Watchmen Mirrory thing?
sli...@crystalwind.com
work(I commute via train), and a guy next to me saw and we got into a
typical fanboyish comic conversation, and he mentioned something about
parts of Watchmen. Something like you can hold a mirror up to certain
pages? I'm lost, here...
Tim
bsvit...@mln.lib.ma.us
One issue of Watchmen (#6, maybe?) is a mirror image of itself. The first
panel is similar to the last panel, the second parallels the second-to-last,
and so on. The very middle of the book is a set of two panels on opposite
pages which form one picture: Adrian Veidt killing a supposed assassin, with
their images reflected in a pool of water.
Reflections are an important symbol in Watchmen, strongly connected to
Ozymandias, and are part of a larger set of glass symbolism. Each major
character has a relationship with glass which is indicative of their approach
to life.
The Comedian is associated with smashed glass. He is thrown out the window,
has his head smashed against a mirror, has his face gashed by a broken
bottle, has a drink thrown in his face (not a broken glass, but a violent use
of one which parallels the broken bottle), etc. His approach to life is to
violently smash through barriers in perception, giving him a strong sense of
the world, but ultimately a harmful one.
Rorschach's glass motif is the reverse of the Comedian's. In his first scene,
we see him climb in through Edward Blake's smashed window, and immediately
after he finds the Comedian's costume. In a parallel sequence after he
escapes from prison, Rorschach climbs in his own window, then retrieves his
extra mask from under the floorboards. Rorchach's cynicism breaches the same
sort of barriers as the Comedian's does, but Rorschach then finds a mask to
put on things - he knwos there is no order in the world, so he *imposes*
order.
Night Owl is any easy one - he looks at the world through rose colored
glasses, literally and figuratively. His romantic outlook isn't entirely a
bad thing - it makes him the most benign character of the series. But it also
limits his ability to lead a normal adult life.
It's significant that the accident which turned John Osterman into Dr.
Manhattan was an experiment carried out by Professor Glass. We see Osterman
looking out the glass window of the containment chamber, and later we see Dr.
Manhattan's glass clockwork construction on Mars. Dr. Manhattan's perception
of reality is a cold, scientific one in which individual human lives do not
matter.
Which brings us to Silk Spectre. She is the Comedian's daughter, and like him
she is a glass smasher. She shatters a snow globe, she throws the drink in the
Comedian's face, and ultimately she causes Dr. Manhattan to smash his glass
clockwork. Her glass-smashing is not destructive, but creative, a breaching of
barriers to create personal relationships.
Finally, back to Ozymandias. Adrian Veidt is constantly shown looking through
glass of one sort or another. He looks out his office windows, he watches
everything via monitors, and even his action figures look out through the
cellophane windows of their packaging. Eventually we see he's placed a forest
under glass in his antarctic sanctuary. Ozymandias thinks he can put the
world under glass, observing it and controlling it from the outside. But we
also see that Veidt is constantly *reflected* - in his windows, on his marble
desktop, and in that pool of water as he commits an act of violence.
Ozymandias fails to realize that the new order he seeks to create will
reflect the ruthlessness and violence he has employed in creating it.
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Ken Small
>A coupla months ago I was reading the Watchmen TPB on my way home from
>work(I commute via train), and a guy next to me saw and we got into a
>typical fanboyish comic conversation, and he mentioned something about
>parts of Watchmen. Something like you can hold a mirror up to certain
>pages? I'm lost, here...
Not exactly, but chapter 5 is symmetrical panel-by-panel (fisrt panel,
first page is roughly a mirror image on the last panel, last page).
Not every panel, but most, and thematically as well as
compositionally. That issue also tipped me off to the identity of the
murderer, thanks to the symmetry.
The entire series is somewhat symetrical by chapters, on a thematic
basis, as well.
--
Ken Small
"I used to get A's is psychology class, but it didn't make my life okay."
-- Loud Family
Aaron Mojo
>Something like you can hold a mirror up to certain
>>pages? I'm lost, here...
Oh yeah! If you take any page, any page at ALL, out of Watchmen, and hold
the page up to a mirror, it reflects! You get an exact mirror image! It's the
COOLEST thing. Moore's a genius.
-Aaron!
Me Henry the 8th me am, Henry 8th me am me am.
Me gots married to widow next door, her been married seven times before,
And every one him were Henry, she no would have Shaft or Sam;
Me her 8th old man me Henry, Henry 8th me am me am, Henry 8th me am!
Prestorjon
<<A coupla months ago I was reading the Watchmen TPB on my way home from
work(I commute via train), and a guy next to me saw and we got into a
typical fanboyish comic conversation, and he mentioned something about
pages? I'm lost, here...>>
He's probably refering to the chapter "Fearful Symmetry" which has a
"mirrored" story structure. The first five pages take place at Molochs house
and so do the last five and so on.
-----------------
He had been our Destroyer, the doer of things
We dreamed of doing but could not bring ourselves to do,
The fears of years, like a biting whip,
Had cut deep bloody grooves
Across our backs.
-Etheridge Knight
Sam Bell
>
><<A coupla months ago I was reading the Watchmen TPB on my way home from
>work(I commute via train), and a guy next to me saw and we got into a
>typical fanboyish comic conversation, and he mentioned something about
>parts of Watchmen. Something like you can hold a mirror up to certain
>pages? I'm lost, here...>>
>
>He's probably refering to the chapter "Fearful Symmetry" which has a
>"mirrored" story structure. The first five pages take place at Molochs house
>and so do the last five and so on.
>
Not just the story structure. Every pair of panels mirror each other (the
very first and the very last, the 2nd and the next to last, etc.). The
center of the book is a splash page with many mirrored elements.
-Sam
Prestorjon
<<Not just the story structure. Every pair of panels mirror each other (the
very first and the very last, the 2nd and the next to last, etc.). The
center of the book is a splash page with many mirrored elements.>>
They mirror each other in how they're laid out but, as others have pointed out,
they don't exactly mirror each other in what subejcts are shown.
A. David Lewis
bsvit...@mln.lib.ma.us wrote:
In article <361051c6.9641446@news>,
sli...@crystalwind.com wrote:
> A coupla months ago I was reading the Watchmen TPB on my way home from
> work(I commute via train), and a guy next to me saw and we got into a
> typical fanboyish comic conversation, and he mentioned something about
> parts of Watchmen. Something like you can hold a mirror up to certain
> pages? I'm lost, here...
>
One issue of Watchmen (#6, maybe?) is a mirror image of itself. The first
panel is similar to the last panel, the second parallels the second-to-last,
and so on. The very middle of the book is a set of two panels on opposite
pages which form one picture: Adrian Veidt killing a supposed assassin, with
their images reflected in a pool of water.Reflections are an important symbol in Watchmen, strongly connected to
Ozymandias, and are part of a larger set of glass symbolism. Each major
character has a relationship with glass which is indicative of their approach
to life.
First, let me say that the rest of your analysis (which I did cut, just for space, sorry) was brilliant. If you did not come to it yourself, you relayed it in a remarkably clear, accurate, and readable level. Bravo!
Second, let me just mention the presence of the graphitti term "Khrystalncht" found along several walls in the series. Like the "Who Watches The Watchmen?" statement's omnipresence, the former statement refers to the night of shop windows' glass being smashed by the Nazis in the second world war. I won't go into it, but note that both Ozymandias declares the Comedian to be likened Nazi-like and Rorshach, in turn, implies the same about Ozymandias. The Comedian smashes windows, true, but Ozymandias causes the infamous window smashing at the inception of the story.
Just an extra thought on the subject.
-A. David Lewis
bsvit...@mln.lib.ma.us
adl...@brandeis.edu wrote:
> bsvit...@mln.lib.ma.us wrote:
[snip]
> > Reflections are an important symbol in Watchmen, strongly connected to
> > Ozymandias, and are part of a larger set of glass symbolism. Each major
> > character has a relationship with glass which is indicative of their
approach
> > to life.
>
> First, let me say that the rest of your analysis (which I did cut, just for
> space, sorry) was brilliant. If you did not come to it yourself, you relayed
it
> in a remarkably clear, accurate, and readable level. Bravo!
>
Thanks. I did in fact come to it myself, over numerous readings and through
discussions with various friends. It's nice to know an M.A. in English is good
for something - it hasn't exactly gotten me a high-paying job!
> Second, let me just mention the presence of the graphitti term "Khrystalncht"
> found along several walls in the series. Like the "Who Watches The Watchmen?"
> statement's omnipresence, the former statement refers to the night of shop
> windows' glass being smashed by the Nazis in the second world war. I won't go
> into it, but note that both Ozymandias declares the Comedian to be likened
> Nazi-like and Rorshach, in turn, implies the same about Ozymandias. The
Comedian
> smashes windows, true, but Ozymandias causes the infamous window smashing at
the
> inception of the story.
>
A very good point. I haven't really thought through the Krystalnacht
references, but they're certainly important thematically and they certainly
figure into the glass motif. Looks like it's time for me to read Watchmen
again.
You're right about Ozymandias being more directly the cause of the smashed
window. The Comedian often suffers from the glass-smashing he's involved in -
getting his face slashed, etc. He violently breaks through barriers in
perception, and suffers for it. He is ultimately destroyed by this - both
figuratively, with his emotional breakdown, and literally, with his death by
falling. It's as much something that happens to him as it is something he
causes. (Though it's who he is that causes others to act against him.)
I don't know how much to read into the fact that Ozymandias does the actual
breaking; it does indicate his Nazi-like tactics, as you say. Of course, the
literal action does that quite well anyway.
Postmaster General
> Reflections are an important symbol in Watchmen, strongly connected to
> Ozymandias, and are part of a larger set of glass symbolism. Each major
> character has a relationship with glass which is indicative of their approach
> to life.
>
Wow. I love this story, and I wish I could notice little details like
this. This observation is awesome. My only hope is that somewhere,
someone will do a collection of all these nuances so that we newcomers
to this story can enjoy it's subtelties. (Wink, wink. Nudge, nudge.)
jayembee
sli...@crystalwind.com wrote:
> A coupla months ago I was reading the Watchmen TPB on my way
> home from work(I commute via train), and a guy next to me saw
> and we got into a typical fanboyish comic conversation, and
> he mentioned something about parts of Watchmen. Something like
> you can hold a mirror up to certain pages? I'm lost, here...
He's probably referring to the fact that in the chapter "Fearful
Symmetry" (issue #5?), the page layouts are symmetrical from the
2-page centerspread on out. The symmetry reflects not only panel
layout, but content as well. In other words, the page immediately
following the centerspread is a mirror image of the page that
immediately precedes the centerspread. And so on.
--- jayembee (Jerry.B...@eds.com)
"Save Ferris!"
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Prestorjon
<<Wow. I love this story, and I wish I could notice little details like
this. This observation is awesome. My only hope is that somewhere,
someone will do a collection of all these nuances so that we newcomers
to this story can enjoy it's subtelties. (Wink, wink. Nudge, nudge.)>>
There is a web site out there which has annotations to Watchmen, including a
lot of observations like this.
Jason Fliegel
Prestorjon <prest...@aol.com> wrote:
>
><<Wow. I love this story, and I wish I could notice little details like
>this. This observation is awesome. My only hope is that somewhere,
>someone will do a collection of all these nuances so that we newcomers
>to this story can enjoy it's subtelties. (Wink, wink. Nudge, nudge.)>>
>
>There is a web site out there which has annotations to Watchmen, including a
>lot of observations like this.
There's one at
<http://student-www.uchicago.edu/users/jbfliege/watchmen.html>
--
Jason Fliegel
j-fl...@uchicago.edu
3L, University of Chicago Law School
jayembee
jbfl...@midway.uchicago.edu (Jason Fliegel) wrote:
>> There is a web site out there which has annotations to Watchmen,
>> including a lot of observations like this.
> There's one at
> <http://student-www.uchicago.edu/users/jbfliege/watchmen.html>
I took a quick look to see if there was mention of a couple of
items, and I have a comment on one of them regarding the end of
the last issue (no spoilers):
"The New Utopia's playbill reads, "Tarkovsky Season This Week:
The Sacrifice and Nostalgia." (The Sacrifice is a Swedish film,
directed by Andrei Tarkovsky, about an upcoming holocaust and
peoples' reactions to it...)"
Actually, the holocaust (a nuclear war) takes place during the
course of the movie, and the basic thrust of the plot is that
the protagonist is willing to sacrifice everything if God will
make the holocaust "not happen". The theme is summed up by a
line from one of the characters early on in the movie: "What is
the worth of a gift if there is not a sacrifice in the giving?"
Which seems to echo __________'s philosophy in WATCHMEN (in
addition to the fact that that character tries to make something
that happened "not happen").
Randall M! Gee
> Second, let me just mention the presence of the graphitti term "Khrystalncht"
> found along several walls in the series. Like the "Who Watches The Watchmen?"
> statement's omnipresence, the former statement refers to the night of shop
> windows' glass being smashed by the Nazis in the second world war.
Kristallnacht, also sometimes called "The Night of Broken Glass,"
happened before World War II. It was the night of 1938 Novemember 9-10.
Nazi thugs across Germany looted and smashed windows of Jewish-owned
homes and businesses and set fire to synagogues. So much glass was
broken that Germany could not produce enough glass to replace it.
The pogrom was ordered by Goebbles, but he claimed it was a spontaneous
reaction to an assassination of a German official working in the embassy
in Paris by a Jewish youth. He blamed the Jews for it, and ordered that
they pay a fine for the assassination, prevented them from collecting
insurance on the damages done, and required that they indeminfy Germany
for the damages done to their own property. And that's not all.
After Kristallnacht, the persecution of the Jews enters a new phase.
It may be considered the beginning of the Holocaust.
-- Randall M! Gee, Keeper of Gummi Wisdom
(g...@math.berkeley.edu)
Prestorjon
<<After Kristallnacht, the persecution of the Jews enters a new phase.
It may be considered the beginning of the Holocaust.>>
It may be considered that but it'd be incorrect. The Holocaust didn't start
until the Wansee Conference of January 20 1942
Kevin J. Maroney
><<After Kristallnacht, the persecution of the Jews enters a new phase.
>It may be considered the beginning of the Holocaust.>>
>
>It may be considered that but it'd be incorrect. The Holocaust didn't start
>until the Wansee Conference of January 20 1942
This is astoundingly off-topic (since even the thread from which it's
spinning is off-topic--_Watchmen_ discussion belongs in r.a.c.misc),
but by the time of the Wansee Conference, mass exterminations of Jews
throughout Nazi-occupied Eastern Europe were well underway. Specific
mention is made in the Conference notes of the near-total
extermination of the Jewish population of Estonia (approx. 250,000).
Krystallnacht was a turning point in the open, country-wide
persecution of Jews within Germany, and as such is a major landmark in
the progress of the Nazi extermination of the Jews. As a punk band
name, it's more subtle than, but no less transgressive than, "Six
Million Jews" or "Final Solution".
--
Kevin J. Maroney | Crossover Technologies | kmar...@crossover.com
"There is a better world. There has to be."--Kay Challis
Prestorjon
<<This is astoundingly off-topic (since even the thread from which it's
spinning is off-topic--_Watchmen_ discussion belongs in r.a.c.misc),
but by the time of the Wansee Conference, mass exterminations of Jews
throughout Nazi-occupied Eastern Europe were well underway.>>
Well yes the Einsatzgruppen (sp?) were active but the death camps didn't get
started until after Wansee. I think that when people refer to "The Holocaust"
they're usually refering to the mass extermination of Jews in concentration
camps and not the various other anti-semetic oppressions that went on in
Germany. If you do take the term "The holocaust" to refer to the general
persecution of Jews in Germany then Krystalnacht is also too late since
persecution had been already going on.
astroc...@my-dejanews.com
> It may be considered that but it'd be incorrect. The Holocaust didn't start
> until the Wansee Conference of January 20 1942
I don't think I've ever heard of that before? Could you tell us what that was
about?
--J. Russell Pelt, AKA The AstroCitizen
Prestorjon
<<I don't think I've ever heard of that before? Could you tell us what that
was
about?>>
It shows something about the average Americans lack of knowledge of WWII that I
hadn't heard of it either until I read Robert Harris novel Fatehrland (where
the central action revolves around trying to cover up the Wansee conference).
Wansee was (and I assume still is) a suburb of Berlin. In a house there
in 1942 a meeting took place between numerous higher ups in the Nazi
organization including heads of the SS and the German governors of conquered
territories. There they worked out the plan for the Final Solution to the
Jewish Problem. Basically it's the meeting where they worked out the logistics
for the concentration camps and the mass industrialized extermination of the
Jews.