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[joysweeper]

Read Watchmen for a class.

It wasn't bad, but it's also not to my taste.  And I don't like Rorschach.  Not as much as the teacher does, anyway.  She seems to think he's all noble.  ...Yeah, not so much.

Comments

Oh no, not another Rorschach fangirl

[nivenus]

Don't people get he's supposed to be ax crazy?

I mean, he's admirable in his own sort of way - he's morally consistent for one thing - and he certainly has a noble purpose but his actions are nothing if not reprehensible.

But then again, most of the characters in Watchmen aren't exactly what you'd call "noble" so I suppose some people get desperate.

[joysweeper]

She started talking about how much she liked him, how he was the most moral character there and she identifies with him - yeah. There was a reading response question where she actually wanted us to speculate about why someone as "principled" as Rorshach admired the Comedian.

True. It's part of the reason why I don't care for the comic.

[dragoon1940]

I never did get the love for Rorschach. He's a psychopath, dedicated entirely to his own black and white view of morality. As he famously says, "No compromise, even in the face of Armageddon."

He's not noble. He does horrible things to people - some of whom don't deserve those things. Then again, almost all of the characters in Watchmen are screwed up in one way or another.

[joysweeper]

My teacher really likes that refusal to compromise, and says that she doesn't either. Having been in her class, I can say that this isn't true, which is good. She does actually adjust to what's going on.

The example she gave while comparing herself to him - urgh - was that when she was having family problems and someone wanted her and her sister to "just pretend" everything was fine she refused. Which, okay, sure. But refusal to compromise in all ways is not a good thing.

Your mileage may vary but...

[nivenus]

Well, there is something to be said for moral consistency, if you actually believe in the existence of good and evil. After all, if you betray your morals because of the circumstance, how good are those morals? And in the particular instance where Rorschach gets axed, I actually agree with him.

That being said, moral extremism can (and generally is, in my opinion) more dangerous than compromise.

It's a tricky balance, you know, being principled without being extremist.

[joysweeper]

I don't know. That instance, he could have survived and got the word out later. Yes, he mailed his journal to that newspaper, but it ended on a suspicion that Ozymandas was up to something. And there's no guarantee that it would get printed and no one would be able to hush it up.

[chaosakita]

I'd love to read Watchmen for class. What kind of cool college does that?