Reflective Essay #9 To Infinity and Beyond!

Reading The Watchmen was surprisingly very entertaining. I found it a hard book to get into at the beginning just because there was so much going on at once. But after you get through some of the major character development, the story moves along at a quick pace. I tried watching The Watchmen movie a long time ago when it first came out and I couldn't even finish it I was so confused and had no idea what was going on. Now, after reading the novel, I wouldn't mind trying to watch it again to see how the movie portrays everything. The whole time I was reading the novel I kept thinking about the articles we had previously read and the documentary movie that we watched. Everything in the book seemed like it revolved around the same ideas that the documentary was about and the articles. This was a story about normal everyday people taking an initiative to try and stop crime. Now, as much as I love this idea, if it were to happen in my own neighborhood, I'm not exactly sure how I would react to it at first. If some like Rorschach were to just walk up and down my street I would definitely be scared, but I would also wonder what the hell he was doing with a mask on.
Another part of this week that was interesting for me was arguing in Ozymandias was a terrorrist or freedom fighter. I was the terrorrist side and I was on that side when I read the book. I thought that he took himself more into consideration than the world because he thought he was on this mission to create peace. But usually missions like that do not cause 3 million deaths in the process. I was happy to know that Rorschach's journal made it to the newspaper office because if the boy ended up printing it, then the world would know that Ozymandias was a villain more than a hero. Something that I thought supported this was when Dr. Manhatten told him that nothing ever ends. Ozymandias' goal was to end war when really all he did was prevent from happening right away. As long as humanity lives there will never be an end to fighting. So my opinion still stays with him being a terrorrist.
the last thing that really intrigued me was the way that all of the Watchmen became heroes. Rorschach became a hero out of hatred from his childhood. The second Silk Spectre had to become a hero because of her mom. Jon Osterman didn't really have a choice because his dad was already deciding his future for him. Nite Owl seemed like he didn't really want to be a hero if no one else was doing it. The Comedian just had a very angry outlook on life and took out his anger through working with the government and being able to kill people without feeling bad about it. I am not sure if I would have the guts to become a hero even if I was forced to. It is a cool idea but there are so many responsibilities that we have talked about in class and as we have seen in the Watchmen, not all of the heroes are that successful. But someone has to bite the bullet if humanity is threatened. I just hope it won't have to be me.