In the graphic novel Watchmen, there are three characters who can essentially be classed as nihilists. These are The Comedian, Rorschach and Dr Manhattan. Each of them exhibits this attribute in different ways and each of them comes to this philosophical conclusion through different paths. I’ll start by discussing the three characters and what makes them nihilists. I’ll then discuss the interplay between the three during the novel and show how this allows a further exploration of nihilistic concepts. I’ll then discuss briefly my own opinion on the characters and whether there is anything we can take from them. I’ve written this for people who are familiar with the novel (although those who’ve seen the film should be able to follow it). For those who haven’t, have a read anyway as I’ve hopefully explained the storyline just enough for any reader to follow.
The three nihilists
The Comedian
The Comedian (aka Eddie Blake) is a ‘costumed hero’, a vigilante who possesses no special powers but is physically and mentally adept at tacking crime (albeit outside the remit of legality). In between his original duty of crime fighting, Blake fights in WWII, Vietnam and in various CIA-sponsored proxy wars against communism. He is shown to be merciless, brutal and effective. He is portrayed as being not as much immoral as amoral; he admits to raping women and killing children and justifies it as acts committed during war. He is often shown wearing a yellow smiley face badge, a juxtaposition to the horror in which he is partaking. Blake though does not wear this badge in any ironic way. Blake wears it for the very reason that he is called The Comedian. He sees both the world we humans tell ourselves we live in, with society, civilisation and culture. He also partakes in the extreme negation of that during his times at war or crime fighting. Blake however doesn’t see this difference as that of ying and yang, or two sides of the same coin. Blake sees human nature as warlike and meaningless, a void which we fill by telling ourselves our civilised lives are natural and that war is an aberration. For The Comedian, this is the ultimate joke. As such, he mirrors what he sees as this comedy by fighting ostensibly for ‘freedom’ whilst destroying anything he wishes. He is the epitome of the destructive nihilist, who looks into society and seeing nothing, tears it apart. Blake ‘s attitude can be summed up perfectly when during a conversation in the 1960s he says
“It don’t matter squat because inside thirty years the nukes are gonna be flyin’ like maybugs”.
Nuclear weaponry encapsulates The Comedian’s nihilism: no matter what society wants to be or says it is, we are all doomed.
Rorschach
Rorschach’s nihilism takes a different tone from The Comedian’s. Rorschach is another ‘costumed hero’ and in the present-day parts of the novel the only active crime fighter. Rorschach’s nihilism arises firstly from his background. He was the son of a prostitute who was sent to an orphanage at around the age of ten for violently assaulting two older children, partially blinding one. His lack of family ties led him to develop into a solitary character. Whilst working at a garment factory, he met a woman who he believed was Kitty Genovese. Kitty Genovese, a real-life figure, was an American girl who was raped and murdered outside an apartment block whilst thirty eight people watched from their windows[1]. Rorschach, sickened by the amorality of those who watched, decides to become a vigilante to prevent such things happening again. Rorschach’s breaking point though is when he is investigating the disappearance of a young girl. He tracks her down to an abandoned house and finds two Alsatians fighting over one of the girl’s bones. Rorschach kills the animals, waits for the return of the murderer, ties him up and torches the house with the murderer still inside. Rorschach’s description of this act deserves to be quoted in full:
“Stood in firelight, sweltering. Bloodstain on chest like map of violent new continent. Felt cleansed. Felt dark planet turn under my feet and knew what cats know that makes them scream like babies in night. Looked at sky through smoke heavy with human fat and God was not there. The cold, suffocating dark goes on forever and we are alone. Live our lives, lacking anything better to do. Devise reason later. Born from oblivion; bear children, hell-bound as ourselves, go into oblivion. There is nothing else. Existence is random. Has no pattern save what we imagine after staring at it for too long. No meaning save what we choose to impose. This rudderless world is not shaped by vague metaphysical forces. It is not God who kills the children. Not fate that butchers them or destiny that feeds them to the dogs. It’s us. Only us. Streets stank of fire. The void breathed hard on my heart, turning its illusions to ice, shattering them. Was reborn then, free to scrawl own design on this morally blank world”.
Rorschach is certainly a nihilist, yet he is a nihilist in very different ways to Blake. Rorschach has a strong sense of justice. The murder of the girl confirmed for him that there was no God or external morality. In the face of this emptiness, Rorschach decides to write his own morality upon the world; killing the rapists and child murderers of the world not because it is right, but because it is what he feels compelled to do. This is in contrast to The Comedian who sees concepts of morality as a joke and as such parodies it by becoming a national hero for butchering people on moral America’s demand. Rorschach also has a black/white view on justice, there is no place to compromise with him. Blake acts in an extreme manner with no regard to any inner morality. Whereas Rorschach is compelled by the emptiness to create something, The Comedian finds this the greatest joke of all. Rorschach lives by strict adherence to his own moral code, Blake lives through the pleasure he gets at living through the never-ending joke. Both characters then are shown to be nihilists and both extremists, yet there could be not much greater difference between their conclusions.
Dr Manhattan
The final nihilist in Watchmen is Dr Manhattan. Dr Manhattan is the only classical superhero of the group, with powers even Superman would envy. He was created however by a freak accident which destroyed his body and returned him as essentially a God. Having been a human, and a well-balanced one at that, for thirty years prior to his accident, Dr Manhattan’s nihilism arises from his newfound omnipotence and the changed perspective this brings. Dr Manhattan watches people grow older, kill and maim, wars being fought and lives being destroyed. Without the ability to die or age, Dr Manhattan questions why humans, despite their short time on Earth and fragility, have a proclivity to destroy each other. As Dr Manhattan says with regards to our warlike nature,
“They claim their labours are to build a heaven, yet their heaven is populated with horrors”.
Through living through such experiences, Dr Manhattan grows weary of the human condition and its unresolvable contradictions. He leaves to live on Mars at first and by the end of the novel he leaves the galaxy, wishing to leave humans to their own business. Dr Manhattan’s nihilism them reflects an existential angst which is felt by a human who has transcended humanity and no longer needs to fear death. Dr Manhattan deals with this through stoic reflection, indulging himself in science and discovery. Having concluded that he himself if the closest there is to a God, and without the angst of mortality hanging over him, Dr Manhattan exhibits a very different kind of nihilism to both The Comedian and Rorschach. Dr Manhattan takes the option of distancing himself from human affairs and as such is not required to make the choices the other two character do. It is clear however that Dr Manhattan’s choice is not made in the same way Rorschach or The Comedian’s is: Dr Manhattan simply chooses to stop playing the game[2].
Conclusion
The Comedian, Rorschach and Dr Manhattan then all are nihilists but come to this conclusion for very different reasons. They also draw very different conclusions from this. The Comedian sees society’s portrayal of life as a sick joke; he believes there is no meaning out there and that man is warlike. Faced with this horror, he lives his life as a parody of it: the American hero who is praised for how evil he is. Rorschach sees society as lacking morality and human beings as the architects of their own pitiful situation. Without objective morality, Rorschach creates on his own and lives his life dogmatically to it in order to give it some sort of meaning. Dr Manhattan transcends the human condition and sees the pointlessness of human conflict when human life is so short and fragile. Unable to balance the contradiction, he leaves Earth and seeks a stoic existence. The Comedian then is what I would term a “Fight Club nihilist”: the inherent contradictions of society drive him towards destruction. Having lost everything (in the sense of any societal constraints on his behaviour) he is free to do anything. Rorschach is a pseudo-Nietzschean, aiming to paint his will and morality upon society. Rorschach represents Nietzsche’s Superman, albeit one who is crazed[3]. Dr Manhattan is almost Schopenhauerian; seeking a stoic life to escape the emptiness of existence. All three reach the same conclusion, that existence is meaningless, yet all three seek different paths of dealing with this. It is this method of exploring the same philosophical concept through three interrelated characters that I think makes Watchmen one of the most philosophically interesting graphic novels out there.
The interplay of the variants of nihilism in the novel
The characters of any novel interact and Watchmen is no different. The interactions between the three nihilists though is interesting as it illuminates the differences between them. Both Rorschach and Dr Manhattan respect The Comedian but for different reasons. Both characters believe that Blake sees the world as it is, with its inherent irresolvable contradictions, and faces it full-on. Dr Manhattan is influenced by Blake as he watches the amoral actions Blake commits in Vietnam (in particular the murder of a Vietnamese woman who is carrying his baby). This shapes Dr Manhattan’s view that humans are doomed and that very few will allow themselves to accept this. To quote Dr Manhattan,
“As I come to understand Vietnam and what it implies about the human condition, I also realise that few will permit themselves such a understanding. Blake’s different. He understands perfectly. And he doesn’t care”.
Rorschach respects Blake’s single mindedness no-compromise attitude. This links in with the Nietzschean aspect of Rorschach’s thought. Although Blake commits acts that in Rorschach’s eyes would be repugnant, Blake has the strength of character to act as he pleases. As such, Rorschach sees the Superman in Blake which he himself only gained through mental collapse. The Comedian then forms a pivot around which both Rorschach and Dr Manhattan view their own nihilism.
The only other relationship between the nihilists is between Rorschach and Dr Manhattan. At the end of the novel, Rorschach threatens to reveal a secret that if kept could save the world. The secret is that millions have just been murdered under the pretence of an alien invasion/ by Dr Manhattan (depending on whether you’ve seen the movie or read the novel). Through uniting man against a common enemy, it is hoped that nations will stop warring. If this secret is revealed however, it would almost inevitably lead to nuclear war. Rorschach, obeying his dogmatic moral code to the end, refuses to allow pragmatism to creep in and cannot allow an act to save the world if it goes against his morality. Dr Manhattan then kills Rorschach, reasoning that a fundamental lie which may perceivably end conflict is worthy of keeping secret. This reflects his nihilism which is a melancholy with human existence rather than Rorschach’s death of God or Blake’s detachment from society. Rorschach sees nothing but his own morality as worthwhile, even to the cost of his own life. Dr Manhattan sees salvation in the lie and therefore it must be protected at all costs.
It should be noted here that concerning The Comedian’s nihilism, when he found out about the secret and its consequences (the murder of millions for the hope of world peace) it led to his mental collapse. This confirms Blake’s sense of nihilism in terms of it as a reaction to society. Blake found his position as a hero the ultimate joke considering what he had done. In a way, Blake’s actions were aimed towards seeing just how far society would let him go. Once he found out about the secret though he realises that there are some things that are no laughing matter. This represents the limits of Blake’s nihilism and perhaps his lack of amoral utilitarian thought.
The interplay between the three nihilists serves to highlight the different conclusions nihilism can lead to. The Comedian serves as a pivot for the other two characters but even he falls into conventional morality when the utilitarian trade-off of millions for billions is made. Rorschach doesn’t see utilitarianism as fitting with his world-view and hence rejects it. Dr Manhattan embraces pragmatism (stoically as ever) and kills Rorschach in order to preserve possible peace. The interplay of these three characters then, both directly and indirectly, allows their nihilist principals to be contrasted, as well as the reader to consider their situational implications.
My opinion
As will probably be clear by now, Watchmen is one of my favourite graphic novels and as such, I should pass my own opinion on the characters. I personally would consider myself a nihilist in the Nietzschean sense; there is no God, human society is based on objectivity that does not exist and all one has is one’s own brush to paint reality with (assuming one is brave enough to escape the herd and attempt this). As such, I feel that Rorschach’s nihilism not only reflects my own but has a much stronger grounding in reality. The realisation that society is bursting at the seams, that murderers and rapists are human like the rest of us, that genocides are manufactured by those who also feel; this is what Rorschach’s nihilism encapsulates for me. It also covers what may be the masculine quality (and this is said without any positive or negative connotations) of a need to live your life by or for something. This can be typified by the Martin Luther King quote
“A man who won’t die for something is not fit to live”.
Rorschach looks into the abyss of the fat-filled smoke and the emptiness stares back into him. To continue to live in a meaningless reality he must manufacture his own reason to live. This leads to his own extreme dogmatic thinking but it also frees him from the horrors of nothingness.
Dr Manhattan’s melancholic nihilism is well thought out but lacks depth: it does not pose any solutions for us mere mortals for whom death is a certainty and who can’t stop playing the game of life, so to speak, whist continuing to live. Dr Manhattan’s nihilism is for me an almost poetic one, where the fragility of human life and the beauty it can contain is juxtaposed against the horrors we often fashion upon each other. Such poetic musings though do not grant a position of action bar suicide or acceptance of the ways things are. It is for this reason I compared earlier Dr Manhattan to Schopenhauer. Schopenhauer believed only an ascetic life would lead to fulfilment. This is what Dr Manhattan chooses when he leaves Earth to live forever in stoic contemplation. While this mirrors to some extent Buddhist thought and could be seen as a ‘path to salvation’ it also relies on there being something ‘out-there’, an eternal force, spirit or will which is beyond us. As such Dr Manhattan’s nihilism is irresolvable philosophically and therefore requires ignorance or a fundamental lie for resolution[4].
Finally, we have The Comedian. Blake wants to watch the world burn, his place in it is the ultimate joke and it doesn’t matter if he’s the only one laughing. Blake then represents the antithesis of Rorschach who could be considered as at least trying to ‘make the world a better place’. Blake doesn’t concern himself with such trivial matters, by definition they don’t matter. In a sense, his actions in the novel are almost a test of how far the joke can go, how extreme his actions can become whilst still being praised for them. This does mirror Fight Club’s destructive nihilism to a large extent, except that Blake is on his own with his own joke. Blake’s character then really reflects the notions of heroic action in society, how we give killers honours because they did it in the name of King and country, for justice, for peace. The contradiction between our praise for ‘our boys’ and hatred we place on the actions of opposing forces, the veiled hypocrisy in such views: this is what I believe Blake represents. Blake then is a mirror of the lies within society which allow it to operate, of the violence men wreak so we can sleep peacefully in our beds at night[5].
Of the three characters then, I believe Rorschach is the best written. Rorschach follows a well-threaded philosophical route into nihilism and also reacts aggressively to the loss of meaning by constructing his own dogma. Dr Manhattan suffers from a disillusionment with the human condition; the contradiction between violence and beauty. Being Godlike, he does not have to face up to this dilemma as we mortals must. Hence his nihilism is almost poetic; steeped in romanticism and its loss but not really philosophical or able to grant further insight. The Comedian’s nihilism faces the contradictions in society and the role of one man in it. Seeing the void between our ideology and reality, he believes this is the biggest joke of all. As such he is more representative of our society’s framework than being a personal position. All three though allow a sharp analysis of nihilism, assuming of course you agree with their formative postulations.
Conclusion
Watchmen has a strong nihilistic trait contained within it and this is fleshed out in three main characters: The Comedian, Rorschach and Dr Manhattan. The Comedian is a ‘Fight Club nihilist’ who reacts against society and sees how far he can push it. Rorschach is a Nietzschean nihilist who sees no God and therefore creates his own moral code. Dr Manhattan is a melancholy nihilist who is angst-ridden at the contradiction between human life’s fragility and our proclivity for war. Through the story arc and interaction between the three characters (along with others), each view of nihilism is explored and juxtaposed at intervals against each other. This storytelling allows the reader to really consider the issues at stake and question why they (possibly) believe in something.
In my opinion Rorschach is the strongest character as his thinking is more philosophically grounded and also based on experience. The Comedian is interesting yet he is more a reflection of the contradictions of society than a man who reflected on his experience and made a decision. Dr Manhattan however did just this. Seeing the carnage of human existence and being detached from it, he developed a melancholic view and decided he could no longer live within human affairs. Whilst this is quite poetic, it does not represent a position of consideration for anyone who is trapped within society and is mortal. Both Blake and Dr Manhattan’s views though serve to counter the dogmatic extremism of Rorschach and show what one can become without any external referent for morality. To quote Nietzsche (with the quote Watchmen uses as well as everyone else),
“He who fights with monsters should look into it that he himself does not become a monster”.
Watchmen then successfully covers the rise of nihilistic thought, what actions it produces and its possible consequences. Whilst it contains a wealth of other socio/political commentary I believe that these three characters and not only the best written, they also successfully tackle the question that every human being who has ever existed has asked: “Why?”.
[1] This is now known as the bystander effect, where observers of crimes feel a diffused responsibility to act to help.
[2] Dr Manhattan does meet with Laurie on Mars and is persuaded that human life is worthwhile as there is such a tiny possibility of it occurring. This validation doesn’t really hold true though. If my sperm didn’t win the race and eventually become me, then whoever was born instead of me would still have been as improbable as my outcome. Dr Manhattan is guilty here of the gambler’s fallacy, confusing the probability of events after they have occurred rather than looking at events to come. Such a simple error is somewhat disastrous for the novel’s attempt at validating human life, however one must not forget it is a graphic novel and not a stringent work of philosophy.
[3] This is my issue with Nolan’s interpretation of Batman. Bale’s Batman never strikes me as the nihilist who gives his life meaning by fighting crime. He seems like a lost rich boy who does it for a kick. Burton’s original with Keaton as Batman is far better in my opinion. Trapped in angst and seeming almost suicidal, Keaton’s Batman is believably borderline insane.
[4] Or of course the belief in something beyond our realm, in which case you aren’t a nihilist.
[5] The film A Few Good Men comes to mind here (as well as my paraphrased Orwell quote).
ssptmusing 