OT: watchmen on trial

Nathan Spears · 09 Apr 2005, 17:00 · from 2005-April.txt.gz

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From: spearofsolomon at yahoo.com (Nathan Spears)
Date: Sat Apr  9 17:00:47 2005
Subject: (urth) OT: watchmen on trial 
In-Reply-To: 6667
Message-ID: <20050410000045.66295.qmail at web54409.mail.yahoo.com>

> "1984" is pretty obviously an intended Tragedy. If "The Watchmen" was meant 
> as a tragedy then it was verrrrrry subtle and quite ambivalent one. Also, 
> I've sense remembered that it was not Mr. Manhattan that justified Ozy's 
> plan (he only murdered the only common man hero in the story), it was Night 
> Owl who was the character with the primary narrative perspective. If it was 
> a mistake to take Night Owl's summation of Ozy's plan **at the climax of the 
> story** as the author's own, then I think it was a forgivable mistake ~ and 
> I hereby absolve myself. ;-)

I don't condemn you but . . . don't you read Gene Wolfe?  I admit that I never
assumed that the author was speaking through the characters because the characters
presented such a bleak view of morality and humanity, but those are the same reasons
I assumed Orwell wasn't speaking through O'Brien.  Maybe it didn't come across as
well in comic book format, but if Watchmen were transcribed in prose I imagine that
the scenes with Ozy lecturing to those guys at his stronghold would have read much
like O'Brien defeating each of Winston's arguments through cold-blooded logic.  The
great tragedy of Watchmen is the triumph of that logic over our own humanity, just
as it was in 1984.  The arguments are different, as the regime in 1984 was pursuing
power as its own end, but the tragedy is the same.

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