Talk:Doctor Manhattan
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[edit] Analysis
Both currently existing sections of this article contain analysis that is (in my opinion) misplaced: comments on Osterman's weak will, mention of the symbolism of the fat man and little boy at the amusement park, et cetera. If these are to stay in the article (do they constitute original research?), they should probably be moved to a separate section, like in the article about Rorschach. -DynSkeet (talk) 21:05, August 8, 2005 (UTC)
- I think that is a good idea. I have been searching for some 'evidence' for Doc Manhattan being God - perhaps that could also be included somewhere, under a different header or something? --Groovemaster D. 18:23, 22 January 2006 (UTC)
Osterman's "weak will" is really only mentioned in the book, by his decision to become a physicist cos his dad told him to. Tho OTOH, particle physics is the sort of career you could only stand to do, and succeed at, if you have a certain sort of passion and understanding, a certain mindset. I think his curious, unusually thoughtful nature (and he does spend a lot of time thinking and considering, all thru his life), means a physicist is what he wanted to be.
"Fat Man" and "Thin Boy" were the first two nuclear bombs ever dropped on people, in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. There's a relevance in a fat man creating Dr Manhattan, since the big particle physics boom in the 50s and 60s were largely spinoffs of the greatly accelerated nuclear research that took place in the 1940s.
I think this article is wrong on Jon's perception of time. From the horse's mouth, he does perceive all time simultaneously. It seems the future and past constantly compete for attention with the present. He's mastered this, and now lives on a sort-of flat plane of time, rather than the single thread we all experience.
When he sees the future, there's no doubt that's what WILL happen. He sees his own future as certainly as anyone else's, so he can't fight it and feels like a puppet and spectator in his own life. In Watchmen's universe, fate absolutely exists.
This "spectatorship" is, I think, the primary driving force in his drift away from humanity. An early example is in Viet Nam, and the incident with Janey and the ear-rings. That would be enough to send someone scatty. His out-of-control ego and utter lack of identification with ordinary people grow throughout his life.
He already does have all the powers of a god. In this absolutely-fated universe, even a real god wouldn't have the power to change the future he sees. Or else he wouldn't be omniscient (this is discussed quite well in one of Asimov's short stories).
In the end, he probably can create new life. He always has been able to, it seems, he just didn't realise that. So yes, he loses touch completely, but in a last compassionate gesture, at least realises that and gets out of the way of the world of poor mortal humans. He probably realises himself that he's becoming an ever-greater danger, personally even more than he is politically.
Adrian, Rorschach and Dr Manhattan all reflect different sides of human power. Jon's is absolute, so he loses touch with humanity. Adrian uses his money and his god-awful "self-actualisation" philosophy to interfere in the world, more than Jon would ever have thought to.
In the end, Adrian uses his power to do something immensely evil, because he sees his plan as above morality. His "mission" takes him out of touch with humanity too, otherwise he wouldn't be able to carry out so much murder in his plan to "save the world".
Rorschach was pretty out of touch to start with, and has only his own man-power, which he uses very directly. While he hurts people, his motivations are only to help people, just a little twisted by his being completely mental.
Dan is really quite ineffectual. His strongest feature is his conscience, and it illustrates how it castrates him in his superheroic aims. He really can't do very much, because there's not much good vigilantes can do without also bringing along a lot of collateral harm.
Anyway, there are lots and lots of subtexts and interpretations, as ever with most of Alan Moore's work, your 17th re-reading brings out so much you missed in your 15th and 16th. There's not a word Alan Moore's put on paper that hasn't amazed me.
-- Greenaum
- When Doc Manhattan leaves after saying "Yes, perhaps I'll create some", the residu of his body looks like a Big Bang. (http://i19.photobucket.com/albums/b182/GroovemasterD/BigBang01.jpg) --Groovemaster D. 11:38, 3 March 2006 (UTC)
More basis for speculation Doc Manhattan could be a god, perhaps our 'God'.
First of all, we have the seemingly limitless power Doc Manhattan has to his disposal. Making second entities of himself and foreseeing the future (although not after Veidt used the Tachyons) are but examples. Second, we have the growing feeling of distance between Doc and humanity. The Comedian exposes it when the Vietnam War is won and he guns down the Vietnamese woman - Doc could've easily intervened, but did not because he's growing out of touch ("God, help us all"). This was not always the case, as we see in chapter 4 when we see Jon Osterman's lifestory. Jon used to be just a regular person like anyone could be on this world. After the incidentwhich turned Jon into Doctor Manhattan, Doc became more and more indifferent towards humanity. Perhaps due to increasing knowledge about the mechanisms from the universe (atoms, stars), getting adjusted to his new scope of sensations and thereby losing touch with the important stuff of the ordinairy person, the man he was before the accident?
It looks to me as if Doc Manhattan becoming more like a god is not only apparant in the way he reacts towards humanity, but also in his clothing. Doc puts on less and less clothing until he's fully naked. Is this symbolic? Probably, but I cannot really grasp what it stands for in a particular way, but I think it has to do with Jon becoming more and more like a diety. (Greek Gods, for example, were always pictured as living naked.) There's also the fact that chapter 3, the chapter where Doc leaves the Earth for Mars, has the title 'The Judge of All the Earth' (Genesis Chapter 18, verse 25: 'Shall not the Judge of All the Earth do right?'), making the Judge of the Earth the theme of this chapter. This chapter deals with the Doc deciding to leave the Earth to contemplate how to react to it, thus a godlike create how to act (whether or not this is 'right', must be seen).
I never found anyone picking this out, but at the ending, when Veidt and Doc had their little chat about the way everything ended, Veidt asks if Doc regained interest in human life, to which the Doc replies "yes I have, I think perhaps I'll create some". Doc Manhattan leaves the Earth saying "Nothing ever ends". To me, it's really plausible that we assume that Doc Manhattan did not leave for another place, but rather another time and then in the past. The Doc said, after all, that he would create some human life, which only exists on the planet Earth. The statement that nothing ever ends also speaks for this option a lot. I've always wondered what could be the symbolism within the scene where Doc Manhattan disappeares whilst standing in the orrery. Whilst typing this, I think I've finally found it: it's the Big Bang. I think we can safely assume that Doc Manhattan wasn't only going to create human life, but the entire universe. Linked with this, I also would like to note that Doc calls the universe a 'clock without a craftsman' (I'm paraphrasing). If Doc Manhattan were to travel back in time and create the world, knowing Alan Moore, it's not coincidental that Jon Osterman was learning to be a clockmaker in his early years, which comes in very handy, apparantly.
I do not know if this has a place in the article. What are your feelings on this? The case might be good, but is it relevant? --Groovemaster D. 05:09, 15 August 2006 (UTC)
- Firstly, wtf? Nobody knows what the Big Bang looks like because frankly, nobody's seen it. I'd imagine it would be much more bright though.
- Secondly, I doubt that anyone would dispute that Manhattan is a god. However, he doesn't need to time-travel; he exists at all times simultaneously (i.e. in the chapter which is one big flashback, and later when he talks to Laurie "90 seconds ago" and Rorschach in the same conversation (to him, anyway). When asked where he might go next, he suggests that he might leave the Milky Way, but not time-travel. (I do, however, think that he may have "intervened" between Dan and Laurie, as he smiles at them after they've had sex, in the last chapter on his way to talk to Veidt. Maybe that's what he meant by creating life?) --Pentasyllabic 13:00, 15 August 2006 (UTC)
- There are a number of ways to interpret exactly how much Dr.M knows in the book and what he can do. I don't think we should be presuming or interpreting any more than necessary and am going to remove the greatest assumptions from the text. For all we know Alan Moore didn't even know (or decide) the exact extent of Dr.M's powers, so we should just describe what is in the text, and make only uncontestable assumptions. Ashmoo 04:31, 25 August 2006 (UTC)
