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convergences
14 Jun 06
Moore, Alan. Watchmen. New York: DC Comics, 1987.
(XII: 27)
One of the many beautiful things about the study of literature is the way in which almost any two texts can be found to resonate with one another. Moore’s Watchmen is a thoroughly enjoyable read, although I’ve never been a fan of superhero comics and could certainly point to a number of problems in this one. (Why, for instance, rewrite history entirely, making Nixon president-for-life? It seems a rather lazy strategy if the point is to indicate that corruption is endemic to American politics, or that presidential power has become increasingly imperial.) However, I did find a certain richness in the multilayered quality of the storytelling. By incorporating a number of subplots, often overlapping them even in the same frame, Moore maintains a compelling tone throughout.
The characters are a little two-dimensional, although they exhibit a certain moral complexity. The superhero is fundamentally a vigilante, a morally problematic position at best, and Moore’s exploration of this problem is central to the story. The frames excerpted above show two of the “good” superheros conferring after the resolution of the plot’s major crises. Ironically, it’s the blue guy, whose powers have made him godlike (he experiences all time simultaneously, and even contemplates going off somewhere to create life) who must explain the simple, universal truth to the victorious vigilante: nothing ends. It seems to me this is one of the fundamental misunderstandings of the vigilante. In addition to the belief that their moral superiority places them above the law (or the even deeper error that an absolutely correct moral position is even possible), vigilantes must believe that things can be made right, once and for all, if only the world could be made to see things their way.
In A Short History of Myth, Karen Armstrong discusses the opposite perspective; one that I have always held to be closer to the truth. She is discussing neolithic religions, those which developed alongside the invention of farming:
The god of the dead is often also the god of the harvest, showing that life and death are inextricably entwined. You cannot have one without the other. The god who dies and comes to life again epitomizes a universal process, like the waxing and waning of the seasons. There may be new life, but the central feature of the myth and the cult of these dying vegetation gods is always the catastrophe and bloodshed, and the victory of the forces of life is never complete. (51)
I was perhaps a little hard on Armstrong in my previous post. The chapter on the neolithic period is stronger, generally, than the chapter on the paleolithic. Even PZ Myers acknowledges Armstrong “has interesting ideas about religion,” and I’m looking forward to her chapter on what she calls the axial age, essentially the period during which the so-called great religions of the world were born. I’m hoping for insight as to how and when our society lost the knowledge that nothing ends, that life is a constant struggle, that there is no ultimate victory. This is the irony in Moore’s all-knowing god character reminding us that nothing ends: it is precisely in the historic creation of all-knowing god characters whose faithful believe in beginnings, ends, and ultimate victories that that old knowledge has been lost.
Posted by pzed on June 14, 2006 at 7.28pm
Categories: fragments, graven images, scripture
