Talk:Watchmen/Archive 2

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This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.

Contents 1 Archived 1.1 An addition 2 Concise 3 Rorschach and Nihilism--Revisited 4 Removal of the Clean Up tag 5 Plot Summary cleanup 6 Brown Shoes22 edit 7 Characters in Watchmen 8 Minutemen (comics) merged here 9 Names 10 Peacemaker or Prankster? 11 To-do List 12 Relevancy of "Film Adaptation" section 13 Hugo award 14 "Paul Greengrass and David Hayter have reportedly dropped out" 15 Watchmen Timeline ? 16 My Edit 17 Reference to Outer Limits episode 18 Reference to Prez comic (Boss Smiley) 19 Who is Mister A. ? 20 Removal of the "Themes" section 21 Themes... 22 Peer Review 23 Themes section... 24 Introduction

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)

'Several years ago, Rorshach abandoned his Kovacs persona entirely'. I wouldn't use that sentence as-is, but that's all it would take. Doesn't need to go into the hows or whys. neongrey 13:18, 7 April 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)

Relevancy of "Film Adaptation" section

Does the article really need this section? I don't have any opposition to this section being included when the film is complete, but at the moment, many details are changing, and not much can be confirmed when there is a movie in production. Moreover, more (relevant) information would be released once the film has been released; there could be a call for a seperate page for Watchman (movie). Allthesestars 18:21, 27 January 2006 (UTC)

Hugo award

Watchmen won the Hugo award in 1988. Source: http://www.hugo.org/hy.html#88. I also have the envelope and card that were read at the ceremony; the actual text is:

The Winners of the 1988 Science Fiction and Fantasy Achievement Award for Best Other Forms are Alan Moore & Dave Gibbons for "Watchmen"

I could scan the envelope and award card if it would be of value to the article. Epithumia 01:06, 4 February 2006 (UTC)

"Paul Greengrass and David Hayter have reportedly dropped out"

is there a source for this statement? Streamless 16:33, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

Watchmen Timeline ?

At Watchmen timeline Article. For the Backstory of the Watchmen

My Edit

I have made a large edit, as is my style these days (I used to be known as Allthesestars!). The main contribution here is my attempt at footnoes; I have added many, with the view that they can always be removed if it is wished; it is quite hard to find refrence for Watchmen, so I would rather collate them here, then delete them if required.

I have also added the "Critical opinions" section in an attempt to remove the "fannish" aspect of the page, being that there is little to challenge the claim of Watchmen being a great graphic novel. The rest is mainly superficial.

I am also toying with the idea of implementing Chapter summaries, and then creating a seperate page and linking it to this one. However, I haven't really started yet. As it is, I want to try to revive this stagnant page. Adasta 22:58, 12 March 2006 (UTC)

Reference to Outer Limits episode

Shouldn't the article mention the extreme similarity between Watchmen and The_Architects_of_Fear_(episode)?

Only if Alan Moore/a critic/verifiable source noted the similarity. Adasta 19:56, 18 March 2006 (UTC)

Moore did so in an interview in issue 847 (October 28, 2005) of Entertainment Weekly. He said, "Around issue 10, I came across a guide to cult television. There was an Outer Limits episode called 'The Architects of Fear.' I thought: 'Wow. That's a bit close to our story.' In the last issue, we have a TV promoting that Outer Limits episode — a belated nod." Pat Berry 20:27, 31 March 2006 (UTC)

Reference to Prez comic (Boss Smiley)

I noticed that it's suggested here that Boss Smiley, from the Sandman issue "Golden Boy" was a Watchmen reference. But the character existed even in the 1970's 4-issue "Prez" comic that Gaiman was referencing. I haven't seen the originals, so I don't know if the visual is that strongly associated, though...

Who is Mister A. ?

I don't know who is Mister A. comics--Brown Shoes22 03:30, 27 March 2006 (UTC)

It's one of Steve Ditko's characters.Logan1138 18:12, 3 April 2006 (UTC)

Removal of the "Themes" section

I have removed the "Themes" section for being POV. The views expressed in that section are mainly conjecture; we have had this problem with a "themes" section before, hence its removal. Unless Moore states that certain themes are present, or that certain characters espouse certain philosophies, I think that any sort of "Themes" section will be POV; how could one verify it? Adasta 21:46, 4 April 2006 (UTC)

Judging by stuff like this and this, I would say there are clear and strong themes. Feel free to completely rework the themes section, but its complete removal was preemptive, particularly without a fair bit of discusion (which is why I reverted your edit).--SirNuke 07:29, 5 April 2006 (UTC)

Didn't notice this point had been made before submitting the article for WP:PR - Sorry! I would rather a Themes section be listed on the talk page first, because I think that the way it is written is quite crucial. Adasta 23:58, 6 April 2006 (UTC)

Themes...

Actually, I did realize a few hrs later that a lot of what I'd written in the themes section I'd added had been covered in the separate article on Rorshach. Also, I probably included too much spoiler material. In that interest, I'll tighten it up.

However, I do not think that what I wrote was POV, esp not mine. I think that the main article on Watchmen needs to mention that Moore often tells stories where characters employ extremist methods. That's something that people reading articles on his works should be made familiar with. We see it in V for Vendetta, the main character uses bombs to make his point that England has become a totalitarian dictatorship. Jack the Ripper in From Hell believed that prostitutes were ammoral & needed to be eliminated from society. And, of course, the Joker & Batman in the Killing Joke hardly need any mention.

"Central to nearly all of Alan Moore's works is the presence of characters who resort to or employ extremist measures to save society, either for better or worse. In Watchmen, two characters embody this concept: Rorschach and Adrien Veidt." - In whose opinion is it that those two paticular characters embody such traits? Can it be verified?

"Rorschach is a moral absolutist" - this is another unsubstantiated claim. Are you sure he's not a nihilist? That opinion has been put forward; what makes the one stated here a factual description of the character, and not an opinion? As for the third paragraph, I don't think it needs to exist at all. It mainly just outlines the plot, and does little to clarify any of the "themes" that exist in Watchmen.

WP:POV says that "if a viewpoint is in the majority, then it should be easy to substantiate it with reference to commonly accepted reference texts"; as far as I can see, what has been stated in the "Themes" section is mere conjecture, and cannot be verified. Although i'm not denying what you say may be true, I don't think it is presented very well. What is written doesn't seem to benefit the article at the moment, and the article reads just as well without the inclusion of a "Themes" section. What i'm trying to say is, if you want to add a section on themes, then please verify the viewpoints, lest this article plunge back into being a "fannish" debate of what character espouses what philosophy - look back in the history to see evidence of this! Adasta 21:57, 6 April 2006 (UTC)

All you have to do is read the story to get a sense of ideas that repeat themselves thruout. That's the idea of what a theme is: a motif or idea that recurs in a literary work. We have plenty of evidence that Rorshach has a unique way of dealing with those who commit crimes: he does so violently. Additionally, like I mentioned before, Moore often writes characters this way.

Anyone else think so?

There's a difference between a motif and a theme. Certainly themes can be used, they just need citations to go along with them...at least citations from the work itself illustrating the themes...citations from published critics would be better. Applejuicefool 17:16, 7 April 2006 (UTC)

Peer Review

I have put this article forward for peer review in an effort to resolve some of the aforementioned issues. Adasta 23:54, 6 April 2006 (UTC)

Themes section...

I did a little thinking about this last night &, after reading some of the revision history on this article, I realized that, indeed, it could wind up as a gushing fan forum again. However, I think that NOT having a themes section just because of that factor is (forgive me for sounding a bit snobbishly academic here) the wrong decision when you consider that this project is an online knowledge source. I think sections on thematics of a literary work are important if they are present. Also, even tho Moore himself has said many times that he doesn't see any thematic significance in his story, doesn't mean that there isn't any.

Nice discussion! (unsigned comment by User:TommyT)

Certainly the themes discussed in a themes section could be verified, it would just take some degree of effort to look up published criticism on the subject (of which there is a considerable amount) and cite it. Another (probably specious) argument could be made that citing the work should be enough. Themes of the use and abuse of power, the meaning of truth, predestination vs. free will, are all obviously in Watchmen...citations could be made from Watchmen which illustrate these. But it would make for a stronger article if we could find published critics who make these points. Applejuicefool 17:14, 7 April 2006 (UTC)

Introduction

The WP:LEAD should summarize the article. It should state what Watchmen is and why anyone should care what it is. I made a first pass at expanding it. Kaisershatner 15:25, 7 April 2006 (UTC)