Worthless and Weak

7 Things I dislike about Watchmen:

First off all, this list contains spoilers, so if you haven't read Watchmen, you just shouldn't read this list. Even if you're not planning to read it, just don't read this list...

1: The comic-within-the-comic was, in my opinion, better than the comic itself.

2: Both heroines mentioned in the original minutemen, the Silk Spectre, and the Silhouette, both have names beginning with the letters "Sil" making them very easily confused.

3: The (implied) reverse gambler's fallacy discussion between Dr. Manhattan and Laurie on Mars regrading miracles so obviously inconsistent with Dr. Manhattan's worldview (he could just as easily be mystified in regarding the position of each individual atom in a grain of sand as in observing the whole of humanity. In short, he rejected humanity, and we're led to believe that he came to accept it again due to a belief that humanity was special in a quantum/thermodynamic sense. While I don't actually reject this, the actual argument made in the book was, in my opinion, flat out wrong.

4: We never find out what really happened to hooded justice. Or really, anything about him, even though he's in some ways the most pivotal character in the book.

5: The book does not give an adequate conclusion to the story - the liberal utopia created at the end of the story is neither given a satisfactory label (good/bad) by the author, nor is it presented in enough detail for the reader to make his own conclusions. It merely implies that the cold war is over, and that horrible social structure of the world at large seems to improve. (From Nostalgia to Millennium). (FOR REAL, SPOILER ALERT: DON'T READ THIS NEXT SENTENCE). In a sentence, the question that it tries to pose is "is the murder of several million people offset by the creation of the new liberal society?" yet it does not give enough detail about the new society to examine said question.

6: It is an inherently political book; yet does not give an appropriate perspective to view itself. In doing so, it fails to give the reader any ability to determine if (parts of) the book is a parody and satire of liberal though, or is a genuine example of a perverted liberal thought process. (I suppose that I need to explain what I'm talking about here. The book favorably compares Kennedy to Nixon, (fair enough), and Nixon is presented as somewhat of a dictator in the book, serving what I think is his fourth of fifth term. However, Nixon isn't presented as particularly evil, almost as if it is implied that Nixon is evil simply for being Nixon, (in fact, in the DefCon 2 scene, Nixon is the most levelheaded and rational of his staff). Meanwhile, Kennedy is portrayed as he is, well, pretty much everywhere, "what would the world be like if this young man wasn't killed before he could save the world." Again, you can disagree with these things, but nothing too controversial with it. The kicker is at the end of the book, after the cold war is over, when the world is now in what I've been calling the "Liberal Utopia" it is revealed that Robert Redford is running for President. Now, while I've got nothing against Robert Redford, well, he really has no qualifications to be president, he was just the prettiest face in 1986. This is aesthetics as morality, the belief that, one day, when everything is right, our country will be run by the best looking person. This can easily be transposed onto Kennedy, is he adored merely because of his aesthetic appeal? What's missing is the point, is Watchmen intentionally ironic in doing this?) Some of course, would argue that this is the point.

7: (Again, with the morality, I know, I know.) At one point, the book mentioned that, after America won the Vietnam war, the pro-American forces went on to massacre the anti-American population. In doing so, it implicitly equated communism with capitalism. That is, it states the fact that the worst consequence of the loss of the Vietnam war (the boat people, re-education camps, etc) would have happened either way. In doing so, the book takes the stand that the cold war was a war over nothing- merely what color the flags in southeast Asia are. It treats morality as merely a matter of aesthetics. (to give it credit, its not being weaselly about it this time).

Of course, all that being said, its a great book, you should read it.

Labels: book reviews, comics