Rorschach and the Cult of Personality

Rorschach test: Tell me what you see above...I know your anger, I know your dreams
I’ve been everything you want to be
I’m the cult of personality
Cult of Personality, Living Colour

In class on Wednesday, when we discussed the end of Watchmen, a lot of discussion centered on the character Rorschach. His personality, how he thinks, how he dies, so on and so forth. As I pondered the character it began to dawn on me just how much Rorschach had been glamorized and how undeserving of it he was. The movie stands as a grand testament to this glamarization. The character Rorschach dominates the film, which by one measure is a testament to the brilliant job Jackie Earle Haley did with the character. However, the script itself slanted towards the character. The ending, in particular, skews heavily towards Rorschach. Everyone talks about the change from squid monster to framing Dr Manhattan, but there was more changed than that. The lack of emotion shown by Veidt, Nite Owl witnessing Rorschach's death, and his reaction (complete with the most unnecessarily dramatic "NOOO!" moment since Revenge of the Sith) all sacrifice the sense of moral ambiguity of the graphic novel creates in favor of making Rorschach seem like the good guy.

Only problem is, he's not the good guy. He's a psychotic sociopath. Rorschach does have his sympathetic traits, but the thing that seems to draw people to him, his absolute nature, is what makes him so dangerous a character. It's obvious that Rorschach had a difficult, traumatic even, childhood. The abuse, the violence, the misunderstanding, all of it had to have a significant impact on him. However, the result is a violent child in a mans body. He deals out pain in a brutal, heavy-handed manner, breaking glasses and bones, all in the name of his idea of justice. However, he violates and contradicts that on a constant basis. He praises President Truman at the beginning, writing in a childhood essay that he admired him for nuking Japan in order to save lives, though he later dies because he condemns Veidt for doing just that. He argues at the end "Evil must be punished. People must be told." but contradicts that when confronting his landlord, who is also a prostitute, becuase it brings back memories of him as a kid. He compromises with Moloch on his owning illegal drugs and then says "Not even in the face of armageddon. Never compromise." This trend shows a clearly crazy character, with even the characters of the novel saying that he's a lunatic. But yet people are drawn to him. Why?

At this point I must confess that, up until recently, I was a member of the Rorschach cult of personality. I'll briefly discuss the reasons why. One reason why, as I stated before, is his sense of absoluteness. Whether he actually is or not, there is something powerful about a powerful character with strong conviction. Another possibility is the intensity of the character. In a powerful book full of fairly passive characters (Dan and Laurie spend most of the book just sitting around, Dr Manhattan spends most of it on Mars, and Veidt disappears for most of the book), Rorschach stands out as a man of action and drive. Another reason is the understanding that he is crazy. However, there can be facinating about a uniquely crazy character. I'll admit to feeling the same draw to the Joker and Harley Quinn from Batman. However, the thing that ultimately destroyed that cult (for me) was the realization that he's a fraud. A contradiction that acts according to his own senseless whim and, with the inevitable publishing of his journal at the end, creates far more harm than good. That's behavior more fitting of a villan than the hero Rorschach is supposed to be. That contradiction, that condemnation, is what, for me, destroys the mythos around the character Rorschach.

You don’t have to follow me
Only you can set you free