• s_p_l_o_d_e [they/them,he/him]
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    4 years ago

    Reminds me of how he wrote Rorschach as a unimaginably far right-wing objectivist/nationalist take on Steve Ditko characters (e.g. The Question), and when critics hailed the character as the greatest Watchmen character, Moore declared the book a failure of art.

    • gayhobbes [he/him]
      hexagon
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      4 years ago

      People who like Rorschach fucking terrify me

    • extraterrestrial5 [none/use name]
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      4 years ago

      when critics hailed the character as the greatest Watchmen character, Moore declared the book a failure of art.

      "noooo you're supposed to have contempt for the lumpenprole underdog"

      • gayhobbes [he/him]
        hexagon
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        4 years ago

        Yes, they love him because he's lumpenprole and not because he's a savage vigilante butcher or anything

        • Candidate [he/him]
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          4 years ago

          They like him because he's basically the protagonist for most of the series. He's the guy with a goal that he's pursuing and it turns out his investigation isn't insane, it's bang on the money. Maybe it's just that I'm living in a post-Dexter world, but it just seems so quaint that Moore thinks that Rorschach's flaws were going to turn people off.

          Even the whole "he smells and doesn't have a girlfriend" doesn't really make a lot of sense - those are ascetic values that most societies are trained to respect, at least on an abstract level.

          • gayhobbes [he/him]
            hexagon
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            4 years ago

            Nite Owl and Silk Spectre were intended to be the protagonists of the series, not Rorschach. Moore intended them to be a more neutral, non philosophical point of view while the other characters embodied utilitarianism, pragmatism, and so on.

      • s_p_l_o_d_e [they/them,he/him]
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        edit-2
        4 years ago

        I mean, you're supposed to not praise him as an actual hero, since he spends the entire book harassing, assaulting, and looking down on working class and poor folks for no reason other than they are poor and not "American" while simultaneously hating himself and his upbringing for not being fascist/nationalist enough and not being rich like Ozymandias.

    • zifnab25 [he/him, any]
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      edit-2
      4 years ago

      The final scene in the book gives Rorschach a patina of virtue that the other heroes lack. I think this was Moore's ultimate fuck-up. He presented Rorschach as uncompromisingly stubborn in the face of a horrifying conspiracy to commit mass murder, and that gave him the appearance of "the last good cop" rather than "belligerent asshole who can't admit he's lost".

      The HBO show does a lot to castigate Rorschach as bad based on his racist legacy, rather than his stubborn personality. Mirror Mask ends up being the Rorschach that Rorschach should have been, while the cult of personality he leaves behind is exposed as equally genocidal.

      • s_p_l_o_d_e [they/them,he/him]
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        4 years ago

        Yeah, that's a good point about Rorschach at the end; had he just shrugged his shoulders and said that it was for the best, it would have been a better show of how he views the necessity of genocidal actions if they lead to his wanted outcomes.

        Would have been funny if he had asked Ozymandias why he didn't just kill all the brown and communist people.

        Also, interesting info about the show, haven't watched it, maybe I should...

        • zifnab25 [he/him, any]
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          4 years ago

          In the Christopher Nolan movie, his father sponsors a rail network through the city that revitalizes commerce. The rail network's hub is Wayne Tower, the largest building in the city and the private property of the Waynes themselves. So... "public" is relative.

          Joker does a better job of portraying the Waynes.

            • zifnab25 [he/him, any]
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              4 years ago

              Sure. And New York's Central Park is free to use.

              Just don't google "Seneca Village".

              • invalidusernamelol [he/him]
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                4 years ago

                Fair haha, I don't think that the Wayne's are good or anything, they were just presented as the "good" billionaires really heavily in the movies.

      • gayhobbes [he/him]
        hexagon
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        4 years ago

        DC has realized it's super fucked up, so they've made it so that Gotham is a SPECIAL place where big evil people are trying to make it filled with crime, like R'as al Ghul or some shit keeps sending petty criminals there to ruin things. DC has a child's morality.

          • gayhobbes [he/him]
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            4 years ago

            In my humble estimation DC's properties are all still Golden Age, by and large, with their simplistic moral code of the 1930s, basically. Most of Marvel's best properties came of age during a more socially and civically aware era.

            Both their CEOs are massive chuds though.

    • Nagarjuna [he/him]
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      4 years ago

      The original iron man comic was basically this. Look it up. CW: Anti Asian prejudice

    • gayhobbes [he/him]
      hexagon
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      4 years ago

      He absolutely loves and respects the stuff he works with. He is critical and points out its flaws (his work with Victorian-era literature and Lovecraft are both great analyses) but he doesn't loathe the source material.

  • snackage [he/him]
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    4 years ago

    I'm on his side in his eternal magician war with Grant Morrison. Also the pod did an interview with him if you care.