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| 3 | %% As per ATT, the Watchmen page is standalone. No references from Doomsday Clock, Before Watchmen, or movie or game adaptations in terms of |
| 4 | %% content and plot and character beats are to be mentioned here or in sub-pages. |
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| 7 | [[quoteright:300:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/watchmen_absolut.jpg]] |
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| 9 | ->''"Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?"'' [[note]]''Who watches the [[TitleDrop watchmen]]?''[[/note]] |
| 10 | -->-- '''Creator/{{Juvenal}}''', ''Satires'' |
| 11 | |
| 12 | ''Watchmen'' is a 12-issue comic book MiniSeries written by Creator/AlanMoore and illustrated by Dave Gibbons that ran from September 1986 to October 1987, published by Creator/DCComics, and was subsequently printed as a single-volume graphic novel. It is one of the most famous and influential {{deconstruction}}s of the {{superhero}} genre. |
| 13 | |
| 14 | The story is set in an AlternateUniverse that mirrors the real world of the late 20th century, with just one key difference. In the real world, the runaway success of ''[[ComicBook/ActionComicsNumber1 Action Comics #1]]'' in the summer of 1938 led to {{superhero}}es becoming a major sensation in American pop culture; in this world, it inspired a wave of ''real people'' to take to the streets in colorful costumes to fight crime like their heroes in the comic books, leading to the formation of an organisation known as the Minutemen. |
| 15 | |
| 16 | By the 1940s, superheroes are a very real part of American life and culture, but they're ultimately unprepared for the new ''status quo'' of the early 1960s, when the U.S. government's experiments in theoretical physics lead to the birth of "Doctor Manhattan", an omniscient PhysicalGod with the power to remake the universe at will. The latter half of the 20th century sees the US winning UsefulNotes/TheVietnamWar with Doctor Manhattan's help, leading to a greatly escalated UsefulNotes/ColdWar. |
| 17 | |
| 18 | By the start of the story, the aging members of the first generation of superheroes are retired or dead, and their would-be successors have been forbidden from crime-fighting by the passage of [[SuperRegistrationAct the Keene Act]] during UsefulNotes/RichardNixon's third term in 1977. By the 1980s, the world is at the brink of nuclear war, and most of the world's superheroes have returned to their civilian lives. One of the only holdouts is the mysterious "Rorschach", a mentally unstable renegade crimefighter who lives off-the-grid in New York City, pursued by the NYPD for his long history of illegal vigilantism. |
| 19 | |
| 20 | The plot of ''Watchmen'' begins with the murder of Edward Blake, a former member of the Minutemen who went on to become a feared Black Ops agent for the US military. While investigating Blake's murder, Rorschach delves into his past as the superhero "The Comedian," and begins to suspect that someone deliberately targeted him for his superhero past. As he follows a trail of clues through the seedy underbelly of New York, Rorschach seeks out his former acquaintances -- Dan Dreiberg ("Nite Owl"), Laurie Juspeczyk ("Silk Spectre"), Doctor Manhattan (formerly Jon Osterman), and Adrian Veidt ("Ozymandias") -- believing that their past adventures may have sown the seeds of a new threat. But [[MinorCrimeRevealsMajorPlot Blake's murder is only the start of a bigger mystery]]--one that will ultimately bring the heroes together for one final battle, and force them to question everything that they believe in. |
| 21 | |
| 22 | The series is perhaps best known for being one of the first serious attempts at examining how modern society and culture might ''really'' react to the presence of costumed vigilantes with secret identities (though it wasn't the first to deconstruct it, as Creator/MarvelComics did quite a bit of this in MediaNotes/{{the Silver Age|OfComicBooks}} -- what sets ''Watchmen'' apart is how it framed its narrative against the backdrop of the UsefulNotes/ColdWar in a more realistic light). More broadly, though, the whole story is a protracted examination of the conflict between {{power}} and morality. It's no accident that it was written towards the end of the Cold War, when UsefulNotes/{{the United States}} and the UsefulNotes/SovietUnion -- two superpowers of a different sort -- were reaching the apex of their power on the world stage. At the heart of the story's complex web of character relationships, the superheroes are ultimately divided by questions about the values and pitfalls of moral systems. Several characters are unabashedly amoral nihilists, and consciously reject the notion of following ideals; others fall to the opposite extreme, and steadfastly refuse to compromise their ideals for any reason. The story demonstrates the perils of both ways of thinking, while also following the struggles of ordinary people caught in the middle, who are just trying to do the right thing. |
| 23 | |
| 24 | For the other works titled ''Watchmen'' or follow-ups, see the [[Franchise/{{Watchmen}} franchise's page]]. |
| 25 | |
| 26 | '''Warning:''' As ''Watchmen'' came out three decades ago, there will be [[ItWasHisSled untagged]] [[Administrivia/SpoilersOff spoilers]] from this point forward. |
| 27 | ---- |
| 28 | !!Tropes: |
| 29 | [[foldercontrol]] |
| 30 | [[folder:Tropes A-F]] |
| 31 | * NinetiesAntiHero: Rorschach and the Comedian are progenitors of this trope, albeit [[UnbuiltTrope not strictly embodying it themselves]]. On record, Moore despises the fad for "DarkerAndEdgier" heroes whose ultraviolence is justified by some half-assed attempt at ''Watchmen''-style deconstruction. The other big-noted superhero work of 1986, Frank Miller's ''ComicBook/BatmanTheDarkKnightReturns'' is probably a more representative proto-example of "Nineties Anti-Hero" comics. Notably, Miller's no fan of it, either. Both authors were trying to take superheroics to their logical conclusion, rather than make dark and edgy look cool. |
| 32 | * AbandonedWarChild: What the Comedian plans to do to a Vietnamese woman he impregnates. Instead, she attacks him with a broken bottle, scarring him for life, and he shoots her dead. |
| 33 | * AboveGoodAndEvil: The longer he is Dr. Manhattan, the further he drifts from typical human morals, something even [[EvenEvilHasStandards the Comedian worries about]]. However, after his talk with Laurie on Mars, he becomes convinced of the value of human life. This allows Manhattan to agree not to expose Veidt as an OmnicidalManiac and even to kill Rorschach, but this also leads him to leave Earth forever. |
| 34 | -->'''Veidt''': I’d hope you’d understand, unlike [[BlackAndWhiteMorality Rorschach]]…\ |
| 35 | '''Manhattan''': Yes, I understand without condoning or condemning. Human affairs cannot be my concern. I’m leaving this galaxy for one less complicated.\ |
| 36 | '''Veidt''': But you’d regained your interest in human life…\ |
| 37 | '''Manhattan''': Yes, I have. [[CreatingLife I think perhaps I'll create some.]] |
| 38 | * TheAce: Ozymandias. {{Deconstructed|Trope}}. So, you are an intelligent, handsome, charismatic person with peak human physical prowess. You've made a hell of a lot of money all by yourself, and you're clever enough to realize that crimefighting does not change anything, and yet, out of good intention, you still wish to make the world a better place. So what do you do? Commit mass murder with faking an AlienInvasion as part of a GenghisGambit. And what [[WellIntentionedExtremist pushes you to do this is your idealism]]. |
| 39 | * AchillesInHisTent: Played with. Laurie thinks Jon is doing this by exiling himself to Mars instead of stopping the impending nuclear war between the U.S. and USSR. But actually, Jon [[StoryBreakerPower for once cannot see what is going to happen]] and therefore couldn’t have prevented Veidt’s plot even if he had been on Earth. |
| 40 | * AnAesop: Empathy is a hero's most important quality. Regardless of honorable intent, committing atrocities [[TheNeedsOfTheMany for the sake of the greater good]] never ends well; neither does [[BlackAndWhiteInsanity singleminded, uncompromising adherence to a code]]. You can't solve the world's problems if you're indifferent to other people's suffering. There's nothing wrong with having a moral code but you should not become a slave to it. |
| 41 | * AlliterativeName: '''D'''aniel "Nite Owl" '''D'''reiberg. The Silk Spectre(s). Wally Weaver, Bill Benjamin Brady (although his first name is actually William). Also the new presidential candidate, film star Robert Redford. |
| 42 | * AllohistoricalAllusion: Hell, if you look hard enough, everything in the whole book is a HistoricalInJoke in one form or another. |
| 43 | ** Most of the original superheroes die, retire, or go nuts after WWII, with a new generation popping up in the late fifties, mirroring the real-life post war decline of comics and the rise of the Silver Age. |
| 44 | ** A lot of other ones too. Nite Owl calls his Batman style gadget collection from the '60s "campy". In the real '70s, comics (arguably) entered the Bronze Age as Super Hero comics started to deal with political issues; in the Watchmenverse's Seventies, they ''are'' the issue. |
| 45 | ** The Comedian and Dr. Manhattan briefly discuss the effects if [[UsefulNotes/TheVietnamWar the US had lost the war in Vietnam]]. They also show a picture of a triumphant UsefulNotes/RichardNixon giving the “V” victory sign next to a helicopter on a launching pad, which alludes to the final helicopters leaving Vietnam when Saigon fell in 1975. |
| 46 | ** How about those two [[Film/AllThePresidentsMen Washington Post reporters]] found dead in a garage? |
| 47 | ** How about: "This is still America! People don't want a cowboy actor for president!" (of course, the cowboy actor running for president in ''this'' particular universe is Robert Redford; in the movie, it was changed to a direct UsefulNotes/RonaldReagan reference, probably because Redford hasn't been in a movie in a long time, but [[SmallReferencePools everyone knows Reagan]]). |
| 48 | ** Adrian Veidt says in his interview that he stopped a plot from the Pentagon to spread specific diseases in Africa. This refers to real-life conspiracy theories that attributes the origin of HIV/AIDS to the US government. |
| 49 | * AllThereInTheManual: Lots of background information (supplied by Moore and Gibbons themselves) about the characters and their equipment can be found in the Watchmen Modules and Sourcebook for the now-defunct ''TabletopGame/DCHeroes'' RPG. |
| 50 | * AlternateHistory: |
| 51 | ** Doctor Manhattan greatly changed the world, since he can synthesize normally rare elements and win wars single-handedly. Oh, and vigilante groups played their part (as mundane as their members may have been -- The Comedian certainly [[BeenThereShapedHistory made a mark or two on history]]). |
| 52 | ** Despite being the setting's OneBigLie, though, Doctor Manhattan is not its PointOfDivergence. That would be the appearance of Hooded Justice in 1938, leading to the popularity of costumed vigilantism and [[ArsonMurderAndJaywalking pirates replacing superheroes as the subjects of comic books]]. |
| 53 | ** There's a movie star with an AlliterativeName running for President of the United States in 1988, but it's Creator/RobertRedford instead of UsefulNotes/RonaldReagan. |
| 54 | ** The 22nd Amendment was amended in this universe, and Watergate either never happened, wasn't discovered, or just didn't have its real-life effects, so UsefulNotes/RichardNixon is on his fifth term in office. The EasterEgg mentioning [[Film/AllThePresidentsMen two Washington Post writers found dead in a garage]] implies that the events still took place, but the scandal was not broken to the public by Woodward and Bernstein as they were silenced (probably by the Comedian). |
| 55 | * AmbiguouslyGay: |
| 56 | ** Rorschach suspects as much of Veidt, though as the sequence is told from Rorshach's perspective it's fifty-fifty whether Veidt is StraightGay or if it's just Rorshach being his usual sexually confused homophobic self. |
| 57 | ** The "holding a handshake too long" scene that demonstrates Dan's sexual tension for Laurie is mirrored later with confirmed bachelor Rorschach doing the exact same thing to Dan (though it could just as easily be due to Rorschach's complete lack of social graces). |
| 58 | * AnachronicOrder: |
| 59 | ** In Issue #4, Dr. Manhattan's backstory uses NonLinearStorytelling. |
| 60 | ** In Issue #9, Dr. Manhattan also uses his abilities to help Laurie reach a highly personal conclusion about her life, namely that Eddie Blake is her father. |
| 61 | ** Issue #11 actually uses this as a plot twist. The narrative is mainly set in Ozymandias's base in Antarctica, while we're seemingly led to believe that what's going on in New York City with all the side characters is taking place at the same time. However, as the issue's ending indicates, [[YouAreTooLate Ozymandias dropped the squid on the city 35 minutes before the heroes got to him]]. Subtle foreshadowing to the New York segments taking place in the past can be seen in the background, where the clocks are all set before midnight, while the one in Ozymandias's lair is set to midnight. |
| 62 | * AnalogyBackfire: |
| 63 | ** The lock company "[[CuttingTheKnot Gordian Knot]]," which is famous precisely for being cut. |
| 64 | ** The name Ozymandias. In spite of the "look on my works, ye mighty and despair" line, the source poem is actually about the fleeting nature of power (the line is carved on a pedestal and nothing beside remains). Ozymandias's great strategy for peace on Earth will fail... eventually. |
| 65 | * AndTheAdventureContinues: Ends with the current Nite Owl and Silk Spectre coming out of retirement to fight crime together. Then there's TheStinger, implying that they may have to deal with the fallout from Rorschach exposing Ozymandias' crimes... |
| 66 | * AnimalThemedSuperbeing: The two Nite Owls and the minor character Mothman. |
| 67 | * AnimatedAdaptation: In-universe, the memo from Veidt's marketing department (included between chapters) mentions that they've been working on a SaturdayMorningCartoon starring Ozymandias, Bubastis, and unlicensed versions of Rorschach, Nite Owl II and Moloch; the show is expected to tie into Veidt's new line of action figures. Out-of-universe, the concept's been [[AffectionateParody parodied]] with ''WebAnimation/SaturdayMorningWatchmen'' and played with by the Watchmen "motion comic" DVD. Also parodied on ''WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons'' with 'Watchmen Babies in V for Vacation'. |
| 68 | * AnimationAgeGhetto: In-universe, for pirate comics. Those written by Max Shea are described and shown as extremely dark and disturbing, and his horror-inducing skills are even a plot point, but a newspaper story about his disappearance refers to them as "children's pirate comics." |
| 69 | * TheAnnotatedEdition: Two of them have been made; one is an unofficial version, while another is a large hardcover that reprints the entire book in black and white but adds many annotations and notes about the story to go with it. |
| 70 | * AntagonistInMourning: Moloch attends the funeral for the Comedian even though he was a criminal the Comedian clashed with. |
| 71 | * AntiClimacticUnmasking: Played with. Far before Rorschach was actually unmasked, the readers had been seeing him all this time as the sign-holder. In-universe, it was certainly dramatic. |
| 72 | * AntiHero: Probably all of the main characters, to a greater or lesser degree. Some of them try, though. Rorschach is the most notable due to being quick to kill criminals. |
| 73 | * AntiVillain: Ozymandias wants to stop a nuclear apocalypse and create a lasting peace, but resorts to brutal methods that push him straight into villainy. |
| 74 | * AntiNihilist: |
| 75 | ** Possibly Rorschach, though he is far from the kindest or most humane example of this type of character. Faced with a world that he finds to be essentially meaningless, he chooses to see patterns that no other people can, and build his strict moral code from that. In other words, despite knowing that he lives in a nihilistic universe, he never, ''ever'', gives up on his ideals. Even when it may have been better for all concerned. |
| 76 | ** Rorschach's prison analyst is a straighter example. Over the course of just four days, Malcolm Long's most famous patient succeeds in driving the good doctor over the DespairEventHorizon, effectively ruining his home life and previous optimism. The next time we see him, Malcolm's the first person to try breaking up a brawl right before Ozymandias' creature strikes New York, saying to his estranged wife that he has to help -- because helping others is really the only thing that matters. |
| 77 | ** Dr. Manhattan becomes this in the end. |
| 78 | * AnyoneCanDie: Outside the second-generation hero group, the only named characters to survive are Silk Spectre I, Mothman (although he is in a sanitarium), the editor and assistant at the ''New Frontiersman'' office, and ''maybe'' Rorschach's landlady and her kids -- depending on where they lived. Often, the deaths are right at their subjective moments of triumph, particularly at the newspaper stand at the end. And that doesn't even count the deaths of The Comedian and Rorschach. |
| 79 | * ArcSymbol: |
| 80 | ** The doomsday clock counting down to Veidt's monster destroying New York City. |
| 81 | ** A smiley face -- the Comedian's emblem. |
| 82 | * ArcWords: |
| 83 | ** "Who Watches the Watchmen?" |
| 84 | ** "Gag" and "Joke" are both UnusualEuphemism for superheroes' role in society, the Comedian being Laurie's father and Veidt's EvilPlan. |
| 85 | ** I WILL GIVE YOU BODIES BEYOND YOUR WILDEST IMAGININGS. |
| 86 | * ArmorPiercingResponse |
| 87 | -->'''Veidt''': I did the right thing, didn't I? It all worked out in the end. |
| 88 | -->'''Manhattan''': "In the end?" Nothing ends, Adrian. Nothing ever ends. |
| 89 | %%* ArtShift: The ''Black Freighter'' comic. |
| 90 | * ArtisticLicenseGeography: Olympus Mons looks nothing like the way it's portrayed here. Olympus Mons is a shield volcano about 22km high, but also about as wide as France. Consequently, it has a shallow slope of only about 5°. |
| 91 | * ArtisticLicenseHistory: On page 20 of Chapter 12, Adrian quotes the Egyptian Pharoah Rameses "Canaan is devastated, Ashkelon is fallen, Gezer is ruined, Yenoam is reduced to nothing...Israel is desolate and her seed is no more, and Palestine has become a widow for Egypt...All the countries are '''unified''' and '''pacified'''." TheAnnotatedEdition points out that the Merneptah Stele hieroglyphics from 1203 B.C.E., which this quote stems from, was done at the behest of Pharoah Merneptah (to celebrate the victory of a major invasion he had successfully repelled) who ruled Egypt immediately after Rameses II, so Adrian is technically incorrect in his quotation, though not disingenuous since surely some of the aforementioned pacification was Rameses' doing. However, Dave Gibbons suggests in the same anecdote that Adrian simply made a mistake due to the mental stress from all that had just happened (flying to the Antarctic, killing millions of people, catching a bullet, etc.) |
| 92 | * ArtisticLicenseMilitary: The flag at Comedian's funeral is folded into a rectangle shape instead of the proper triangle. |
| 93 | * ArtisticLicensePhysics: |
| 94 | ** Late in the story, Nite Owl and Rorschach ride the Owlship to Veidt's Antarctic hideout in less than 24 hours, from just after midnight on 2nd November to 11pm New York Time. Antarctica is ''9260 miles'' from New York, meaning the Owlship would have had to been flying at over 400mph [[TravellingAtTheSpeedOfPlot to reach it in such a short span of time.]] |
| 95 | ** As TheAnnotatedEdition points out, even if Adrian ''could'' have moved fast enough to [[BulletCatch catch the bullet Laurie shoots at him]], it should have torn right through his hand, and not merely injured it. There's also the matter of him even catching it at all: handgun bullets typically travel 700-1,500 feet per second and Laurie was no more than 10 feet away from Adrian when she fired. Even assuming the ammunition used was the slowest type of round, at 700 fps the bullet would have crossed that space in 14 thousandths of a second, a speed that is absolutely impossible for any human to keep up with, no matter how physically apt they are. Adrian may be in top shape, but no athletic prowess could possibly allow him to move ''18 times faster'' than a normal person. Testing has shown that even in a high-threat situation, the fastest the average person can move their hand over the distance we see Adrian cover is 250 milliseconds. Dave Gibbons does suggest that by moving his hand at close to the speed of the bullet, the closing velocity would be small enough for him to grasp it without major injury, but also notes that even this should be taken as gentle fiction. |
| 96 | * ArtisticLicensePolitics: With his increased popularity after victory in Vietnam, President UsefulNotes/RichardNixon makes a successful push to overturn the 22nd Amendment and win a 3rd term. Amendments are notoriously difficult to pass and even harder to repeal, the latter compared to the likelihood to [[https://constitutioncenter.org/blog/what-does-it-take-to-repeal-a-constitutional-amendment living to 80 and being struck by lightning.]] This is on top of the United States having a strong tradition of only two presidential terms ever since 1789, before the 22nd Amendment made it official in 1951. Franklin Roosevelt did serve more than two terms, and this is an alternate universe, so it is plausible. |
| 97 | * AscendedFanboy: Deconstructed. Nite Owl II. Yeah, he managed to follow the footsteps of his idol, but he does not have any life or motivation besides to be a masked vigilante, and when this is taken away from him, the highlight of his life becomes listening to his predecessor's reminiscing about the glorious past. |
| 98 | * AsianBabyMama: Almost; the Comedian ends up killing a Veitnamese woman he impregnated when she confronts him. |
| 99 | * AssholeVictim: The Comedian "made a lot of enemies, even among his friends" and nobody other than Rorschach seems to really care about his murder. |
| 100 | --> Is that what happens to us? A life of conflict with no time for friends...so that when it's done, only our enemies leave roses. |
| 101 | ** And possibly Moloch. |
| 102 | ** Lawrence is another one. He is killed by Michael while under Big Figure's orders who wanted revenge on Rorschach. In the comic Lawrence gets his throat slit with a utility knife, in the movie his arms are cut off. |
| 103 | * AtomicHate: The "nuclear football" carried around by President Nixon, in an unusual subversion of the BigRedButton. |
| 104 | * AttemptedRape: The Comedian tried to violate the first Silk Spectre. It was fortunately stopped by Hooded Justice, and causes both Hollis Mason and Sally Jupiter to hate him even years later. |
| 105 | * AuthorAvatar: Max Shea, like Alan Moore, is a guy who puts out very mature work in a typically child-oriented comic book genre, and is known for giving extensive notes to the artist, a large ego, and feuding with DC. Funnily, he seemingly predicted Moore's post-''Watchmen'' years, where he broke from DC and retired from comic writing altogether and moved into novels. |
| 106 | * AwesomeButImpractical: Superheroes in general, within the story's universe. With a mixture of training, gadgetry, intellect, and sheer drive, a single person can hold their own in combat against multiple assailants, outclass police detectives in investigation, and drive back the criminal underworld through sheer presence... which is a huge waste of time, energy, money, and talent, for all that it actually provides to the world. |
| 107 | * BadGuyBar: Rorschach prefers to get his information by visiting bars and torturing criminals he finds there. |
| 108 | * TheBadGuyWins: Subverted. Though Ozymandias successfully carries out his plan and proclaims that he has ushered a new era of peace, Dr. Manhattan cryptically suggests that his triumph is but temporary. The final panel also heavily implies that his crimes are about to be revealed to the public. |
| 109 | * BadassBoast: |
| 110 | ** Dr. Manhattan [[AGodIAmNot may not think of himself as a god]], but he sure boasts to Adrian like he is. |
| 111 | --> '''Dr. Manhattan''': ''" I have walked across the surface of the sun. I have witnessed events so tiny and so fast, they could hardly be said to have occurred at all. But you, Adrian, you're just a man. The world's smartest man poses no more threat to me than does its smartest termite."'' |
| 112 | ** There's also Rorschach's "None of you understand. I'm not locked up in here with YOU. You're locked up in here with ''ME!''" |
| 113 | * BaitAndSwitch: On the second page of chapter 1, we are introduced to a detective wearing a BadassLongcoat - and whose prominent chin is noticeably covered in PermaStubble - investigating a crime scene. Soon afterwards we are introduced to Rorschach, a costumed vigilante in a BadassLongcoat - and whose prominent chin is noticeably covered in Permastubble - investigating a crime scene. This turns out to be a complete coincidence. |
| 114 | * BathroomBrawl: Rorschach takes time out from being broken out of prison to pursue Big Figure into the bathroom and kill him. |
| 115 | * BattleCouple: Nite Owl II and Silk Spectre II are together and do some fighting. |
| 116 | * BeamMeUpScotty: Invoked in-story (or at least [[AllThereInTheManual In The Manual]]). Professor Milton Glass says he is misquoted as having said, "[[{{Ubermensch}} The Superman]] exists, and he's American" about Dr. Manhattan. What he actually said was, "God exists, and he's American." |
| 117 | * TheBeard: Silk Spectre serves as a fake girlfriend for Hooded Justice to cover up his sexuality, so much so that Laurie thinks he’s her father. |
| 118 | * TheBerserker: Hooded Justice, who beat criminals to the point of crippling them, and Rorschach, who outright murders them. |
| 119 | * BestedByTheInexperienced: Former superhero Hollis Mason (Nite Owl I) is killed by a gang of street thugs who overpower him. Justified because its one against many and he is much older. But he still puts up a good fight. |
| 120 | * BewareTheSuperman |
| 121 | -->'''Milton Glass''': At the time, I was misquoted. I never said the Superman exists and he's American. What I said was "God exists, and he's American." Now, if you're starting to feel a crushing sense of religious terror at the concept, don't be alarmed. It indicates only that you are still sane. |
| 122 | * BigBad: Ozymandias is an interesting example as, while his deeds are certainly worthy of proper BigBad status, he's occasionally a [[AntiVillain sympathetic character]]. |
| 123 | * BigDamnHeroes: Subverted. They're thirty-five minutes too late to make any difference. |
| 124 | * BigRottenApple: Despite the upscale areas looking like a RaygunGothic ShiningCity, New York City is portrayed as being wracked by poverty and social unrest, like how New York City really was at the time the comic was written. |
| 125 | * BigYes: Ozymandias exclaims in joy upon seeing news footage of the United States and the Soviet Union ceasing hostilities, "I DID IT!" |
| 126 | * BittersweetEnding: Ozymandias averts nuclear war between the United States and the Soviet Union, but at the cost of the lives of Rorschach and much of the population of New York City. And then there's [[HappyEndingOverride the lingering implication that this temporary truce may soon come crashing down]]. |
| 127 | * BlackAndWhiteInsanity: Rorschach claims that BlackAndWhiteMorality is his moral outlook on life, symbolized by his mask which contains both black and white fluids that never mix into gray. His last words to Dan are "Never compromise. Even in the face of Armageddon, never compromise." |
| 128 | * BlackComedy: |
| 129 | ** When reminiscing about their crimefighting days, Laurie and Dan wind up talking about a guy who pretended to be a villain because he was a masochist who wanted costumed heroes to beat him up. Laurie asks what finally happened to him. |
| 130 | -->"Uh, well he [[TooDumbToLive pulled it on Rorschach]] and Rorschach [[CrossesTheLineTwice dropped him down an elevator shaft]]." |
| 131 | ** The elevator man's announcement "Ground floor coming up" is juxtaposed with a picture of Edward Blake being thrown out the window. In fact, most un-named character dialogue is put over a scene to give this effect. i.e. Manhattan's interview while Nite Owl and Silk Spectre II fight off thugs. |
| 132 | %%* BladeOfGrassCut: Used mostly for {{match cut}}s. |
| 133 | * BondOneLiner: Rorschach gets a couple during the prison riot. |
| 134 | ** "Never disposed of sewage with toilet before." |
| 135 | ** When Dan and Laurie arrive to rescue him, he hardly bats an eye at their presence and asks to use the restroom, to their bewilderment. What they don't know is that he's following Big Figure, who he proceeds to kill off-screen. |
| 136 | --->'''Rorschach:''' Can leave now.\ |
| 137 | '''Spectre:''' Really? I mean, are you sure? [[SarcasmMode We don't want to get too reckless and go diving headfirst into things!]] \ |
| 138 | '''Rorschach:''' Hurm. Good advice. Sure there are many who'd agree with you. |
| 139 | * BookEnds: |
| 140 | ** Red-stained smiley (it's actually a ketchup stain at the end, but the symbolism is still there), doomsday clock. |
| 141 | ** The first entry in Rorschach's journal appears at both the beginning and the end of the story. |
| 142 | ** The story begins and ends with a PlotTriggeringDeath; the Comedian and Rorschach's. |
| 143 | * BreakTheBadass: The Comedian's reaction to the plan of Ozymandias turns him into a sobbing wreck who's a far cry from the ruthless hardass he once was. |
| 144 | * BreakTheHaughty: Big Figure gets reduced to a sniveling wimp, once Rorschach has his way with his two goons. Once he gets his way with ''him'', this trope applies in more ways than one... |
| 145 | * BrickJoke: |
| 146 | ** Nite Owl's robotic armor, which he never used more than once [[OldShame after he breaks his arm first activating it.]] When the police storm Nite Owl's hideout, the suit is the only thing that he leaves behind! |
| 147 | ** In the same chapter, a lock repairman promises Dan that the new, improved lock can hold off an army. An army of policemen breaks it when kicking the door down anyway, although Rorshach's reactions imply it was actually holding them off for a while. |
| 148 | * BrownNoteBeing: Subverted - Dr. Manhattan causes cancer in people merely by being in their presence, but it turns out this cancer connection was faked by Ozymandias to ruin his reputation and force him into exile. |
| 149 | * BulletCatch: Laurie shoots Ozymandias, but he survives by catching the bullet with his bare hand. |
| 150 | * BuryYourGays: |
| 151 | ** After being kicked out of the Minutemen for her sexuality, the Silhouette was then murdered along with her lover by a former nemesis. |
| 152 | ** It is strongly implied that Hooded Justice was gay, and did not meet a pleasant end. Same for his supposed lover, Captain Metropolis. |
| 153 | ** Joey and her ex suffer the same fate most of New York City does. |
| 154 | * TheCanKickedHim: |
| 155 | ** Rorschach uses a toilet to kill a goon by smashing it with his foot and filling the cell with water, causing the goon's arc welder to electrocute him. |
| 156 | ---> '''Rorschach''': Hurrm. Never disposed of sewage with a toilet before. Obvious, really. |
| 157 | ** It's heavily implied that he does it again later, killing the Big Figure in a toilet. |
| 158 | * TheCape: |
| 159 | ** Captain Metropolis, a [[MediaNotes/TheGoldenAgeOfComicBooks Golden Age]] hero apparently opposed to the civil rights movement -- his secret homosexual relationship with Hooded Justice notwithstanding. He really isn't a bad guy, though both Dollar Bill and Nite Owl are probably more intrinsically heroic. |
| 160 | ** Also Dollar Bill, where both the attitude implied by and the actual cape in his costume got him killed. |
| 161 | ** Deconstructed. Most of the Minutemen. Despite their good intentions, the members included bigots, glory hounds and even an attempted rapist. |
| 162 | * CapitalismIsBad: Ozymandias' empire and supervillain scheme is built on capitalism and consumerism and part of how he makes his power work is the way his products and advertising filter in the background without characters, main and supporting, even aware of his presence and intentions. Of course, Veidt is in many ways a "good" capitalist, he doesn't seem to exploit his employees in his non-villain schemes, he's not an anti-intellectual, and he's not a coward in the physical sense. From Veidt's view to be any kind of superhero with real-world impact and influence, [[RequiredSecondaryPowers you need to have a business empire]]. |
| 163 | * CassandraTruth: |
| 164 | ** One of the knot-tops, Derf's girlfriend, accurately predicts the events of the false alien attack, alluding to a "big flash" and a "shockwave," but because she's on KT-28's, nobody even listens to her. |
| 165 | ** Rorschach is quite correct in his belief that the Comedian's murder was part of a larger conspiracy, but completely misidentifies the motive. Due to his general behaviour, no-one takes him seriously anyway. |
| 166 | ** Defied by Rorschach when listening to Moloch's story about the Comedian breaking into his apartment. He noted that it was completely unbelievable. So it must be true. |
| 167 | * CastOfExpies: |
| 168 | ** The entire lead cast, since DC wouldn't let Moore use the Charlton Comics characters he originally wrote the story for. The full list: Nite Owl is ComicBook/BlueBeetle, Rorschach is ComicBook/TheQuestion, Ozymandias is Thunderbolt, Silk Spectre is Nightshade, The Comedian is Peacemaker, and Doctor Manhattan is ComicBook/CaptainAtom. Moore would later admit that it was probably better this way. |
| 169 | ** Dr. Manhattan is also a CaptainErsatz for Gold Key's ComicBook/DoctorSolar. Compare Manhattan's original costume in the novel to Solar's; also, both are passive research scientists working on a remote nuclear research base who end up as tools of the government. Note also that Solar spent his first few issues in a new frontier-style suit, tie, and Raybans; very sartorial and possibly lampshaded in references to how Manhattan made the double-breasted suit a major fashion look. |
| 170 | ** Some of the Minutemen are also {{Captain Ersatz}}es for non-Charlton superheroes. Mothman, Comedian, Hooded Justice, Silhouette, and Captain Metropolis were MLJ/Archie Comics' The Fly, Peacemaker, Hangman, The Black Witch, and Captain Flag, respectively (a carryover from one of Moore's earlier ideas for a superhero murder mystery). The Comedian's status as a patriotic hero is a holdover from this, inspired by Archie's Shield -- evidently there was some combining of characters going on. And, as Moore admitted, the original Silk Spectre was based on the Fox Feature Syndicate version of the Phantom Lady. |
| 171 | ** Silk Spectre also has a little bit of Black Canary in her makeup, especially as the daughter of a superheroine who takes on Mom's mantle. |
| 172 | ** Although the first-person narration and the journal keeping are both directly taken from the Question, WordOfGod states that the actual content of them - especially in the first half of the story - is more inspired by Travis Bickle's first-person narrations in ''Film/TaxiDriver''. |
| 173 | * CastOfSnowflakes: Dave Gibbons' highly realistic art style makes all the characters extremely distinct and recognizable even as they age many years. There are many scenes where you can spot the numerous RecurringExtra characters appearing in the background even when the narration or dialogue doesn't call attention to it. |
| 174 | * CelibateHero: Rorschach, who is disgusted by sex due to trauma received from seeing his prostitute mother at work, and is possibly asexual. |
| 175 | * CelebrityParadox: Both dealt with and averted. Creator/DCComics apparently ''did'' exist in the ''Watchmen''-verse, but the complications caused by real costumed vigilantes have led to superhero comics falling out of popularity. Superheroes that are cultural icons in our world have long since fallen into obscurity by the events of the story, which is why nobody notices the similarities between Nite Owl and {{Franchise/Batman}} or between Rorschach and ComicBook/TheQuestion. Since DC's superhero books have presumably been out of circulation for decades, this also conveniently avoids questions about who wrote ''ComicBook/ForTheManWhoHasEverything'' and ''ComicBook/WhateverHappenedToTheManOfTomorrow'' |
| 176 | * CentralTheme: It's hard to boil it down to a single theme. Moore stated that the book is essentially about power ("Who watches the Watchmen?"/Monitoring our protectors and minders) or as Dr. Manhattan states, "Who makes the world?" When a PhysicalGod doesn't have all the answers, when the "world's smartest man" is filled with doubt and the Presidents and businessmen are equally confused, why do ordinary people keep believing that they are more powerless or that they need heroes? |
| 177 | * CharacterDevelopment: Most of the major characters change or are revealed to be different from how they initially appeared at the beginning. |
| 178 | ** The Comedian was a {{Jerkass}} who sought to actively personify his nihilistic perception of the world as one big cruel joke. Nothing mattered and he didn't care what anyone else thought of him. Near the end of his life, he discovered something that horrified even him, briefly had a genuine romance with someone he hurt, and fathered a daughter that he was sincerely saddened to learn hated him and wished to spend time with her. |
| 179 | ** Ozymandias was cold and calculating, behaving as innocently as possible to avoid suspicion and did not hesitate to initiate his plan to kill thousands of New Yorkers. However, in his final scenes, he expresses both regret and uncertainty as to whether or not he did the right thing. |
| 180 | ** Rorschach began the novel refusing to give any aid to humanity when the bombs start dropping. He dies refusing to agree to allow the loss of many lives to be blamed on a lie when a similar, metaphorical bomb falls on New York. |
| 181 | ** Nite Owl II grows a pair and starts standing up to his fears, like Rorschach. |
| 182 | ** Doctor Manhattan saw no real value in human life, more interested in astronomical, atomic and geological events. He eventually sees that humanity has something of value when he realizes that the simple fact that Laurie was born at all, especially when her biological parents have a toxic history, was in itself a miracle. |
| 183 | ** Silk Spectre II accepts her calling as a superhero after spending the majority of the book lamenting her loss of a normal life, and even implies that she will take after her father by adopting more firearm-related articles. |
| 184 | * CharlesAtlasSuperPower: All the heroes and ex-heroes, except Dr. Manhattan, who has ''actual'' superpowers. Adrian Veidt/Ozymandias is the most obvious, complete with actual Atlas-like bodybuilding fliers and programs and brochures and he even does the ultimate Atlas-style at the end, the BulletCatch. Incidentally, this is one comic book trope and Silver Age shtick that is more or less played straight in the comics and not subject to any mockery, even if it is blatantly unrealistic and parodied in other comics which note that maintaining HeroicBuild, and remaining in permanent fighting conditions would not be realistically possible for someone with Rorschach's malnutrition, leave alone Adrian Veidt's impossible Silver Age Doc Savage feats. |
| 185 | * ChekhovsGun: |
| 186 | ** Rorschach's journal, which sets up the plot twist in the final frame. |
| 187 | ** Silk Spectre finding a gun on a dead New Yorker with which she later shoots Ozymandias. |
| 188 | ** The missing artists and writers, obliquely referred to throughout, are responsible for Veidt's squid monster. |
| 189 | ** And the 'Institute For Extra-Spatial Studies'. |
| 190 | ** The excerpts of the Black Freighter comic we've been reading were written by the same man who wrote the Squid's psychically telegraphed fake BackStory. Said [[ShowWithinAShow Comic Within A Comic]] also becomes more clearly understood as a metaphor for Ozymandias and his plan when we reach the end of the comic. Really, people can probably go on nearly forever here. |
| 191 | ** In Chapter 11, Dan expresses disbelief that Veidt could have actually planned his own assassination attempt, citing the unpredictability of the shooter as his evidence. Veidt responds by saying that he would have had to just catch the bullet. Guess what he does in the next chapter. |
| 192 | ** The names of several companies sound like slightly florid names common to comic books. They're all owned by Veidt through dummy corporations. |
| 193 | * ChekhovsGunMan: Rorschach turns out to be that guy we've seen holding the TheEndIsNigh sign and buying ''New Frontiersman''. |
| 194 | * CigaretteOfAnxiety: Silk Spectre II tries to light one of these on Mars. Dr. Manhattan points out there isn't enough oxygen in her air bubble and offers to expand it, but she says she doesn't want a bubble full of smoke and just asks for a glass of milk. |
| 195 | * CliffHanger: Will ''New Frontiersman'' publish Rorschach's journal, implicating Ozymandias for the New York City monster attack? |
| 196 | * ClocksOfControl: Clocks are a recurring motif, especially pertaining to Dr. Manhattan. Though he is for all intents and purposes a PhysicalGod, it's played with: he's powerless to stop fate's unwinding, even as he sees all the moving parts of it in action. The reference is simultaneously to Einstein's comments about becoming watchmaker, and the DoomsdayClock, among several other layers of metaphor. |
| 197 | * TheCloudcuckoolanderWasRight: A subversion. Rorschach is a dangerously paranoid man who proves to be [[EntertaininglyWrong painfully wrong]] about many things, but his delusional ravings about [[TheConspiracy a vast shadowy conspiracy]] and [[TheEndOfTheWorldAsWeKnowIt the impending end of the world]] turn out to be chillingly close to the truth. |
| 198 | * CoatHatMask: Rorschach's "costume" consists of his mask, plus a hat, [[BadassLongcoat trenchcoat]], a purple pinstriped suit, and leather gloves. |
| 199 | %%* CoitusUninterruptus: "Are you ''working'' in there?" |
| 200 | %%* ColorMotif: Yellow. |
| 201 | * CompleteTheQuoteTitle: Not only does this series takes its title from the famous quote attributed to the Roman poet Creator/{{Juvenal}} ("Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?"/"Who watches the watchmen?"), but also the name of ''every single chapter'' is a piece of song lyrics/other famous quotes. The full quotes are found at the end of each chapter. |
| 202 | ** Chapter I: "At Midnight, All the Agents..." (from the song, "Desolation Row," by Music/BobDylan). |
| 203 | ** Chapter II: Absent Friends (from the song, "The Comedians," by Music/ElvisCostello). |
| 204 | ** Chapter III: The Judge of All Earth (from the Literature/BookOfGenesis). |
| 205 | ** Chapter IV: Watchmaker (from the quote, "The release of atom power has changed everything except our way of thinking... The solution to this problem lies in the heart of mankind. If only I had known, I should have become a watchmaker." By UsefulNotes/AlbertEinstein). |
| 206 | ** Chapter V: Fearful Symmetry (from the poem, "[[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Tyger The Tyger]]," by Creator/WilliamBlake). |
| 207 | ** Chapter VI: The Abyss Gazes Also (from the quote, "Battle not with monsters, lest ye become a monster, and if you gaze into the abyss, the abyss gazes also into you." By Creator/FriedrichNietzsche). |
| 208 | ** Chapter VII: A Brother to Dragons (from the Literature/BookOfJob). |
| 209 | ** Chapter VIII: Old Ghosts (from the poem, "Hallowe'en," by Eleanor Farjoen). |
| 210 | ** Chapter IX: The Darkness of Mere Being (from the book, ''Memories, Dreams, Reflections'', by UsefulNotes/CarlJung). |
| 211 | ** Chapter X: Two Riders Were Approaching... (from the song, "All Along the Watchtower," by Music/BobDylan). |
| 212 | ** Chapter XI: Look on My Works, Ye Mighty... (from the sonnet, "[[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ozymandias Ozymandias]]," by Creator/PercyByssheShelley). |
| 213 | ** Chapter XII: A Stronger Loving World (from the song, "Sanities," by Music/JohnCale). |
| 214 | * ComplexityAddiction: Used cleverly. Ozymandias makes his scheme far more complex than it really needed to be in order to slow down Rorschach's investigation. If there weren't so many [[RedHerring Red Herrings]], then Rorschach could have figured it out much sooner and may have been able to stop Veidt. |
| 215 | %%* CompromisingMemoirs: Some see "Under the Hood" as this. |
| 216 | * ConspicuousConsumption: Part of Adrian Veidt's soft power is weaponizing this. He runs companies that sell consumer products like perfumes (such as Nostalgia), as well as merchandise based on his own career as a hero and fitness expert. The appendix of the penultimate issue has one of his employees pitching him plans to merchandize the Crime Busters which Veidt considers before vetoing because he has a ''[[EvilPlan hunch]]'' that superheroes won't be of demand and interest for a while. Incidentally, he predicts a baby boom after the Squid Apocalypse and the Cold War ending GenghisGambit, so he tells his company to invest and buy baby products and child care. |
| 217 | * CopeByCreating: After Dr. Manhattan flees to Mars in the mistaken belief that he accidentally caused cancer to develop in people close to him, including his ex-girlfriend, he calms himself by creating a huge, intricate palace out of the sand. |
| 218 | * CorporateConspiracy: Veidt Industries is a rare [[BenevolentConspiracy benevolent example]]. Their CEO Ozymandias spends all their resources on a plan to save the world from nuclear annihilation by killing all of New York City. |
| 219 | * CorporateSponsoredSuperhero: Dollar Bill, a hero briefly mentioned in the side book chapters, is one of these. |
| 220 | * CorruptedContingency: This is what resulted in Jon Osterman becoming Dr. Manhattan. When he entered a test chamber to retrieve his lab coat which contained a watch, the doors automatically locked behind him while the automatic timer started up the generators for that afternoon's experiment. As a safety feature, the researchers were unable to open the door or override the countdown and could only watch helplessly as Jon was torn apart by the generators' blast. |
| 221 | * CorruptPolitician: Nixon is on his fourth term, Woodward and Bernstein were murdered in a garage, and the Comedian is saying ''nothing''. |
| 222 | * CrapsackWorld: Where do we start? Alternate History 1985 on the brink of a nuclear war with an apathetic quantum physics god on the side of America who doesn't care about humanity anymore? America winning the Vietnam War and making Vietnam an American state? New York filled with crime and falling apart, with an AxCrazy SociopathicHero roaming the streets? A US President who is heavily implied to be using his right-hand superhero to take out his opponents? Ozymandias attempted to fix this at the end of the series with the squid monster, which eased tensions between the Soviets and Americans, but it is implied that the peace might not last for very long. |
| 223 | -->"And yet, perhaps, no worse a world than yours..." |
| 224 | * CrazyEnoughToWork: Ozymandias plans to prevent a nuclear war by faking an alien invasion, reasoning that a common threat would force all nations to join forces. To do so, he creates a mutant giant squid, teleports it into New York and arranges for it to unleash a psychic shockwave that kills everyone in the area while drives those further away insane. The plan is so absurd Nite Owl himself voices his disbelief, yet it produces the result Ozymandias had envisioned. |
| 225 | * CrazyPrepared: While it doesn't clarify if he did build it solely for that purpose or not, the Annotated Edition points out it would have required some remarkable foresight on Adrian's part to build an Intrinsic Field Separator (a device that basically recreates the accident that created Dr. Manhattan in the first place) for the sole purpose of using it to rid himself of Dr. Manhattan should he be cornered in spite of already handicapping him with the Tachyon Generators. Of course, if that ''was'' the case, Adrian probably didn't factor in that [[OutGambitted Dr. Manhattan could just rebuild himself again afterward, which he immediately does]]--it's not like the accident that gave him his powers managed to kill him in the first place, after all[[note]]Manhattan even lampshades that putting himself back together was literally the first thing he learned to do after the accident[[/note]]. |
| 226 | * CreatorsCultureCarryover: This graphic novel ostensibly takes place in America with American characters, but one character mentions "having a lock fitted." An American would say "having a lock ''installed''." |
| 227 | * CriticalPsychoanalysisFailure: Played with; Dr. Malcolm Long is certainly affected and his notes and sessions with Rorschach in technical terms does go further in breaking through Rorschach's facade than others before. Yet he is so moved by Rorschach's story, that he becomes depressed and disgusted at his middle-class life compared to the horrors that Rorschach has faced in the past, ultimately realizing that he in his own way must do what he can to help people...and then being annihilated by Ozymandias. |
| 228 | * CrystalBallScheduling: All over the place. ''Tales of the Black Freighter'' runs throughout the whole story, Doctor Manhattan's interview parallels Dan and Laurie being attacked by muggers, Ozymandias "mounting the bar"... |
| 229 | * CurbStompBattle: |
| 230 | ** Dan and Laurie are cornered in an alley by muggers carrying knives and chains. Thanks to their past experience as heroes, the two brutally beat up their aggressors without much trouble. |
| 231 | ** Rorschach and Nite Owl II have both been established as extremely capable hand-to-hand artists whom not even a bar room full of ruffians will consider messing with. When they head off to Antarctica to confront Ozymandias, there follows a short two-on-one battle in which Rorschach attacks Ozymandias from behind while Nite Owl stands by with a pocket laser to burn Ozy down if necessary. Veidt doesn't even work up a sweat in dealing with both of them. When Rorschach comes back for round 2, while Nite Owl is still nursing his broken nose, Ozymandias carries on calmly monologuing while handing Rorschach exactly enough of a beating to let him know he's beaten. |
| 232 | ** The Comedian is beaten to a bloody pulp and then defenestrated without even laying a significant glove on Ozymandias. |
| 233 | ** Doctor Manhattan is inconvenienced for approximately one minute by being ''disintegrated''.[[note]]It didn't kill ''Osterman'', did you think it would kill '''me'''?[[/note]] On reforming himself, he doesn't even bother to spank Ozymandias; he just calmly informs the world's smartest man that he is a contemptibly insignificant lifeform. |
| 234 | * CyanidePill: Plays a part in the attempt on Adrian Veidt's life and his conspiracy. Adrian Veidt reaches into the mouth of his would-be assassin to get at his cyanide pill. More accurately, he feeds it to the hitman to clean up that loose end. The whole thing was staged to throw suspicion off Veidt. |
| 235 | * DarkerAndEdgier: One of the main progenitors of the trope, though not strictly adhering to it itself. |
| 236 | ** While it does take place in a CrapsackWorld and some of the chapters (especially Chapter 6) express a very negative outlook on life, this is balanced by the fact that the characters still manage to find hope in their circumstances and ultimately emerge from the experience having benefited from it. Moore actually regretted that the comic helped to popularize DarkerAndEdgier. |
| 237 | ** Likewise while the comic has greatly inspired the move towards grittiness, Dave Gibbons' art is actually quite colourful rather than RealIsBrown or the studio darkness of its movie adaptation. The comics have a wide palette and in many respects it's closer to 50s comics with purples, greens, reds and blues. The costumes worn by the characters are all colourful and bright. Alan Moore biographer Lance Parkin notes that what makes ''Watchmen'' unique was that it told a mature story while still looking like a brightly coloured adventure comic and that the contrast between story and visual style was one of the main focus of its deconstruction. |
| 238 | -->'''Lance Parkin''': It's worth noting that Watchmen is not literally a dark book... the pages of the comic, even when they depict scenes set at night, are made up of vivid greens, reds, blues, oranges and yellows. It's more reminiscent of the garish [[Series/Batman1966 Batman TV series (1966–8)]] than Creator/ChristopherNolan’s [[Film/TheDarkKnightTrilogy more recent Batman movies]]. Often, there is a narrative reason for such gaudiness -- for example, Moloch’s apartment is intermittently lit by the neon sign from the nightclub next door -- but just as often the colours used make no pretence at naturalism. As Watching the Watchmen makes clear, colourist John Higgins worked hard, and closely with Gibbons, on the colour scheme for the book. It's fair to say the printing techniques that comics used in the mid-eighties were limited: however, when Higgins took advantage of advances in technology to redo the colouring for the 2005 Absolute Watchmen edition, he retained the overall palette, even if he made many small alterations... The candy colours in Watchmen are an artistic choice. |
| 239 | * DatedHistory: Rorschach's account of the murder of Kitty Genovese is based on a ''New York Times'' article that came out shortly after Genovese's death, which said that 38 people heard and some even watched her being killed in plain view, and did nothing. This was, for years, the only narrative about what happened, and was the one Moore drew on. However, later researchers found that the ''Times'' story lacked any evidence: nobody saw the attack in its entirety and those that did see it only saw parts of it and the first stabbing punctured her lungs, meaning she wouldn't have been able to scream. Some people heard her cries for help, but assumed it was a lover's quarrel or just people leaving a bar and one even shouted at Kitty's killer to leave her alone. The killer attacked Genovese twice, disguising himself after the first attack, so people didn't realise it was the same guy. After the second attack, one of Genovese's neighbours called the police, despite being a gay man who would have opened himself up to harassment or arrest from the NYPD, and another, a 70-year-old woman, cradled her while she was dying. So while Genovese's murder was undoubtedly horrible, it was no more awful than most murders: the story that people watched it happen and didn't lift a finger is entirely without foundation, and seems to have been made up by the original reporter, as the ''Times'' itself acknowledged in a [[https://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/05/nyregion/winston-moseley-81-killer-of-kitty-genovese-dies-in-prison.html 2016 article]]. While it is is fitting for Rorschach to believe such a bias-reinforcing story, even Dr. Long on hearing this story, does not demolish this claim, since this was indeed the widely accepted narrative for a long time. Even the NYT reporters knew it was exaggerated but editor Abe Rosenthal insisted on the outlandish details to sell copies and psychologists figured the same out too, eventually dropping the case from their teachings. |
| 240 | * DatingCatwoman: A villain named Twilight Lady had a crush on Nite Owl II. Dan accuses her of having had a "fixation" and having been "sick," but there are clear suggestions it's something of a hypocritical excuse, what with his own moderate costume fetish and the fact that he kept her picture and has a dream about her before it turns into one about Laurie. Still a bit of a {{deconstruction}}. |
| 241 | * ADayInTheLimelight: Each main character gets an issue devoted to them and/or their backstory: |
| 242 | ** Issue #2: Edward Blake/The Comedian |
| 243 | ** Issue #4: Jon Osterman/Dr. Manhattan |
| 244 | ** Issue #6: Walter Kovacs/Rorschach |
| 245 | ** Issue #7: Dan Dreiberg/Nite Owl II |
| 246 | ** Issue #9: Laurie Juspeczyk/Silk Spectre II |
| 247 | ** Issue #11: Adrian Veidt/Ozymandias |
| 248 | %%* DeadlyDelivery: An attack on Ozymandias which is really EngineeredHeroics to keep suspicion off himself. |
| 249 | %%* DeadpanSnarker: Rorschach and (as you'd expect) the Comedian get particularly snarky. |
| 250 | * DeathActivatedSuperpower: |
| 251 | ** Dr. Manhattan is created after his human self is blown apart atom by atom. |
| 252 | ** The "Squid" was engineered with the ability to broadcast a [[{{Telepathy}} telepathic]] sign directly into humans' brains after its death, fueling their paranoia. |
| 253 | * DeathByDisfigurement: Rorschach throws boiling oil into a fellow prisoner's face after he announces his intention to stab Rorschach. |
| 254 | * DeathByOriginStory: Subverted and played straight with Rorschach. When his mother died, all he said was "Good." But when Kitty Genovese was killed and multiple people heard and saw this event yet did nothing, he decided to become a vigilante. Also, he considers the disturbing case of the kidnapped child detailed in DeathOfAChild to be the moment when Walter Kovacs died and he just became Rorchach |
| 255 | * DeathFakedForYou: Dan and Laurie were able to assume their new identities easier because they're also presumed dead after the monster attack. |
| 256 | * DeathOfAChild: One part has the police investigate the aftermath of a murder-suicide where a man took his life after killing his two young daughters. Rorschach's also recounts the story of a time when he was investigating the kidnapping of a young girl that the police didn't care to look for, and finds that the kidnapper in a panic had butchered the girl and fed her to his dogs, which causes Rorschach to shackle the man to a radiator and set the building on fire. |
| 257 | * DeconstructedCharacterArchetype: The comic book as a whole is a deconstruction of various SuperHero archetypes and tropes. Creator/AlanMoore wrote the characters of Rorschach and the Comedian as sociopathic jerks, deconstructing the Franchise/{{Batman}}-style AntiHero and the CaptainPatriotic. |
| 258 | * DeconstructorFleet: A famous example. The series examines nearly ''every'' facet of the {{superhero}} genre, and deconstructs nearly ''all'' of it. It takes place in an [[AlternateTimeline alternate]] version of the 20th century with a history based on the history of comic books, with [[MediaNotes/TheGoldenAgeOfComicBooks the first generation of superheroes emerging in the late 1930s]], [[MediaNotes/TheSilverAgeOfComicBooks a new generation of heroes in the post-World War II era]] fighting crime with super-science, and the heroes ultimately [[MediaNotes/TheBronzeAgeOfComicBooks facing increasingly complex political and social issues in the 1970s]]. The cast also includes nearly ''every'' classic superhero archetype: [[CaptainPatriotic star-spangled soldiers]], [[MostCommonSuperpower bombshell sex symbols]], [[TheCape upstanding paragons of virtue]], [[TheCowl nocturnal street vigilantes]], [[GadgeteerGenius clever crimefighters with advanced gadgets]], and even a wise scientist empowered by a {{freak lab accident}}. |
| 259 | ** But even in the 1930s, most of the public views "costumed adventurers" as deluded weirdos or dangerous psychotics (or both), and it's made clear that they're woefully incompetent at anything ''but'' busting petty criminals. When the next generation of heroes begins, the powerful Doctor Manhattan soon gets pressed into service by the US military, and singlehandedly changes the geopolitical ''status quo'' of the Cold War. The superheroes prove unable to handle the political challenges of the 1970s, and most of them soon agree to give up crimefighting. |
| 260 | ** And when one of them actually ''does'' hatch a plan to [[SavingTheWorld save the world]], he turns out to be the villain--demonstrating that people who try to change the fate of human race are usually dangerous or insane. Not to mention that the star-spangled soldier is an amoral nihilist, the bombshell sex symbol resents being a sex symbol, the nocturnal street vigilante is a paranoid {{conspiracy theorist}}, the clever crimefighter with the gadgets is a painfully shy self-loathing wallflower, and the wise scientist grows distant from humanity after gaining powers. |
| 261 | * DeliberateValuesDissonance: Most of the heroes were products of their time. Their beliefs and prejudices are telling. |
| 262 | ** Sally kept her Polish heritage secret. Silhouette made fun of her for it. |
| 263 | ** Dollar Bill was homophobic. |
| 264 | ** Captain Metropolis and the Comedian were racist. |
| 265 | ** Hooded Justice was an anti-Semitic, patriarchal Nazi sympathizer. |
| 266 | ** The Comedian is a sexist and a misogynist, and an unrepentant war criminal who uses his position and authority to enact his power fantasies and desires. |
| 267 | ** Rorschach is a homophobe, a misogynist, and subscribes to extreme right-wing nationalistic views. |
| 268 | * DelinquentHair: Knot Tops are associated with street thugs, but are also a popula subcultural hairtyle, with one patron at Happy harry's complaiing that everyone just assumes anyone wearing their hair in that style is involved with crime. |
| 269 | * {{Determinator}}: Deconstructed. Rorschach. He is uncompromising and he still fights crime after vigilantism was proscribed. Yet, he is abrasive, his black-and-white world view clearly viewed as unhealthy and insane, and when he is confronted with the wrongness of his world view, he quickly becomes vulnerable, not to mention it is his determination that gets him killed. |
| 270 | * DeusExMachina: Lampshaded, referenced by name, and eventually {{Subverted}} when Dr. Manhattan appears following his DeusExitMachina so that Laurie can "Try to convince [him] to save the world." |
| 271 | -->'''Dr. Manhattan''': Now, I believe we have a conversation scheduled. |
| 272 | -->'''Laurie''': God, Yes. Yes, I was just thinking...But Jon, how did you know? I need to see you, you appear...I mean, it's all so Deus Ex Machina... |
| 273 | -->'''Dr. Manhattan''': "The God out of the machine." Yes. Yes, I suppose it is... |
| 274 | * DevelopingDoomedCharacters: The civilian characters (Det. Fine, Dr. Long, Bernard the newspaper seller, Joey the lesbian cab driver) all die when Veidt's monster attacks. |
| 275 | * DiabolicalMastermind: Deconstructed. Moloch. You would guess that a crime lord with style ends up quite rich, right? In reality by the time he is a fragile old man, he is lonely, poor and suffers from cancer, not to mention that gets shot for being an inconvenience. Not to mention that the criminal underworld really soon deems this trope as a ridiculous eccentricity. |
| 276 | * DidYouJustPunchOutCthulhu: No. No, you did not. |
| 277 | -->[-'''Dr. Manhattan:''' "I am disappointed, Veidt. '''VERY''' disappointed."-] |
| 278 | * DidYouJustScamCthulhu: Ozymandias infects everyone who was close with Dr. Manhattan so the general public (and Manhattan himself) would suspect he's radioactive, driving him to leave Earth. He also discovers that tachyon particles (which move through time differently than most other matter) can cloud Manhattan's view of the future, ensuring that he doesn't realize that it's a scam--even though has omniscient intelligence, and can usually perceive all points in time simultaneously. |
| 279 | * DidYouThinkICantFeel: Only Ozzy realized Dr. Manhattan still had emotions. |
| 280 | * DifferentWorldDifferentMovies: The existence of real superheroes led to the American comic book industry developing very differently than in our world, ultimately resulting in superhero comics falling out of popularity and comic books about ''pirates'' becoming popular instead. To elaborate: Congress chose not to [[NewMediaAreEvil scapegoat]] comic books during the national panic over juvenile delinquency in the 1950s (since this might have cast the U.S. government's relationships with comic book-inspired "costumed adventurers" in a negative light), meaning that the MediaNotes/{{the Comics Code}} was never established under government pressure, Creator/ECComics never went out of business due to their crime and horror comics suffering heavy censorship, Creator/DCComics never overtook EC to become an industry leader, and Creator/MarvelComics (apparently) never took off by marketing themselves as the YoungerAndHipper alternative to DC. By the mid-1980s, when the story takes place, EC Comics is the biggest comic book publisher in the world, DC Comics is a second-string competitor to EC, and there's no indication that Marvel even exists. |
| 281 | * DisposableSuperheroMaker: Dr. Manhattan's accident. It's implied the Soviets ''tried'' to replicate it, but they were unsuccessful. |
| 282 | * {{Dissimile}}: Moloch says this about his illness: "You know that kind of cancer you eventually get better from? That's not the type of cancer I have." |
| 283 | * DoesNotLikeGuns: Subverted a lot as many of the heroes start using guns because it's just more practical. |
| 284 | * DoesThisRemindYouOfAnything: |
| 285 | ** A [[TheCape Cape]] who dresses in primary colors and has a letter on his chest ("M" for ''Metropolis'') and a [[TheCowl grim, violent avenger]] of the night are on the [[Franchise/JusticeLeagueOfAmerica same team]] together. Also, they're lovers-er I mean, "good friends". |
| 286 | ** During Nite Owl and Silk Spectre's sexual encounter in the cockpit of Nite Owl's ship, Laurie's elbow bumps the flamethrower button, sending a [[VisualInnuendo jet of fire across the sky]]... |
| 287 | * DoubleEntendre: Hollis Mason's trophy has the words "IN GRATITUDE" written on the base. After it's used to beat him to death, the blood covers the space. |
| 288 | * DoubleStandard: Silhouette is kicked out of the Minutemen after being exposed as a lesbian. Two of the male members of the team were also homosexual, but did not ever get called out for this, presumably because their relationship was never made public. |
| 289 | * DrivingQuestion: Who killed the Comedian and why? |
| 290 | * DwindlingParty: |
| 291 | ** Sally noted that The Minutemen were this. |
| 292 | ** All the people Dr. Manhattan has either outlived or lost contact with. |
| 293 | * DyeOrDie: The Silk Spectre II and Night Owl II, at the end of the comic. |
| 294 | * DysfunctionJunction: Nite Owl has retreated into study, Dr. Manhattan is amoral to the point of being inhuman, and many other ex-heroes are wracked with neuroses -- being mentally unbalanced is apparently a prerequisite to being a superhero, which would make some sense considering... |
| 295 | ** In Nite Owl 1's account of the Minutemen, they were, in his words, a bunch of screwed up people who ran about in costumes for kicks and possibly sexual pleasure. |
| 296 | ** It's played pretty quietly for Laurie's whole background. As a minor, she dates a man over twice her age, and resents authority figures trying to control her life, despite living with an omnipotent man who couldn't care less about her. Some would say that she has daddy issues. She's also ''deeply'' in denial about the Comedian being her father, as her conversation with Jon makes her realize she had more than enough evidence to put the pieces together, she just didn't want to. |
| 297 | * EasterEgg: |
| 298 | ** The [-AOXOMOXOA-] poster, "RR" [-(Rum Runner -- think {{pirates}})-] neon sign, Rorschach's napkin blots and monogram, and other mirror images in the artwork are the [[EasterEgg key clue]] about the 5th chapter being a [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palindrome palindrome]]. |
| 299 | ** [[Literature/WheresWaldo Keep an eye out for]] the round yellow bloodstained electrical outlet in the same scene, mirroring the identical looking smiley in the first chapter. |
| 300 | ** [[JigsawPuzzlePlot Watch very carefully]] the trash can in the background outside Gunga Diner in the 5th chapter, and you will find out the identity of both Rorschach (whom you follow around in first person without his mask in the same chapter) and the company that handled the frame-up (Pyramid). |
| 301 | * EarnYourHappyEnding: It's hard to say whether or not their apparent happiness will last, but Dan and Laurie seem to have pulled off a surprisingly happy ending for themselves. |
| 302 | * EldritchAbomination: Given a distinctly 'meta' spin -- this is a "fake" Eldritch Horror, and yet one with a pretty impressive body-count. Otherwise pretty true to what's supposed to happen when a Great Old One wakes. |
| 303 | * EncyclopediaExposita: Hollis Mason's book, ''Under the Hood''. Along with excerpts from other clippings. |
| 304 | * {{Epigraph}}: The clippings and other [[AllThereInTheManual associated material]] at the end of each issue/chapter; the quotes used at the beginning and end of each issue/chapter (from which the chapter names are taken). |
| 305 | * EstablishingCharacterMoment: |
| 306 | ** Rorschach's nihilistic "and I'll whisper, 'No'" inner monologue as he, unknown to the audience, walks unmasked through the massive puddle of blood left behind by the Comedian's death. Easily one of the most iconic introductory speeches in comic history. |
| 307 | ** The first appearance of Doctor Manhattan: a giant, glowing blue naked humanoid towering over Laurie and Rorschach, who, when Rorschach informs him of the Comedian's death, replies, "Life and death are unquantifiable abstracts. Why should I be concerned?" [[BlueAndOrangeMorality The good Doctor is in, everybody.]] |
| 308 | ** The Comedian is described as a slain American hero who many speak of with reverence, and when we first see him in person, he's laughing and good-naturedly joking around with the other Minutemen while shamelessly flirting with Silk Spectre I. A few minutes later, [[BaitTheDog he tries to rape her and beats her viciously when she resists him]]. |
| 309 | * EvenEvilHasStandards: The Comedian, after shooting a woman pregnant with his child, is still shocked that Manhattan did nothing to stop him even though he obviously had the power to. And the Comedian has a full VillainousBreakdown when he learns about Ozymandias’ plot. |
| 310 | * EverybodySmokes: one societal change in the timeline seems to be the invention of a new way to smoke tobacco in long thin pipes that resemble a cigarette holder with a bulb at the end. |
| 311 | * ExcuseMeWhileIMultitask: |
| 312 | ** Veidt starts explaining his motives to Dan, while he effortlessly repels Rorschach's attack. |
| 313 | ** Dr. Manhattan is able to work on a lab experiment while two copies of himself have a threesome with Laurie. She's very offended. |
| 314 | * {{Expy}}: When Creator/AlanMoore began work on the book, the plan was to use all of the characters DC purchased from Creator/CharltonComics, but editors ultimately put the kibosh on that, so he had to create new ones. |
| 315 | ** The Comedian is an expy of Peacemaker. |
| 316 | ** Hollis Mason[=/=]the first Nite Owl is an expy of the first ComicBook/BlueBeetle, Dan Garrett. |
| 317 | ** Dan Dreiberg[=/=]the second Nite Owl is an expy of the second ComicBook/BlueBeetle, Ted Kord. |
| 318 | ** Doctor Manhattan is an expy of ComicBook/CaptainAtom. |
| 319 | ** Ozymandias is an expy of Peter Cannon, Thunderbolt. |
| 320 | ** Rorschach is an expy of ComicBook/TheQuestion and ComicBook/MrA. Moore also puts in elements of Franchise/{{Batman}} noting that "he would be considered a nutjob in real life," and in another interview he clarified Rorschach as "Batman without [[JokerImmunity the]] [[ThouShaltNotKill excuses]]." There's more than a little of [[Film/TaxiDriver Travis Bickle]] in his journal entries, too. (Also confirmed by Moore.) |
| 321 | ** Silhouette is an expy of Nightshade. |
| 322 | ** Sally Juspeczyk[=/=]the first Silk Spectre is an expy of both Dinah Drake Lance[=/=]the first Black Canary and the Phantom Lady. |
| 323 | ** Laurie Juspeczyk[=/=]the second Silk Spectre is an expy of both Dinah Laurel Lance[=/=]the second Black Canary and the Phantom Lady. |
| 324 | ** In a contemporary interview, Moore spoke about additional inspirations for some of the characters, besides Rorschach being based on Batman. Namely: The Comedian is a darker version of two Marvel characters: ComicBook/CaptainAmerica and ComicBook/NickFury. Doctor Manhattan takes a couple of elements from ComicBook/{{Superman}}. Ozymandias has elements of [[ComicBook/IronMan Tony Stark]]. |
| 325 | * EyeScream: Rorschach shoves a burning cigarette into his bully's eye in his backstory. |
| 326 | * FakeAssassination: [[spoiler:Ozymandias]]. After overpowering his would-be killer, he forces a cyanide pill down his throat to make him look like a suicide attacker. What's more, [[spoiler:Ozy was the man who really killed the Comedian]]. |
| 327 | * FakeBand: Pale Horse and Kristallnacht, who are playing a show at Madison Square Garden on November 2nd. Their fans seem to be mostly in the Knot Top subculture. |
| 328 | * FantasticDrug: KT-28 is a popular new street drug. What it is is never explained, with some inferance that it is halluciogenic and raises agression in its users. |
| 329 | * FantasticFantasyIsMundane: Superhero comics aren't really a thing in this world because real superheroes exist. Instead, comic books in other genres have taken up the slack, most notably ''Tales of The Black Freighter.'' |
| 330 | * FictionalDocument: "Tales of The Black Freighter," a pirate comic used as counterpoint to many scenes. Also, most issues of the original had a back-up piece consisting of [[AllThereInTheManual excerpts from other fictional works]], most notably ''Under The Hood'', Hollis Mason's tell-all book about the original Minutemen, and ''Super Powers and the Superpowers'', a criticism of US military policy during the age of Dr. Manhattan. |
| 331 | * {{Filler}}: One of the weirdest examples of filler in the history of the term. According to Website/ThatOtherWiki Moore and Gibbons were contracted for a 12-issue run of the comic, but the plot that Moore had envisioned would take up, at most, six. He decided to get around this by devoting several chapters to closely examining the characters and the world in which they live. However, as Moore began to write the series, he realized that "the plot itself is of no great consequence...it just really isn't the most interesting thing about Watchmen." |
| 332 | * {{Fingore}}: Rorschach tortures a mook by breaking his fingers until he gives away the information he needs. |
| 333 | * TheFirstSuperheroes: The story takes place in an alternate universe where superheroes have existed since the late 1930s, with an actual superhuman appearing in the 1950s, altering the course of human history. While the brunt of the story takes place in the then-present 1980s, portions of it expand on the moment the superheroes first appeared: |
| 334 | ** There are excerpts from a book written by Hollis Mason, one of the original superheroes, explaining how the first costumed vigilantes started to appear after the 1938 debut of Hooded Justice, the first vigilante, and how they came together in the Minuteman superteam. |
| 335 | ** There is a extended flashback sequence showing the origin story of Doctor Manhattan, the nuclear physicist that gained godlike powers in 1959, becoming this reality's first public superhuman. The sequence includes his first months of Doctor Manhattan's public career as the world reacts in astonishment. |
| 336 | * FlatWhat |
| 337 | ** Laurie after Dan decides they must rescue Rorschach. |
| 338 | ** Dan after first hearing about Veidt's plan to kill half of New York City. |
| 339 | * {{Foil}}: |
| 340 | ** The Comedian and Doctor Manhattan: Both of them are defined by their nihilistic outlooks on life, and they essentially reject morals of any kind, but they do it for entirely different reasons: the Comedian is an impotent sociopath who mocks the morals of civilized society for lack of anything better to do with his life, and Doctor Manhattan is an omnipotent PhysicalGod who can't bring himself to care about humans because he realizes how insignificant they are on a cosmic scale. |
| 341 | ** Rorschach and Ozymandias: Both of them are defined by their unshakeable attachment to their morals, refusing to abandon their ideals no matter how many people they hurt, but they also have very different ideas about serving the greater good. Rorschach lives the life of an urban vigilante so that he can deal out justice to evil wherever he sees it, and he's a textbook moral absolutist, believing that any and all immoral acts must be punished without mercy; Ozymandias lives the life of a scholar, mystic and industrialist so that he can implement his ideas on a global scale, and he's a moral utilitarian, believing that even mass-murder can be justified if it ultimately saves more lives than it ends. |
| 342 | * {{Foreshadowing}}: |
| 343 | ** One of the major plot points is the character assassination of Doctor Manhattan. The climax involves a massive attack on the island of Manhattan. |
| 344 | ** The very first person we see in the comic is Rorschach (although we don't know it's him at the time) striding through an enormous pool of blood -- a pool of blood not unlike that which Dr. Manhattan will [[LudicrousGibs turn him into]] at the end. |
| 345 | ** Just as the detectives talk about Rorschach, they unknowingly walk past an unmasked Walter Kovacs. One of them suddenly feels chilly once he appears. |
| 346 | ** The entire story of ''Tales of the Black Freighter'' is an allegorical hint towards Adrian's plan and his motivations for going through with it. |
| 347 | ** The excerpt from a book discussing ''Tales of the Black Freighter'' and the copy for the ''New Frontiersman'' end by discussing the disappearance of Max Shea and others before it's revealed where they ended up. |
| 348 | ** When they first meet, Doctor Manhattan notes that he finds Ozymandias interesting. |
| 349 | ** Laurie's first meeting the Comedian is full of these towards the revelation that he's her father. He's noticeably a lot nicer to her than everyone else and he catches himself when he's about to call her his daughter. Even more subtly done is them sharing a light, drawing attention to how Laurie shares a lot of his quirks including a tendency to smoke. |
| 350 | ** [[MeaningfulName Pyramid Deliveries.]] Adrian isn't exactly subtle about his Egyptian motif, is he? |
| 351 | ** In two of the times the calendar in Dan's house is shown up close, the date of November 2 - [[spoiler:the day the squid dropped]] - is focused in some way, with the number 2 half-encircled by tobacco smoke or with Laurie's finger over it. |
| 352 | ** In the first issue, Rorschach gets into an argument with Laurie Juspeczyk (Silk Spectre) and (at Laurie's behest) is teleported outside the facility by Dr. Manhattan. In the final issue, Manhattan scatters Rorschach's atoms again, but with decidedly more '''fatal''' results. |
| 353 | %%* FreudianExcuse: Rorschach's bad childhood left him very damaged. |
| 354 | * FriendlyEnemy: The Comedian visits his old nemesis Moloch because he has no one else to talk to when he learns about [[spoiler: Adrian's plan.]] |
| 355 | [[/folder]] |
| 356 | |
| 357 | [[folder:Tropes G-L]] |
| 358 | * GadgeteerGenius: Deconstructed. Nite Owl II's gadgets are AwesomeButImpractical because most villains he fights are just normal people. |
| 359 | * GainingTheWillToKill: Rorschach's origin flashback shows his -- up until that point, he had only beaten criminals up and tied them up for the police. But after finding that a kidnapped child had been chopped up and fed to the kidnapper's two Alsatians, he begins to kill villains as necessary. |
| 360 | %%* GambitRoulette: Plays straight, lampshades, and then almost immediately subverts this trope. |
| 361 | * GangOfHats: The Knot Tops are a new popular subculture in New York, and the style is favored by many street thugs. |
| 362 | * GenericGraffiti: "Who Watches The Watchmen?" though this is never truly shown in full; we just have to assume it's always the same. |
| 363 | ** This has become an AscendedMeme in its own right, where it's almost a rarity to find a comic book graffiti page without it. |
| 364 | * GeneticEngineeringIsTheNewNuke: Ozymandias engineered a giant psychic squid that mind nukes half of New York City. |
| 365 | * GenreBusting: It's a FilmNoir RaygunGothic [[MediaNotes/TheGoldenAgeOfComicBooks Golden Age]] / [[MediaNotes/TheSilverAgeOfComicBooks Silver Age]] / [[MediaNotes/TheDarkAgeOfComicBooks Dark Age]] SciFi CyberPunk Political AlternateHistory {{Deconstruction}} of superheroes that ''invented'' half the tropes used by modern comics, and quite a few others besides. Phew. |
| 366 | * GermanicDepressives: Osterman, after turning into Doctor Manhattan, realizes that past and future are the same thing, and everything is preordained. From that point on, he sounds very sad and depressed in his inner monologues. He doesn't show it, of course, as preordination demands that he plays his different role. |
| 367 | * GermanicEfficiency: Ozymandias is superhumanly efficient and successful at practically everything he does. Including his final villainous masterplan. |
| 368 | * GetItOverWith: Rorschach's last words are to order Dr. Manhattan to kill him, otherwise he will reveal Ozymandias' actions to the rest of the world. |
| 369 | * TheGhost: Soviets -- and the Soviet Union in general -- are mentioned constantly during all the story but they are never seen onscreen. |
| 370 | * GladToBeAliveSex: In the final chapter, Laurie, shocked after witnessing the devastation in New York, somberly tells Dan that being alive is wonderful. The two then embrace and make love to each other. |
| 371 | * AGodIAmNot: Doctor Manhattan, despite his incredible powers and what the Vietnamese and many others think, does not consider himself a god. |
| 372 | * GodwinsLaw: Used correctly by Rorschach of all people, who responds to the rebuttal of a potential suspect because he's a vegetarian with pointing out Hitler was also vegetarian. |
| 373 | * GoodCopBadCop: Nite Owl and Rorschach, respectively. However, this gets reversed when Nite Owl, angered over the death of Hollis Mason, [[RabidCop goes overboard]] during an interrogation and ''Rorschach'' has to rein him in. |
| 374 | * GoryDiscretionShot: In [[ShowWithinAShow "Tales of the Black Freighter"]], the protagonist bashes a man's skull and strangles his female companion on the beach. All we see throughout the scene are the horses, watching. |
| 375 | * GratuitousForeignLanguage: Completes the racial caricatures in the "The Way We See It" political comic, each of whom led their threats with "[[YiddishAsASecondLanguage Oy vey!]]", "[[GratuitousRussian Da!]]" and "[[GratuitousSpanish Si!]]". |
| 376 | %%* GraveClouds: At Edward Blake's funeral. |
| 377 | * GreedyJew: InUniverse. The New Frontiersman's representation of "Big Business" in one of their editorial cartoons is a not-so-subtle Jewish banker stereotype. He even says "Oy vey!" Ironically, the Frontiersman's editorial cartoonist is later revealed to be named [[BoomerangBigot Feinberg]]. |
| 378 | * GreyAndGrayMorality: Rorschach kills criminals who could just as easily be arrested, but he also saves a woman from potentially being raped or mugged. Ozymandias destroys half of New York City in an elaborate ruse to save the world. It's not as simple as saying that some of the characters are perfectly good or evil. |
| 379 | * GroinAttack: Laurie has no compunctions about dealing with either muggers or obstructive prison guards with a precisely placed knee-strike, although it's by no means the only shot in her locker. |
| 380 | * HannibalLecture: Rorschach's revelation of the origin of his odd philosophy ends up convincing his shrink to see the world his way (...or to relate a little, at least). |
| 381 | * HauledBeforeASenateSubcommittee: Several of the original Minutemen were dragged in front of the House Committee on Un-American Activities. Hooded Justice refused to participate and vanished without a trace, leading the public to assume he was a Soviet spy who'd been silenced. (The background materials *heavily* imply that HJ was actually a German circus strongman who was killed by Comedian just as the latter was beginning his government service. It's left more ambiguous whether Comedian did it because the government told him to, because he was still bitter about HJ from their Minutemen days, or both. |
| 382 | * HaveANiceDaySmile: The Comedian wears a smiley face button. |
| 383 | -->''Somebody explain. Somebody explain it to me.'' |
| 384 | * HeartfeltApology: Nite Owl gets so tired of Rorschach's sociopathy, he stops and just yells at him near the end of the comics. This has an unexpected effect on Rorschach, who [[OOCIsSeriousBusiness completely breaks character]] and sincerely apologizes to Daniel for being so difficult and [[FriendshipMoment thanks him for tolerating his attitude]], nonetheless. He even breaks out proper pronouns and grammar [[TerseTalker for the first and last time]] in the series for this. |
| 385 | * HeelFaithTurn: Hollis' former archenemy The Screaming Skull discovers religion. |
| 386 | * HelplessWindowDeath: Dr. Osterman's "death" occurs when he hastily enters to the Intrinsic Field Chamber to retrieve the watch he'd left behind. When he turns to leave, he finds the door sealed and his colleagues staring at him in horror through the observation window: with the experiment active, the door can't be opened until it's complete, leaving the other scientists watching helplessly as Osterman gets disintegrated. |
| 387 | * HeroWithBadPublicity: |
| 388 | ** Veidt claims that, when he retired in 1975, he was "the only hero retaining public sympathy," and what we see of how the media treats him post-retirement bears it out. |
| 389 | ** Dr. Manhattan's reputation is ruined by a concocted story accusing him of giving cancer to anyone near him. |
| 390 | * HeroicBSOD: |
| 391 | ** The Comedian, after discovering Ozymandias' plan, visits his old enemy Moloch's home and cryptically informs him what he witnessed while sobbing uncontrollably. |
| 392 | ** Rorschach gets two; first after the child murder that prompts him to become Rorschach full time, and the second when realizing he could either prevent armageddon or he could serve the truth, but not both, shattering his black-and-white worldview. He chooses the latter, knowing that it would force Manhattan to put him out of his misery. |
| 393 | ** Laurie gets two, first when she realizes that the Comedian is her father by way of a willing and loving affair with her mother, whom he once tried to rape; her mother gets one of her own when Laurie says she knows who her father is, and the second when she realizes that everyone she's seen for the series run other than the heroes themselves is likely dead due to Veidt. |
| 394 | ** Osterman breaks down when he realizes that he is trapped in the test chamber with no way to stop the experiment that is about to kill him. |
| 395 | ** Veidt ends with one. Believing he's saved the world, he crows about it to Manhattan, who reminds him that nothing ever ends. The cryptic advice clearly troubles him greatly. |
| 396 | ** Dreiberg gets one when he finds out his idol and friend dies due to Dreiberg coming out of retirement, and people confusing the two Nite Owls. His BerserkButton gets mashed so hard the AxCrazy Rorschach tells him to calm down. |
| 397 | * HeroismMotiveSpeech: |
| 398 | ** Malcolm Long initially faces an existential crisis after being confronted with Rorschach's grim worldview and horrible life experiences. He ends up making two speeches, one questions the hollow nature of his profession and middle class life, the other reconciles him with that reality. |
| 399 | -->'''Malcolm Long''': ''"I looked at the Rorschach blot. I tried to pretend it looked like a spreading tree, shadows pooled beneath it, but it didn't. It looked more like a dead cat I once found, the fat, glistening grubs writhing blindly, squirming over each other, frantically tunneling away from the light. But even that is avoiding the real horror. The horror is this: In the end, it is simply a picture of empty meaningless blackness. We are alone. There is nothing else."'' |
| 400 | -->'''Malcolm Long''': ''"In a world like this, it's all we can do, try and help each other. [[TheAntiNihilist It's all that means anything.]]"'' |
| 401 | %%* HerosFirstRescue: The highlight of Nite-Owl and Silk Spectre's first night out in costume in ten years. |
| 402 | %%* HesBack: Both Dan and Laurie can attest to this. |
| 403 | * HiddenVillain: The Comedian's murderer and the person responsible for the events of ''Comicbook/{{Watchmen}}''. It turns out that Adrian Veidt AKA Ozymandias is behind it, all in the name of [[UtopiaJustifiesTheMeans world peace]] of course. |
| 404 | * HigherUnderstandingThroughDrugs: Adrian Veidt eats a ball of hashish and has a vision that eventually leads to his plan of "conquesting the evils that beset men". There is also a female Knot Top who has a vision of [[spoiler:the Squid]] while high on KT. |
| 405 | * HitlerAteSugar: Though in this case used to ''refute'' a logical fallacy rather than commit one; the implication is not "because Hitler was a vegetarian, all vegetarians are evil," but rather "because Hitler was a vegetarian, it's not safe to say that vegetarianism automatically means one is a saint". |
| 406 | * HoboGloves: Rorschach wears them while in his civilian identity (Walter Kovacs) and carrying his "The End Is Nigh" sign. |
| 407 | * HollywoodLaw: Rorschach is sent to Sing Sing before even being tried for his crimes, while in reality he would be held at Riker's Island until trial. He also would likely be kept isolated from other inmates as a notorious vigilante crime fighter, which is not only for his protection but to avoid an incident like in the cafeteria. |
| 408 | * HomophobicHateCrime: In the {{backstory}}, Watchmen member Silhouette is outed as lesbian and expelled from the group (which apparently ran on a version of "don't ask, don't tell," as at least two other members were [[OpenSecret believed to be gay but nobody said anything]]), then murdered along with her lover for being gay. This is briefly shown in [[Film/{{Watchmen}} the film's]] opening montage. |
| 409 | * HorribleHousing: Rorschach lives in a squalid apartment and dislikes his nagging landlady. The feeling is mutual. |
| 410 | * HourglassPlot: Rorschach and Ozymandias exchange positions at the end. The latter calls the former a right-wing loony and the former regards him as a liberal hypocrite. As a young man, Rorschach wrote gushingly about Harry Truman's decision to bomb Hiroshima and Nagasaki as the wisdom of WellIntentionedExtremist thinking. But he's appalled when Ozymandias comes around to it, and does it for real. |
| 411 | * HowIWroteThisArticleArticle: This is how ''[[FictionalDocument Under The Hood]]'' begins. Nite Owl briefly ponders how to start his {{autobiography}}. He sets to ask his writing virtuoso of a neighbor, telling her that "[he] doesn't from writing a book". That he's got all he wants to tell in his head but doesn't know where to begin. It's only after following Denise's advice, and thanking her for it, that the actual narration starts. |
| 412 | * HowWeGotHere: Everything about the Comedian is this trope. After all, he's an omnipresent character... who's killed ''at the beginning of the story''. |
| 413 | * HumansAreBastards: The Comedian definitely thinks all of humanity are terrible people at their core. |
| 414 | * HumansAreSpecial: Dr. Manhattan initially disagrees with this sentiment, and overall considers the existence of life to be an overrated phenomenon. He changes his mind when he learns that the Comedian was Laurie's father, and decides that such an incredibly improbable circumstance not only makes Laurie's life miraculous, but also the lives of every other human being. |
| 415 | * HyperlinkStory: The book has a main cast of 6 costumed heroes with an intricate past and history, and an extended supporting cast of ordinary humans who weave in and out of the larger story and contain many parallel vignettes that counterpoint the main story. Moore said that he conceived the story as an ensemble and felt that the characters were meant to work in conjunction with each other, and that ultimately there is no one main character in the book, and the perspective and point of view keeps being passed between five of the main cast, with the Comedian being the most prominent PosthumousCharacter. |
| 416 | * IDidWhatIHadToDo: Ozymandias destroys half of New York City to save the world from nuclear armageddon. |
| 417 | * IconicOutfit: |
| 418 | ** If you don't mentally picture Veidt in his supersuit, you probably picture him in his [[http://i177.photobucket.com/albums/w218/MeganPhntmGrl/Ozymandias/ozysecretary2-1.jpg black turtleneck, purple blazer, gold lapel pin and tight black pants]], even though that's the ''only'' time in the film (as opposed to the graphic novel) where he wears anything that flamboyant. |
| 419 | ** Rorschach's entire ensemble, but especially [[IconicItem the black-and-white mask]]. |
| 420 | * IWantMyBelovedToBeHappy: When Jon sees Laurie and Dan laying together post-coitus, he gives a small smile and keeps walking. |
| 421 | * IdiosyncraticEpisodeNaming: The title of every chapter is part of a quote that appears in full at the very end of the chapter, from sources such as Dylan, the Bible, Einstein and Nietzsche. |
| 422 | * ImperiledInPregnancy: The Comedian gunning down the Vietnamese woman [[OffingTheOffspring carrying his own illegitimate child]]. |
| 423 | * ImmortalApathy: Doctor Manhattan became immortal in a FreakLabAccident, and while he hasn't been immortal for very long his perception of time is non-chronological, which means his subjective memory extends much further. Throughout the book he's apathetic to anything going on around him because his perspective is so vast that anything humans do is inconsequential to him. |
| 424 | * ImpracticallyFancyOutfit: |
| 425 | ** Dollar Bill was hired by a bank, who thought having their very own masked man was a great gimmick. They designed his costume to be as attractive to the public as possible. This had tragic consequences when his cape got stuck in the bank's revolving door, and the bank robbers he was chasing shot him. |
| 426 | ** Nite Owl II once tried to use the bathroom while on a stakeout. Taking off and putting on his costume took so long that the drug dealer he was tracking got away. He redesigned the costume the next day. |
| 427 | ** Mothman's wings poke Comedian. |
| 428 | * InnocentBystanderSeries: It's told partly from the perspective of the normal police officers investigating the deeds of so-called (and one actual) superheroes. |
| 429 | * InsaneTrollLogic: "Time is an illusion, therefore watches are worthless." may seem internally consistent, but with a bit of FridgeLogic, makes Jon's dad look like a victim of this trope. |
| 430 | * InSpiteOfANail: |
| 431 | ** The timeline diverges way back in 1938, but Nixon is still elected president in the same year, the break-in at the Watergate Hotel still happens, and Woodward and Bernstein still investigate it, though the Comedian kills them and it's never exposed. |
| 432 | ** JFK still dies on November 22nd 1963 in Dallas, but it is implied in the book, and actually shown in the movie continuity, that the Comedian kills him. Also, the paper reports imply that Kennedy had a chance of survival -- in the real world, his head was blown open and he had no chance. Either this was a paper acting off bad information, or the assassination went slightly differently in the comic timeline. |
| 433 | ** The Iran hostage crisis still occurs but the Comedian solves the issue nearly single-handedly. |
| 434 | ** In ''Watchmen'', superhero comics died off after the 'real thing' started emerging -- instead, horror and drama comics are all the rage, D.C. and E.C. mainly publish stories about pirates, and Timely/Atlas Comics does not appear to have become Creator/MarvelComics, as it did in our world. It is implied in one article that Frederick Wertham's anti-comics campaigns were ignored due to the propaganda value of American costumed heroes being promoted in print; ironically, this prevents the genericisation of the American comics industry that happened after Wertham in real life, and the superhero genre eventually dies a natural death. |
| 435 | ** World history is not altered that much until the appearance of Dr. Manhattan. There is nothing to indicate that World War II is significantly changed, and some of the heroes fight in the war as normal soldiers. |
| 436 | ** [[DirtyCommunists The Soviet Union]] still invades Afghanistan, although six years later than in the real world. |
| 437 | ** {{Music/Devo}} is also mentioned to have formed in Ohio in the late 1970s. |
| 438 | ** UsefulNotes/MikhailGorbachev still becomes the leader of the Soviet Union, but in the Watchmen 'verse he is seemingly far more combative and hawkish than his real-world counterpart. |
| 439 | * InformedFlaw: Rorschach describes the patrons of Happy Harry's bar as "human cockroaches" obsessed with "heroin and child pornography". Yet on the two occasions he goes in there, they never seem to be doing anything criminal. The first time, despite his JackBauerInterrogationTechnique, nobody has the faintest connection to the murder he is investigating. The second time, all he needs to do is ask, and they reveal who he is looking for immediately. Similarly, the knot-top that Nite Owl victimizes in revenge for Hollis Mason's death is not connected to the crime and gives Nite Owl information on the perpetrators. Another sign of Rorschach's warped worldview, perhaps? |
| 440 | %%* InternalRetcon: The only way Ozymandias' plan can work. |
| 441 | * IntimatePsychotherapy: The heroes were too late, millions of New Yorkers have just died, and the first thing Dan and Laurie do is have sex. Laurie justifies it in a way that fits this trope. |
| 442 | * IronicName: As Moore and Gibbons pointed out, all their superhero names for their major characters are literary and character puns rather than the usual AwesomeMcCoolname of superhero brand names: |
| 443 | ** Dr. Manhattan is the name of a Godlike superbeing which alludes to the Manhattan Project that built the nuclear bombs, when in fact he is a quantum-powered being who got his powers from an accident in Gila Flats, Arizona. There was nothing deliberate about his powers or anything to tie him to Manhattan aside from Government PR and branding, which Osterman scornfully {{Lampshades}} in his flashbacks. |
| 444 | ** Nite Owl puns on "Night Owl" and the common early-20th century slang which made Night into Nite. Night Owl originally referred to party animal, i.e. people who stay out late at night, being super-extroverted and being total insomniacs, while the "Nite" shortening was often used in clubs. Both the superheroes who adopt those monikers, Hollis Mason and Dan Dreiberg by the time we see them, are staid normal men who live alone, keep regular hours and are pretty introverted and reflective. |
| 445 | ** Silk Spectre is especially ironic in the case of Laurie Juspeczyk, who adopts the smoky FemmeFatale-like identity that belonged to her mother, when she's actually a level-headed everywoman who prefers being in committed relationships. |
| 446 | ** The Comedian is intentionally ironic and mocking, being deliberately discordant in being a light-hearted moniker for an amoral government-paid assassin, black-ops mercenary and war criminal. To him everything and everyone is a joke which he uses as license to PutTheLaughterInSlaughter. |
| 447 | ** Ozymandias is the superhero moniker by Adrian Veidt who wants to build a permanent lasting peace when the name and title refers to a classic poem about how nothing lasts forever and all attempts at immortality are pathetic. |
| 448 | ** Rorschach is the name chosen by a superhero with BlackAndWhiteMorality and quasi-Objectivist beliefs to show how scary and intimidating he is, when it refers to ink-blot tests that are famously subjective, and which the comic's main psychologist Dr. Malcolm Long points out is entirely meaningless. |
| 449 | * {{Irony}}: Nuclear physicist Jon Osterman accidentally locks himself inside a disintegration chamber minutes before it's due to activate. When he begs to be let out, his supervisor Dr. Glass tells him that the automatic door lock can't be overridden once the countdown has started: "It's... [---it's a safety feature---]." The last four words are set in tiny print, indicating that Glass is all too aware of the situational irony. |
| 450 | * ItAlwaysRainsAtFunerals: Eddie Blake's funeral is in the rain. The priest reads a passage from the book of Matthew, commenting that rain falls of the good and evil alike, [[RuleOfSymbolism while Ozymandias is the only one under an umbrella]]. |
| 451 | * ItBeganWithATwistOfFate: If Jon hadn't forgotten his girlfriend's watch in the lab, he wouldn't have gone back to get it, get locked inside the experiment chamber, be ripped apart, and be reborn as Dr. Manhattan. |
| 452 | * ItWillNeverCatchOn: The editor at the New Frontiersman is furious that "a Cowboy actor" is considered for a Presidential bid. In the Watchmen timeline, Nixon is still the president in the 1980's, and Ronald Reagan presumably only ever became the governor of California. |
| 453 | * ItsPersonal: The brutality of the Comedian's murder is likely fueled by Ozymandias' humiliating defeat when they first met years before. It's also implied that the Comedian murdered Hooded Justice, ostensibly because HJ was a communist agent (in fact he had Nazi sympathies), but actually in revenge for the NoHoldsBarredBeatdown HJ gave the Comedian for trying to rape Silk Spectre. |
| 454 | * JackBauerInterrogationTechnique: Rorschach tortures criminals to get information, often needlessly. |
| 455 | * JerkassHasAPoint: Rorschach, Dr. Manhattan, and (very grudgingly) Ozymandias respect the Comedian for his clear-eyed view of humanity and that he lives according to his (very warped) morality. |
| 456 | * JigsawPuzzlePlot: It's a murder mystery told in elaborate framed pictures with crosscutting dialogue and crosscutting flashbacks, all leading up to TheReveal. |
| 457 | * JustBetweenYouAndMe: Justified. He did it 35 minutes ago; it doesn't matter if they know now. Also, Dan and Rorschach are his former comrades, and he thinks he can convince them that he did the right thing. He succeeds with Dan. |
| 458 | * KarmicDeath: After Hooded Justice beats seven shades of shit out of The Comedian (Edward Blake) for nearly raping the first Silk Spectre (Sally Jupiter) ,Blake threatens him, and, sure enough, a man who could very well have been the civilian identity of Hooded Justice turns up dead, with The Comedian as the most likely culprit. Shortly thereafter, when newly-minted crimefighter Ozymandias (Adrian Veidt) investigates the disappearance of Justice, he comes across Blake and is beaten by him in a senseless brawl. Decades afterward, Veidt murders Blake in a home invasion, with the main purpose of silencing him before he can reveal the particulars of Veidt's EvilPlan, but likely also does it personally to [[ItsPersonal avenge his earlier ass-kicking at The Comedian's hands]]. |
| 459 | * KickTheDog: |
| 460 | ** The Comedian nearly rapes Sally Jupiter and shoots his own would-be AsianBabyMama. |
| 461 | ** The Knot Tops who killed Hollis likely killed his dog Phantom, too. |
| 462 | * TheKillerBecomesTheKilled: After he cracks, Rorschach becomes a vigilante who murders criminals; after the Keene Act, he becomes a ''fugitive'' vigilante who murders criminals. Technically this is continued when Manhattan eventually kills Rorschach, although it's not an example of the trope. |
| 463 | ** Ozymandias murders the ruthless, mercenary Comedian in his own home. |
| 464 | * KnightTemplar: Rorschach, and Ozymandias, in a more typical example of the trope. |
| 465 | * KnowWhenToFoldThem: When Ozymandias dramatically reveals his evil plan, one by one the heroes accept that he is right and that the only way they can prevent the plan's success is by revealing it to the general public... which will save no one and possibly destroy the world. Rorschach, however is a deontologist and so believes that people should be told the truth, no matter the cost. Naturally, he announces this. His death is swift.[[note]]though he invited the others to kill him because he also knew deep down that revealing the plan would do more harm than good, his absolute system of morals meant he would have to do it anyway.[[/note]]Everyone else Knew When To Fold Em -- they get to go home and mope. |
| 466 | * LastSecondWordSwap: At the end, when Laurie and Dan visit Laurie's mother Sally in disguise and under assumed names: |
| 467 | -->'''Nurse:''' Your friends, Mr. and Mrs. Hollis are here to see you. |
| 468 | -->'''Sally:''' What? But I don't know any... I don't know anyone I'd rather see! |
| 469 | ** More like a "Last Second Word Addition": When Sally angrily chides The Comedian (Edward Blake) for approaching the second Silk Spectre (Laurie Juspeczyk), Blake (Laurie's actual birth father) replies: |
| 470 | -->'''Christ, we were just talking! Can't a guy talk to his... you know, his old friend's daughter?''' |
| 471 | * LeaningOnTheFourthWall: On the last page, the editor of the ''New Frontiersman'' tells his assistant to pick some material for the next issue from a pile of rejected submissions, including Rorschach's journal. Moore set this scene up as a way to address the reader directly and emphasize the final meaning of the story: |
| 472 | --> I leave it entirely in your hands. |
| 473 | * LegacyCharacter: |
| 474 | ** Dan Dreiberg succeeded Hollis Mason as the Nite Owl, while Sally Jupiter pushed her daughter Laurie into taking her role as the Silk Spectre. |
| 475 | ** Deconstructed with both Nite Owl II and the Silk Spectre II. Just as Dan, Laurie does not have any life besides vigilantism, she does not have any connection or relationship besides the costumed heroes, and this lifestyle was forced on her by her own mother. |
| 476 | *** Hollis Mason aka, Nite Owl I is killed due to MistakenIdentity. |
| 477 | * LetNoCrisisGoToWaste: Ozymandias's plan. |
| 478 | * LetsYouAndHimFight: Referenced and played with, like most ComicBookTropes in Watchmen. Ozymandias and the Comedian do this when they first meet, but it's revealed that the Comedian recognized Ozy, but attacked him anyway, using the excuse that "For some reason it happens a lot when costumed crimefighters meet for the first time." |
| 479 | * LevitatingLotusPosition: Dr. Manhattan does the levitating version of the LotusPosition while creating his fortress on Mars. |
| 480 | * LimitedSocialCircle: Deconstructed. The heroes' [[DysfunctionJunction issues]] make them incapable of forming relationships with normal people. They literally have no one but each other. |
| 481 | * LiteralMetaphor: Night Owl comments that in the early years, Rorschach "...was quiet, he was grim, but he still had all the buttons on his overcoat." And in fact, in flashbacks to those early years, when Rorschach was more sane, his trench coat has all its buttons--in the 'present day' storyline, his coat is missing one. |
| 482 | * LiteraryAllusionTitle: |
| 483 | ** Not only the series title (from Creator/{{Juvenal}}), but also the [[{{Epigraph}} chapter titles]]. |
| 484 | ** In-universe, Adrian Veidt's superhero alter-ego Ozymandias is an allusion to [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ozymandias Percy Bysshe Shelley's poem]]; the [[DoubleMeaningTitle double meaning]] of the sonnet is hinted at and Veidt himself is aware of the irony. |
| 485 | %%* LonelyAtTheTop: Discussed by Ozymandias. |
| 486 | * LivingLegend: The comic deconstructs these, among many other tropes. People seek this status, for good or ill. People achieve it, for good or ill. Doctor Manhattan is the extreme... |
| 487 | * LukeIAmYourFather: The Comedian is Laurie's father. |
| 488 | * LuxuryPrisonSuite: The Big Figure, one of Rorschach's old enemies, who winds up running across him again in prison. He apparently has control over the guards, too. |
| 489 | [[/folder]] |
| 490 | |
| 491 | [[folder:Tropes M-R]] |
| 492 | * MadnessInducedOmnivore: The ShowWithinAShow "Tales of the Black Freighter" is about a castaway who loses his sanity during his arduous journey back to his hometown. One of the first signs of his madness is when he devours a raw seagull, with the action being depicted on a red tinted panel focused on his choleric face. He later kills and eats a shark, explaining in an inner monologue that the inversion of predator-prey dynamics makes him [[LaughingMad laugh out of hatred]]. |
| 493 | %%* MageInManhattan: The giant squid from another dimension. |
| 494 | * MarriedToTheJob: Deconstructed. Worse if that job is as a costumed vigilante. What's the point of fighting street level crime when bigger issues like impending nuclear war hangs over everyone's head? Only someone really screwed up like Hooded Justice, Rorschach or Ozymandias would choose this as a career. |
| 495 | * MatchCut: |
| 496 | ** The closest possible equivalent in print. Used mostly during the flashbacks at the Comedian's funeral. |
| 497 | ** In chapter 12, page 22, the panel of Dan and Laurie eloping, which frames them in giant shadows, is immediately followed by a close-up of Rorschach's mask that has a very similar pattern in it. |
| 498 | * MeaningfulBackgroundEvent: A man holding an "End Is Nigh" sign is frequently seen on the streets. His name is Walter Kovacs a.k.a. "Rorschach". |
| 499 | ** In Watchmen no 5, ''"Fearful Symmetry"'', at page 6, panel 3, Rorschach mentions that if Moloch wants to send him a message, he could do it by ''"leaving him a note at the trash can in front of the Gunga diner, between the 40th and the 7th."'' At page 12 panel 9, and again at page 17 panel 8, we see a character checking out that trash can. That means that the reader could have figured out Rorschach's identity before TheReveal at the end of the issue. The DramaticIrony is that Bernie give us this monologue: |
| 500 | -->''"You never know, never know what awaits you. Everything we see is the surface.'' '''There is a lot of garbage that we don’t even notice.''' '' Until it’s too late."'' |
| 501 | * MeaningfulName: |
| 502 | ** Ozymandias, which suggests the final fate of his "better, more loving world." His last name, Veidt, comes from German actor Conrad Veidt, whose appearance in ''Film/TheManWhoLaughs'' directly inspired the character design of ComicBook/TheJoker. |
| 503 | ** Jon Osterman: "Oester" is a pagan fertility festival that was replaced by [[UsefulNotes/{{Christianity}} Easter]]. Oster also is originally Saxon for "Rising", which makes Jon Osterman the "Rising Man" -- appropriate for the world's first true superhuman. |
| 504 | ** Rorschach turned out to be one on a meta level, to Moore's chagrin, though plenty of fans do see him for the disturbed sociopath he is. |
| 505 | ** The Minutemen, the superhero team from the 1940s, share the same name as an American [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LGM-30_Minuteman intercontinental nuclear missile]]. |
| 506 | ** The [[CuttingTheKnot Gordian Knot]] lock company. Fittingly for the name, nobody ever seems to pick one of their locks, but apparently they are rather easy to break open. |
| 507 | * MenGetOldWomenGetReplaced: There were originally two female members of the Minutemen team which existed in the 1940s: Silhouette and Silk Spectre. When the Crimebusters formed as their replacements, there were two veterans of the Minutemen: Captain Metropolis and the Comedian. Silhouette was [[BuryYourGays killed after being outed as a lesbian]] and Silk Spectre was replaced by her daughter. |
| 508 | * MerchandisingTheMonster: [[DefiedTrope Defied]]. Issue #10 of the series contains excerpts from Adrian Veidt's communications with the team responsible for creating a toy line based on his former superheroic identity, who propose including figures of the violent vigilante Rorschach and former supervillain Moloch the Mystic (along with Veidt's fellow retired superhero Nite Owl). However, Veidt vetoes their inclusion thanks to ethical concerns, instead proposing creating a fictional [[FantasticTerrorists army of costumed terrorists]]. |
| 509 | * MindRape: The effect that the "monster" has on survivors, even ''halfway around the globe'', is to instill paranoia. The psychic attack is stated to drive some victims to madness. |
| 510 | * MiniDressOfPower: Both Silk Spectres with Silk Spectre II wearing a black LeotardOfPower over a see through skirt with a chiffon cover, a belt, and heels. |
| 511 | * MischiefForPunishment: Captain Carnage is said to do this, the kink version. He only pretends to be a supervillain so he can get off from the superheroes kicking his ass; he ultimately meets his end when he tries it on Rorschach, who drops him down an elevator shaft for his troubles. |
| 512 | * MissionCreep: |
| 513 | ** Part of the drama about the grounded take on superheroes is the poignancy of what heroes do, or what they become, when there aren't bad guys and supervillains to fight and they have to take on real problems. The comic dealt with the fact that superheroes who sign up to "fight crime" and "save the world" will eventually face issues when saving the world means taking a stand against the government that they ostensibly serve. |
| 514 | ** As noted by Hollis Mason and others, the original superheroes were formed to fight street crime and to that end, they formed crime fighting groups and gadgets. But upon meeting with success and facing a reduction of crime, the superheroes have to find other avenues to work, and either become celebrities, try (and fail) to blend back into civilian life or in the case of Mason, retire only to come to face the PhysicalGod Dr. Manhattan who is more or less going to make his career and all memory of it obsolete. Eventually the superheroes face a public and government backlash, opposed by the police and other supporters for being Vigilante government-loyal stooges in a time when America is [[{{Eagleland}} a major, unopposed superpower]]. |
| 515 | ** Discussed in various ways and from multiple points of view during the first (and only) meeting of the Crimebusters, Gardner's proposed crime fighting group, in 1966. |
| 516 | *** In addition to fighting narcotics, Nelson states a desire to tackle the "new social evils" of the 60's, among them "promiscuity", "anti-war demos", "campus subversion", and, in the South, "Black unrest". How superheroes would handle such esoteric matters, and whether that would do anything but provoke further public outcry, is uncertain; in another flashback to 1977, Nite Owl and Comedian's attempt to disperse the police strike only agitates the crowd even more, and Blake responds by brutalizing them. |
| 517 | *** Blake notes that, when faced with existential and unsolvable threats like the shadow of the nuclear bomb, dressing up in costume and battling mobsters under a juvenile-sounding group name is ridiculous, and Nelson is an old man trying to recapture his glory days by "playin' cowboys and Indians". He punctuates his point by setting fire to the map, burning every problem area to ashes. |
| 518 | ---->"It don't matter squat because inside ''thirty years'' the ''nukes'' are gonna be flyin' like ''maybugs...'' and then ''Ozzy'' here is gonna be the smartest man on the ''cinder."'' |
| 519 | *** Rorschach, while sympathetic, shows concern that a (potentially nation-wide) operation such as Nelson is proposing is far too large in scope -- "a publicity exercise" incapable of any real efficacy -- and would be "unwieldy" to coordinate and organize with only seven people, though Veidt believes himself capable of the job. |
| 520 | *** Ozymandias sees the Comedian's comments as illustrating that a true superhero's capacity has to grow and expand to properly "save the world" and so abandons conventional superheroism outwardly while still committing himself to save the world by becoming a corporate magnate, scientist and WellIntentionedExtremist. Some would say that Veidt has undergone MotiveDecay but Veidt would insist that conventional heroes have to grow up to better tackle problems of the adult world of geopolitics, commerce and mass media. Indeed, when Nite Owl and Rorschach meet Veidt in his lair, he is wearing his old superhero costume rather than the civilian clothing he had been wearing throughout the comic, which suggests that in his mind he sees his actions as superheroic even if it appears the contrary to his ex-colleagues. |
| 521 | * MistakenForThief: Zigzagged for the first meeting between Ozymandias and [[BloodKnight The Comedian]]. Comedian beats Ozymandias and claims it's because he thinks Veidt is a criminal, but it's implied that he (a high-level government special ops agent) actually knows who Ozymandias is; Blake just wants an excuse to beat up someone he doesn't like. |
| 522 | * MistakenIdentity: |
| 523 | ** Blaire Roche, the little girl Rorschach failed to save, is kidnapped because she has the same last name as some rich family. |
| 524 | ** Hollis Mason is killed because it was thought he's the Nite Owl who busts Rorschach out of jail. |
| 525 | * MistakenForRelated: Rorschach's CynicismCatalyst is a little girl who's kidnapped by a man who thinks she's related to a rich family due to having the same surname. On realizing his mistake, the kidnapper murders her and feeds the corpse to his dogs, to hide the evidence. Rorschach burns the man alive and becomes the NinetiesAntiHero we all know. |
| 526 | * MonsterModesty: Inverted with Doc Manhattan, who becomes increasingly immodest as he gets further from his humanity. |
| 527 | * MoralityKitchenSink: Each of the major characters can be said to represent different attitudes to morality, and part of the conflict comes from their competing moral outlooks, and their successes and failures in living up to it in any meaningful fashion: |
| 528 | ** The Comedian is a nihilist who sees the world as nothing but a joke, and just doesn't care about right or wrong, Rorschach is an objectivist and a moral absolutist who refuses to see the world in any terms other than black and white, Dr. Manhattan is so alienated from the human experience that the very concept of morality escapes him, and Ozymandias favors an overall utilitarian liberal ideal of doing good to build a better society. Meanwhile, Laurie and Dan Dreiberg are more grounded everyman types who more or less don't act out or impose a moral view on the world. |
| 529 | ** Ultimately none of them are truly consistent, or can be truly consistent, to their ideas. The Comedian's facade of cynicism shatters utterly and he turns out to be a lonely, self-loathing wreck who is truly pathetic on the inside. Dr. Manhattan, the most seemingly misanthropic of the superheroes, gives the ultimate HumansAreSpecial speech in the book. Ozymandias and Rorschach exchange places as the story follows: they at first see each other as being a guilty liberal (Ozymandias) and a fascist (Rorschach) but the morally absolute Rorschach, who once justified Harry Truman's UsefulNotes/AtomicBombingsOfHiroshimaAndNagasaki, is stunned when Ozymandias launches a similarly brutal attack using the same justification. This time Rorschach takes the opposite tack and denounces this action, willing to die rather than uphold this facade. |
| 530 | * MoralMyopia: A young Rorschach wrote a paper defending the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, arguing that the deaths of all those civilians are acceptable as it ended UsefulNotes/WorldWar2. However, when Ozymandias destroys New York City to create world peace, Rorschach finds this unacceptable. This was likely done deliberately by Creator/AlanMoore as Rorschach represents a right-wing philosophy that Moore does not approve of. |
| 531 | * {{Motifs}}: ''Everywhere''. There are some motifs that appear throughout the story (like the bloodstained smiley or the doomsday clock counting towards midnight), and some that appear primarily in one chapter (like "two riders" in various forms during chapter 10). |
| 532 | ** The bloodstain on the smiley vs. the minute hand on the doomsday clock. |
| 533 | ** The butterfly / Rorschach blot / large bloodstain / Hiroshima shadow. |
| 534 | ** In ''every chapter'' that involves cross-cutting between two sets of events, the dialogue in every single panel refers back to the dialogue in the previous (cross-cut) panel, and the image usually refers back to the image on the previous ''page''. For chapter 5, "Fearful Symmetry" they made the entire '''issue''' a palindrome. |
| 535 | ** Mirrored images, especially in chapter 5 "Fearful Symmetry" (a line from ''Tyger, Tyger Burning Bright''). |
| 536 | ** The two riders / Pale Horse in chapter 10, "Two Riders Were Approaching" (a line from ''All Along The Watchtower''). |
| 537 | *** The names of the events going on nearby -- ''Pale Horse'' in concert with ''Krystallnacht'', ''Film/TheDayTheEarthStoodStill1951'' -- also seem totally innocuous, until the last chapter. |
| 538 | ** The nuclear symbol / ship with black sails (inspiration for the Black Freighter, according to Moore). |
| 539 | ** The Gordian Knot lock company; Egyptian symbols, Pyramid Deliveries and the alien invasion in-jokes. |
| 540 | ** People hugging each other during a nuclear blast (Dan and Laurie, Bernard the news vendor and Bernard the black kid). |
| 541 | *** Further mirror motifs implied when it's revealed that the news vendor and the black comic book reader share the same name. Bernard. |
| 542 | %%* MotiveRant: Rorschach gives one of his own to his psychiatrist. |
| 543 | * TheMovie:An [[Film/{{Watchmen}} adaptation]] was made in 2009 by Zack Snyder. |
| 544 | * MsFanservice: Deconstructed with the Silk Spectres. Laurie resents her revealing outfit and plans to get a less feminine moniker and a gun. |
| 545 | %%* MuggingTheMonster: Textbook example with the thugs vs. Dan and Laurie. |
| 546 | * MugglePower: |
| 547 | ** A theme of the story is what is the point of non-superheroes and non-powered heroes and villains in a world transformed by Dr. Manhattan's presence. Moore takes this further, by showing common civilians having problems as compelling and important as that of the masked heroes. |
| 548 | ** In his introduction for the Absolute Edition and other interviews, Moore stated that the normal human characters like the newspaper seller, the boy reading comics, Dr. Malcolm Long and his wife, were more interesting to him than the superhero characters and that for him, ''Watchmen'' was a work where he finally outgrew any lingering nostalgia superhero characters held for him. |
| 549 | * MyBelovedSmother: Laurie feels her mother put a lot of pressure on her to follow in her footsteps. |
| 550 | * MySignificanceSenseIsTingling: One of the cops who investigate Blake's death shudders when he hears Rorschach's name. The man with the "THE END IS NIGH" sign they walk past is him. |
| 551 | * MythologyGag: Rorschach squirts a ketchup question mark into a napkin and folds it to get a Rorschach blot. |
| 552 | * TheNapoleon: The Big Figure is a short criminal. |
| 553 | * {{Narm}}: InUniverse and {{Deconstructed}} -- In the original Night Owl's autobiography, ''Under the Hood'', Hollis Mason reminisces about "the saddest thing I can think of", and tells the story of the time he and his father's employer, on the edge of a complete breakdown and with his eyes full of tears broke the news that his wife was cheating on him. But despite this being a great personal tragedy for the boss, they couldn't help but laugh hysterically at him, as the boss [[ItMakesSenseInContext was wearing big plastic breasts]] and was playing "Ride of the Valkyries" on the record player in his office as he made the announcement. They immediately realized their mistake and profusely apologized to him afterwards, but Hollis still suspects that their initial reaction is what ultimately drove their employer over the edge, as he committed suicide in his office the same day after everyone went home. |
| 554 | %%* NebulousEvilOrganization: Pyramid headed by Ozymandias. |
| 555 | * NiceJobBreakingItHero: |
| 556 | ** The existence of "costumed adventurers" has made the world of ''Watchmen'' even less safe. The very existence of Dr. Manhattan has brought UsefulNotes/ColdWar tensions to the brink of TheEndOfTheWorldAsWeKnowIt. |
| 557 | ** Rorschach's investigation into the Comedian's death involves warning the other former heroes of a potential mask-killer. Ozymandias then fakes an assassination attempt on himself as a RedHerring to convince the others it's true. He initially only planned to do away with Dr. Manhattan, and killed the Comedian solely because HeKnowsTooMuch. |
| 558 | ** The Comedian's cynicism about the effectiveness of the Crimebusters and subsequent exclamation that the Cold War will end with nukes killing everyone ends up inspiring Ozymandias to end the Cold War by killing off half of New York's population. |
| 559 | ** Dan and Laurie breaking Rorschach out of prison had the unintended consequence of causing Hollis Mason's death. |
| 560 | * NoHoldsBarredBeatdown: |
| 561 | ** Ozymandias and the Comedian have a history with these, with the Comedian beating Ozymandias when they first met, claiming he mistook him for a new villain, and Adrian notes that this is apparently a common occurance between masked heroes meeting for the first time. Later, when [[spoiler:Adrian kills Eddie for getting too close to the truth]], the old and mentally broken [[spoiler:Eddie]] can't put up much of a fight. |
| 562 | ** When Hooded Justice walks in on The Comedian trying to rape Silk Spectre, he beats the Comedian up very brutally, and we also learn Hooded Justice was infamous for using excessive violence in his fight against crime. |
| 563 | * NoHonorAmongThieves: Lampshaded by Rorschach: |
| 564 | -->"Don't worry... won't insult legendary underworld solidarity by suggesting you surrender name without torture." |
| 565 | * NoOSHACompliance: The intrinsic field substractor experiment is actually introduced as having 'new safety features'. Like time locks for the entrance door that close the experiment at a set time (rather than, like most time locks, refusing to open until a fixed time after closing) without any human interference or even presence in the control room, with no checks to see if any personnel is inside the chamber at the time, with no warning given to any personnel in the chamber before closing, with no way whatsoever to open it after closing and with no way to stop the DisintegratorRay after the door has closed. Pro-tip for any EvilOverlord whose nemesis keeps escaping from their DeathTrap: [[SpringtimeForHitler Hire these guys as safety consultants for your evil lair.]] |
| 566 | * NonLinearCharacter: Dr. Manhattan. Past, present, and future is going on at the same time and so he cannot do anything. |
| 567 | * NonLinearStorytelling: The flashbacks (about a third of the work) and Dr. Manhattan's account of his past are told in AnachronicOrder, in part to highlight Dr. Manhattan's perspective. |
| 568 | * NonPoweredCostumedHero: Thoroughly explored as a concept through the different characters, their reasons for becoming one and the consequences for them and the society. Dr. Manhattan is [[InvertedTrope an inversion of this trope]]. |
| 569 | * NostalgiaFilter: Lampshaded by Sally Jupiter (the first Silk Spectre) in both the novel and movie, where she comments on how the future seemed bleaker and the past increasingly blissful despite all the glaring, gritty flaws. Including what happened between her and the Comedian. |
| 570 | * NotEvilJustMisunderstood: Ozymandias is a misunderstood villain. He single-handedly kills off half of New York City in order to avert a nuclear war between the US and the Soviet Union that would destroy the world. However, Moore makes it clear that both he and Rorschach are extremists in their own ways. The only characters Moore unabashedly show in a positive light are Laurie and Dreiberg, both of whom only wanted to prevent more death. Everyone else ends up dead, exiled, or riddled with guilt and uncertain if they didn't just make things worse. |
| 571 | * NotInFrontOfTheKid: Rorschach starts to tell off his landlady for telling lies about him to the media, calling her a whore; she pleads with him not to say that in front of her kids. "They don't know." Rorschach [[PetTheDog pets that particular dog]], because he can see a parallel between her kids and his childhood -- except he was ''not'' shielded from his mother's profession. |
| 572 | ** Decades earlier, Sally Jupiter is telling a rather ribald joke (at her own expense), when young Laurie enters the room. Hollis Mason tells Sally that she'd better knock it off now that her daughter's present, but Sally just says that Laurie's heard it all before. But immediately afterward, Sally chides Hollis for asking if Laurie has read his book, which Sally does not want to happen, as it describes her near rape at the hands of Eddie Blake (The Comedian). |
| 573 | * NotSoOmniscientAfterAll: Dr. Manhattan starts out as a [[TheOmniscient omniscient]] Non Linear Character. During the storyline, something happens that makes him temporarily lose his omniscience while still being a Non Linear Character. He is actually ''excited'' by experiencing uncertainty again. |
| 574 | * NotSoStoic: Despite his [[AboveGoodAndEvil apparent detachment from humanity]], Jon still has emotions. He is quite upset when he learns he gave Janey cancer and goes back to Arizona to retrieve a picture of them together before his accident. He’s also upset that Laurie leaves him after twenty years, and he even lampshades this when he tells Laurie that him leaving for Mars after the broke up demonstrates his feelings for her. He also gets quite angry (for a moment) after Veidt tries to destroy him. |
| 575 | * ObsoleteOccupation: |
| 576 | ** Hollis Mason retires from the superhero business so he can dedicate himself to repairing cars - only to find out that Dr. Manhattan can use his superpowers to synthesize massive quantities of lithium for batteries in electric cars, rendering the internal combustion engine obsolete. When the story opens, Mason is managing an auto repair shop specializing in vintage cars, which is fast going out of business. |
| 577 | ** Jon Osterman (Dr. Manhattan) was going to follow his father in the watch repair business until his father read about the bomb dropped on Hiroshima. Osterman Sr. decided then and there that watch repair is an obsolete profession and insisted that his son goes into something with a future. Ironically, after Osterman loses his humanity, he decides to become a Celestial Watchmaker (i.e., a god to some people he's going to go create). |
| 578 | %%* OddFriendship: Dan and Rorschach. |
| 579 | * OffingTheOffspring: At one point, police investigate the aftermath of a murder-suicide where the perpetrator was a father and his victims were his two daughters. |
| 580 | * OldSuperhero: Deconstructed. For all their fighting skill, Captain Metropolis, the Comedian and Hollis Mason can't stop the ravages of time. The last two die fighting younger enemies. The first Silk Spectre plays with this one, as she recognizes her superhero days are well behind her but likes to reminisce about the past and pushes her daughter to take up her legacy. |
| 581 | * TheOmnipresent: Doctor Manhattan experiences all time simultaneously, and has no trouble sleeping with his girlfriend using a handful of bodies, while a dozen more work on a science experiment. |
| 582 | * OmniscientCouncilOfVagueness: The brief "war room" scenes with still-President Nixon have this effect, with weird colors and shadows that make the powers that be look unsettlingly alien... but as it comes down to the wire, Tricky Dick himself, face lost in the shadows, can only pause and realize that "you" always think it'll be up to somebody else... |
| 583 | * OmniscientHero: |
| 584 | ** Adrian Veidt has everything so well figured out that the morality issue is reduced to whether or not the goals he achieved was worth all the lives he sacrificed. However, two of the last few scenes make the whole thing ambiguous, leaving it to the reader/viewer do decide if the trope is played straight or subverted. |
| 585 | ** Dr. Manhattan himself would fit the trope perfectly if it wasn't for a certain loophole that effectively makes him lose his omniscience halfway through the story. Before that point, he is so omniscient [[InvincibleHero that ''it bores him'']], but the readers/audience are spared from sharing that boredom since he's a side character rather than the protagonist. |
| 586 | * OneLinerNameOneLiner: "Nothing ends, Adrian. Nothing ever ends." |
| 587 | * OneSteveLimit: |
| 588 | ** Averted. There's Josephine, the lesbian cab driver (who goes by Joey), and Josephine, the wife of one of Veidt's employees. |
| 589 | ** There are two Bernards, but that fact is lampshaded. |
| 590 | * OnlySaneMan: Rorschach certainly ''thinks'' he's this, as did the Comedian in a way. Hollis Mason fits this trope a little better, since he's one of the few characters who isn't up to his ass in mental problems. |
| 591 | * OohMeAccentsSlipping: Rorschach loses his rough voice when his face isn't covered by his mask. The difference is enlighted by the form of his speech balloon. This subtlety isn't featured in the movie. |
| 592 | * OutGambitted: Everyone seems to forget that, despite his death, Rorschach left his journal full of sensitive information to the press. Determining that this was probably the safest course of action to keep to his principles. The future was uncertain anyway. |
| 593 | ** They didn't forget because they never knew in the first place. Dreiberg thought Rorschach was checking for incoming mail, and didn't realize he was actually sending a package out. |
| 594 | * PaintingTheMedium: None of Rorschach's words are ever bolded for emphasis like others characters' are, which fits with the description of his voice as a CreepyMonotone. His speech bubbles are drawn with rough edges while his mask is on, which might simply mean that the mask muffles his voice, since he retains his blank stare, monotone, and elliptic sentences when unmasked, but the bubble is also drawn with smooth edges (and some of the words are bolded) in the flashback to the Crimebusters meeting, before Rorschach really went off the deep end. Dr Manhattan's speech bubbles are drawn in blue, suggesting that his voice is just as alien as his appearance. |
| 595 | * ThePasswordIsAlwaysSwordfish: It's suspiciously easy for Nite Owl and Rorschach to break into Ozymandias's computer, although this was probably deliberately arranged by Veidt to lure his colleagues to Antarctica and spare them from his scheme -- and to give himself an audience to gloat to, what's the point of outwitting your fellow superheroes if they don't even know it? |
| 596 | * PhysicalGod: Discussed regarding Doctor Manhattan, with a remark about God being American being sanitized to "Superman is American" in a press release. |
| 597 | * PlotTriggeringDeath: Everything starts with the demise of the Comedian. |
| 598 | * PoliticallyIncorrectHero: Deconstructed. Hooded Justice disappeared probably to avoid getting accused as anti-American thanks to him being a former Nazi sympathizer. |
| 599 | * PopCulturedBadass: in the Nove Express interview, Adrian says his favorite music is Dub Reggae, which the reporter find to be a very modern and eclectic choice. |
| 600 | * PosthumousCharacter: The Comedian's death is what starts the story. His backstory is the focal point of chapter 2. |
| 601 | * PrimalScene: Young Walter Kovacs walks in on his mother with one of her "clients," which leads to child abuse and just one of the many events that psychologically damaged him. |
| 602 | * PreventTheWar: Ozymandias fakes an alien attack on New York to prevent a nuclear war between the USA and the USSR. |
| 603 | * ProphetEyes: Doctor Manhattan has completely white eyes with no visible pupils, and it's hard to tell where the iris starts. |
| 604 | * PsychicPowers: Plays an indirect but key role in the plot. A young psychic is kidnaped and killed so that his brain can be cloned and used as the template for Veidt's "alien" squid creature. There are also other psychically sensitive individuals in story, including the father who got alarming visions of [[spoiler:what would happen to New York very soon]] and decided to [[OffingTheOffspring kill his children to spare them]] and then himself. |
| 605 | * PsychologicalProjection: |
| 606 | ** Rorschach has a talent for this, projecting those characteristics on to others that he unknowingly possesses himself. |
| 607 | -->'''Rorschach''': Why are so few of us left active, healthy, and without personality disorders? |
| 608 | ** Rorschach's frequent insinuations about how AllWomenAreLustful, and how Ozymandias as a SellOut is similar to a prostitute, solely out of his own bitterness about his mother being a prostitute. |
| 609 | ** Rorschach's comment near the end about how he must not let the Egyptian decor at Veidt's office overpower his logic, unaware that his own logic was coloured by his mask-killer theory simply because Eddie Blake at the time of his death happened to be the Comedian. |
| 610 | * PurpleProse: The narration caps in ''Tales Of The Black Freighter'', the [[ShowWithinAShow Comic Within A Comic]], which seems to be a tribute to the narration style of Creator/HPLovecraft. |
| 611 | * TheQuincyPunk: The Knot Tops are a mix between 80's punk with some Asian style influnces, notably the eponymous hairstyle, and the subculture is associated with criminality, although there are non-criminals who also wear the style and are indeed offended at being assumed to be criminals for their fashion choices, and we also see a [[BourgoisBohemian rich woman at a high end restaurant with a Knot Top hairstyle]]. |
| 612 | * RapeAsDrama: Part of Silk Spectre I's backstory is how the Comedian tries to have his way with her. |
| 613 | * RapeIsASpecialKindOfEvil: |
| 614 | ** Laurie's mother Sally is almost raped by the Comedian, but later ends up becoming close to him and having an affair which results in Laurie's conception. Sally is torn because she knows objectively she ''should'' loathe him. |
| 615 | ** Subverted by Rorschach, who simply notes that he can’t speculate on the Comedian’s “moral lapses." This enrages Laurie. Ironically, he has no problem with murdering rapist thugs on the streets. |
| 616 | * RealityIsUnrealistic: In-universe. Movie critic mistakes real footage of Silk Spectre I fighting crime for very bad stunt work. |
| 617 | * RedHerring: |
| 618 | ** Dan's prototype exo-skeleton, which comes across as a sure-fire ChekhovsGun, never gets used, and is left behind when Dan evacuates his basement. That he leaves it, and only it, is actually the payoff: it's a joke on how utterly stupid and useless the exoskeleton ''was'' in reality. |
| 619 | ** Hollis wears the ''exact'' same brown sweater as the killer does in the opening sequence, and he's often drawn with only his arms showing. He has zero involvement in the crime. |
| 620 | ** An in-universe example: Veidt, upon hearing Rorschach's "Mask Killer" theory, secretly orders a hit on himself as supposed proof to Rorschach of his theory, in order to distract him from his real plan. |
| 621 | * TheRedStapler: In-universe example. Dr. Manhattan wears a double-breasted suit when he is revealed to the world and Wally Weaver mentions that people are discussing its fashion significance. Sure enough, double-breasted suits are the norm in 1985 and are worn by Adrian Veidt, Rorschach (both in civilian life and in costume) and anyone else seen wearing a suit after 1960. |
| 622 | * ReducedToDust: As the heroes approach Ozymandias' hideout, Dr. Manhattan is caught in a trap: an intrinsic field remover that reduces him to atoms. This doesn't stop him in the least, as he explains after reforming himself a few seconds later, since experimenting with his intrinsic field was the first thing he did after the accident that gave him his powers. |
| 623 | ** Manhattan himself does this to Rorschach minutes later, to prevent him from revealing Veidt's plot to the world. |
| 624 | * RedundantRescue: When Nite Owl and Silk Spectre go to free Rorschach from prison. When they find him, he has already broken out of his cell, killed some of the people in his way, and is on the way out. |
| 625 | * RefrigeratorAmbush: Rorschach pulls one off, leaping out and startling retired criminal mastermind Moloch.. |
| 626 | * RefugeInAudacity: The ending. The world is at the very cusp of nuclear war, with each side waiting for the other to goad them into mutually assured destruction. Then a squid teleports into New York City and blows up, leaving everyone on Earth asking what the hell just happened. |
| 627 | * ReluctantMadScientist: Dr. Manhattan, increasingly disconnected, allows both the U.S. Government and Ozymandias to use his technological powers ForScience. Ozymandias also qualifies if the reader sympathizes with him... |
| 628 | * RestoredMyFaithInHumanity: Laurie convinces Jon/Dr. Manhattan to have a better view on humanity, although it's more along the lines of unpredictable / predictable than good / bad. |
| 629 | * TheReveal: The Comedian was murdered by [[spoiler:Adrian Veidt]] because [[HeKnowsTooMuch he discovered something that he wasn't supposed to know about]]. That "something" is that [[spoiler:Veidt is planning to end the Cold War by killing millions of people and fooling the world into believing that Earth has been invaded by aliens]]. |
| 630 | * RewatchBonus: The very first page has a pretty big one. Rorschach's monologue includes a line about "good men like my father or [[UsefulNotes/HarrySTruman President Truman]]", which comes across a lot differently once you know Rorschach's backstory. It turns out that he's actually the illegitimate son of a prostitute, and doesn't even know who his father is--but he invented an elaborate fantasy about his father being a secret agent. Harry Truman was also his childhood idol [[TroublingUnchildlikeBehavior because he ordered the destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki]]. Upon rereading the book, the line comes across as a very telling EstablishingCharacterMoment for Rorschach, establishing that he's a seriously delusional man with [[BlackAndWhiteInsanity the moral compass of a child]]. |
| 631 | * RichardNixonTheUsedCarSalesman: A few instances. Richard Nixon himself is ''still'' President in 1985, having managed to win the Vietnam War and avoid the Watergate Scandal. Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein are dead, and their names have long since been lost to history. And in the last chapter, we learn that the former actor Robert Redford is a Democratic presidential candidate. |
| 632 | * RightForTheWrongReasons: Read the in-universe article snippet of The New Frontiersman, and you'll notice that the newspaper is actually sniffing surprisingly close to the actual conspiracy. It recognizes that Doug Roth's behavior suggests bias and that he might have been subverted, and even thinks that it might have something to do with the disappearances of scientists and artists. Both of these conclusions are right--but not for logical reasons; the writer reached those conclusions because they simply decide to search for ''any'' evidence that their ideological opponents are bad, and then blame it on them wholeheartedly. |
| 633 | ** Rorschach is convinced there's a conspiracy, but thinks it's a plot to eliminate superheroes. Heroes are removed from the board (the Comedian and the original Nite Owl are murdered, Dr. Manhattan is driven into exile and Rorschach himself is jailed), but these events are purely incidental to Adrian Veidt's plot to save the world by scaring it. |
| 634 | * RonTheDeathEater: InUniverse Rorschach suspects that a lot of claims about the Comedian's amoral behavior are instances of this. Sadly, he's wrong. It's implied that he simply doesn't want to accept that someone who inspired him could have actually been such a scumbag. |
| 635 | * RunningGag: Dan's lock keeps getting broken due to Rorschach invading his apartment. |
| 636 | [[/folder]] |
| 637 | |
| 638 | [[folder:Tropes S-Z]] |
| 639 | * SceneryPorn: Dave Gibbons' drawings of Mars surface are simply ''gorgeous''. |
| 640 | * SecretSexWorker: The woman who lives next door to Rorschach is a [[SingleMomStripper single mother and prostitute]] who hides her work from her young kids. The fact that she tries to hide this from her kids actually keeps Rorschach from killing her (despite her lying about him sexually propositioning her to the news), because it proves to him that she cares about her kids, unlike his mom who was ''also'' a prostitute, but [[SonOfAWhore didn't shield him from her work]]. |
| 641 | * SelfImposedExile: [[ComboPlatterPowers Doctor Manhattan]] teleports away to Mars when he believes his superpowers have [[PowerIncontinence inadvertently]] caused cancer in people close to him, both to isolate himself and because he's increasingly unable to relate to humanity. [[spoiler:This turns out to have been {{Invoked|Trope}} by the BigBad, who caused the cancer in order to provoke an emotional breakdown and [[AchillesInHisTent take Dr. Manhattan out of the action]].]] |
| 642 | * SenselessSacrifice: |
| 643 | ** Ozymandias uses Bubastis as bait to lure Dr. Manhattan into the Intrinsic Field Subtractor. This however fails to kill Manhattan. Ozymandias next turns on the news and shows his plan worked, which wins Manhattan over. Ozy could’ve done this in the first place and spared Bubastis. |
| 644 | ** As with any large scale catastrophe, it takes a great deal of time for news broadcasters to relate a verifiable, official "report," as myriad accounts are still coming in. It would take even more time for the news of the New York disaster to not only reach the various politicians, generals and whatnot, who would then have to communicate with others to come to that tenuous accord that brought a halt to hostilities. All that would not happen in the several second period that saw Dr. Manhattan teleport to Karnak, and proceed to confront Ozymandias. Manhattan was hardly in a mood to "chill for a few minutes" while the party waits for news reports to settle. But Adrian's flight and subsequent attempt to kill Manhattan, coupled with Silk Spectre's thwarted assassination attempt and Manhattan's recovery (along with accompanying speech) bought Veidt just enough time for the news of the cease fire to break. |
| 645 | * SequencingDeception: With Chapter 11: "I did it 35 minutes ago." Also a subversion, as there are clocks ''all over the place'' in both the Karnak scenes and New York scenes so people paying careful attention wouldn't be surprised. |
| 646 | * ShootTheBuilder: The scientists [[spoiler: Ozymandias hired to make his psychic-squid "alien"]] were invited to a work's-end celebration on a boat rigged to explode. Taken even further, in that the person hired to bomb the boat was then assassinated, and then the assassin hired for that job, and so on and so forth. The villain ''really'' wanted to leave no witnesses. Ozymandias also poisons his servants at his Antarctic base, then opens the dome of his botanical garden to let the snow cover them. |
| 647 | * ShootTheShaggyDog: Not for the main characters and plot, just all the supporting characters. The prison therapist's personal life ends when the squid comes, just like all other customers of the newspaper vendor. The missing artist was killed by Ozymandias, or on his orders, and no one noticed. The Comedian was killed as part of a coverup, but the reason was discovered too late to prevent anything. |
| 648 | * ShoutOut: |
| 649 | ** In the background of issues #11 and #12, you can see ''Film/TheDayTheEarthStoodStill1951'' playing in a movie theater in the background. Ozymandias' plot to prevent nuclear war bears some similarities to the movie itself, where nuclear war is prevented by aliens coming to Earth, and telling the planet to put aside their differences, or be wiped out, essentially. |
| 650 | ** Wylie's ''{{Literature/Gladiator}}'' is visible on Hollis Mason's bookshelf. |
| 651 | ** The entire "Tales of the Black Freighter" comic-within-a-comic is inspired by ''Theatre/TheThreepennyOpera'' and the song "Music/PirateJenny" (a.k.a. "The Black Freighter") in particular. |
| 652 | ** Dreiberg's owlship is named Archie in reference to the owl in ''WesternAnimation/TheSwordInTheStone''. |
| 653 | ** The child kidnapper murdered by Rorschach named his dogs [[WesternAnimation/TheFlintstones Fred and Barney]]. |
| 654 | ** Hollis Mason's Nite Owl I [[http://images.forbiddenplanet.com/image/detail/16895490.jpg costume]] is very similar to [[http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_JpB6e0uo2KE/RtLNQ_K8eZI/AAAAAAAAAQg/Og2uiLG9hvA/s400/comic1.jpg]] ComicStrip/ThePhantom's costume, and his dog is even named "Phantom." |
| 655 | ** Towards the end, there is a TV advertising the start of ''Series/{{The Outer Limits|1963}}'' episode "The Architects of Fear." The basic premise of the villain's plan is almost identical to that episode. Although Creator/AlanMoore claims it was a coincidence they were similar, he deliberately added the ShoutOut upon discovering the similarity. DC editor Len Wein, who is most famous for creating Comicbook/SwampThing, tells a different story: Moore admitted to stealing the plot from ''The Outer Limits''; when Wein pushed him to change it to something original, Moore refused, and Wein quit the book over it. Years later, Wein has had the last laugh: in writing the Comicbook/BeforeWatchmen Ozymandias series, [[http://www.bleedingcool.com/2013/01/29/len-wein-the-outer-limits-and-rewriting-watchmen/ Wein had Veidt get the whole idea from "The Architects of Fear."]] |
| 656 | ** On a rather absurd note, Moore has confirmed that Rorschach's blunted speech patterns and dull monotone were inspired by cult comic book hero [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herbie_Popnecker Herbie Popnecker]], A.K.A. the "Fat Fury." |
| 657 | ** Dr. Manhattan's physical appearance is basically a naked ''ComicBook/RogueTrooper''. Dave Gibbons was one of Rogue's co-creators in addition to ''Watchmen''. |
| 658 | %%* TheShrink: Dr. Malcolm Long, who starts out [[WideEyedIdealist convinced he can help Rorschach...]] |
| 659 | * SingleIssuePsychology: Deconstructed. The main thing which it attacks is the use of this to define comic book characters. Ultimately none of the characters, even the single-minded Rorschach, can be boiled down to the "[[ComicBook/TheKillingJoke one bad day]]" typical of comic heroes and villains. Everyone has multiple shades and aspects that are never fully understood, even by the characters themselves. |
| 660 | %%* SingleWomanSeeksGoodMan: Laurie and Dan. |
| 661 | %%* SlidingScaleOfUnavoidableVersusUnforgivable: Ozymandias' gambit. |
| 662 | * SmallStepsHero: Deconstructed hard. Captain Metropolis founds the Minutemen because he thinks their street level heroics will make a grander difference by setting a good example, and tries again decades later (with Ozymandias' support), after the earlier team splits up. As the Comedian (himself a former Minuteman) points out, such heroics are worthless when the entire planet is facing nuclear annihilation and in the end, when the Cold War becomes violent and the world is destroyed, nothing will matter. Ozymandias comes to believe this, which kicks off his StartOfDarkness. |
| 663 | * TheSmurfettePrinciple: |
| 664 | ** Silk Spectre II is the only female Superhero of the second generation. Furthermore, her central importance to the plot is that of her role as a woman, being a kept-girlfriend to Dr. Manhattan and then the love interest of Nite Owl II. However, this is a {{deconstruction}}, so it may be intentional to demonstrate the usual roles female characters played in the comic book genre ten to twenty years before "Watchmen." |
| 665 | ** The WWII era group originally had two females (Silk Spectre I and The Silhouette), but the latter was kicked out when it became known she was a lesbian. (As at least two males were known among the group to be closeted homosexuals, the commentary on sexism is definitely intentional.) |
| 666 | * SoCrazyItMustBeTrue: Rorschach believes Moloch's story about the Comedian's visit. |
| 667 | --> '''Rorschach:''' Funny story. Sounds unbelievable. Probably true. |
| 668 | * SociopathicHero: Rorschach and the Comedian. Deconstructed; while it quickly becomes clear that instead of being a CaptainPatriotic, the Comedian is one of these, we just learn later that even acting like a sociopath has its drawbacks -- his brutality alienated everybody from him on the scale that he cannot form a human relationship anymore. While he clearly wants to reconcile with his daughter, he is incapable of that, at first because he is awkward in relationships and then because Laurie despises him for his attempted rape of her mother. And when he is desperate because of Ozymandias' plan, where does he go? To one of his former ''enemies'', where he breaks down sobbing, instead of another vigilante. |
| 669 | * SomethingElseAlsoRises: That flamethrower going off during Dan and Laurie's sex scene. |
| 670 | %%* SpeciesLoyalty: Ozzie's plan turns on this. |
| 671 | * SpreadingDisasterMapGraphic: This is used to demonstrate the damages of a nuclear attack by the Soviet Union, when Dr. Manhattan isn't there to prevent it. |
| 672 | * StealthPun: |
| 673 | ** Jon, an aspiring watchmaker who was told to forgo the business due to the atomic bomb, has the accident that leads to his PhysicalGod status because his first girlfriend's '''watch''' was ''stepped on'' by [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fat_man a fat man.]] |
| 674 | ** There's a very clever one in ''Fearful Symmetry''. The pirate-themed Rum Runner sign has two [[TheBackwardsR Rs back to back]] so they resemble a skull. It fits the symmetry theme, but there's another thing you might not have noticed unless you know Cyrillic: the sign says [[TalkLikeAPirate Yar]]![[note]]Actually, you have to know the Cyrillic ''and'' Roman lettering systems to get that; in English it's "Backwards R -- "R" and in Cyrilic it's "Ya" -- "Backwards Ya," since the Roman R character does not exist in Cyrillic and the character for the same sound looks like a Roman P.[[/note]] |
| 675 | * StopWorshippingMe: Dr. Manhattan is powerful enough to be considered divine, but resents being perceived this way. He says something like "I don't think there is a God, and if there is I don't think I'm anything like Him." |
| 676 | ** Much to his consternation, Vietcong soldiers bow down and start worshipping him after he utterly decimates their forces during the Vietnam war. |
| 677 | * AStormIsComing: Chapter ten's usage of the last lines of ''All Along The Watchtower'' by Music/BobDylan. |
| 678 | * StoryWithinAStory: ''Tales of the Black Freighter'' is a comic book within the Watchmen universe. Some of its pages are presented to the reader, and depict a castaway journeying back home to warn his city about an impending pirate attack. |
| 679 | * StoryBreakerPower: Ozymandias uses tachyons to interrupt Dr. Manhattan’s omniscience. Otherwise, he would’ve figured out Ozymandias’s plot much earlier … and there would have been far less story. |
| 680 | * StrawmanNewsMedia: Neither the left or the right press come off very well here; the New Frontiersman is so rabidly right-wing that it's pretty much a print version of Breitbart, while the Nova Express is so ludicrously left-wing they're willing to risk World War III to get rid of superheroes. Hector Godfrey and Doug Roth respectively calling each other klansmen and communists doesn't really seem too far off. |
| 681 | * {{Stripperiffic}}: |
| 682 | ** An odd LampshadeHanging, in which the first Silk Spectre (Sally Jupiter) uses it as a warped justification for AttemptedRape. It's also noticeable that the costume is only very Stripperiffic by 1940 standards, as it's a very short backless gown with stockings. Further lampshaded when her daughter/successor Laurie complains about how ridiculous her own costume is. Unlampshaded when she puts the costume on for both of her boyfriends (Dr. Manhattan and the second Nite Owl) and doesn't stop wearing it for the rest of the series (though there wasn't time to get a new one). |
| 683 | ** Dr. Manhattan's progressively-diminished costume provides a Stripperific clue as to how far back in his personal timeline each of his flashback appearances lies. The fact that he's first seen buck-naked, and is only later seen in skin-tight bodysuits or Speedos (and maybe once or twice in a full business suit), may be a bit of a joke on this trope. |
| 684 | * StylisticSuck: A document about young Walter Kovacs (Rorschach) from the New York Psychiatric Home has several typos, as such government documents tend to have. |
| 685 | * SuperRegistrationAct: The Keene Act banned superheroes' activities, with most of them being forcibly retired, a select few being hired by the government, and a few others acting clandestinely. |
| 686 | * SuperheroesWearCapes: |
| 687 | ** Deconstructed (like everything else) with the character of Dollar Bill. He was a former football player hired by a bank when they realized that having their own personal superhero on payroll was a great way to cash in on the masked vigilante craze. The costume was designed by the marketing department, who were going for style over practicality and thought that the cape added visual appeal. It ended up getting caught in a revolving door while he was trying to stop a robbery, at which point one of the robbers shot him point-blank in the chest. |
| 688 | ** Nite Owl I's original costume had a cape, but when he failed to master the art of walking around ''his own house'' with it on without the cape catching on things, he got rid of it. |
| 689 | * SuperpowerLottery: Deconstructed. Dr. Manhattan is a nigh-omnipotent, nigh-omniscient being, and the only one who has any superpower whatsoever. His absolute mastery of the stuff of reality grants him a virtually unlimited laundry list of metahuman abilities, including flight, teleportation, telekinesis, indestructibility, precognition, energy projection, the capacity to make duplicates of himself capable of independent action, intangibility, and many, many others. Yet he is so unmotivated and detached that he lets himself become a puppet of government, is one of those characters who can be manipulated very easily, and has a really hard time using his own powers not just for others', but for his own good. |
| 690 | * TakeThat: Adrian mocks the “[[Franchise/{{Rambo}} oiled muscleman with machine-guns]]” and “[[Franchise/CareBears pastel bears, Valentine hearts]]” as a “juxtaposition of wish fulfillment violence and infantile imagery, desire to be free of responsibility.” |
| 691 | * TeleportationSickness: Others besides Dr. Manhattan tend to find his teleporting them unpleasant, some rioters even suffering heart attacks when he banishes them elsewhere. |
| 692 | ** Though Manhattan's narration points out that this was due at least due partly to the shock of suddenly finding themselves back home. |
| 693 | * ThatManIsDead |
| 694 | -->'''Dr. Manhattan''': "I no longer wish to look at dead things." |
| 695 | -->'''Rorschach''': "It was Kovacs who closed his eyes but it was Rorschach that opened them again." |
| 696 | * ThatWasntARequest: |
| 697 | -->'''Dr. Manhattan''': Pay attention. You will all return to your homes.\ |
| 698 | '''Protester''': Oh yeah? And what if we don't, ya big blue fruit?\ |
| 699 | '''Dr. Manhattan''': You misunderstand me. It was not a request. |
| 700 | %%* TherapyIsForTheWeak: Rorschach certainly thinks so, and demonstrates on his prison therapist. |
| 701 | * ThereAreNoTherapists: Deconstructed. Psychotherapy was new in the post-UsefulNotes/WorldWarII world but lack of understanding of psychological care causes Mothman's breakdown. Dr. Long (Rorschach's shrink) shows how impossible it is to understand the mind of a "hero." Sally alludes to having gone to an "analyst" who helped her with dealing with her AttemptedRape. |
| 702 | %%* TheTokyoFireball: Only [[BigApplesauce in New York]], and it's more of a human-brain LogicBomb. |
| 703 | %%* TheyShouldHaveSentAPoet: Every part of the Mars scene. |
| 704 | * ThisIsGonnaSuck: A writer celebrating a job well done creating a psychic-squid beast as "special effects for a movie" [[spoiler: actually a weapon that will be used to depopulate New York City and [[GenghisGambit blamed on a non-existent alien invasion]]]] decides to have a quick nookie with a coworker down in the hold. He finds a bomb. His last moments are squeezing her closer for comfort, and falteringly reassuring her that everything is fine. |
| 705 | * TitleDrop: |
| 706 | ** Ozymandias gives one for the whole comic: |
| 707 | -->'''Ozymandias''': Even read [[UsefulNotes/JohnFKennedy JFK's]] intended speech? "We in this country, in this generation are, by destiny rather than choice, the watchmen on the walls of world freedom." |
| 708 | ** The chapter titles also title dropped with little quotations at the end of each one. |
| 709 | * TokenEvilTeammate: Deconstructed with the Comedian. He is originally kicked out of the Minutemen for being this -- not for being an AntiHero or HeroicComedicSociopath, but for trying to '''rape''' his colleague Silk Spectre. He is then invited back to join the Crimebusters, but he himself torpedoes the group before it even gets off the ground. |
| 710 | * TokenMinorityCouple: An odd variation, wherein Dr. Manhattan and Silk Spectre, the only super-powered hero and the only female hero in the latest years of the fad, respectively, end up together. They are also, notably, the only two heroes who never actually ''chose'' to be so. |
| 711 | * TokenSuper: Doctor Manhattan is the TropeCodifier, winning big on the SuperpowerLottery and ending up as the only hero in the Watchmen continuity to have powers, which are [[PhysicalGod god-like]]. The rest of the Watchmen are all {{Non Powered Costumed Hero}}s. |
| 712 | * TooDumbToLive: The prisoners in the jail Rorschach was sent to. No matter WHAT he does to any of them, they are determined to get at him. |
| 713 | ** The patron at Happy Harry's who makes a snide comment about Rorschach's admittedly poor hygiene... ''with Rorschach within earshot''. His friend even tries to get him to shut up, but it's too late. He's lucky to get off with just a trip to the emergency room. |
| 714 | * TheTopicOfCancer: Doctor Manhattan is extremely distraught to discover that the radiation emitted by his physical avatar gave his friends cancer. This was actually a ploy by Ozymandias, [[MoralEventHorizon who gave them cancer himself]]. |
| 715 | %%* TotalitarianUtilitarian: Adrian Veidt. |
| 716 | * TrespassingToTalk: Rorschach frequently invades the residences (private homes or even government facilities) of people he wants to talk to, be it friends or enemies. In one case, he even leaves a "Right Behind You" message in the victim's fridge. |
| 717 | * TrophyViolence: A gang of Top-Knots beat Hollis Mason to death with one of his own trophies. |
| 718 | * TwilightOfTheSupers: All but three costumed heroes are forcibly retired by the Keene Act, two with government sanction and the third illegally. |
| 719 | * TwinThreesomeFantasy: Subverted, as Laurie is disturbed by Manhattan cloning himself in the bedroom -- and eventually enraged when she sees [[CoitusUninterruptus another duplicate still working in the lab.]] |
| 720 | * TwistedEchoCut: Used repeatedly, especially at scene changes between ''Tales of the Black Freighter'' and the main plot. For example, it cuts from the newsstand owner talking about how newsvendors are tough survivors, to a shipwreck survivor standing on a beach crying. Or from Nite Owl saying "It'll be like coming home," to the shipwrecked man finally arriving on the mainland. "I could be no more than twenty miles from Davidstown. I was home." |
| 721 | * TwoForOneShow: The pirate comic-within-a-comic tells a full story from beginning to end, and mirrors many turning points in the overall story. |
| 722 | * TwoScenesOneDialogue: Background conversations, or banter coming from a nearby TV, which are also relevant to the main scene. ''The Black Freighter'' also sometimes mirrors some of the smaller events happening around the newsstand where it is being read. This is a trademark of ''Watchmen''. |
| 723 | * {{Ubermensch}}: Arguably one of the themes of the work. Just about all the "costumed" characters show some shades of it, but especially Rorschach and Ozymandias, who unflinchingly do what they think is right, even if it means [[BlackAndWhiteInsanity running a]] [[UtopiaJustifiesTheMeans bit counter]] to societal norms. Notably, these two characters' moral principles still run entirely counter to each other. |
| 724 | * UglyHeroGoodLookingVillain: Rorschach is quite homely and short, both of which are mentioned in-story at least once. Also, he smells bad, dresses scruffily and has terrible table manners. He's a NobleBigot, a rape apologist, a StrawNihilist ... but, then again, Rorschach [[PayEvilUntoEvil only kills dangerous criminals]]. Ozymandias, is attractive in a sort of fey, {{Bishounen}} way and WickedCultured. While Rorschach and Ozymandias are both {{Well Intentioned Extremist}}s, Rorschach ''[[NeverHurtAnInnocent never]]'' hurts an innocent person throughout the whole story, whereas Ozymandias kills over three million innocent people (at least a good handful personally) with the intention of saving billions from nuclear war. This kind of pushes Rorschach into an AntiHero status while Ozymandias becomes more of an AntiVillain, so this mostly plays the trope straight. |
| 725 | ** [[AlternateCharacterInterpretation Possibly]] [[ZigZaggedTrope zig-zagged]] at the end. While Ozymandias may have saved the world, it may only be temporary and thus unnecessary (making Rorschach's exposure of Ozymandias' plan more of a deserved justice). If it was a true success, then maybe Rorschach's actions will instead lead to nuclear war all over again. |
| 726 | * UnbuiltTrope: Even though it started MediaNotes/TheDarkAgeOfComicBooks, this comic really reads, in retrospect, like a deconstruction of the very things it inspired. |
| 727 | ** Rorschach, Dr. Manhattan, and the Comedian are all the exact kind of grim, dark anti-heroes that arose in the 90's but this is not portrayed as a positive thing at all. Rorschach and the Comedian are sociopathic lunatics who are hated and feared by many, and Manhattan is a fatalistic and emotionless person whose behavior causes his personal life to fall to pieces. Moore's point was that neurotic and complex human shades would make superheroes relatable but also unstable and non-functional, while his copycats just saw it as [[DramaticallyMissingThePoint an attempt to make superheroes cool]]. |
| 728 | ** Indeed the most functional and effective characters in the entire story are more or less the ones who are most like the classic Silver Age characters. Dan Dreiberg, the BoringButPractical Blue Beetle knock off, is a far better detective than Rorschach, and it's his equipment that busts Rorschach out of jail and takes them to Antarctica. Likewise, Ozymandias is more or less a classic pulp Doc Savage type character, whose CharlesAtlasSuperpower is not subject to any {{Deconstruction}} at all, and is used for drama when it makes him an utterly undefeatable villain (on whom Rorschach cannot land a punch). |
| 729 | * TheUnfettered: The Comedian, Dr. Manhattan, Rorschach, and Ozymandias are all willing to stoop to any low to get what they want or do what they feel needs to be done. |
| 730 | * UnstuckInTime: Dr. Manhattan becomes briefly disoriented because of tachyons. ''"Excuse me, Rorschach. I'm informing Laurie ninety seconds ago... I-I'm sorry. It's these tachyons."'' |
| 731 | ** If you flip the two pages of the graphic novel back and forth when he says this, Manhattan is in the same position on both pages, in the same pose, saying the same thing, highlighting his non-linear perception of time. |
| 732 | * UnwittingInstigatorOfDoom: |
| 733 | ** After the Comedian's death, Rorschach approaches Veidt with the possibility of a serial killer targeting former heroes, completely unaware that Veidt killed the Comedian for unrelated reasons. A single panel shows Veidt contemplating Rorschach's suggestion, and then Veidt begins killing masks in earnest as a RedHerring. |
| 734 | ** Rorschach again, when he leaves his journal for a tabloid to discover, including all his incriminating evidence against Veidt and his new utopia. Whether the editors will actually take it seriously, or the paper's readers will believe it is uncertain as well. |
| 735 | * UnusualPetsForUnusualPeople: Ozymandias has a pet genetically modified lynx, Bubastis. |
| 736 | * UtopiaJustifiesTheMeans: [[spoiler:Ozymandias' plan involves killing a lot of people under the belief that doing so will make the world a better place.]] |
| 737 | * VisualPun: When the Hooded Justice walks in on the Comedian's assault of Sally Jupiter, the eye slots on his mask are colored red; the Hooded Justice is literally ''seeing red.'' |
| 738 | %%* ViewerFriendlyInterface: "HELLO ADRIAN HERE ARE THE FILES YOU NEED" |
| 739 | * VirtuousVegetarianism: Dan discusses [[spoiler:Ozymandias]], marveling at how such a great man could do something so evil. He even remarks that he's a vegetarian. Rorshach then points out that Hitler was as well. |
| 740 | * WaterTowerDown: Nite-Owl and Silk Spectre take advantage of one of these to temporarily subdue a fire. It keeps going, but the water clears enough of a path for them to rescue the apartment tenants. |
| 741 | * WeakBossStrongUnderlings: Big Figure, the mafia boss that threatens Rorschach in prison, barely comes up to the waist of the two thugs he's with. [[spoiler:Rorschach easily overpowers him and dunks him into the toilet.]] |
| 742 | %%* WellIntentionedExtremist: Rorschach and Veidt. |
| 743 | * WhamLine: Nite Owl and Rorschach try to convince Ozymandias not to carry out his plan to destroy New York, only for the latter to reply "I did it thirty-five minutes ago." |
| 744 | * WhamShot: The opening pages of issue #12 are an extended one. Half the cast has died horribly. It's implied that Laurie and Osterman are the only living things in New York City. |
| 745 | * WhatKindOfLamePowerIsHeartAnyway: Inverted. Typically, one of the FiveManBand has mediocre abilities, yet everyone from the Minutemen and the would-be Crimebusters fall under this trope when you consider that Dr. Manhattan is a God with a StoryBreakerPower by comparison. |
| 746 | * WhatMeasureIsANonSuper: Deconstructed. In the series, we often find that ordinary police officers are more than capable of defeating Rorschach by going all ZergRush on him, where Batman for instance is always able to defeat and escape multiple police officers and mooks in comics; likewise Dr. Malcolm Long is cut from a different and altogether more heroic cloth than the usual simplistic brand of psychotherapy typical of superhero comics. |
| 747 | * WhatTheHellHero: Everybody, but most pronounced in the scene where the Comedian calls out Dr. Manhattan for not doing anything to save his (the Comedian's) AsianBabyMama despite knowing exactly what would happen. Ironically, it cements Dr. Manhattan's view that they're essentially the same. |
| 748 | * WhiteDwarfStarlet: The first Night Owl and Silk Spectre prefer talking about their GloryDays. |
| 749 | %%* WhoWatchesTheWatchmen |
| 750 | * WhoShotJFK: It's hinted that it might have been the Comedian. |
| 751 | * WouldHarmASenior: Elderly Hollis Mason gets murdered by some punks on Halloween night. |
| 752 | * WorldOfBadass: Both played straight and deconstructed. The heroes are seriously screwed up people, yet surprisingly capable of kicking ass when needed. |
| 753 | * WrittenSoundEffect: Played with. Fight scenes are silent, but there is a wide and surprising variety of onomatopoeia for "dialogue", such as the Comedian drinking ("nk nk nk") or Rorschach eating ("Ronch ronch ronch/Cronch cronch cronch" for sugar cubes and "Schlorp... chlorp... lep..." for raw baked beans). |
| 754 | * XRayOfPain: Jon (aka Dr. Manhattan) suffers a nuclear accident and we see his skeleton during the explosion sequence. |
| 755 | * YouAreTooLate: Rorschach and Nite Owl arrive at Ozymandias' base thirty-five minutes after the latter had already put his master plan into motion. |
| 756 | * YouBastard: If you believe Ozymandias was right, you're okay with killing several million people and lying to the entire world to trick it into peace. If you believe Rorschach was right, you believe that Ozymandias's scheme should be revealed to the world in the name of justice, even if it means sending the world back to the brink of nuclear holocaust. |
| 757 | * YouHaveOutlivedYourUsefulness: |
| 758 | ** Ozymandias poisons his assistants, and congratulates them for helping create a new utopia (as they are either dead or dying), then lets their bodies be hidden by snow cover. Later, he tells the others that his assistants accidentally killed themselves. He also blows up the artists who helped create the monster. |
| 759 | ** Big Figure has one of his mooks kill another when Rorschach ties the unlucky mook's hands to his cell door, obstructing the others from coming in to get him. |
| 760 | * ZeppelinsFromAnotherWorld: Airships are far more common, because [[ReedRichardsIsUseless Dr. Manhattan can synthesize enough helium to make them cost-effective]] (and safer than hydrogen-filled airships would have been). |
| 761 | [[/folder]] |
| 762 | ---- |
| 763 | --> "''Nothing ends, Adrian. Nothing ever ends.''" |
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