Talk:Watchmen

Archived discussions 1

Archived

I have archived the talk page, as I felt that the majority of the page was dedicated to problems that have now been rectified. Hope I haven't put anyone out! 22:04, 28 November 2005 (UTC)

An addition

I added the section of Juvenal's satire that is applicable to Watchmen. The translation I have given there is quite literal; Latin is quite a difficult language to translate to English. The lack of the definite article, and, in this case, the lack of prior context, means some things have to be added to aid reading. "pone seram, cohibe" literally means "place behind a bolt, constrain". However, one cannot just write that and expect people to follow it.

Also re-wrote part of the Rorschach summary; I think I have rectified your "unwieldy" additions, Le Scoopertemp [tk]. They weren't that bad! Of course, my additions are open to re-consideration! Good luck here, everyone. I think this page has come a long way. Allthesestars 22:03, 28 November 2005 (UTC)

Concise

I attempted to make the page more concise. I have:

• merged the Introduction with the composition section, as I felt that neither section succeeded in adequately expressing what they should.
• edited the Origin and Characters section, and have attempted to make it an appropriate preface to the Character Overview
• added expansion tag to The Minutemen section, as I think it culd be built upon, especially with regard to the plot as a whole, rather than just their actions (that is, expansion upon what role they played).

I think that's about it. I think the page now looks like a respectable article, and will be removing the cleanup tag. Any objections should be posted here (with relevant solutions, hopefully!). I'm going to try and avoid touching this article for a bit, lest I edit the whole thing. Allthesestars 19:09, 29 November 2005 (UTC)

Rorschach and Nihilism--Revisited

In the archived discussion, a poster named Johan makes the claim that Rorschach is not a nihilist, but rather a moral absolutist. It further appears that someone has altered the wiki to reflect this erroneous view. I strongly disagree with this portion of the wiki, and I'm seriously considering editing it.

The claim that Rorschach is some sort of Kantian is just wrong. Kant was indeed a moral absolutist--one who believed that killing is categorically wrong, irrespective of the motives or outcomes. Accordingly, Rorschach CANNOT be a moral absolutist in the tradition of Kant.

Rather, Rorschach is an extreme nihilist. He cares nothing for conventional politics and morality. He claims the world is morally blank, and stresses the arbitrariness of existence. That, not some black and white ethics, is the significance of his mask. Like the rorschach blot, we impose meaning on randomness. The chapter even ends with a quote from Nietzsche about the existential abyss!

It is certainly correct that Rorschach has strong values. But he acknowledges those values are personal and derive solely from himself. He imposes them on criminals through sheer force of will. Ultimately, Rorshach is driven by one urge and one urge only: to annihilate crime. That makes him the quintessential nihilist. -Bigmouth

• Sounds more like a Sartrean existentialist to me. 206.114.20.121 19:18, 16 December 2005 (UTC)

Just out of curiosity, did Alan Moore release some kind of statement detailing the philisophical basis of his characters? If not, ALL the character analyses that try to shoehorn Kovacs, Veidt, Osterman and Blake into tidy categories feel very UNencyclopedic (if not downright silly) to me. 131.137.245.199 15:10, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

Strongly agree. Surely all this would fall under the heading of "original research" and thus should not be included in a Wikipedia article. --Ryano 15:26, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

Removal of the Clean Up tag

I have removed the tag, as I now feel that this article has become a readable, encyclopedic article. If anyone has any concerns about the overall quality of the article, please voice them here.

Plot Summary cleanup

I've tried to boil it down to the essentials. Kovacs going to prison and Osterman's/Juspesczyk's conversation on Mars are interesting but not critical (they serve mostly just to fill out the back stories of Kovacs and Juspeczyk, rather than advance the plot), since they (and Dreiberg) all end up confronting Veidt in the Antarctic too late to stop him, anyway. Further, I standardized the names so the characters are consistently "Osterman", "Veidt", "Dreiberg", "Juspeczyk" and "Kovacs", while an earlier edit occasionally referred to them by their superhero names.

• Wouldn't it be better to refer to them by their superhero names? Who out there ever thinks of Rorschach as Kovacs, for instance?--82.35.226.190 14:11, 20 December 2005 (UTC)

It's a matter of consistency. Rorschach/Kovacs is the only character known more by his superhero name, while Dreiberg, Juspeczyk, Veidt and Osterman gave up their aliases long before 1985. Rorschach (along with the other major characters) has a detailed character bio elsewhere in the article, so I don't think confusion is likely. Besides, a plot summary should be as clinical and unembellished as possible.

Brown Shoes22 edit

BS22 wants to move a large chunk of material, without consensus, to his Crimebusters page, which I am nominating for deletion. Watchmen does not have a "too large" warning, and I do not see the need to make this move now. Further, just removing it without at least a proper summary being left, leaves the Watchmen article quite empty. Further, the name "Crimebusters" is a poor one for a subarticle here, as that name does not adequately describe the role of the page, and is referred to in the story extremely rarely. Watchmen (characters) might be a better title. BUT, BS22, do not do anything without consensus. Dyslexic agnostic 06:34, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

I agree with DA here. I think a re-direct to other pages just adds a middleman; why not add a re-direct to the subpages to come to this article? Then there would be more context. Allthesestars 18:47, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

I don't see the point of the Crimebusters page. It just rehashes material covered here and on the individual character pages (which are already ridiculously overstuffed with pop psychology and original research/opinion), and within the context of Watchmen, the Crimebusters was a short-lived and dismal failure. Its only significance is what occurs at the first (and probably only) meeting: Osterman meets Laurie; Captain Metropolis appears briefly as an adventurer who can't bring himself to retire; Blake makes his "nukes flying like maybugs" speech (which spurs Veidt's long-term plot) and Laurie gets an insight about Blake and her mother that she won't fully understand for nearly twenty years. At best, "Crimebusters" warrants a small section on the Watchmen page. What BS22 wants is comparable to moving a large chunk of John Kennedy's biography to the Boy Scouts article, because he was once a member. BryanEkers 21:03, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

The more I think about it, the less I like this attempt to neatly divide the timeline into "Minutemen" and "Post Minutemen". The Comedian certainly deserves to be listed in the same section as Hooded Justice, Silk Spectre I, Nite Owl I, etc. because his costumed career started at about the same time. Any thoughts of doing away with the artificial demarcation and replace it with a simplified timeline? BryanEkers 21:05, 12 January 2006 (UTC)

Characters in Watchmen

OK, I have taken the liberty of taking BS22's concept (slim down the Watchmen article), but moving all the characters together to Characters in Watchmen, a concept used in many other TV and manga and book wikis (see here). Hope you all like it. Dyslexic agnostic 19:59, 14 January 2006 (UTC)

Minutemen (comics) merged here

See Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Minutemen (comics). Johnleemk | Talk 15:06, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

Names

This is actually very good, much better than before, however my one issue with this article is the names of the characters. Not to be nitpicking, but it seems like many characters within the book go by their superhero names more than their actual given names, especially Doctor Manhattan and especially Rorschach, who only use thoes names.

Osterman doesn't use his superhero name. He didn't pick it himself and he describes it as "ominous" and "gaudy". After his father's 1969 death, he publicly reveals his real name. Newspaper and magazine headlines call him "Dr. Manhattan" but in personal conversation, everybody addresses casually as "Dr. Osterman" except Rorschach, who only calls him "Doctor Manhattan" once. Rorshcach is trickier, since he considers his life as Walter Kovacs ended in 1975. I can understand changing references from "Kovacs" to "Rorschach", though no other names should be. Trouble is, you'd have to add a few lines of explanation why Rorshach is referenced differently than the others, and this just drags the Plot Summary off on another tangent, when it should be as tight as possible. BryanEkers 00:34, 19 January 2006 (UTC)

Peacemaker or Prankster?

I was reading about which Charlton Comics characters were the basis of which Watchmen characters, and it seems to me that Prankster, also a Charlton character, is more likely the basis for The Comedian, and not Peacemaker, who is nothing at all like The Comedian. Has Moore actually said anything about this, or are these just fans' best guesses?

So far, they are best guesses, and are candidates for removal. I have considered removing them along with the section about the film, which is pure conjecture at this point and does not really belong int he article. Moreover, the character overviews should be changed to remove bias. Allthesestars 23:34, 22 January 2006 (UTC)

Best guesses? The story was originally submitted with the Charlton characters, and the original pitch exists. See the Toonopedia article from the reference section [[1]]. Granted, the "with elements from" mentions are less clear-cut, but these have adequate support from the reference section PotatoKnight 07:01, 24 January 2006 (UTC)

To-do List

I have added the to-do list with the hopes that some of the more long-term editors can focus their efforts. Allthesestars 19:16, 26 January 2006 (UTC)