So, was he right?
>>83683188
He was neither entirely wrong nor entirely right.
He was right about forcing hostile nations to cooperate against a bigger threat, but he was wrong about it being the only way to save the world. His whole deal is that he looks down on humanity and sees himself as the only one competent enough to make people do the right thing, even when they might be able to get their shit together on their own. His plan worked in the short run, but as Manhattan pointed out, that's not the end of it.
His plan works for a few decades at most (decades is a serious stretch) before everything goes back to the status quo.
>>83683596
Will they though? It's not like we have something similar to compare it too. His plan might have worked forerer or for even centuries.
You can't imagine how people come together when a common enemy appears.
He's the Rightclops of the Watchmen Universe...which I guess now extends to the DC universe I guess?
No. Just like Lelouch, I'd give his plan about 20 years, which isn't worth the amount of death he caused.
>>83683596
>>83683814
I would imagine most major world religions would have crises and/or rewrites
>>83683830
I dunno about the rest of them, but Catholicism isn't against the existence of ayy lmaos.
>>83683188
It is ambiguous.
>>83683188
Answer to any Watchmen related "was he right?" Is always it's complicated.
>>83683188
The dude's literally called Ozymandias, his peace will not last.
>>83683751
>His plan might have worked forerer
Do you really believe that?
Especially since there IS no common enemy in the Watchmen world either.
>>83683976
A thing is not beautiful because it lasts.
>>83683986
He can always make a legacy. Create something like that. Kill a few hundred thousand people. Wait for the world to repopulate to even better results and repeat.
He can become a world leading figure, create a huge capital and have him strategically place buildings, so he can kill the lesser population.
>>83684101
>He can always make a legacy.
Forever?
>>83684146
Clones, successful mind transfers or something similar.
>>83683976
He calls himself Ozymandias, and even has that plinth with the inscription. Either he's full aware or he's got a spectacular amount of hubris to think that he will *truly* persist.
I'm not fully sure which, and I'm not sure you're supposed to.
>>83683999
This is interesting. Do you think Vision would side with Ozymandias?
>>83683986
>Especially since there IS no common enemy in the Watchmen world either.
Humanity thinks there is after Ozy's attack.
>>83683188
If you're asking whether any character in Watchmen was right, you've missed the point.
>>83684182
And what happens when that enemy never fucking shows up?
Now we're geared up for an interstellar war that will never come, and the US and Russia have invented all kinds of fancy new guns with which to kill each other.
>>83684215
I don't know, I was just saying that from the world's POV, there is a common enemy out there. I'm not saying Ozy was right or it would work forever.
Mayve Ozy could arrange to have random "alien" attacks every now and then forever to keep the world on its toes.
>>83683751
Except the final panel hints it's all going to fall apart pretty dam quickly
>>83683509
Sounds about right
He wasent right but that look of elation on his face when it all came together really makes me hope it lasts
>>83684253
That wasn't what Manhattan said: >>83684007
He just said nothing ever ends. That doesn't mean that the plan would or wouldn't fall apart quickly.
>>83684339
True, his plan might end someday. Maybe he said that, to make him live the rest of his days in constant agony by thinking when his plan will fail. Manhattan had a small reason to do that, you know because Ozy literally disintegrated him and fucked with his brain,
whether his plan will work or not is irrelevant. the only thing relevant is whether or not the world was lost without him.
>>83684339
No I was referring to the very last drawn panel with the man about to grab Rorschach's jourmal
Ozymandias did everything wrong!
>>83685039
This. It's not just Doc Manhattans "Nothing Ever Ends" line by itself that portends doom. It's the line in conjunction with the thing that will make it crumble which is supposed to be the takeaway. No plan can account for everything, and no solution that relies on a static state of the world can stand. Even if there's doubt, Rorschach's journal will rot Ozzy's peace from the inside out.
>>83684253
the final panel is Rorshach's journal. Rorshach is a convicted murderer already hated by the public, and if his gonzo journal gets printed in the stormfront-tier newsrag he submitted it to, all he implicates Veidt in is the missing superheroes. He has no concept of the squid plan when he drops it off in the mailbox.
Ozymandias did an incredibly shitty thing but he did more than anyone else. None of the other "heroes" were doing anything. We can argue all day about the ethics of what he did and how he traded a million people for a few more decades but the bottom line is he did something, while Dan and Laurie fucked in costumes and Rorshach beat up drug dealers.
>>83683596
You are kind of missing the point of the plot. The arms build up and America's reliance on Dr. M was entirely the problem. Veidt's plan was simply to see humanity through that period. After that the threat of nuclear annihilation is greatly diminished.
>>83685039
>>83685328
Rorschach's journal was found by a paranoid racist rag read only by right-wing loons like Rorschach. Further, it's written by a person widely regarded as literally insane.
This would be like Stormfront publishing what it purports to be a journal written by an infamous mass murderer saying George Soros was behind a conspiracy that destroyed New York.
>>83687079
Plus remember to the world at large Ozymandias is loved and regarded as a genius philanthropist. Who would believe that he actually engineered the deaths of millions?
>>83683188
No
In order to eliminate the problem you most eliminate the source of it i.e. humans
>>83683188
>So, was he right?
>YFW DC might actually try to answer this definitively now
>>83687079
>>83685328
>>83685039
>>83684339
>>83684007
>>83683751
>>83683509
>ignoring the obvious mushroom cloud in >>83684007 's picture
>ignoring the final panel showing the doomsday hands at midnight
>ignoring the final page covered in blood
>>83688534
You're right about the first two, but the final page isn't covered in blood.
>>83683188
What did he mean by this?
No. He was like every other overclever Mengele in existence, justifying mass murder with an overly simplistic philosophy. The world is blind chaos too complex for any man to grasp, and I bet he died in severe regret in a world just about returned to the tension he'd relieved with aliens.
>>83683188
In his comic? Yes
In the real world? No
>>83683188
I guess it depends on whether you think Truman was justified in nuking the japs effectively ending the war with japan
>>83683188
Adrian was, like most real life smart people who have tasted a little bit of success, way too fucking enamored with his own intelligence. He killed a shitload of people in pursuit of an overly elaborate Rube Goldberg scheme that, at best, is going to work for five years maybe. So no. He was in the wrong, and everyone in the comic was also in the wrong because Watchmen is a comic about huge losers who do everything wrong.
To say he is right is to ignore how much Moore pounds into the reader the sheer absurdity and obsession Adrian had for a)proving he was right b)his hatred of Comedian
The fact that the only gets away with it because revealed his plan would make those lives lost meaningless (another of Moore's humanistic themes) show that Ozy was just a moral absolutionist, the far opposite of Rorscach, not willing to compromise, instead plowing toward an ideal regardless of how many it hurts
>>83689076
He meant that because of the way he perceives time, he's gonna be 4 way banging Laurie for all eternity
>>83689461
>losers who do everything wrong
>forgetting the newspaper man learns to treat the black boy with compassion and tries to shield him during the catastrophe
>forgetting Dr Long becomes a better guy who actually wants to help people instead of just saying he does
>forgetting that Dan and Laurie rediscover heroing and the two of them do the only genuinely heroic thing in the book by saving people from the apartment fire, then vow to continue doing so in the end
>forgetting
>>83688534
>ignoring the obvious mushroom cloud in >>83684007 's picture
Doesn't look like a mushroom cloud to me.
>ignoring the final panel showing the doomsday hands at midnight
The point is that while it's possible the world has ended, it's equally likely that the clock has started over due to a complete lack of threat.
>ignoring the final page covered in blood
That was fucking ketchup.
>>83690944
>If I ignore the signs hard enough everything will be fine
How's that shark corpse craft coming along?
Why doesn't dr Manhattan just bring everyone caught in the explosions back to life? The illusion would still be maintained and now people dont have to die
>>83683188
In this world Dr. Manhattan leaving means the Soviets now have a nuclear deterrent. MAD applies as it did for us.
The event that triggered Ozy to act was the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. Which, as you may recall, did not lead to total nuclear war in our world.
Nixon is shown in the bunker watching simulations of the east coast being destroyed. He is asked what do we do, and responds "We sit, and we wait". The US is not making the first move.
How is Ozy predicting nuclear war? By watching a bunch of TVs at once and noting more skin on perfume commercials.
We are given an entire allegorical story about how a man obsessed with a threat to his home becomes a savage and brutal murderer because of his obsession.
We are given this call back! Hell, they even put significant in bold. The only way they could make it more obvious is an asterisk and a little box saying "See Issue 11, page 13 - Al".
Ozy is wrong. We are shown he is wrong. We are told he's wrong. We are given an entire allegorical story about how and why he is wrong.
It's one of the reasons I think Watchmen ultimately falls into the trap it's trying to critique. It makes these characters so compelling people want to believe they were right.
>>83691337
Dr. Manhattan doesn't really care.
>>83691410
You know, somehow I had never considered the idea that Ozy was wrong in his most basic assumption that Nuclear war needed to be averted.
That connection just never really reached me somehow. It always seemed so much that the changes to the world would push it more and more towards the brink that the war just would have happened eventually.
>>83691632
The hell of it is, he kind of did avert nuclear war by driving off Manhattan. Removing him from the board is what made MAD apply again. Ozy just got so deep into his plan that he didn't realize he'd already done what he needed to do, so he murdered New York with a giant teleporting psychic vagina squid.
>>83691807
>so he murdered New York with a giant teleporting psychic vagina squid.
The fact that this is a serious sentence in a character analysis for what is considered the one of the greatest works in the medium really makes me happy.
>>83691807
>Ozy just got so deep into his plan that he didn't realize he'd already done what he needed to do, so he murdered New York with a giant teleporting psychic vagina squid
Ozymandias was a mistake.
>>83683188
He stopped an imminent war at the same time Doctor Manhattan left. His plan was successful and any failing after that point is on America or Russia and not Ozy
>>83689076
It means the writers don't understand that the universe will eventually reach heat death.
>>83688823
What does he choose?
>>83683188
No. There's always another way.
>>83694278
There will still be quantum fluctuations.
>>83694377
Why? I'll have to look that up. Sounds impossible.
>>83694444
Not impossible, just extremely unlikely.
>>83683596
Far, far less if the US figures out how to weaponise the squid corpse.
>>83695031
WW3 inkoming
>>83690944
>it's equally likely that the clock has started over due to a complete lack of threat
