Robot Panic Book Club: Watchmen, Week 3
It’s time for week three of our six-week book club event. This week, we’re discussing chapters 5 and 6 of Alan Moore’s seminal graphic novel Watchmen, all leading up to the March 6th release of the Zack Snyder-directed film adaptation. Keep in mind that the comments below will contain spoilers for the first six issues, but please use spoiler tags when discussing anything beyond chapter six.
Below are chapter synopses for chapters 5 and 6.
Chapter 5: Fearful Symmetry
Rorschach returns to the home of Moloch to question him some more about The Comedian’s visit. Rorschach suggests that the aforementioned “list” was related to the press allegations that Dr. Manhattan has given cancer to many of his close friends since Janey Slater’s name was on it too. Realizing that Moloch is not involved in this plan, Rorschach leaves, but tells Moloch of a “drop point” where he can leave a message if he remembers anything.
Meanwhile a man fearing nuclear holocaust has murdered his two children before taking his own life, and talk of Armageddon is everywhere.
At a diner, Dan invites Laurie to live with him after Jon’s disappearance prompts her eviction from military housing. Rorschach, who ventures outside without his mask to watch the “drop point” in case there’s a message, sees Dan and Laurie leaving the diner.
Adrian Veidt walks to a meeting, discussing ideas of morbidity, death and an afterlife with his secretary. After his secretary is shot, Veidt assaults the attacker who eventually bites into a suicide capsule and quickly dies.
Responding to a note found at his “drop point,” Rorschach returns to Moloch’s apartment to find him murdered. A bullhorn from outside commands Rorschach to come out and surrender. The police are outside. Rorschach attempts to escape by jumping out of a window but is injured and taken into custody.
Closing Quotation: “Tyger, Tyger/burning bright, In the forests/of the night, What immortal hand or eye/Could frame thy fearful symmetry?” – The Tyger by William Blake
Chapter 6: The Abyss Gazes Also
Rorschach, now identified as Walter Kovacs, is out of costume and in prison. Dr. Malcolm Long, a prison psychiatrist, shows an ink blot to Kovacs which, to him, looks like a dog with its head split in half, though Kovacs says it looks like “a pretty butterfly.” Long comments in his journal that Kovacs condition is improving, and shows him another inkblot.
Kovacs has a flashback to when as a child he walked in on his mother having sex. When this upsets the “john,” he abruptly leaves. Kovacs mother then beats her son severely and tells him she should have never had a child. When Long asks Kovacs what he just saw in the ink blot, he humors the doctor again and says, “Some nice flowers.”
As Kovacs heads back to his prison cell, other prisoners threaten and mock him. He recalls a time as a child when he violently attacked two bullies for taunting him because his mother was a prostitute.
During his next session with Dr. Long, Kovacs recounts the details of how, after realizing how selfish and uncaring humanity was, he crafted a mask to make a face he could “bear to look at in the mirror.” He also accuses the doctor of being no different then the rest of society’s dregs, only wanting to treat him to gain notoriety.
Later, in a prison food line, Kovacs throws hot oil on another prisoner’s face to avoid getting stabbed with a “shiv.” Then, in another session with Long, he discusses his early days working alongside other costumed heroes, and how he felt The Comedian was the only other “mask” that really understood how the world worked.
Further into the session, Kovacs finally admits that the first ink blot looked, to him, like a dog with its head split in half. He recounts the story of a child kidnapping case in 1975, where he tracked down the kidnapper to his hideout. Upon finding evidence of the girl’s rape and murder, Kovacs handcuffed the pleading perpetrator to a pipe inside his hideout and burned the place down. As he gazed at the flames, he felt cleansed. At that moment he ceased to be Walter Kovacs and became Rorschach.
Closing Quotation: “Battle not with monsters, lest ye become a monster, and if you gaze into the abyss, the abyss gazes also into you.” – Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche
Table of contents for Robot Panic Book Club: Watchmen
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Tags: alan moore, Book Club, Watchmen
February 10th, 2009 at 10:11 am
I’m going to guess that I’m not alone in saying that Rorschach is my favorite character in Watchmen. There are probably a few different reasons. One of them is that he, or his diary, rather, narrates much of the story. So I guess it’s a familiarity thing. Beyond that is that he goes beyond the typical “anti-hero” stereotype. He seems to be a guy of such single-minded and unwavering in his principles. It struck me when he was in Moloch’s apartment and questioned him about his drugs, noting that he’d check to make sure he had a perscription. So in that regard, he’s an obsessive boy scout. But completely opposite are his methods. He has no problem breaking and entering, kicking the shit out of people, and torturing people to find out information, even though they turn out not to have any information.
I was actually sort of disappointed to find out his backstory. I understand why it was done and it makes total sense from a story perspective. But if there were an actual Rorschach comic book, I wouldn’t want to know anything about his backstory. I’d find it much more interesting for it to be a total mystery; sort of like Joker in The Dark Knight movie.
February 10th, 2009 at 12:46 pm
Well Rorschach is a very interesting, and his own personal brand of warped justice is what keeps the story flowing, as the first half of the book is essentially a Rorschach detective story with a lot of exposition. Also, Rorschach along with Dr. Manhatten and the others each in their own way add to the major thing I always took away after reading watchmen: Just how fucked up the world would be if superheroes actually existed? Imagine a city with 30 or so Rorschach’s running around? Not what I would call ideal.
February 10th, 2009 at 1:52 pm
I actually thought that the reveal of Rorchach’s identity was really interesting. It helps explain his brutal, obsessive and unwavering nature. Like John said, it’s like he’s motivated by some unnatural force to punish all that he sees as “evil”, even if he is wrong or goes over the line. He’s a very psyche-driven character. A lot of superheroes are motivated by some traumatic force to do good, but it’s as though Rorschach is motivated by his traumatic past to cause trauma, but in his eyes he IS doing good, He sees himself as Batman while everyone else sees him as the Joker. That isn’t to say that he doesn’t do some good, it’s to say that he judges absolutely.
February 10th, 2009 at 4:36 pm
YESSS!!! Finally we get to issue 5 and six and deal with my favorite character Rorschach! Like John, I LOVE his character, but I do LOVE his backstory as well. I think in this limited series, giving a backstory to Rorschach only makes him more creepy. and since he winds up dead in the end I don’t mind it so much, I find I need it more In the beginning it was simnply Kovacs playing Rorschach, but after the incident with the mutilated kid, faced with the ugliness of humanity, he BECOMES Rorschach. And his behaviors and actions reflect that. In the end of issue 5 when he gets caught, Rorschach screams out “MY face, give me back my face!” This haunted me as his mask isn’t his mask at all, it’s his identity. I found that so deeply disturbing and lonely at the same time.
Some interesting things that need to be pointed out:
Issue 5 is entitled “Fearful Symmetry” and for a good reason. It refers to the inkblot tests that define Rorschach’s personna, but it also referes to the way this issue is layed out, completely symmetrical. You can see it best in the center backsplash where we see Ozmandious attack his would be killer, every frame is completely symetrical. But wait there’s more… The first panels center on Rorschach and the last panels center on Rorschach. The Rum Runner logo that graces the cover and is Rorschach’s adopted logo are a pair of symmetrial letter Rs. Issue 5 & 6 are in the middle of the series, and deal with Rorschach, more symmetry. I find this blending of character, story telling and layout completely brilliant and beautiful. It doesn’t get any better than this!!!
Issue 6 has an inkblot on the front cover and is referred to several times throughout the issue. The inkblot is a familiar one, that looks like a butterfly. Now this is significant because, like a butterfly, Dr. Long will CHANGE throughout this issue. He starts out all excited, he is going to be famous. His home life is good and we even see that he is getting some action. As he digs deeper into his investigation of Rorschach, he begins to lose his sanity. We see him taking pills and his home life begins to fall apart. He begins to call Kovacs Rorshach and he’s open to the sick images that come from his interpretation of the inkblots. In the end he’s is not the same, his wife hates him and we later learn that he is taken off the case. In a sense we are all like Dr. Long, we are on this journey with Rorschach and like the butterfly inkblot, we are changed by it.
I could speak more on this, but will let this sink in for further discussion.
February 11th, 2009 at 11:18 am
Well said Ryker. What I love about Watchmen is how everything but in has a meaning if not several. It really rings true to the “a picture tells a 1000 words!”
Did anyone else figureout who Rorschach was before he was captured? There were numerous hints, but it gave it away when Kovacs in the background goes down the alley with the sign, and almost immediately switches back to Rorschach in an alley, putting on his clothes! Then again, this isn’t the first time: the main twists in Oedipus and Fight Club I also figured out well in advance.
February 11th, 2009 at 1:25 pm
To be honest, I’m apparently a complete moron because I didn’t figure it until the arrest. After they showed his face, the light bulb went on and I felt like an idiot because it should have been so obvious.
February 11th, 2009 at 3:52 pm
@John,
Don’t feel bad that the Watchmen gave you a nice suprise and you can look back and see the clues. I mean how many of us, honestly, how many of us figured out “The Sixth Sense” the first time? Yet the clues are there… That’s what so brilliant, you get caught up in the story and the depth that you miss the obvious. That’s what makes this such a great piece of work.
February 11th, 2009 at 4:22 pm
Yeah, I was totally in the dark up until the reveal, too.
February 13th, 2009 at 1:16 pm
A friend of mine was at NY Comic Con and saw the first 18 minutes of Watchmen. The clip included:
The killing of The Comedian
Opening credits which is a montage history of costumed heroes such as the Minutemen to the tune of “The Times They Are a Changing”
Rorschach’s investigating of Edward Blake’s apartment
And the wonderful news is…the scenes were FRAME BY EFFING FRAME true to the novel. KICK ASS!!!! They are being true to Moore’s vision PRAISE GOD!!!