Doomsday

Moore re-imagines the image of the messiah in his work Watchmen. There are three characters that play the role of savior in the novel: Rorschah, Adrian Viedt, and Dr. Manhattan.
Rorschach is a strict moralist. In his view, there is only right and wrong, good and evil. Rosen says Rorschach is meant to represent the apocalyptic God of retribution. He punishes evil, mercilessly, and follows his own moral code. At the conclusion of the novel, he attempts to stop Viedt’s destruction of the world and refuses to compromise even when he faces his own death. To Rorschach, the means do not justify the end, even when that end could be the possibility of a New Jerusalem.

Adrian Viedt subscribes himself the role of messiah as he tries to destroy the world to create a new start. Viedt, the smartest man in the world, decides to take on the burden of having the blood of half of Manhattan on his hands. He recognizes that the war of good and evil is a continuing battle that there must be a traumatic wake up call for the world. Rosen describes him as embodiment of the apocalyptic Christ, ushering in an age of peace through destruction.

Dr. Manhattan is unwillingly labeled the savior by the American people and government. He is meant to bring an age of peace that is not based on the realization the human beings should be kind to one another but based on fear of ultimate destruction. He is seen as the weapon to end all wars just like the atomic bomb he has replaced in the eyes of the U.S. government. Rosen argues that of all the saviors he is the most godlike character. His perception of time and space is boundless as he experiences life simultaneously.

Interestingly, Moore doesn’t make a case for any righteousness of any of the saviors. None of the characters achieve their ultimate goal. Rorschach dies defending strict morality, Viedt’s utopia is only temporary, and Dr. Manhattan doesn’t escape humanity as he decides to create his own life forms. Moore leaves his characters flaws as the humans who created them.

Though not pronouncedly apocalyptic in nature, Darren Aronofsky’s film, The Fountain, focuses on collective death, in contrast to eternal (personal) life. Over the course of two lifetimes, Tommy fails to sacrifice his own ego (borders/I/self) for his loved one Izzi. In Tommy’s third and last “life,” he must choose between eternal life or letting his body melt into the cosmos to join Izzi, who had died from a brain tumor.

Rosen observes that “when Swamp Thing reads Woodrue’s report and realizes that his former human self is unattainable,” Swamp Thing is devastated and lies in the swamp and becomes rooted there (9, Rosen). This is his turning point, for when Swamp Thing sheds his single human perspective he begins to experience the whole of nature. Buddhism 101 – being one with all.

Ozymandias’ hope is that a great multinational (collective) death will unite humanity – see the last page of chapter XI, where the white newspaper salesman and young black reader fuse into a single being.

In Snyder’s Watchmen (the film adaptation), it is not an alien that wrecks havoc, but John. This was a clever way to tie up some loose ends and cut down an already beefy film (162 minutes.) I think, however, that though John is rather alien, he was still too human enough to cause a uniting of humanity. As we all know, the easiest way to make a friend is to find a common enemy. The alien, with its strange tentacles, beak and single eye was the common enemy, stranger than any variation in our human gene pool – even a blue demigod.

In Promethea, Moore writes himself into the final ending, showing a panel with his picture bleeding to white (and confirming to some extent, as I’ve been told, that he believes imagination and belief are more than mere brain stuff, but maintain tangible reality on some plane.) In keeping with the real life newspaper headlines signaling environmental catastrophes strewn between panels in Swamp Thing, Moore wants his readers to realize that they are not a passive audience, but are complicit in This reality – in its unity or downfall.

Morality of Mortality

As children, we only see the world in good and bad. Lying is bad; being nice is good. Talking to strangers is bad; eating all your food is good. The world was defined very simply and starkly into two warring camps—yet, as adults we understand that there is a great deal of fluctuation being good and bad. Growing up, being forced to make choices, accepting responsibility and reading Harry Potter, we gain an appreciation for nuances of morality. They can be common things, like a white lie to spare someone’s feelings, or tossing a recyclable cup into the trash bin. But Alan Moore takes this idea of balancing good and evil and pushes it to the extreme! Is it right to kill one person to save nine others, a hundred others, a whole planet? Who has the right to make these decisions? Is it an honor or a burden or both to usher in an age of cooperation? That is the concept that I am grappling with after reading The Watchmen.

I think the question is this: can we hold one person to be both savior and murderer? In Ozymandias’ eyes, the world was on the fast track to destruction. But is his solution, killing thousands of people to bring an era of peace, worth the price? Our salvation can only come with the compromising of morality. What right does he have to make this decision?

This discussion is easily applicable to acts during war. War dictates a certain need for stark pragmatism. To what extent can we, who live in relative safety, judge the immoral actions taken in defense of the country? (For once, lets not take into account whether or not it was actually in danger or whether or not those actions were actually justified.) Who is responsible, ultimately, for those actions, those who give the orders or those who carry them out?  Who has blood on their hands?

Rorschach serves as our foil. Since the mass murder was fait accompli, would it not be better to remain silent? Rorschach was not willing to compromise and condone this mass murder (for this is what it amounts to) by his silence, even though it would mean the destruction of the fragile peace. His code of ethics dictates that he must expose the truth of Ozymandias’ scam. However, this unbending morality would render the deaths of so many meaningless.

Let he who is without sin cast the first stone. As Adrian Veidt, the public face of Ozymandias, asked in an interview, “Does [crime-fighting] mean upholding the law when a woman shoplifts to feed her children…?” I am not wise enough to answer that question.

In the introduction to Apocalyptic Transformation, Elizabeth Rosen says, “it is the intent of this study to examine only texts which are working with the traditional apocalyptic form…and to think about what each artist gains from choosing to work with the classic rather than the new paradigm” (Rosen xxv-xxvi). The “new paradigm” she’s referring to is neo-apocalyptic, “a unique sub-branch of eschatological literature…focused on cataclysm” (Rosen xv). The defining characteristic of the neo-apocalyptic genre is pessimism, based off of the assumption that “no one deserves saving and that everyone should be punished” (Rosen xv).

In examining Watchmen in Chapter 1 of her book, Rosen presents this graphic novel as a traditional apocalyptic story. Such traditional stories contain elements of “New Jerusalem and the hope it symbolizes” and are “meant to lend hope and bolster faith” (Rosen xv).

After reading Watchmen, I have to disagree with Rosen’s classification. Although at the end of the book Veidt’s plan to usher in an era of international cooperation seems to be working, as the reader, I was hardly left with a feeling of hope. Even Rosen recognizes that “It is strongly suggested that the times have only been temporarily changed by Veidt’s devious plan” (Rosen 42).

Most striking is the return of the smiley-face with the streak of sauce, resembling blood, in the last panel. As an obvious link to the beginning of the book and the murder of Edward Blake, I think it more than “strongly suggests” Veidt’s failure to permanently change the world. In the absence of anything remotely resembling eternal salvation, a New Jerusalem, or even a permanent shift in ideas or worldview, I fail to see how Watchmen fulfils the definition of a traditional apocalyptic story, and I would categorize Watchmen as an entirely neo-apocalyptic story.

Who’s with me?

The Hindu version of the Apocalypse is not very apocalyptic, in the sense that it does not involve a revelation at all. Moreover, what Hindus mean when they imagine the end of the world is an apocalypse, not the Apocalypse.

Hindus of the Vedic period (about 1000 BCE) tended to believe that time is cyclical and that there are four yugas (or eras) the world goes through before going meeting destruction.

The first is Sathya Yuga—an era when the bull of Dharma (righteousness) is standing firmly on all four legs and mankind is inherently good. Then there is the Threta Yuga when the bull is on three feet, the Duapara Yuga when the bull is on two feet and, finally, the Kali Yuga when the bull is struggling on its last foot. In the Kali Yuga, people are said to become atheistic and morally bankrupt. The human condition is to become so despicable that the only hope it has is an apocalypse and this devastation comes from an avatar (incarnation) of Vishnu named Kalki (and yes, he is on a white horse too).

However, if morals are the basis for gauging the distance between human life and total destruction, In Vedic India, marrying a prepubescent girl is perfectly within their construct of dharma and refusing to stay within the boundaries of one’s caste was considered adharma (not righteous). This distant culture followed a moral code that we would disagree with at the least and be disgusted by at the worst. Looking at our society, the Hindus of the Vedic era (even Hindus of the present era) believe that Kalki is near.

My point here is that different cultures of different times have different apocalyptic stories. Even in the Judeo-Christian tradition, Elizabeth Rosen mentions, that the story of the Apocalypse has changed: we seem to place more emphasis on the Destruction and not on what is supposed to come after. The Watchmen by Alan Moore is a more likely story in our present day than John’s Revelatory Visions. Moreover, the character of the newsvendor in The Watchmen referred to the Book of Revolutions instead of Revelations—telling because the events of the book were partially a reaction to the political climate at the time.

Finally, Rosen says that stories about the End are as significant as stories about the Creation in the psyches of culture. As our ideas about where we come from change, so do our ideas about where we are going.

Here is a picture of Kalki, the tenth reincarnation of Vishnu, on a white horse.

Rosen agrees with Stroizer in the sense that she sees apocalypse as being a force by which to establish identity. And she says it is kept alive not only for its inherent value (in religious or moral terms), but also as a commodity: like Stroizer, she points out that apocalypse has been used to comfort people. But more than Stroizer, Rosen argues why apocalyptic theory as “sense-making paradigm” is superior to other theories by which a people could establish themselves in context to their histories.
Apocalypse helps make sense of crises by seeing these as part of an underlying master plan. But, by enumerating those events or states that we perceive as apocalyptic, we highlight those which are imperfect. Rosen believes this functions as a sort of social criticism of society and of apocalyptic thought itself.

“Apocalypse seems at least to accept and perhaps to condone the abdication of personal responsibility for our fate.”

Last week, I mentioned (ever so fleetingly, just like I would be telling you about what I ate for lunch) that I am a self-professed fatalist. Prof. Quinby thought this was interesting in light of fatalism of predestination in Calvinist and that is central to the Fundamentalist Christian belief system and much apocalyptic belief generally.

Does this make me apocalyptic? Belief in some sort of apocalypse is central to Judeo-Christian belief. And, yes, I suppose it does. But more on this later.

It is interesting that Rosen claims that America is not becoming more secularized. The data she cite point to increased religious feeling among young people. These are curious statistics. I don’t find it surprising that this may be true. I just don’t feel that there is a trend toward deeper religiosity in the country, at least as popular American culture is concerned. If anything, pop culture has moved sharply away from religiosity and instead is preaching a loosening of (traditionally religious) morals and dismissal of faith in god. I don’t think this debate is anything new. It’s been around for millennia but the extent to which the church has been separated from the state and establishment is unprecedented.

Another interesting point is that Rosen thinks that apocalypse has nearly universal appeal. While belief in apocalypse may be increased by persecution, it is not a prerequisite, and only perceived persecution or even disruption of normality may suffice.

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The challenge to apocalyptic thought is what underlies post-modern thinking. The idea is to up-end the traditional “sense-making” paradigms and to rethink long-held systems of moral code.

Tension between perceived world of the narrator and the “real” world of the film, and the destruction of one and creation of the other. Donnie Darko (2001).

Post-modernism – restructuring of time. A return to the cyclical time, to where there are no strict beginnings and endings.

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Moore — it was not I who decided how the axe would fall, it was you.
– same idea in film; implicating the viewer (favorite of Hitchcock and others) you were thinking same thing