A Review of Watchmen from a Buddhist Perspective

A wonderful and thoughtful review, Michael, and your love and appreciation of the source material certainly comes through. I want to take issue with your analysis of two characters, Nite Owl and Dr. Manhattan.

First: Nite Owl--you don't say much about Nite Owl II, save to say that he's one of the few Watchmen who does not 'turn into a monster'. I can't agree with this. Moore plays tricks with our sympathies: it's why Rorscharch, perhaps one of the compelling characters in c-20 literature, is a neo-fascist reactionary, yet remains the text's subject position and most central to the reader's sympathies. Moore plays this trick with the other characters as well, but it is most difficult to spot with Dan. Dan, for my money, represents the failure of bourgeois liberalism: he's impotent, perpetually frustrated, and succeeds (both personally and sexually)only in his fantasies. Why doesn't Dr. Manhattan opt to kill the Nite Owl as well as Rorscharch? They both are privy to the same knowledge: it's because Dan, in his mist of nostalgia and fantasy, is of absolutely no import. He will go on, getting his ass slapped by his mother-in-law, in his comfortable upper-middle-class-hood, changing nothing, risking nothing.

And Dr. Manhattan you call:

Again, Moore sets a trap for Dr. Manhattan. As Adrian (Ozymandias) tells us, although he is perceived as an ego-less transcendendal subject, nothing is further from the truth. He has his own weaknesses and narcissisum implicitly criticized by the text. What should give this away is that our neo-capitalist villain, Ozymandias, and Dr. Manhattan, who could represent religion, nihilism, or, as you say, elevated consciousness, end up coelescing into the same character, with the same goals: lie to the public and sidestep justice in the name of a tenuous world peace that remains nonetheless vulnerable to radicalism. How is Dr. Manhattan 'elevated' while Adrian  is hubristic? Like Capitalism, Dr. Manhattan dresses his own vengeful, pointed subjectivity as amorality.

But these comments do nothing to detract from the eloquence and force of your review. Bravo!

I never read V the book, but I loved the movie. There were moments in the film when I cranked up the powerful stereo to full blast (the TV is wired to play through it). There's not many films I'll do that with - Apocalypse Now is another.

Nite Owl's powerlessness is a choice: it's quite telling that he abandons Rorscharch, the representative of the white working-class male who has turned to fascism, and not the other way around. In a world where capitalist fascism has triumphed and brought us to the brink of nuclear war, isn't it the bourgeois quietist who has done nothing to stop it the real monster?

As for Dr. Manhattan, you have to be very careful when applying a particular ideology or theory onto a vastly disparate context. It's fine to help you distinguish between different characters, but Dr. Manhattan is no Buddha. I mentioned that Ozymandius engineered Dr. M's departure to Mars: do you remember the scene where they find the psychological analysis of Dr. M and realize that his reaction is entirely human even though it doesn't register on his face? If that's not ego, I don't know what is. He builds a Martian paradise in his image, and then decides he's going to go off and make some life of his own, fer crissakes. That's ego mania, not transcendence.