards the end when Rorschach's actions fall more into the gray areas! In the last chapter of Watchmen we are confronted with a moral and ethical dilemma - Should a crime be punished if the punishment itself might result in an even bigger crime? (I'll be writing more about it in a separate article). But according to poor Rorschach "wrong must be punished, no matter what". And here I come to the part that literally turns the whole outlook of Rorschach's character from a mindless-psychotic-killer-Rorschach to wise-sentimental-true-superhero-Rorschach.

Rorschach apparently realizes the folly of his "black & white" ideology towards the end and although he doesn't really show it, he is in two minds about whether to go report a crime or not. Reporting the crime committed by Ozymandias (Adrian Veidt) means that Rorschach will stay true to his understanding of right & wrong but that also means that Rorschach might be instrumental in even more destruction in the long term! As you can see from Rorschach's past, he would rather not go against what he believes must be done (reporting the crime); but Rorschach also would not want to be the fore bringer of any senseless destruction. A dilemma indeed for someone like Rorschach (or Batman) with his strictly dual view of the world!

So Rorschach has to decide whether he would want to be guilty of not reporting "this" crime or be guilty of reporting and consequently causing a later crime! And finally, as you would imagine (or may be not seeing Rorschach's personality), Rorschach decides to die rather than be guilty of either! Madness, true, but this also shows that Rorschach was the only true "watchmen" so to say. Rorschach's tears (Rorschach never showed any emotions before in life even in extreme circumstances) towards the end followed by his request / demand to Dr. Manhattan to kill him says it all better than what any words would. I think that last panel that shows Rorschach in tears demanding Dr. Manhattan to kill him is the most significant of all the storyline. If there was just one reason to read Watchmen, that panel and Rorschach's character would be it!

To read more about Rorschach's psychology, click - Rorschach's unique psychology among Watchmen characters

To read more about Rorschach and Batman's similarities, click - Watchmen's Rorschach's similarities to DC's Batman

To find if Rorschach is same as SAW movies' Jigsaw, click - Rorschach's and SAW (movie) villain Jigsaw's similarities

To read a funny article on Rorschach, click - Rorschach's superpower - Super Stench

Read about funkiness involving Dr. Manhattan's transformation - Osterman's funky transformation into Dr. Manhattan

Dr. Manhattan's (Jonathan Osterman's) memorable Quotes from Watchmen (book / graphic novel)

As I commented in my Dr. Manhattan's Origin article, Dr. Manhattan is known for his eccentric view of the world! His unique godlike powers have so removed him from normalcy that Dr. Manhattan can no longer relate to human beings anymore! This supra-human view of the world is reflected in the way he talks and I think Dr. Manhattan's Quotes pretty much distinguish him from everything else in Watchmen.

And by the way, Dr. Manhattan has commented on pretty much everything on the planet even after all the "I'm not human nemore" attitude that he has! Below I present the few most interesting ones -

Watchmen Chapter I:

Dr. Manhattan's observation on death -

"A live body and a dead body contain the same number of particles. Structurally there's no discernible difference."

"Life and Death are unquantifiable abstracts. Why should I be concerned?"

Dr. Manhattan's reply to an invitation to party - ""I'd join..,but I think I'm close to locating a gluino, which would completely validate supersymmetrical theory..."

Watchmen Chapter III:

Dr. Manhattan's excuse for not having sex - ""Laurie, try to understand...my work's at an important stage! It seemed unnecessary to..."

Dr. Manhattan's response to Silk Spectre breaking up with him - "If you think there's a problem with my attitude, I'm prepared to discuss it.

Watchmen Chapter IV:

Dr. Manhattan looking at some photo - "The photograph is in my hand...in twelve seconds time, I drop the photograph ...walking away. It's already lying there, twelve seconds into the future...I found it...twenty-seven hours ago. It's still there, twenty-seven hours into the past...I'm still there looking at it."

Dr. Manhattan decides to look at stars - ""I am going to look at the stars. They are so far away, and their light takes so long to reach us...All we ever see of stars are their old photographs."

Dr. Manhattan thinks of sunlight - ""I am two hundred and twenty-seven million kilometers from the sun. It's light is already ten minutes old..."

Dr. Manhattan predicts past and future - ""Two hours into my future, I observe meteorites from a glass balcony, thinking about my father. Twelve seconds into my past, I open my fingers..."

Dr. Manhattan predicts female orgasms and breakups - ""It's 1959. A pulse flutters in her belly, beneath my cheek. It's 1966...She's crying."

Dr. Manhattan's thanks for a gold ring from his girlfriend (Janey Slater) - ""I like it very much. Its atomic structure is a perfect grid, like a checker board."

Dr. Manhattan's comment on superheroes - ""...friend;y middle-aged men who like to dress up..."

Dr. Manhattan's view on causality - ""I can't prevent the future. To me, it's already happening."

Dr. Manhattan's view of Comedian (Edward Blake) - ""Blake is interesting. I have never met anyone so deliberately amoral."

Dr. Manhattan on sculpting - ""Things have their shape in time, not space alone. Some marble blocks have statues within them embedded in their future."

Dr. Manhattan forgets that he was once human - ""I am tired of this world, these people. I am tired of being caught in the tangle of their lives."

Dr. Manhattan on being late - ""But it's too late. Always has been, Always will be too late."

Watchmen Chapter IX:

Dr. Manhattan's masterpiece - ""We're all puppets Laurie. I'm just a puppet who can see the strings."

Dr. Manhattan's wonders why humans can't predict future - ""There is no future. There is no past...Time is simultaneous, an intricately structured jewel that humans insist on viewing one edge at a time, when the whole design is visible in every facet."

Dr. Manhattan's reply to Laurie's questions -

Laurie: "What's in the bottle?"

Dr. Manhattan: ""What do you want to be in the bottle?"
------

Laurie: "Humanity is about to be become extinct. Doesn't it bother you"

Dr. Manhattan: "All that pain and conflict done with? All that needless suffering over at last? No, that doesn't bother me."
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Laurie: "Jon, what about the war? You've got to prevent it! Everyone will die."

Dr. Manhattan: "...And the universe will not even notice."

Dr. Manhattan's view of human life - "In my opinion, it's a highly overrated phenomenon. Mars gets along perfectly without so much as a micro-organism."

Dr. Manhattan's sarcasm about environment pollution - (talking of Mars) ""...Giant steps, ninety feet high...A constantly changing topographical map, flowing and shifting...Tell me...would it be greatly improved by an oil pipeline?"

Dr. Manhattan feels quantum mechanics is more important than human life - ""I read atoms, Laurie. I see the ancient spectacle that birthed the rubble. Beside this, human life is brief and mundane."

Dr. Manhattan finally feels that human life is a miracle - ""In each human coupling, a thousand million sperm vie for a single egg. Multiply those odds by countless generations, against the odds of your ancestors being alive, meeting, siring this precise son; that exact daughter...until your mother loves a man ...and of that union, of the thousand million children competing for fertilization, it was you, only you...(it's) like turning air to gold...thermodynamic miracle."

Dr. Manhattan soothes his girlfriend Silk Spectre - ""Come...dry your eyes, for you are life, rarer than a quark and unpredictable beyond the dreams of Heisenberg...dry your eyes..."

Watchmen Chapter XII:

Dr. Manhattan coming back from dead - ""Restructuring myself after the subtraction of my intrinsic field was the first trick I learned. It didn't kill Osterman...Did you think it would kill me?"

Dr. Manhattan ridiculing Ozymandias (Adrian Veidt) - ""...this world's smartest man means no more to me than does its smartest termite."

Dr. Manhattan's masterpiece - "Nothing ends...Nothing ever ends."

To read more fun stuff on Dr. Manhattan, click - Dr. Manhattan's personal life

To read about Dr. Manhattan's origin, click - Dr. Manhattan's Origin

To find out if Dr. Manhattan can beat Superman and Hulk, click -
Dr. Manhattan vs Superman and Hulk

Hooded Justice Watchmen movie and book character

Hooded Justice again stands out in the Watchmen and probably all DC & Marvel major characters as being unique in one way or the other...so what is it this time....Rorschach was a major stinker, Dr. Manhattan (Jonathan Osterman) had a physics while doing threesome fetish and Silk Spectre 1 (Sally Jupiter) liked it violent.....so how does our Hooded Justice stand out? Ok, I'll say it just like that because there is no other way of stating the fact that Hooded Justice is the ONLY superhero ever who is gay! Yeah, can you think of Superman or Spiderman to be gay? Yeah, imagine how Superman Returns movie would have been if Superman had been gay - no Louise Lane, no super-kid, nothing....the movie would have been about Superman coming home to some dude who would be trying to decide between Superman and yet another dude! On the other hand, probably Superman is indeed playing on the same side of the turf observing the fact that he rarely seem to get down to business with Louise Lane similar to how Hooded Justice had a front with Silk Spectre 1 (Sally Jupiter).

Anyhow, enough of Superman, lets get back to Hooded Justice. So, he's the only guy in the whole comics universe who plays on the same side of the turf.....oh waitaminnit, how could he be the only one....doesn't he need a partner? Yeah that makes sense and reading Watchmen again I found that Hooded Justice had a relationship going on with another Watchmen super hero (costumed vigilante) called Captain Metropolis (Nelson Gardner). Seems Hooded Justice and Captain Metropolis used to "collaborate" a lot with each other while crimefighting as minutemen! It's bad as it is (for minutemen team) that Hooded Justice was gay but the fact that he liked it violent didn't help much either, more so in the 80s more uptight society. Apparently Hooded Justice had a sham affair with Silk Spectre 1 (Sally Jupiter) to cover up the whole thing but seems Hooded Justice and Captain Metropolis were very much in love at the time and it turns out that good old Hooded Justice liked it all a bit on the violent side.

Now please don't think of me as a gay basher at all, I approve of it as it's just what two (or more) people want to do without affecting anyone else in any way so this post is neutral on that front. But the fact that raises some questions is that our Hooded Justice liked it violent, in other words he used to enjoy beating up men (yeah well not exactly but you get the point), so his whole superhero beating up the bad guy deal looks a bit shady! He even "beat up" Comedian once and the astute Comedian commented on the fact that Hooded Justice might just be getting off on it! But well, like I said in the case of Rorschach, nothing is better than having a job that you enjoy doing and if Hooded Justice has such a job then all the good for him!

To read more about Dr. Manhattan's physics/threesome fetish, click here - Dr. Manhattan wants to solve physics problem while having threesomes with Silk Spectre

Wanna read up more on Comedian, click here - Comedian Edward Blake Watchmen Character

Wanna read up more on Rorschach, click here - Rorschach Watchmen Character

Comedian Edward Blake Watchmen Character (comic / movie / graphic novel)

When I was reading Watchmen, Comedian (Edward Blake) always reminded me of Joker(as in Batman's villain Joker). Comedian is pretty much a Joker gone right - Think of Darknight's Joker (Heath Ledger, if you are not familiar with the comics version) and think imagine him playing a hero and doing good things but with the same sarcasm and most importantly the same view of the world, yeah thats what Comedian is!

Just like Darknight's Joker, Watchmen's Comedian understands the reality of the world, he knows to what level the human society has degraded, he realizes that people can do unimaginable things to save their own skin and he feels that the world is pretty much going down the drain (nuclear war resulting from USA - USSR cold war) for what it's worth (or not). And he then plays the hero with that understanding! That means that he is overly sarcastic, takes it all as a game, lacks a sense of responsibility (and direction) and doesn't really follow any ethical and moral rules! I guess the closest real life representation would be the typical gluttonous Roman general - materialistic, rotting, given to his desires, lacking an sense of responsibility, observing the world with absolute disrespect and.....oh wait I don't really hate either Comedian or Roman generals hehe, thats just a view of comedian's psychology.

I think in the Watchmen itself the closest character to that of Comedian would be Rorschach. This is because Rorschach also has a very similar view of the world - rotting, diseased, selfish. But the main difference is that Rorschach does have that sense of responsibility that Comedian so sorely lacks. Basically they both know that the world is totally screwed, but Rorschach is able to limit his view to what he must do, playing superhero acts as a temporary vent for his psychological outbursts, guilt, anger and more, he feels compelled because of the state of the world to do what he does. Comedian though on the other hand hasn't internalized it all, the way Rorschach has done, he cheats his emotions by just taking a funny outlook towards it all; in other words, he simply laughs at it all and gets on with his life (while Rorschach is pained by it and vents it by fighting crime). Comedian obviously needs a bigger example to go through the phase that Rorschach went in the time of the little girl's kidnapping case and Comedian gets that example when he learns about Ozymandias' murderous plan to save the world. Perhaps that would have acted as a transition point for Comedian had he stayed alive long enough to come back to the real world (that is, out of alcohol induced forget-it-all phase). We will never know.....

If you don't happen to know who or what Rorschach is, this is your luck day - Click here for a brief overview of Rorschach in Watchmen

Ozymandias Adrian Veidt - Watchmen Characters (comics / graphic novel / movie)

Ozymandias aka Adrian Veidt is one of my top favorite Watchmen characters! I guess he is the only superhero or costumed hero in Watchmen, other then Dr. Manhattan aka Dr. Jonathan Osterman, who does possess some little superpowers; his "super-power" being some extreme IQ levels. Let me emphasize more though - this guy's intelligence levels are not comparable to your usual noble prize winner professors, in fact he is the type who would do the noble prize winning stuff while feeding his cat that he "created" himself! Yeah, Ozymandias genetically created a brand new species of "cats" (bubastis) just for kicks! Read again if you didn't get it the first time - He freaking created a new life form just because he was bored with regular earthly cats! The guy who invents new life forms just as a weekend project has to have some serious gray matter above the shoulders!

Further, the Ozymandias is able to process an amazing amount of information quite easily. Case in point - Ozymandias routinely watches hundreds of tv channels simultaneously to figure out where the world is going (that's what the Watchmen movie iPhone & iPod Touch App shows in the background). Oh don't get me wrong, he doesn't use this to gather info to help save the world, he uses this talent to figure out what new products his company (Veidt Corporations) should start producing to maximize the profits! The guy has a practical outlook on life for sure!

But if thats not enough for you and you think he's just some couch potato then read on - Ozymandias singlehandedly beat up both Rorschach & Night Owl while making small talk to them, effortlessly killed the Comedian aka Edward Blake (ironical that it was Comedian who was primarily responsible for Veidt's plan) and almost "disintegrated" Dr. Manhattan aka Dr. Jonathan Osterman once! Remember that Dr. Manhattan is the guy with quantum level control on the building blocks of the universe (whatever that means) and he can dispatch even the big guns like Superman and Hulk in a blink of an eye....and Veidt killed him so bad that Dr. Manhattan had to recreate himself at quantum freaking levels to come back from the dead! Yeah thats the type of bad-Ozymandias-ass dude we are talking about here!

Anyhow, back to the post - So basically Ozymandias is the smartest man on the planet and unlike many contemporary geniuses, he is actually in the peak human physical condition. It appears that he has actually used his brains to devise ways to improve the physical health and athletic ability to the extent that his reflexes are fast enough to even catch a bullet, literally. In the Watchmen storyline, he does catch a bullet fired by Silk Spectre who is pis-ed at him for disintegrating her ex-boyfriend Dr. Manhattan but poor Ms. Juspeczyk doesn't know that Veidt is totally at a different level. So well catching bullets and all, he is kinda pretty much at superhuman levels of physical conditioning. Oh by the way, for you science geeks who are calculating the impact of bullet hitting the palm and cr-p like that - he does kinda becomes unconscious for a little bit because of the impact or whatever so we are not talking Hulk or Wolverine here.....

He seems to apply his intelligence to all aspects of life from physical fitness, new business ideas, beating the sh-t out of other superheroes and super-villains alike and in general being the kickass type of guy all around. He very accurately predicted that normal populace will turn away from costumed vigilantes and stepped down from his role as Ozymandias using the superhero identity for publicity and thereby amassing some serious money. Now ain't that so cool? I mean the guy had fun playing superhero and all and when he got bored with it he simply made some money out of the publicity!! Now thats what I call the real smartass stuff!

The only problem with this guy is that he is just way too ambitious and lacks the regular empathy and emotions that you would expect in a benignant superhero. He figures that world might end by a stupid nuclear war in the coming years while fellow superheroes (minutemen / crimebustors / watchmen) waste their efforts fighting local crimes, and decides to solve the bigger problem of world peace all by himself! And as you would expect, he decides that the best way to bring world peace is to kill a few millions New Yorkers (yeah get rid of the wall st and kill the greed that's behind all this mess) and he goes on to create another new life form just for this purpose! Yeah, this dude totally loves creating his own life forms!

Unfortunately though the Comedian (Edwad Blake) has a bad habit of snooping around and accidentally learns about his master plan and is promptly thrown out of the window of a high rise by Ozymandias. This very event triggers rest of the Watchmen story with Rorschach getting suspicious about Blake's death and eventually learning about Ozymandias' master plan. Veidt doesn't care much ofcourse as his main obstacle in this plan is Dr. Manhattan who actually packs some too godlike powers to be dispatched by throwing out of the window! So our good old Ozymandias goes on step further and assaults Dr. Manhattan mentally and to such extent that poor Doc runs away all the way to Mars to escape from the harassment! But as might be expected of Veidt, he creates some Tachyons field and stuff that disrupts poor Dr. Manhattan's ability to predict future even on Mars!

All that said, the question whether Ozymandias / Veidt is to be thought of as a hero or a villain is very subjective. His plan does result in world peace and averts a nuclear war but then the way the plan was executed was criminal in nature; so someone like Rorschach would take it as a criminal activity that ought to be punished but someone more empathic like Night Owl will realize that even if the plan was ethically & morally screwed still Veidt did avert the virtual destruction of the planet. I personally am all for Veidt as I think that he is the only truly intelligent character in Watchmen who knows what he is doing and why.