History Headscratchers / WatchmenCharacters

** 1) Only Dr Manhattan knew about Comedian shooting the pregnant woman, and as pointed out, he is losing his humanity and the bit that he does have is feeling guilty about not attempting to stop him. 2) We can debate why the Minutemen kept him on the team, but the Watchmen seem to be sketchy on the details at best. They may even not believe her as she was dressed proactively and later became a well-known drunk - ''she was asking for it'' was the sad outcome of any rape accusation back in the mid twentieth century. Rorschach in particular seems to respect the Comedian more than he does her as noted elsewhere on this page. 3) Women forgiving their rapist to the point of falling in love with them is TruthInTelevision on occasion. [[Administrivia/RuleOfCautiousEditingJudgement Please be careful about debating points 2 and 3 if you wish to continue.]]

*** Also note that this was written in 1985, Main/TheGreatPoliticsMessUp before the collapse of the Soviet Union.

*** Also note that this was written in 1985, [[Main/TheGreatPoliticsMessUp before the collapse of the Soviet Union]].

* I think I like Ozymandias more than I'm supposed to. It's not because of what he did-normally I dislike people who believe that UtopiaJustifiesTheMeans. But out of all the characters he seems to be the best and brightest. He's the only one who really believes that humans have the abililty to make a better world for themselves, if only they stop being stupid. Am I reading something wrong?
** Well, [[Administrivia/TropesAreTools Tropes Are Not Wrong]], so... I think it's a case of the villain being the only competent/dedicated/stick-tuitive character, I know there's a trope name for that, where you have to admire him as a fictional character, even if he's a villain, because he's the only smart guy in the room. Like Keyser Soze. You can't do that in real life because in real life there's always a "somewhat good" person capable of putting up an argument against fanaticism.
*** What ''is'' the trope name for the preceding paragraph? Administrivia/DoWeHaveThisOne
*** OnlySaneMan mixed with TheDeterminator?
** Or even arguing that, if sacrificing millions to save billions is a good thing, then risking the lives of billions for the truth (Rorschach's argument) can't be dismissed either. (Would Russia have really initiated WWIII having just learned that an [[CorruptCorporateExecutive evil capitalist]] had initiated a false-flag operation against America? Or would the US have [[OntologicalInertia returned to Def-Con]] [[strike:4]] [[DefconFive 2]] after learning Veidt did it?)
*** [[NonSequitur Actually, that doesn't follow at all.]]
** But in real life the "practical, somewhat good" person will say "no, we don't want people to know the truth, but we don't want the guy who did it to get off scot free either." Ironically this is one shade of grey Alan Moore didn't explore. What if the "heroes" had "extraordinarily renditioned" Veidt? Not that they were able to, of course.
*** Ozymandias needs to go free because only he can lead the Free World to peace. He's got the means and the motive, and now the opportunity. If they were to bring it in, everything he worked for would fail.
*** Explain something for me...how the ''fuck'' would you go about punishing Veidt? He hammered Rorschach and Dan, and while Nite Owl had been out of action for a while, Rorschach is a ''vicious'' fighter who simply doesn't stop. Your only option is Dr. Manhattan, who may have a new interest in humanity, but that doesn't mean he's going to appoint himself head of the Karma Police.
*** [[WhyDontYaJustShootHim Use a gun]]? (And if that don't work, [[VideoGame/TeamFortress2 use more gun]].) Seriously, though, there's only so much even the "perfect" Ozymandias could do against that possibility...
*** The Karma Police would go after Dr. Manhattan first. He talks in maths and buzzes like a fridge. He's like a detuned radio!
*** This conversation just won the internet forever.
*** Getting back to the subject of punishing Ozymandias without dooming the world. This troper almost immediately thought a JediTruth could have resolved everything...in the comic at least. Simply say that Ozymandias transported the alien to New York with the unspoken implication that he was TheQuisling for the alien invasion. What little the public might learn from Rorschach's journal might help corroberate that and Veidt might be put in a corner after that. The U.S. and U.S.S.R. will still be too afraid of the aliens to fight each other, but they "know" Veidt was responsible...just in a way that they don't realize he had more to do with it than they thought. Veidt will, of course, keep his lips zipped on ''that'' aspect of the plan, even when he's effectively checkmated.
*** It's still their word against an ultra-rich and powerful humanitarian/athlete/inventor who's immensely popular and widely regarded as saint-like. I'm pretty sure they'd lose that battle.
* I dislike Ozymandias far more than I'm supposed to. One point that has yet to come up in this whole WMG is the fact that Ozymandias ''started'' the war he used to justify killing millions of people to stop. He sent Dr. Manhattan to the stars in order get him out of the way, upsetting the balance of power and starting the countdown to doomsday. I always saw him as a commentary on the mental gymnastics that people will do to believe the well-dressed erudite bishounen over the laconic hobo who tells them what they don't want to hear.
** He didn't start a war, he just allowed the Cold War to escalate, and ''that'' was well under way by the end of the 1940s. It wasn't as if RedsWithRockets only became a serious concern when he showed up.

** One answer comes from ''Film/Braveheart'', from Robert the Bruce's father: "You admire this man, this Wallace. Uncompromising men are easy to admire. He has courage; so does a dog. But it is ''exactly'' the ability to compromise that makes a man noble."

** Wow, that's interesting. But yeah, that makes sense really.
** A good theory in general, but when The Comedian tried to rape Silk Spectre, the nuclear bomb didn't even exist yet. He was already a cynical bastard way before the threat of a nuclear war arose. I agree with your point about his HeelRealization, though.

[[folder:Is Rorschach's Absolutist Worldview Good? Or Bad? (Y/N)]]

* As for the disconnect between rape being a crime and the Comedian, his idol (and remember, he sees everything as black and white. Positive associations with the Comedian means that any negative ones should be ignored.) being a rapist; perhaps he doesn't view crimes committed by costumed heroes as crimes at all, he and his own are above the law.

*** Rorschach loves America. The Comedian fights on the side of the American government, therefore The Comedian is good [[spoiler: rape and pregnant baby-momma-killing aside]].

*** Still he call her mother a whore, for no good reason. I think the respect he has for SS2 may be because she had a big blue boyfriend that could disintegrate him on the spot, so he is not stupid.

*** Actually, even in that they differ. Ozymandias seems to believe that humans have both good and evil in them (or rather the appropriate equivalents in terms of moral relativism) and that humanity is capable of things both great and terrible. He then takes it upon himself to ensure it is the greatness that prevails, and not the terror.
*** Terror, like, you know, bombing New York and inducing worldwide panic.

* I agree with you except for about Night Owl. he seemed the most normal. Rorschach was by far my favorite and the 2nd least meesed up in my opinion. but Night Owl is even less messed up than he is.

*** What disturbs this Troper is that ''anyone'' would sympathize with Veidt and regard him as a [[MoralEventHorizon flawed good guy]]. That, and the events of the past 8 years, suggest to me that Alan Moore was not far off in his cynicism about human nature and moral hypocrisy. Just take a look at the ret-conning of the Iraq war in the past year, for instance...
*** [[https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/i-did-it.jpg This panel]] Suggests that Veidt had no qualms about his absolute annihilation of millions of people. This Troper thinks that those who are sympathizing with Veidt probably saw the movie version as a more accurate portrayal; he actually shows remorse and doubt, humanizing him about his extremist actions.

*** Like a real comedian, The Comedian is a master of analyzing others. He predicted very accurately the outcomes and feelings of other characters, including the silk spectre's feelings for him while being forced to pretend to be in a relationship with the closet homosexual Hooded justice, He raped her because deep down she WANTED him to, which she had only realized in her old age. I like to think of him as the opposite of Dr. Manhattan : he has no empathy towards others because he understands people so WELL. He knew how everything was going to play out and was frustrated with the slowness of everyone else. So naturally he relieved his frustrations by throwing napalm on everything.
*** Um, no. He was callously beating the shit out of people for the jollies of it long before he had a daughter -- the rape of Sally Jupiter comes as the * result* of a long period of time where he's found that violence can get him anything he wants. He transitioned to callously murdering innocents in the pay of the government probably well before he found out about Laurie, too. The Comedian is a lot of things, but don't insult the character by claiming everything bad about him comes from one traumatic incident late in his life.
*** The most fucked up thing to me, is that if The Comedian wasn't a rapist, and a murderer who killed his own child (which may explain why he feels so bad about not being able to know his own daughter, by the way) I'd say he was the character I most Identify with, the one I like the most, and the one that if I met, I'd be most likely to become friends with. He sees past all the bullshit and stabs right at the issue, he brings up the elephant in the room, says what everyone's thinking but are afraid to mention. You take away his sociopathy and he's so likable. That's disturbing beyond words. He's almost like an evil version of [[Series/{{Seinfeld}} Kramer]]

** I kind of saw Rorschach as the "special child" of the group. Especially in the most recent timeline, when they're past their prime, he causes a lot of trouble for them and they sort of have to "put up with him" the way you kind of have to treat a problem child. Only instead of throwing tantrums about wanting to go to the toyshop or get some ice cream, he wants to go and break the fingers of criminals in seedy bars. The bit where Nite Owl tells him off for being such a burden to them is kind of a good example of this (he and Silk Spectre are like the parents who need some damned time off for just a minute). But then that's the fun part of AlternativeCharacterInterpretation, I guess. :)

* On the subject of Veidt, he isn't expecting the whole world to line up and sing "Kumbaya", you guys. He even says in that one interview with Doug Roth in the comic that he thinks humanity would stagnate under a utopia. What he was trying to do was stop two major powers from getting ready to kill each other and destroy everybody else in the process. I don't think he was anticipating perfect peace from then on, just the idea of a world where you knew you wouldn't get vaporized tomorrow. (Full disclosure regarding [[MeganPhntmGrl my]] morality and worldview and stuff: it's safe to say that if I were in the story and got ahold of that journal somehow, the last few pages would have included me burning it and muttering "Veidt, you son of a bitch, you have ''no'' idea how much you owe me." in the last panel, over a shot of the pages starting to curl in the fire.)
** Well, let's just look at it this way, What happens if we extrapolate Watchmen into the 90s? The Soveit Union is gone, everyones in constant fear of an alien attack, and Rorshach has inspired a whole new wave of violent superheros (Remember at the end where Laurie says she wants to get [[NinetiesAntiHero a black costume, and a gun?]]) Basically the same thing that happened in our 90s. How is that Utopia?
*** ...I think you might have just came up with a great idea for a sequel.

* I'm starting to agree about Dan being a bit screwy as well. Despite being the more "normal" person, it strikes me that Dan just doesn't value their friendship as much as Rorschach. Rorshach even states explicitly that he knows it's tough being his friend with the awkward handshake (Dan's probably his ONLY friend). They take a trip to the Arctic to stop Veidt. Then the whole NY thing happens, and everyone's kind of gobsmacked. Dan knows Rorschach is leaving and very distraught, yet he doesn't offer him a ride home, or do anything to make sure he's all right. Instead, Dan sleeps with Laurie. I know Dan couldn't have known that Rorshach would die, but he has no excuse for leaving Rorshach in lurch.
** Dan always struck me as being rather naive, a case of TheCape becoming powerless because he's too tied to his ideals and too afraid to do anything. I think that naivete and a willlingness to believe in good in everyone is part of his relationship with Rorschach, which seems to be born more out of pity than actual friendship. He tries to be nice to Rorschach because he feels sorry for him, and he's the only one who can tolerate being around him, but they're not exactly friends in a real sense. I mean, could YOU be friends with that guy? If Dan had really gotten to know Rorschach he might have been able to do something to help him before he totally snapped. But it's pretty obvious that Dan doesn't really know Rorschach or what's going on with him, nobody does. They all didn't know how crazy he was until it was too late.

* I'm gonna go wild here and say that Dreiberg is the least messed up. Sure, he may be somewhat lame, but he's got no thick issues. His mother wasn't a prostitute, or raped. His father died when he was older, and I think peacefully. He's not really the guy you'd want saving your ass, but he's the guy you'd want to hang out with sometime. The character with the least mental problems seems to be him. Seeing as how Veidt has a little of a god complex. Manhattan is a self-aware force of nature. Silk Spectre II spent most of her adult life hating a man who was her father, and who tried to rape her mother; has no life skills beyond being a superhero, and was pushed into that life by her mother. The Comedian is... the comedian. And Rorschach is... well Rorschach. Nite Owl II is easily the least screwed up main character. If you pick side characters, that guy walking on the street seems to have a normal life.
* Sorry for the wall of text. Who one identifies with in Watchmen seems to be a matter of scale more than morality. The heroes have essentially all the same morality, they’re all willing to sacrifice something for the greater good. The hero you identify with is more about the scale you’re comfortable with than their respective morality. Who is least screwed up can be determined by who makes the largest sacrifice you're willing to accept for a moral outcome or to accept responsibility for. Most people can't imagine accepting responsibility for some things, creating life for example. There are plenty of words, events, tropes, in Watchmen (the book) that back up the scale idea. But just look at the iconography:

** The Comedian (in his mature form): personally black (absent) but with three more colors (red, white and blue) that extend even off his body (the flag). He’s national level and not defined by the street terms (vigilante, etc) but rather by “hero.” His mobility is international. His access to wealth vastly outstrips other costumes but it’s not his own. His mobility is international, but at the dictates of his country. He is entirely divorced from the level he started (street, personal, but still “by the docks” so even then international aspirations) and this allows him to kill without judgement or personal involvement. Much the way national leadership kills through war or execution, with personal indifference. His face (personal) is permanently scarred and obscured. His sexuality is brutal and forceful, indifferent, but also as relevant as a national newspaper headline. The first costume with a color with passion (red as well as fire in the flamethrower), but also with a (significantly) impersonal black mask. Touch of kinky S&M there as well as being a literal “black mask.” His identity is blurred by more than just the mask: abstract forces such as nationalism, as well as the past literally scarring him. He wears a bit of yellow (gold from Ozymandias) but it too is scarred by red. Look at what else in the book is yellow marred by red.

** It's like with the Joker, only less evil incarnate, and more misogynistic anti-social sociopath with one friend to his name. Other than that, I dunno. There's just something inherently badass about who he is, how he grew up and how he came to be. It's like watching a wild animal that hates his own kind. You just want to watch from the other side of the safety glass and see what he does.
** Surprisingly, the answer here comes from a Mel Gibson movie (no, ''Braveheart'', not ''Film/ThePassionOfTheChrist'') from Robert the Bruce's father: "You admire this man, this Wallace. Uncompromising men are easy to admire. He has courage; so does a dog. But it is ''exactly'' the ability to compromise that makes a man noble."
** I just want to give him a hug.
*** I would totally give him a hug, even though he'd probably be horrified and kill me.
*** I third the "hug" motion. Furthermore, if [[http://www.gunshowcomic.com/d/20090309.html these comics]] [[http://www.gunshowcomic.com/d/20090310.html are horribly wrong,]] [[http://www.gunshowcomic.com/d/20090311.html (which they are)]] [[http://www.gunshowcomic.com/d/20090312.html I don't want to be]] [[http://www.gunshowcomic.com/d/20090313.html horribly right.]]
** Rorschach's appeal is the appeal that every "simple solution" holds. His approach to saving the world is a variation on the Ghaleon Principle: find the right guy (he doesn't have to be a [[{{Bishounen}} long-haired bishounen]]) and beat the everloving ''shit'' out of him. His black-and-white morality is seductive in its simplicity: aku soku zan -- slay evil immediately.

** He drives the plot forward, kicks ass and gives hilarious (and disturbing) exposition.
** Ditto to the above, with emphasis on 'drives the plot forward'. Rorscach is the only character in the whole damn book who gets off his hinder and does something. It's only natural that the audience gravitates to him as the 'hero'. The fact that Alan Moore may not have intedned this speaks more to Moore's ability to construct a narrative than the audience's interpretations.

** His is the only view that actually believes in a 'good' person that still tries to deal with 'bad' people. Most of the heroes totally gave up, Ozymandias is a moral relativist, and so that just leaves Rorscahch as the only one who's handling good and evil at all. It may not necessarily be the right way to handle it, but there is an appeal to knowing somewhere there's good (not that Rorscahch sees much of it) and the bad guys are getting the crap beaten out of them.
*** One of the main reasons I think so many people like rorschach, is because he takes action. He is out there, killing people, breaking fingers, scaring muggers. He ''does'' things. Nite Owl II waits until rorschach's in jail to do anything important, most of Veidt's action, and planning, is off-screen. Manhattan escapes to mars for the first part of the story. Silk Spectre II is against the whole thing. The Comedian is dead. Rorschach is one of the -if not ''the'' only- character/s that move the story forward actively for the first 2/3 of it. He's doing stuff, and looking badass the whole time. I'd have no problem sitting through 90 minutes of Rorschach. He's active. And he's active NOW, not ten years ago.

** This troper thinks it's mainly because Rorschach is a walking ThinkOfTheChildren trope. Like it or not, half his backstory and significant sympathetic characterisation revolve around the subject of hurt children: his upbringing; the Roche kidnapping; the final confrontation with his landlady. Nobody else has an explicitly horrible upbringing: Ozy and Dan came from privileged backgrounds, Laurie was kept more or less ignorant of her parentage (her stepfather is a bully, but it's almost an afterthought, unlike the [[{{Anvilicious}} dropping of the anvil]] with Kovacs'), Osterman had a trade but otherwise wasn't underprivileged, the Comedian doesn't have a past, and even Hollis Mason is presented in the [[AllThereInTheManual filler text]] as having a loving family. Kovacs, by comparison, is the illegitimate son of a prostitute. He doesn't even know who his father is, his ''own mother'' beats the hell out of him when he's less than ten years old ''and says she should have aborted him''. His early life is implied as one long BreakTheCutie moment, and, despite metaphorically wading through blood, he has great empathy for a little child in a position like his own. That character feature (rightly or wrongly) redeems him, at an emotional level, despite all of his sociopathic behaviour, into MagnificentBastard territory; indeed, the presentation of his abusive mother is very heavily implied as direct justification for his misogyny. When he's in prison, he's presented figuratively as a child among adults: physically smaller than the people who threaten him -- even when he electrocutes the prisoner, the subtext and imagery are of a little child cowering away from a bully. This, again, is to invoke ThinkOfTheChildren: as readers we inherently believe in "pick on someone your own size" as a catchcry from our childhoods, and the criminals in each case (Mr Fat Fryer, Mr Fat Hands, Mr Welder) are all presented as picking on a little kid. It's only when Rorschach's walking after Big Figure that he's presented as adult size again.
* In addition, Rorschach has a badass mask.

* How can someone actually see Rorschach's morality in positive light? While he is badass and has a freudian excuse for some of the stuff he does, he has went so far along the "he who fights monsters" line that he can no longer see the good people he should be protecting, just the evil people he thinks he should be smiting. [[Main/{{Kerrah}} I]] personally lost my last ounce of sympathy for him was when he told about brutally slaughtering two dogs for the sole reason that their owner had fed them a kidnapped girl. Like animals have the capacity to "choose the side of evil", as he puts it.

----

** That's the exact question his character was created to ask. The real answer is he still has the basic mind of a human, and so even if he's now blessed with incredible knowledge, he still has to interpret and making meaning out of what he sees. Before his precognition came to dominate his mindset, he retained Jon Osterman's loyalty to the United States, still felt lust for young women, and didn't want to see the planet he grew up on blow itself to smithereens. As time went on he began to see the apparent futility of it all, but it was when Veidt and Laurie's unintentionally combined efforts showed him the wonder of mystery and surprise again, especially when it comes to life, his interest in human concepts like justice was reinvigorated.

** Because inspite of what he did, back then, he was still an idealist and genuinely believed he can make a huge difference being a costumed crimefighter. Look at how he carried himself during the flashbacks. He only retired and went into his cynical persona once the Comedian put some perspective into him with his speech in one of their last meetings.

* Personally, whilst this troper can appreciate the Comedian's ''insight'', as far as his cynicism about human nature goes, Blake's ''conclusions'' are so evil as to make the character totally unsympathetic. Doc Manhattan sums him up: "He understands perfectly...and he doesn't care." Blake might be able to see what we are in the dark, but his only response is to embrace it, committing the very atrocities everyone else pretends not to be capable of. His self-image is similar to SelfDemonstrating/TheJoker in ''Film/TheDarkKnight'' - "I'm just ahead of the curve." Except rather than try to alter society's perception and the darkness at the heart of human nature, he embraces it. Unlike, say, Rorschach, who realizes how savage humans are but still tries to change it (look at Dr Long), the Comedian believes that everyone else's suppressed savagery gives him the right to give free reign to his. It simply does not. The Comedian, ironically, is the perfect demonstration of his own point about human nature: he is "blessed" with experience and insight as to the fundamentally savage nature of humanity...and takes it as a license to kill and rape. Why? Because he is a sick and unintelligent man, as opposed to Rorschach, who may be screwed up, is not the sharpest tool in the box, but still has a developed sense of right and wrong. The Comedian pretends that right and wrong don't exist, for his own gratification and enrichment. Hollis is right: America deserves a better class of hero.

** Well, [[TropesAreNotBad Tropes Are Not Wrong]], so... I think it's a case of the villain being the only competent/dedicated/stick-tuitive character, I know there's a trope name for that, where you have to admire him as a fictional character, even if he's a villain, because he's the only smart guy in the room. Like Keyser Soze. You can't do that in real life because in real life there's always a "somewhat good" person capable of putting up an argument against fanaticism.

** 1) Only Dr Manhattan knew about Comedian shooting the pregnant woman, and as pointed out, he is losing his humanity and the bit that he does have is feeling guilty about not attempting to stop him. 2) We can debate why the Minutemen kept him on the team, but the Watchmen seem to be sketchy on the details at best. They may even not believe her as she was dressed proactively and later became a well-known drunk - ''she was asking for it'' was the sad outcome of any rape accusation back in the mid twentieth century. Rorschach in particular seems to respect the Comedian more than he does her as noted elsewhere on this page. 3) Women forgiving their rapist to the point of falling in love with them is TruthInTelevision on occasion. [[RuleOfCautiousEditingJudgement Please be careful about debating points 2 and 3 if you wish to continue.]]

* What JustBugsMe is the fact that I seem to be the only person who's "Watchmen character I identify with" is the Comedian. Morally reprehensible, certainly, but Blake has the one and only aspect of any character in the series I recognized in myself: his understanding that most of modern society is just a colossal joke who's punchline seems to be so far over everyone else's . . . well, you get the idea. I'm no moral nihilist but I'm probably a societal nihilist (does such a term/classification even exist?). Everyone takes everything way too seriously, even things deliberately intended not to be taken seriously. Am I the only one?

*** So we can therefore determine that Dr. Manhatten is... [[GrandUnifyingGuesses Muad'dib]].

* This psycho shoots a pregnant and tries to rape a fellow comrade, and they keep him on the team?! Why?! Why didn't they immediately kick him out and break contact with him? You don't sleep with your almost rapist!

[[folder:Why Keep Comedian on the Team?]]

*** ''The only times hypocrisy creeps in is when people allow emotions such as love or hate to color their choices.'' That describes you in a nutshell. You are completely willing to disregard (read: you are allowing your emotions to color your choices) the eighth amendment because of your hate of rapists. It is hypocrisy to believe that revenge in the form of grievous bodily harm that could potentially result in death due to blood loss is even remotely compatible with our values and morals as a society - especially since that like it or not his victim forgave him for the crime. For the record I think what the Comedian did was disgusting, but once people start handing out the draconian punishments then it is inevitable that many will start to creep down an extremely slippery slope; the bottom of which stands men like Rorschach who will happily kill men for the simplest of crimes and call it justice.

*** ''The only times hypocrisy creeps in is when people allow emotions such as love or hate to color their choices.'' That describes you in a nutshell. You are completely willing to disregard (i.e. you are allowing your emotions to color your choices) the eighth amendment because of your hate of rapists. It is hypocrisy to believe that revenge in the form of grievous bodily harm that could potentially result in death due to blood loss is even remotely compatible with our values and morals as a society - especially since that like it or not his victim forgave him for the crime. For the record I think what the Comedian did was disgusting, but once people start handing out the draconian punishments then it is inevitable that many will start to creep down an extremely slippery slope; the bottom of which stands men like Rorschach who will happily kill men for the simplest of crimes and call it justice.

** This troper, who has slightly strange thought processes, can't help but think of Rorschach's view of the world as very similar to, of all people, Sam Sprinkles from ''Main/ZebraGirl''. Yes, I am aware I am comparing a psycho vigilante to a giant talking cartoon rabbit. Hear me out, please? In both cases, a truly nasty childhood led the character to retreat into a black-and-white, idealistic world where they could actually effect things and their problems weren't important. The biggest differences are in method: Sam worked to increase the good, while Rorschach tried to eliminate the bad. Sam was forcibly snapped out of it when he was fired, but Rorschach, working outside the law, could just dig himself into the fantasy even further. Even so, they actually end up in a rather similar state- wandering the streets, dead broke and nonfunctional. Just Sam's drunk and cynical and Rorschach's insane and a very warped idealistic.

** For the very same reason that we like {{Badass}} characters, as even stated on that page. He both does what he wants, despite any blockages - Keene act, etc. - and what he believes in - without compromise. And he pulls off insane, over the top stunts in pursuit of what he believes - justice for the wicked, in a manner of speaking.