I get it. You care immensely about Rorschach. But please, go actually read the thread we’re in. Go re-read our conversation.
We’re not having a conversation about Rorschach being good or evil. Only you are discussing that and you are doing it alone.
We’re having a conversation about whether or not insisting that things can only be analyzed along a “good versus evil” axis, be it implicitly as the comic engages in the fallacy, or explicitly, as you engage in the fallacy; that the insistence that things have to be analyzed along a good versus evil axis is inherently reductionist: Rorschach being good or evil isn’t a part of our conversation, in-spite of your (reductionist) efforts to make that the conversation.
The entire point was to demonstrate that you don’t have to accept reductionist framing to do media analysis. Even if the creator of that media rely on such simplistic analysis, you can reject that, and assert a more nuanced view, which I showed you by giving some analysis that didn’t rely on a simplistic good versus evil framing. Thinking of the world as “good versus evil”, especially in a piece of content as nuanced as The Watchmen, its reductionist to the point of ruining the meaning of the story. Its a framing not even worth engaging with, because those who insist on doing so are either children with no perspective, or media/ literature illiterate, or religious fanatics.
The Watchmen isn’t a fantastic piece of literature because its a battle of good versus evil; its a fantastic because it is its exactly not a battle of good versus evil, and all parts of the story evoke this theme. Its messy, and its complicated, and no one is wholly pure while no-one else is purely tainted. The Watchmen stood out as a piece of literature precisely because it broke comics out of the extraordinarily linear trope of good-versus-evil, and allowed characters to be much more like the real life, where they are flawed, but redeemable; where morality is subjective and dependent on the position of the observer.
If you insist in agreeing with the comic we’re analyzing: Its like you genuinely didn’t understand The Watchmen or why it matters as a piece of content. Because its also clear that the author of the comic also didn’t genuinely understand The Watchmen.
I get it. You care immensely about Rorschach. But please, go actually read the thread we’re in. Go re-read our conversation.
We’re not having a conversation about Rorschach being good or evil. Only you are discussing that and you are doing it alone.
We’re having a conversation about whether or not insisting that things can only be analyzed along a “good versus evil” axis, be it implicitly as the comic engages in the fallacy, or explicitly, as you engage in the fallacy; that the insistence that things have to be analyzed along a good versus evil axis is inherently reductionist: Rorschach being good or evil isn’t a part of our conversation, in-spite of your (reductionist) efforts to make that the conversation.
The entire point was to demonstrate that you don’t have to accept reductionist framing to do media analysis. Even if the creator of that media rely on such simplistic analysis, you can reject that, and assert a more nuanced view, which I showed you by giving some analysis that didn’t rely on a simplistic good versus evil framing. Thinking of the world as “good versus evil”, especially in a piece of content as nuanced as The Watchmen, its reductionist to the point of ruining the meaning of the story. Its a framing not even worth engaging with, because those who insist on doing so are either children with no perspective, or media/ literature illiterate, or religious fanatics.
The Watchmen isn’t a fantastic piece of literature because its a battle of good versus evil; its a fantastic because it is its exactly not a battle of good versus evil, and all parts of the story evoke this theme. Its messy, and its complicated, and no one is wholly pure while no-one else is purely tainted. The Watchmen stood out as a piece of literature precisely because it broke comics out of the extraordinarily linear trope of good-versus-evil, and allowed characters to be much more like the real life, where they are flawed, but redeemable; where morality is subjective and dependent on the position of the observer.
If you insist in agreeing with the comic we’re analyzing: Its like you genuinely didn’t understand The Watchmen or why it matters as a piece of content. Because its also clear that the author of the comic also didn’t genuinely understand The Watchmen.