Various civilian and other characters involved in the story.
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Watchmen
Moloch (Edgar Jacobi)
"I did my time. I'm not Moloch anymore. What do you want from me?"
"You know the kind (of cancer) you eventually get better from? That ain't the kind I got."
A supervillain who was active in both the Minutemen and Crimebuster eras. After a lengthy stint in prison, he eventually reformed and retired.
- All There in the Manual: The Under The Hood excerpts give the clearest indicator of what his criminal career was like.
- Antagonist in Mourning: He leaves roses at the Comedian's grave, being one of the last people to see the man before his death, drunk and rambling cryptically about his discovery of Veidt's plan.
- Asshole Victim: He's long since retired and is just a pitiable, lonely old man living in a run-down apartment when we see him (and up until he's killed), but leave us not forget that he was a career criminal in his youth, responsible for much mayhem himself.
- Convenient Terminal Illness: Turns out to have terminal cancer, seemingly caused by Dr. Manhattan.
- Diabolical Mastermind: Retired. We don't know too much about what he got up to, save that it involved "vice dens."
- Dies Wide Open: With a horrified expression, no less.
- He Knows Too Much: He's the only person left who has even an inkling of what Veidt's up to, so he had to go.
- Joker Immunity: Averted. He went to prison in the 1960's. And is killed years later.
- Master of Illusion: Moloch's gimmick as a "super"-villain was to use parlor tricks to mislead and frustrate police. His closest real life analog might be Mysterio.
- Motifs: In his day, he favored demonic/occult motifs, to the point of having his ears tapered. In "Beyond Watchmen" it was shown that he was born with tapered ears, as a childhood deformity.
- Noodle Incident: There is brief mention of him using a "Solar Mirror Weapon" in his crimes.
- Pointy Ears: To emphasize his status as a former supervillain. He apparently had them tapered himself for the sake of his occult motif. In "Beyond Watchmen" it was shown that he was born with tapered ears, as a childhood deformity.
- Pretty Little Headshots: Either by Veidt or on his orders.
- Punch-Clock Villain: Maybe not originally, but after prison he has no desire to return to villainy.
- Reformed, but Rejected: Mostly averted. After spending years in prison, only Rorschach is still suspicious of him. And even Rorschach declines to turn him in for committing a crime in which he is more victim than perpetrator in taking experimental snake oil as a desperate and pathetic last resort.
- Retired Badass: Old, ill, and long retired, he's still ready to shoot what he thinks is a burglar.
- Retired Monster: Was once considered a heavy-hitter in the mob world, though it's hinted that Moloch is pretty mild by today's standards.
- Stage Magician: He mixed it into his crimes as part of a flair for the dramatic.
- Unwitting Pawn: Of Ozymandias.
- Well, This Is Not That Trope: "You know the kind of cancer you get better from? ... That ain't the kind I got."
Dr. Malcolm Long
"No problem is out of the reach of a good psychoanalyst."
"We are alone. There is nothing else."
Rorschach's court appointed shrink at Sing-Sing, Dr. Long has a comfortable life and an optimistic belief that his therapy can improve the lives of troubled inmates. Rorschach gets under his skin, however, and he finds himself increasingly obsessed with the patient who's making him question his beliefs.
- The Anti-Nihilist: By the end he has lost all optimism and happiness of his life, but is still determined to help people where he can. When his wife tells him not to intervene in a street fight, he responds: "I have to. In a world like this... I mean, it's all we can do, try to help each other. It's all that means anything..."
- Black and Nerdy: A successful black man with a doctoral degree who wears bow ties and glasses.
- Break the Haughty: Starts out with confidence in his ability as a psychoanalyst as well as a belief that he's doing good, but the difficulty of analyzing Rorschach shatters his professional and moral opinion of himself.
- Chronic Hero Syndrome: Eventually gets so preoccupied with how he can help the most vulnerable of patients that his wife can't take it anymore. In the middle of a discussion with his wife where she's telling him to transfer to work with different patients, he sees a fight in progress. She tells him "Don't you dare get involved!" and that it's over between them if he turns his back on her, but he says:"Gloria, I'm sorry. It's the world. I can't run from it."
- Critical Psychoanalysis Failure: First went into his sessions with Rorschach with the genuine hope he could help him get better. Around three days later Rorschach has completely broken down Long's positive worldview and replaced it with his own existentialist perspective, driving Long to resign.
- Establishing Character Moment: Introduced in his first session with Rorschach. The narration taken from his notes reveals that he's thinking about how solving such a high-profile case could make his reputation. He's friendly to Rorschach in a condescending way, and smug about his ability as an analyst. At the same time Rorschach's manner makes him uncomfortable even before he becomes openly hostile, revealing his susceptibility to having the tables turned on him.
- Hannibal Lecture: When he tries to psychoanalyze Rorschach, Rorschach turns the tables on him in a way that makes him question his own life.
- Henpecked Husband: After his sessions with Rorschach begin to change him, his wife begins to complain about how he doesn't pay attention to her anymore, and gives him the cold shoulder after he scares off another couple they were having dinner with by bringing up the rather squicky Blaire Roche case in conversation.
- Horrible Judge of Character: At first he underestimates Rorschach's insanity and mistakenly thinks that his attitude toward treatment is improving.
- The Loins Sleep Tonight: As he gets wrapped up in Rorschach's story, he becomes emotionally and sexually distant from his wife—the latter of which is highlighted for the reader when he notes that she subjects him to a number of crude sexual insults before leaving him.
- N-Word Privileges: Dr. Long is walking home after a particularly disturbing session with Rorschach when the street vendor (who is black) tries to sell him a knockoff Rolex watch. When Long ignores him, the vendor screams at him "Nigger! Hey Nigger!"
- Shoot the Shaggy Dog: All of his personality changes and different outlook on life is rendered meaningless as he's one of the millions killed by Ozymandias' plan.
- Token Minority: The only black POV character.
- Wide-Eyed Idealist: Believes that the world isn't dark and grim like Rorschach sees it, and that he can convince him of that somehow, but soon learns the error of his thinking.
Bernard
"In this world, you shouldn't rely on help from anybody. In the end, a man stands alone."
"See, everything's connected. A news vendor understands that. He don't retreat from reality."
A news vendor on the streets of New York City. He provides a running commentary on the events of the story.
- Big Ego, Hidden Depths: At the penultimate issue Bernard confess to Bernie that he feels lonely since her wife's death, that he realized she was the one who had friends, because all of them stopped calling Bernard when she died, and that Bernard took the news vendor job only to meet more people, showing that his Know-Nothing Know-It-All and selfish attitude was only a facade.
- Break the Haughty: Starts his debuting chapter espousing how connected and well-informed he is, presenting himself as a world-weary authority on everything. But when it is announced that Doctor Manhattan has left the Earth, causing the Russians to invade Afghanistan (an act of aggression likely to bring the world to the brink of nuclear war), he becomes ashen and considerably less loquacious, at least for awhile.
- Character Development: His initial Know-Nothing Know-It-All and selfish attitude is demolished by the Break the Haughty events of the nuclear annhilation menace, encouraging him to help Bernie and in the penultimate issue he futile but sincerely tries to protect Bernie.
- Died in Your Arms Tonight: A platonic example with Bernard, as in the last moments of both their lives, he tries to embrace and shield the boy.
- The Everyman: Represents the average person's perspective on the story's events. Alan Moore himself describes him as such, making it clear what he thinks of the everyman in the process. But, at the same time, he's not wholly devoid of redeeming qualities, and he perishes trying, futilely but sincerely, to save the life of a boy he barely knows.
- Given Name Reveal: His name is not revealed until the penultimate issue, when he discovers that he shares it with the young boy who has been reading the Tales of the Black Freighter comic.
- Greek Chorus: His role is comparable to this, showing the general population's reaction to the story.
- Intergenerational Friendship: Has one with the younger Bernard.
- In the End, You Are on Your Own: He invokes this trope to justify denying help to young Bernie, but when Bernard learns about World War III and the impending nuclear menace, he prefers to invoke The Power of Friendship and help young Bernie.
- Know-Nothing Know-It-All: He thinks that being a news vendor gives him unique insight and knowledge on world affairs, but it's clear to the reader that he's full of it.
- Old Windbag: He rambles constantly to everyone who will hear it, but mostly to the younger Bernard, who is too engrossed in his comic to listen.
- One Degree of Separation: Rorschach and Dr. Long both frequent his newsstand, Veidt's Institute for Extraspatial Studies is right across the street, the thugs who murder Hollis Mason get the idea at his newsstand, and ultimately half of the supporting cast ends up on his street when Veidt executes his plan.
- Politically Incorrect Hero: His first line of dialogue is him opining that the US should nuke the entirety of Russia, and later on he expresses disgust at a poster for a lesbian event.
- Spit Take: The "End is Nigh" sign holder makes him do one with coffee in the third chapter.
- Start X to Stop X: Bernard justifies the murder of Russia's children in the war, because America must protect their own children.
The Sea Captain
"Truly, life is hell and Death's rough hand our only deliverance."
"Exhausted, I slept atop the grave, dreams ringing with the horribly familiar screams of children. I saw the black freighter bearing down on all I loved..."
A fictional character that stars in the Story Within a Story Marooned that runs throughout Watchmen. The story retells of the man's journey to try to reach his hometown before the infamous Black Freighter gets there first to destroy it. What follows is a story about complete loss of humanity that's not too far from another character in Watchmen...
- All for Nothing: The Captain survives trials and tribulations beyond the ken of normal people to get home and protect his family from harm, only to become the very threat he struggled so hard to save them from.
- Allegorical Character:
- At first, the comic just seems to simply be paralleling certain scenes in Watchmen, but otherwise comes off as pointless to the narrative, until you realize that the Sea Captain is in fact supposed to represent Ozymandias and his own supposed fate after his horrible (but good intentioned) actions...
- He also is one to Bernard, because when Bernie reads about the Captain realizing the error of his acts of revenge, Bernard justifies the murder of Russian's children in the war, because American must protect their own children.
- Badass Boast: "Soon I would venture upon evil men, and make them fear me..."
- Companion Cube: The figurehead on the prow of his sunken ship, shaped like a beautiful woman, which he clung to, saving his life.
- Determinator: Endures unspeakable hardship to survive his oceanic ordeal and return to his home.
- Due to the Dead: Despite his fear for his family's safety, the Captain still take considerable time to properly bury the many bodies of his murdered crew. Subverted by his later actions, however...
- Heel Realization: It eventually dawned on him that the Black Freighter wasn't going for his hometown, but for him, and that all the atrocities he committed to get home were ultimately for nothing.
- Heroic BSoD : Suffers an utterly epic one when he realizes that he nearly beat his own beloved wife to death, in front of their children, no less.
- I Am a Monster: "I was a horror: amongst horrors must I dwell."
- I Did What I Had to Do: And how. He commits heinous acts including murder to return home to his family.
- MacGyvering: A dark and grisly example, to be sure. Uses the dead, bloated bodies of his crewmen to make a raft.
- My God, What Have I Done?: His reaction when he discovered he's brutally beaten his own wife to a near pulp in front of his daughters.
- Sanity Slippage: Slowly but surely, through the course of his travails.
- Sole Survivor: Of the pirate attack that destroyed his ship and killed his entire crew.
- Would Hit a Girl: Brutally murders a woman (thinking her a pirate collaborator) to prevent his return from being uncovered.
Doomsday Clock
Carver Colman
- Armored Closet Gay: His personal dark secret and the reason he was murdered. In the reset universe, he finally subverts this trope.
- Be Yourself: Jon's advice to Carver in #12.
- Chekhov's Gunman: Initially he and his works seem to be like "Tales of the Black Freighter" were for the original Watchmen. Then, in issue 10, it turns out he's more connected to what's going on than initially shown.
- The Constant: No matter what other changes happen to history, Carver's life and death remain entirely unaffected by the passage of Comic-Book Time.
- Cosmic Keystone: Doctor Manhattan identifies him as "his anchor". His story becomes a Plot Parallel to the main plot.
- In Spite of a Nail: Carver Colman apparently replaced Martin Balsam in this universe, winning the Best Supporting Actor Academy Award that Balsam won for A Thousand Clowns.
- It's All About Me: After a few years of talking with Jon, as his star in Hollywood keeps rising, he gets more and more self-focused.
- Never Speak Ill of the Dead: His loyal cleaning maid found the letter he was being blackmailed with, and rather than allow his memory to be tarnished by the revelation of his sexuality, burned it up. On the other hand, the letter's destruction allowed the murderers to escape justice.
- Odd Friendship: With Doctor Manhattan, who rescued him from being beaten by police when he first arrived in the DC universe, and met with him once a year until his murder.
- Offing the Offspring: He was murdered by his mother.
- One Degree of Separation: Johnny Thunder worked as a go-fer on his first movie.
- Parental Abandonment: His father was an utter non-presence in his life.
- Set Right What Once Went Wrong: In the final issue, Doctor Manhattan finally reaches to him and convinces him to admit who he is to himself and others. Acknowledging his homosexuality not only saves his life (now his mother has nothing to blackmail him with), he leads an ultimately successful campaign to get homosexuality out of the mental diseases book. In the reset universe, he dies an old man, having lived a happy life with his partner.
Watchmen (2019)
Angela's family
Cal Abar / Jon Osterman / Doctor Manhattan
Cal Abar / Jon Osterman / Doctor Manhattan
Played by: Yahya Abdul-Mateen II
click here for SPOILERS
Angela's husband. The physicist who became accidentally blue-skinned and superpowered, and changed the world. He is still living on Mars over thirty years after the comic book's events. Or so we thought...
See Dr. Manhattan
Will Reeves / Hooded Justice
Will Reeves / Hooded Justice
"You think I can lift two hundred pounds?"
click here for SPOILERS
Played by: Louis Gossett Jr., Jovan Adepo (younger)
- June: "...You are an angry, angry man, William Reeves."
A mysterious, elderly man who survived the Black Wall Street Massacre nearly a century before the events of the series. A former New York City cop and the very first costumed adventurer.
See Hooded Justice
Topher Abar
Christopher "Topher" Abar
Played by: Dylan Schombing
Angela's eldest adopted son.
- Dark and Troubled Past: Topher's biological father was one of the many police officers targeted during the infamous White Night incident. He had no choice but to hide with his younger sisters in a closet while their parents were brutally murdered in the next room by Seventh Kalvary foot soldiers. While his sisters were able to hold onto their innocence, Topher in comparison is not the same kid he once was. A trait Angela herself picks up on and finds commonality in.
- Happily Adopted: They clearly have their issues but Topher does love his adopted mother, with their argument in the first episode being over his violent reaction to a classmate using the racist “Redfordations” term around her.
- No-Holds-Barred Beatdown: His first scene has him tackling a classmate to the ground for aggressively asking his adopted mother whether she used "Redfordations" to subsidize her bakery.
- Unstoppable Rage: Using racist attacks against Angela will cause him to go apeshit on you.
June Abar
June Abar
Played by: Danielle Deadwyler (1940s), Valeri Ross (1980s)
the '40s
the '80s
Angela's grandmother and Will's ex-wife.- Character Development: Despite appearing in only two episodes. She left Will because of his work as Hooded Justice, and severed contact with her son after he followed his dad into uniform and fought in Vietnam. When she meets young Angela, she is clearly disappointed to learn that Angela wants to be a cop but doesn't say anything as she doesn't want to lose the only family she has left.
- Cool Old Lady: Unlike Angela's parents, has no problem with her granddaughter admiring Sister Night, even voicing her approval and mutual admiration with "You don't fuck with Sister Night!".
- Dark and Troubled Past: Like her ex-husband Will, she survived the 1921 Tulsa massacre as an infant. She endured racism and had a gradually strained relationship with Will because of his superhero activities with the Minutemen, which led to her leaving him and moving back to Tulsa with their son.
- Expy: Is very much one for Lois Lane, being a female newspaper reporter whose significant other happens to be a superhero.
- Hollywood Heart Attack: Dies of one shortly after retrieving her young granddaughter Angela from the orphanage in Vietnam.
- Mama Bear: Is quick to send the mean orphanage attendant away when she witnesses the harsh way she speaks to young Angela. Not to mention leaving her husband Will when it appears their son Marcus is being unduly influenced by his secret vigilantism activities as Hooded Justice.
- Outliving One's Offspring: Her son Marcus is killed by a suicide bomber along with his wife, not very long before her own death.
- What the Hell, Hero?: Makes it clear that she does not approve of her husband Will's activities as Hooded Justice, as they do not assuage his anger, only feeds it. The last straw is when it appears their son might follow in Will's footsteps.
Judd's family
Jane Crawford
Jane Crawford
Played by: Frances Fisher
Judd's wife, a former campaign staff member for Senator Keene.
- Bitch in Sheep's Clothing: Jane seems like a pleasant, accommodating woman but, much like her husband, she's a high-ranking member of the Seventh Kalvary. Once her facade drops, she shows herself to be a merciless sadist who casually offers to murder Laurie.
- Dirty Old Woman: Played for Laughs, with her blatantly eyeing the naked Senator Keene when he's preparing to become the next Doctor Manhattan.
- Evil All Along: Both she and her husband are leaders of the Seventh Kavalry/Cyclops.
- Face Death with Dignity: She's the only member of Cyclops to accept Trieu killing them and not freak out.
- Get It Over With: Currently the page quote. Her Shut Up, Kirk! to Trieu, where she interrupted Trieu reading Will's speech to Cyclops and tells her to just kill them already.
- More Deadly Than the Male: While Judd claimed to be a Well-Intentioned Extremist, Jane is more openly ruthless and megalomaniacal.
- Politically Incorrect Villain: She was a leader of the Seventh Kavalry.
- Shut Up, Kirk!: She tells Trieu to stop reading the speech Will gave her and just kill them already.
- Unholy Matrimony: It seems that she and Judd were two racist peas in a pod.
Adrian Veidt's Castle
Mr. Phillips & Ms. Crookshanks
Mr. Phillips and Ms. Crookshanks
Played by: Tom Mison and Sara Vickers
Adrian Veidt's servants. They were created by Doctor Manhattan, who based them on a couple he caught in a Primal Scene in his childhood.
- Adam and Eve Plot: Dr. Manhattan created them with this in mind. However, they turned out to be solely interested in serving other beings rather than progressing their fledgling race.
- Bizarre Alien Biology: Although they resemble humans, they spontaneously spawn out of lake water and rapidly age into adults when irradiated inside some sort of giant microwave. They also appear to be significantly more fragile than normal humans.
- The Chew Toy: Their lot in life seems to be to die at Veidt's hands in various gruesome ways.
- The Ditz: Neither of them are particularly bright.
- The Dog Bites Back: Although they are adorably civil and childish about it, they collectively turn against Veidt after he sacrificed at least a hundred of them to create a giant S.O.S. symbol out of their frozen remains and they form a Kangaroo Court to declare his guilt.
- Enforced Method Acting: In-Universe. When Ms. Crookshanks promises she'll shed real tears at a performance, she does so by watching Mr. Phillips burn to death.
- Gone Horribly Right: Doctor Manhattan created the Phillipses and Crookshankses with the intention of them being a superior form of humanity, one that "cares for one another over themselves." This resulted in them being a Servant Race of ditzy sycophants who can't think for themselves and desperately desire for a master to lead them.
- Happiness in Slavery: They love having Veidt around to tell them what to do, and the only rule they created is that he can't try to leave their "estate."
- Legacy Character: Multiple versions of them exist, with one dying for one reason or another and another quickly taking their place.
- Made of Plasticine: Not much effort seems to be needed to kill them. Most notably, Veidt was able to kill the Game Warden by stabbing him in the chest with just a horseshoe.
- Nice Guy: They are all specifically designed to be a race of polite, docile humanoids, with Manhattan even noting that they were designed to prioritize caring for other people over themselves.
- Rapid Aging: They gestate in a lake near the manor house and Veidt throws the fetuses he deems suitable into what looks like a giant microwave in order to rapidly age them into adults.
- Servant Race: A whole race of compassionate, loyal and disturbingly expendable butlers and maids. Basically, they are exactly what Adrian Veidt wanted for humanity in his original Utopian vision. One gets the idea that Manhattan might've created them to in part serve as a Stealth Insult to Veidt's utopian and utilitarian ideals.
- Sycophantic Servant: No matter how much terrible abuse Veidt puts them through, they have nothing but unconditional love and devotion in their hearts for him and their original creator, Dr. Manhattan. However, Veidt's abuse eventually reaches such a breaking point that even they can no longer stand for it.
- Three Laws-Compliant: They follow the First Law for the most part, as aside from knocking him unconscious with a punch, they've never deliberately hurt Veidt. They follow the Second Law to a disturbing degree, even when it results in them suffering a particularly nasty end. And they completely avert the Third Law, as they show no real concern for their own lives until Veidt seems to finally cross the line.
- Uncertain Doom: It is currently unknown what will become of them after Veidt's escape now that they have no master to serve or seek guidance from.
The Game Warden
The Game Warden
Played by: Tom Mison
A mysterious figure who is an obstacle in Veidt's plans.
- Domino Mask: Wears a Zorro-like mask, probably to distinguish himself from the rest of the Phillips clones.
- Friendly Enemy: Despite being responsible for Veidt's captivity they're amazingly civil with each other. He sends a letter politely but sternly warning Adrian against his plans with him replying in kind. The Game Warden mentions he enjoyed the tomatoes Veidt sent him.
- Meaningful Name: The entirety of his "feud" with Adrian Veidt is a sham: Veidt set it up so that having an adversary to battle would distract him from the soul-crushing monotony of his exile on Europa. Basically, it's all a game.
- Sitcom Archnemesis: Set up as one to Veidt by the time that we actually see him.
- ”See How I Fly” reveals this is invoked, since Veidt created him for the specific purpose of having an adversary.
- Super Prototype: According to him, he is the very first Artificial Human created by Doctor Manhattan. He possesses much more volition than the passive Phillips and Crookshanks types, which is probably why there's only one of him. Ultimately subverted in the final episode, though: Veidt had told him to act as a foil to him, so in the end he was still following orders.
- Worthy Opponent: As it turns out, this is all he wanted to be for Veidt, to please him just like all the other servants on Europa. It's played with after Veidt stabs him, however, as Veidt tells him that he wasn't really a worthy opponent but put on a good show.
Trieu Industries
Lady Trieu
Lady Trieu
"Legacy isn't in land. It's in blood."
Played by: Hong Chau
A Vietnamese-born trillionaire and head of Trieu Industries, the company which bought out Veidt Enterprises.
- Ambiguously Evil: While she's obviously hiding something big throughout her screentime, it's hard to tell whether that thing is for humanity's benefit or not. It eventually comes to pass that her motivations are in humanity's best interest... but are also being used to justify her raging god complex.
- Animal Motifs: Elephants. The ivory hourglass she carries around shows elephant carvings, as does the tea set in her vivarium. The Trieu Industries logo, if you look closely, is an elephant's trunk, tusks, and ears formed to shape a stylized T. In addition, she keeps a live elephant on campus as a source for Nostalgia overdose treatment. This is doubly meaningful: Trieu's namesake is famous for riding an elephant in battle and trampling her enemies with it, and elephants are renowned for their longevity and memory: a fitting motif for a headstrong neuroscientist who studies memory.
- Attention Whore: She engineered a clone of Bian, her mother, and retrieved her aging estranged father from Europa (Adrian Veidt) specifically so she could indulge the satisfaction of having both of her parents bear witness to her ascension to godhood. When Manhattan sabotages this by teleporting Veidt away, she takes the time to whine at him like a spoiled brat.
- Big Bad: She has been manipulating the Seventh Kavalry, and plans to take the power of Dr. Manhattan for herself so she can save the world. Veidt believes that will inevitably lead to her becoming a monster.
- Book Ends: Her mother, the elder Bian, brought her into the world telling Ozymandias to go fuck himself, which is also the last thing we hear Trieu say before she dies. Fittingly, Bian, who otherwise spoke exclusively in Vietnamese throughout her screentime, said it in English while Trieu, who primarily spoke in English, said it in Vietnamese.
- Cassandra Truth: When Sister Night asks her why she came to Oklahoma, Lady Trieu casually replies that it's the first step of her secret plan to save humanity. She wasn't lying. Trieu really is working with Will to save humanity from Joe Keene and the Seventh Kalvary, who want to kill Doctor Manhattan and steal his powers. That said, she intended to do the same, playing Keene and the Kalvary like a fiddle.
- The Chessmaster: She has been manipulating the Seventh Kavalry the whole time, allowing them to do the dirty work of building the materials necessary to capture Doctor Manhattan and steal his powers.
- Corrupt Corporate Executive: The Mad Scientist leader of Trieu Industries (which she personally started) and the Big Bad of the whole season.
- Crazy-Prepared: The "Millennium Clock" that she's building in Oklahoma is designed to survive anything short of a direct nuclear blast. It's in Oklahoma specifically because it's far from fault lines or other frequent natural disasters or end-of-the-world scenarios (and is far enough away from major city centers like New York or Los Angeles to be a target for some sort of strategic attack).
- Daddy's Little Villain: Much like her father, Adrian Veidt, she is a manipulative antagonist.
- Deadpan Snarker: She can hold her own against both Sister Night and Agent Blake.
- Defiant to the End: Her Profane Last Words are snarling in Vietnamese that Veidt is a "motherfucker" just as the destroyed Millennium Clock crushes her to death.
- Didn't See That Coming: Her Millennium Clock, while subjected to impressive Ragnarök Proofing otherwise (to the point where she claims the only thing it couldn't survive would be a point-blank nuclear strike), was evidently not designed to withstand frozen squids falling from the heavens with the force of a Gatling gun.
- Establishing Character Moment: We are first introduced to Lady Trieu when she arrives at the doorstep of a loving couple in the middle of night with the intention to buy their house and the forty acres it sits on. But when the couple attempts to reject her limited time offer on the grounds that the farm has been in their family for generations? Trieu immediately rips that defense apart with a Breaking Speech that strikes at their insecurities over their failure to conceive and counters with the revelation that she's not offering money for their land but is instead offering a second chance to continue their legacy via a child artificially created from their DNA. Trieu also has her people bring the baby, whom she has already created, into the house as proof, with the mention that she deposited 5 million dollars into a personal account to help cover their relocation costs and child-related expenses just to help seal the deal.Lady Trieu: When they harvested your eggs Mrs. Clark, you were told they were non-viable. Y'know what I say to that? I say BULLSHIT!
- Less than a minute after the couple sign the papers, something falls down from the sky and crashes onto their lands, to which Trieu remarks "That is mine", indicating she orchestrated the whole thing down to the minute just to claim whatever the object is.
- Even Evil Has Standards: Lady Trieu is surprised to see Angela in Greenwood at the climax and says that she didn't want Angela to witness her husband being destroyed. She's also not fond of the Seventh Kavalry beyond using them as pawns in her scheme. Once she has everything she needs from them, she doesn't waste time vaporizing their leadership.
- Evil Is Petty: After Ozymandias is thawed out after his return from Europa, Trieu takes every opportunity to rub his prior dismissal of her in his face.
- Freudian Excuse: It's implied that she's as loony as she is thanks to her mother viciously pushing her to excel in every category as part of her long-sought revenge against the United States for turning her home country of Vietnam into a glorified colony.
- Generation Xerox: Trieu's personality, personal history and role in the story all closely parallel her father Adrian Veidt in the original comic. They both even adopt the names of legendary historical figures.
- Godhood Seeker: The Kavalry's plan to destroy Doctor Manhattan and steal his power was really her plan to destroy Doctor Manhattan and steal his power. They didn't realize the truth of the matter until it was too late.
- Hoist by His Own Petard:
- Trieu's own moment of cruelty in pouring out Keene's liquefied body in front of his friends is what gives Manhattan the power to send Ozymandias to the place where he needs to be to kill her. Had she not felt the need to be both cruel and showy, she would have won.
- In a more concrete manner, she ends up crushed and killed by the machine she intended to use to take Doctor Manhattan's powers.
- Hypocrite: She explains to Angela at length why it is a very, very bad idea to take someone else's Nostalgia. She is also doing that to give Bian the memories of her mother.
- Ivy League for Everyone: Exaggerated — not only did she graduate from MIT at fifteen, she bought it four years later.
- Kick the Dog: One that overlaps with Pet the Dog; She manipulates the Clarks with their biological son as a bargaining chip so as to get ownership of their property as quickly as possible. While it was certainly kind of her to grant them a child which they've always wanted, it's also incredibly cruel in how callously she treats the infant and threatens to leave the child up for adoption in case the Clarks don't accept him within the brief time limit she's given them.
- Everything involving Bian, with her treating the modern clone of her own mother (who sees Lady Trieu as a surrogate mother) as a glorified science experiment and her intentionally forcing the young woman to experience immensely traumatic memories primarily to satisfy her massive ego.
- A Lighter Shade of Grey: While the true Big Bad in the Big Bad Ensemble against the Seventh Kavalry, her goals have better intentions than the Kavalry’s. She may have a massive god complex and ego comparable to them, but she at least isn’t a racist murderer.
- The Man Behind the Man: Trieu has a secret alliance with Will Reeves and has been using her power and influence to support his efforts towards combating the Seventh Kavalry.
- Meaningful Rename: Peteypedia reveals that her mother allowed her to pick her own name at age five. She chose her hero, the mythical warrior Lady Trieu.
- Meet the New Boss: She has bought Veidt's company in totality and like him, appears to have an affinity for genetic engineering, making bio-domes in the middle of nowhere (Oklahoma instead of Antarctica), preparing for a possible incoming apocalypse, and is smugly superficially charming.
- Named After Someone Famous: She is named after a 3rd-century Vietnamese warrior who was able to hold off a Chinese invasion. She is famously quoted as saying, "I'd like to ride storms, kill sharks in the open sea, drive out the aggressors, reconquer the country, undo the ties of serfdom, and never bend my back to be the concubine of whatever man."
- Narcissist: Is such a gigantic one that even Veidt sees it (and that's really saying something) which is why he joins forces with Laurie and Wade to foil her plan:Veidt: ...[Trieu] is clearly a raging narcissist whose ambition knows no limits. It's hubris, literal hubris. Anyone who seeks to attain the power of a god must be prevented at all costs from attaining it. But believe me, that girl will not rest until she has us all prostrate before her, kissing her tiny blue feet.
- Not So Stoic: After being smug and extremely self-assured for most of her appearances, she childishly lashes out at Doctor Manhattan for teleporting away her father Ozymandias before he can witness her becoming a Physical God and stands there in a huff as Manhattan is sapped of his powers.
- Profane Last Words: The last word she utters is calling Veidt a "Motherfucker" in Vietnamese.
- Replacement Goldfish: Her "daughter" is revealed to be a clone of her mother, and Trieu is using the Nostalgia technology to implant her mother's memories into her mind.
- Rich Recluse's Realm: Insanely wealthy, she has built an entire habitat that mimics the environment of Vietnam — on the outskirts of Tulsa.
- Teen Genius: Graduated from MIT at fifteen.
- Troll: After giving the Clarks their child as an offering to buy their land, she claims that she'll destroy the baby if they refuse, to their shock. Moments later, she says that she was just kidding, before explaining that she will put the newborn up for adoption and that he'll never know where he came from. The ploy works and she gets what she wants.
- Walking Spoiler: She's both the daughter of Adrian Veidt via artificial insemination and the real Big Bad of the miniseries.
- Well-Intentioned Extremist: She plans to use Doctor Manhattan’s power to force world peace and make the world a better place. Of course, it would also be one that would worship her as its eternal God-Empress...
- The Wonka: Lady Trieu is the eccentric yet genius CEO of a trillion dollar MegaCorp that has made multiple breakthroughs in the field of nanotechnology and genetic engineering. She also cloned her own mother and has been drip feeding her Nostalgia so she'll live to witness her achievements. Trieu also set up fake Dr. Manhattan toll booths around the globe so she can eavesdrop on the prayers meant for a God that chooses to ignore them. Sister Night is understandably disturbed by all this.
Bian (2019)
Bian
Played by: Jolie Hoang-Rappaport
A young girl who acts as Lady Trieu's adjutant and spokeswoman.
- Innocently Insensitive: She seems to be genuinely unaware of how uncouth it is to casually ask Angela if she can interview her about experiencing her own grandfather's traumatic memories via Nostalgia overdose as part of her research paper concerning generational trauma.
- Number Two: For Lady Trieu.
- Stepford Smiler: She's a lot less mentally stable than her cheeriness may first imply.
- Transferable Memory: Trieu regularly pumps her with her own mother's traumatic memories via IV drip, because Bian is her mother.
- Troubling Unchildlike Behaviour: Does all sorts of genius-level stuff like conducting psychology tests despite her young age. Probably because she's been pumped full of Original Bian's memories.
Bian (1985)
Bian
Played by: Elyse Dinh
Lady Trieu's mother.
- Beneath Suspicion: Being Ozymandias's cleaning lady while he was busy planning to drop a squid on New York allowed her to surreptitiously impregnate herself with his sperm. She was also able to sneak away while he murdered the rest of his squid staff.
- Dark and Troubled Past: It's hinted she despises what happened during the Watchmen version of The Vietnam War and it played a role in what she became, given her plan to have Veidt's baby and get even. One of the memories Trieu gave Bian's clone concerned being in a burning Vietnamese village and forced to go on a death march.
- Education Mama: A gossip column posted on Peteypedia reveals that Bian pushed Trieu hard to become "the world's smartest woman, brighter than a sky full of stars, a redemptive blessing to the world planet." Her methods included isolation, tough love, "enhanced transcendental meditation", and according to Trieu's former tutor in psychic combat, a "Duel to the Death on multiple planes of existence, corporal and mental."
- Greater-Scope Villain: She pushed her daughter so as to get revenge for the United States' colonization of Vietnam.
- Precision F-Strike: "Fuck you, Ozymandias."
- Small Role, Big Impact: Bian's actions in 1985 and her offscreen upbringing of Trieu are what caused the latter to become a narcissistic monster who kills Doctor Manhattan.
- Stalker with a Test Tube: Towards Adrian, specifically stealing his sperm so she can have a child that surpasses him.
