Ozymandias – When Violence is Necessary

I want to write about the greatest Apocalypse story ever told………………..The Watchmen. I personally take more pleasure in reading The Watchmen than in reading the Book of Revelations (although Hunter S. Thompson has stated that ‘Revelations’ is perhaps the greatest written work of all time).  Anyway, this will be my first post on the Watchmen and I plan to post more BS about it later on in life.

First off, I have read the book through a few times, I love it, I own the Director’s Cut on Blu-Ray (love it), I own the motion comic on Blu-Ray (s’alright), and I even have the  Ozymandias and Dr. Manhattan action figures.  Yes, I am a big time nerd but I know what I like and I don’t need to fake it.  So then, what I want to write about is not the story itself because you might already know all that and if you don’t then definitely go out and get a copy of the book – trust me they are available and they are quite cheap.  I want to write about my favourite characters in the book and why I think they are the most relevant. (I will update in a few weeks, not that you care)

No. 1  = Ozymandias aka Adrian Veidt

Ozymandias is perhaps the most moral, certainly the most intelligent, character in the entire book. Yes, he does blow up half of Manhattan and kills a few million “innocent” lives but the price that humanity would pay in an all out World War would decimate not only humanity but all life itself on Earth (plants, animals, etc).  Ozymandias sees his opportunity to save a dying and hate-filled world and even bring about a sense of peace. Sure, it is false peace and held under false pretenses but it is a peace accord nevertheless and it stops the war. Pretty straight forward. His methodology is dastardly and even cruel but it is effective in his purpose. Ozy looks at the greater picture, i.e. – the macro-view, and not the micro-view of humanity.  He is an elaborate thinker, a great schemer, a mastermind, and extremely driven by his own set of ethics. Whereas the rest of the Watchmen are rather small thinkers and view life through a micro-lens (except Dr. Manhattan) and can only effect change in very small and rather meaningless ways; the Comedian points this truth out to the whole group and this sets in motion Adrian Veidt’s doomsday/peace plan.

Is Ozymandias the villain of the story? Well, I guess that depends on your outlook on life – now doesn’t it. In my opinion, Ozymandias is the real “hero” in the book, not a conventional hero but someone that acts to preserve a greater good when it is needed the most. Why does Ozy feel compelled to save the world? Well here is why: 1) Rorshach is too dumb and ignorant to hatch a scheme that requires great intelligence and persistence and Rorschach is a slave  to his own morality and he has severe mental health problems, 2) Nite Owl is a follower of all those men who have a stronger personality than himself (Hollis Mason, Rorschach, and Ozymandias) and his love for Laurie (Silk Spectre) blinds his purpose as any kind of great crime fighter,  Nite Owl is also weak-minded and impotent both as a thinker and a doer, 3) Silk Spectre takes herself, and her personal life, way too seriously and she believes in a general goodness within humanity that is worth fighting for, yet Laurie is fragile emotionally and cannot understand any great concepts of human life and maybe she cannot even understand the basic concepts either, she views everything through an emotional lens and this obviously clouds her ability to save anyone, 4) The Comedian is a total butcher that has no rhyme or reason except to be a critical voice (which is entertaining) but really he has no finite moral line to speak of, although he claims to have one,  but he still condemns Adrian Veidt for his plan and he is even jealous of the beauty of the plan, The Comedian is also a rapist and a cold-blooded killer, he is a quasi-G.I. Joe figure that kills with a smile on his face,  5) Dr. Manhattan has become beyond human and he is far too rational, calculating, and also uncaring about humanity (for a good portion of the story) to stall the coming Armageddon, he is also blinded by his past and failures with women, but Dr. Manhattan eventually sees the brilliance in Ozymandias’ plan and goes along with it willingly even though he has the power to directly challenge and defeat Ozymandias on any level, Dr. Manhattan is complicit because he rationally sees the greatness in the plan.

So then who is the great hero of the story and who is the villain? It is obviously Ozymandias. Ozymandias has the intelligence, the will, the money, the power, and the vision to carry out his elaborate hoax (no, not the boy in box and the stupid balloon). His plan works and the entire story of the book is anchored in his doomsday plan. He is a villain in some sense but he is also the only real hero in the book.

On the topic of morality – Ozymandias has a morality-base that is beyond the mere masses of human minds; Alexander the Great is his barometer. Ozymandias is a killer, sure he is, but his murdering is for a greater good and greater purpose, again that is his macro-vision. Does this make him a monster? That is for you to decide.  But you must also consider the fact that Nite Owl, The Comedian, Dr. Manhattan and Rorschach are also violent and have killed people in brutal fashion; these characters kill and are uncaring but just in different ways than Ozymandias. So then, there is no traditional heroes in the entire story rather there are people doing what they see fit to do in the scenarios they are living.

A funny thing is that most people find Rorschach to be the most human and beloved character of the story – he is by far the most popular. Rorschach is interesting but he is also psychotic, guess that does make him human. He is also a right-wing nut job. Rorschach is blind to the true nature of humanity and he cannot see beyond the faults of New York City. On a global scale, humanity is killing itself piece by piece and Rorschach cannot see it rather he can only condemn it on a strict moral level and he has no ability to change humanity in any way. He is unwilling to bend in any way even in the face of Armageddon and he finds fault in everyone but his own self – He is like Dick Cheney in that way.

Ozymandias is not a full fledged hero but he is also not really a super-villain, he is a composite of both those character traits and he acts upon both. He definitely has his own concepts of morality but they are not yours or mine, probably. Ozy does not want to rule the world, like Napoleon or a Hitler, rather he desires to see a third way – that being a general disarmament and peace between the two super powers. He achieves this goal and no one is the wiser, except the ‘masks’ and of course stupid Rorschach gets his dumb ass killed, and I am glad to see it happen.

So then, did Ozymandias commit a crime or was his plan necessary in order to stop Armageddon (no, not the movie)?