Analyzing Evil: Ozymandias From Watchmen 

that's a nice interesting view, didn't realize THAT was what that relationship met in the story, always wondered about that.

The aftermath scene in the graphic novel is a prime example of why "The Watchmen" was so difficult to translate to the screen. There are soooooo many little details that are important, like the old man and young boy. Another one that stands out is the lesbian could that were constantly arguing throughout the book. In the aftermath, you find their bodies in the rubble, hand in hand as they met death. Even as disfunctional as they were in life, in their final moments they sought each other out and greeted death together. Love, in its final moment, demonstrated that their love was stronger than their disagreements.

Interesting, but I think Ozymandias would still see that good as being too small and trivial to make much an impact. And on the whole level people were largely evil and he rather see the evil side like that one guy from the squid games because it’s easier to see the bad than the goodness to justify actions

@@Gadget-Walkmen I didn’t realize that myself, I thought it was to get the viewers used to who were some of the people who were going to die. Both black and white died by what Ozymandias saw as a equal death and it wasn’t targeted certain groups he just didn’t trust all of humanity at all as a whole.

Hey! Nice to see a fellow crew member of the Normandy!

Adrian Veidt is a hero for his actions. If killing millions saves billions its a necessary evil. Its pure utilitarian ideology in action.

But a compromise could have been made, if Ozymandias could have convinced Dr. Manhattan to leave Earth. Therefore Dr. Manhattan wouldn't be around to continue the escalation of conflict.

Lmaoooo

It's not that Ozymandias shouldn't have act. On the contrary, with his vast possibilities, he should've, in my opinion, stepped up and tried to find the solution. With all the power he wields, it would be irresponsible to just sit and watch. However, the problem is with which course of action he took. He didn't exhaust all the possible options before doing what he did. Instead, he acted on emotions of fear and desire to be the Saviour, which he himself failed to recognize.

@@digitaldevil696 he....did though. He literally says he's tried to find other solutions but none of them would work

I always loved he said he’s not a comic book villain like bro yes you are

@@uzitay815 I feel that's why The Joker is really the most dangerous villain of all time. He knows he's a comic book villain , so his insanity has no inhibitions.

Indeed.

@@egggnome6266 What has his knowledge that he is a comic book charakter to do with his danger level? He is as dangerous as the writers make him, and if the Joker knows this, he knows he can't surpass his limitations and will always loose to Batman. Ozymandias is far more dangerous, as he is written to be far more intelligent than the Joker. He succeded in his plan!

@@DundG You may want to look up the concept of meta and not try to fit things into those little boxes. We're trying to think outside of those.

That's a great analogy

That's not the meaning of that story. Never heard of it before. Thanks for making me look it up. You'd have hundreds of dollars from mindless "likers". Art always reflects the worse of us. The willfully challanged and happily blind.

​@@cookieanddabutt2843 You used many words to say nothing.

​@@cookieanddabutt2843 that's a nice pseudo-intellectual word salad, but you didn't say a damn thing.

This I think is important. It really didn't seem like diplomacy was an option because of this.

"a necessary crime"

​@@michaelkelley2727except it wasn't necessary. We are still here.

​@@ryanwarner5006 For now

@@ryanwarner5006lol not for long

​@@Stondbalonisure

thats actually touched upon in the movie, even if dr manhattan stops 99% of incoming missiles, the remaining 1% can still cause tens of millions of deaths because of just how many missiles that will be launched

As much as I disagree with Ozymandius' plan this is not true. Disarming the nukes would be nigh impossible. Even if it was possible more would be made. You have to remember that these people arent superheros, they are people(other than Dr Manhattan). Imagine Bill Gates or Elon Musk trying to disarm the nuclear missiles today. Imagine them teying to do it in the 60s. It would be impossible. The world of watchmen is also MUCH closer to nuclear armageddon then our world ever has. Force fields would be a decent idea but you cant put the whole world under force fields. Ecen if you did the military complex would find ways to get through or around forcefields just like any other advancement that has ever been made. It really was a near impossible question to answer. The only real question is would the bombs have flown in the first place. Would diplomacy work in the end. Would Dr. Manhattan leaving actually hring some sort of peace. Those questions are very up in the air. In the end of the day Ozy's answer was successful and I dont think the ones you put forward would be. I also dont think there was an exhaustive list of good answers either. I think we have Diplomacy (very shakey answer to the threat. Could go wrong in a million ways), Dr Manhattan leaving (puts a lot of trust in other countries to not take advantage while america is weakened), Adrians answer (millions die), and maybe a few that I am too dumb to think of.

Yes and no. You are right about his ego and feeling superior than the rest of the world but it's also mentioned by the Comedian, they have to protect the people from themselves. In other words, even if those measures you say were taken, humans would've found more ways to kill each other.

Actually no. Ozymandias has a super intellect and has evaluated and pondered all the possible viable solutions and its outcomes. The fact that he chose such a drastic option shows how bad things where in his world.

@pyropulse oh sorry my bad I guess this RU-vidr who is obviously very intelligent and all of us who watch and liked this video are just too stupid to compare to your greatness. Because even the other heros in the story themselves agreed with the plan in the end genius Edit: the bottom line is I never said I think what he did was right. He's just more intersing to me than a mustache twirling villian who is simply evil to be evil 😈

@pyropulse the real point in villans are to question your own belives and thinks you trust in. They show you the other side and how it had to play out.

true but I also like a lot of purely evil villains ie joker frank underwood griffith light yagami (no he is NOT an anti villain) etc

Rorschach drops his journal off before he heads to the artic with Nite Owl II & Silk Spectre II. All he knew for certain at that point was that Veidt had killed the Comedian, but he didn't know why; meaning that there's nothing at all in there about Veidt's real plan. At best it would lead to him being investigated & tried for a single murder and that's only if anyone took a journal full of a madman's ramblings that couldn't be authenticated seriously to begin with. At worst, it would've been completely ignored or suppressed for the sake of maintaining the false peace between the US & the Soviets.

@@khiryhelms Considering the emphasis the story puts on the journal at the end, I'd say we'll have to disagree.

He doesn't consider himself above others. He considers himself equal to everyone else, with an equal stake in what transpires on the planet. Which is why he, rightfully, does what he does.

@@KarkatVantasandMitunaCaptor rightfully 😐, absolutely no.

@@KarkatVantasandMitunaCaptor He killed millions of innocent people not himself. He just goes on to enjoy his plan's success.

Rorschach did comprise a lot though. He didn’t live by his own beliefs. He only stuck to his principles when absolute evil occurred.

i find this the stupidiest thing ever. Not all things need to be known if you reveal something and it kills billions then those deaths are on your hand. Sometimes its best to keep things secret to protect the world. He refused to see in gray and only saw black and white.

@@levikazama2323 That's your opinion if you see it like that but the whole point was to give out how RORSCHACH saw things, that's his ideology.

@@Gadget-Walkmen it's also Ozys ideology and look how that turned out.

@@tutumazibuko2510 That’s not how Ozy saw things at all, his convictions could change but the things I’d that Ozy couldn’t change in THIS specific plan of his due to how important it was to mankind in his view. Roarsch never changes tho no matter what!

So did Thanos. Until it was undone

"any man, woman, or child in the name of peace" That's right. I just compared peacemaker to these two

@@joeparrigen4982 via a time travel plot device that was and still is an absolute asspull

The Comedian was based of Peacemaker. And according to most EU sources, and even his own name, Veidt’s plan was reversed just like Thanos’.

thanos didn't have good intentions. he just wanted to prove himself right.

A good man would not sacrifice others for "their own good", he would sacrifice himself.

He's more like the character he created, Ozymandias, than he realized. sm

I would love to see him cover AOSTH Robotnik as an April Fool's joke.

All the characters in that movie were evil including Dr.Manhattan and Rorschach.

what about Niteowl, I wouldn't call him evil.

@@mistletoe3343 He wasn't evil he was just Batman without the wealth and fame.

@@PortlandSucksss I didn't say all the characters I was addressing the main ones that had it with the world's problem.

@Anti SJW He was a vigilante he used murder to get his point across and that was wrong.They say 2 wrongs don't make a right.

But Ozy isn't evil for the sake of being evil, as he genuinely tried to help saved the world. But seeing that all his efforts meant nothing, and the countries wanted blood in order to get peace, he decide that if killing the population was the only way, so be it. But even after this, he still questions if he did the right thing, because he does hold regret for it. He's not a mad-man who doesn't care. But a man who was placed in the trolley and had to make a choice between 1 life or 100 lives. So he pulled the switch and look what it got him.

He’s an anti-villain at most but definitely villainous due to him killing numerous innocent people.

​@@osmanyousif7849 Evey villain is the hero in their own story.

He hero. He is right. Your pedo country no right.

He ends up sounding as mad as Rorschach sounded to others Funny isn't it?

I hated what the creators did to Adrian in the HBO series. Nothing against Jeremy Irons, who does what he can with the role, but considering reading the novel and seeing who Adrian was like in the show, I literally screamed, "WHO THE F**K IS THIS GUY?". Irons portrays the character very much in an expressive-animated way, when in the novel, Adrian was reserved and somber. And then comes Episode 5 of the series where we see the tape Adrian made explaining his involvement in the Squid Attack and acts very cocky and delighted in the fact that he murdered 3 Million innocent civilians. And it was at that point that I almost wanted to give up on the show, because the Adrian we see at the manor house ain't a man driven to madness after over 3 decades of solitude and his masterstroke failing to bring about the Utopia he dreamed of, but simply a choice from the creator to make him like this. And sure you'd probably say, "But of course, Adrian would have this attitude as he's a raging narcissist.", and to that I say, "Well yes, BUT ALSO NO.". Because while Adrian is a narcissist, his narcissism is more nuanced than how narcissism is portrayed in media. Because in the novel, Adrian displays characteristics that seem to contradict this profile. The man gave away his family fortune, his crime-fighting led to good in the world, and created a company to help make the world a better place. He was a philanthropist, pacifist (WAS, FYI...), and didn't do anything he was doing for financial gain. But he was however, self-absorbed and took pride in his on vanity. So while he was a narcissist, he wasn't raging with hedonism and step on those who he saw to dare take what was his, but more of the fact that he had a messiah complex that convinced himself that ONLY HE can save the world. And that was the whole theme of the original novel. Of how a person may truly and sincerely be benevolent, and help the world become a better place, there's a deeper, self-serving motivation, whether the person is conscious of it or not, to their "heroism". Therefore I find the way the creators portrayed Adrian's expression of narcissism in the show absurdly off-base. And this interpretation of his character is later amplified in episodes 8 - 9. As the show makes it seem like Adrian is in despair, not because his plan didn't lead to the Utopia he dreamed of, but that the people of the world don't know that he was the one who saved them from nuclear destruction. Adrian probably would care that much if the people of Earth knew that it was him who orchestrated the Squid Attack. But Adrian in the novel goes to great lengths to ensure that nobody would find out. Sure he tells Rorschach, Dan, and Laurie, but the three are already fugitives at that point, therefore they probably should keep their mouths shut, and Dr Manhattan would just simply not be bothered to say anything. So yeah, the creators of the show didn't understand Adrian and how complex he was and just saw him to be this cartoonish villain who has raging narcissistic qualities, let alone caring about the nuances of Adrian's character.

@@osmanyousif7849bruh nobody’s reading your whole rant about fictional characters . Let your ass sit alone for 30 years and see how your personality changes . This man is a human not a robot a very nutty human at that

Ironically, while Light didn't kill as many people as Ozymandias, in my opinion at least, he's far worse as an individual.

And Titan or Tighten from MegaMind.

The difference though is that the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki weren't the reasons why Imperial Japan surrendered. The monarchy and nobility of Imperial Japan didn't give a single iota of a shit about the people lost in Hiroshima and Nagasaki because the vast majority of them were poor people and peasants, who the Imperial Japan monarchy saw as unimportant as ants. They would've gladly sacrificed millions of Japanese peasants into the meat grinder if it would allow Imperial Japan a victory. That is how canyon wide the socioeconomic gap between the leaders of Japan and the people of Japan were. The real reason that Imperial Japan surrendered was because of their losing naval battles against Soviet Russia. When their naval loss to Soviet Russia was inevitable, that's when Imperial Japan threw in the towel. Imperial Japan simply used the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki as the quote "official" reason why they surrendered rather than their naval loss to Russia because they could at least portray themselves as a victim with the former. Had America not dropped the nukes on Hiroshima and Nagasaki but instead simply helped Russia crush the Imperial Japanese forces over air and sea, then Imperial Japan would've surrendered all the same.

You literally described Thanos to a T from the MCU

@@94462 Right, but that version of Thanos was created in the last 10 years. Original Thanos was just in love with Death and wanted to show his love by killing half the universe.

Well said sir

A fellow fe player 👏🏿👀

Jack Merridew is especially interesting! However, I’d like to add two more to the list from some of those very works: Tuco, from the Good The Bad and The Ugly And Roger from Lord of the Flies From what I recall, Roger makes Jack look like a sweetheart by the end of that extremely disturbing novel.

@@leomilmet854 Somehow I could never really see Tuco as evil, he is more of a anti-villain or anti-hero in my eyes, but he could be an interesting character to analyse either way! Yeah Roger is a really interesting counterpart to Jack. If Jack represents the Stalins of the world, Roger represents the Ted Bundys. Lord of the Flies and the Inner Darkness of Man as a whole could just get its own video really haha!

Do you have brain damage? I do and I confuse things like this sometimes.

@@horacegentleman3296 Possibly. But I also don't watch movies very often, so I forget what is what sometimes

One of my favorite books honestly I was totally with all his revenge till he made the dad of the women he liked go literally mad. But also he still deserves it and just because you have close relationships with others shouldn’t mean you can’t be punished.

This is such a great list I’d be surprised if he doesn’t have some of these planned already

@@deadpoolshark7000 thank you! It started with my idea that the people he analyzes need not be the WORST HUMANS ON THE PLANET in their respective films in order to be fascinating. And also…some of these guys (Richard Hoover, Kane, Chuck Bass) are hard to define as EVIL but they have really warped mindsets that I think would be so cool for this guy (IDEK The Vile Eye’s real name) to analyze. I’d also LOVE to see an analysis of literally everyone in the novel Crime and Punishment (Marmeladov, Luzhin, Svidrigailov, Porfiry, of course Raskolnikov) but that is one VERY tall order LOL. At the very least I hope to see either Col. Jessup, Sgt. Hartmann, Sgt. Dixon, Diana from Network, Inoue from Silence, and/or Charlie Oakley. I feel like those are the MOST evil with the most to say about the issue. Hell, I’d be down for a dual analysis of the evils of the Catholic missionaries in Japan AND of the anti-Christian establishment of the Tokugawa shogunate. Silence is probably my second favorite Scorsese film after Goodfellas and maybe Taxi Driver TBH. For me, it could be the most underrated film ever made by a director who has been so thoroughly inducted into the canon

@@deadpoolshark7000 And, since you showed interest, I took one guy off because I didn’t want the list to be dominated by Kubrick and military figures, but Paths Of Glory’s Gen. Broulard (George Macready) or Gen. Mireau (Adolphe Menjou) are two more of my favorite villains ever.

"In Light's case, it is when he witnesses the attempted gang rape of a young girl, provoking his first (deliberate) murder by killing her assailant;" Killing someone committing or attempting to commit a rape, as far as I am aware, is considered a 'justifiable homicide': Yes, the person would have to answer questions with the police, they may even have to go to court, but they would not face charges, because as you said, it is a situation which could not be stopped by anything other than extreme action...

I'm hoping for Titan or Tighten from MegaMind.

good idea. i second this

That's the way to talk! Ozzy's legacy must be preserved at all costs.

Rorschach is not a hero lol

Rorschach is definitely not the hero, if anything you could say nite owl

@@jorgevazquez1197 imo he is. Really a anti hero. He stands for the just but yk, he kills ppl

@@jorgevazquez1197 rorschach is definitely a hero.

he's not "pure evil", he's done evil things with seemingly good intensions on his part/view.

This guy, at least in terms of intelligence, is on the same level as Lex Luther. The main difference to me is, at least Ozymandias was trying to save the world, I’ll be it with a plan that killed millions based on his own vanity. Lex Luthor doesn’t give a damn about anybody except himself lol

Nope. Lex pointed out there was a 1000000 possible 'fixes' Ozzy just chose the quickest and craziest. That's why the DC universe isn't exploded to hell and back.

If Alan Moore heard you say that to him, he'd look at you like you were crazy and ask you what the hell you were smoking. Rorschach is decidedly NOT the pinnacle of morality in the story. He's consistently shown to being a mentally ill violent far-right maniac with a black and white moral absolutist morality who would've been fine with millions dying as long as he maintained his moral purity. He played apologist to the Comedian's attempted rape of Silk Spectre I. The greatest shame that Moore had in writing _Watchman_ is seeing people mistakenly believe that Rorschach had a point.

that has always been the most important part of the Rorschach character,even the racist homophobic and misogynistic antisocial lunatic can do the right thing and the smartest man can do the worst. And you can understand both perfectly

@@nicogranados9601 how is Rorschach racist or homophobic? The only time he mentions gay people that I remember is when he suspects one of his old villains is gay but it doesn't have any negative or hateful connotation

What? If anything, Rorchach is the true villian for this exact reason, for thinking in black and white in a gray world. Veidt is a very moraly ambiguous character, doing extreme acts for questionabley justifiable reasons, but he at least understands that the world is not black and white. I think that's what the story wants to tell us, that there isn't good and evil, just people with different views.

@@walberparker7111 thank you. I don't get where people are getting the racist, homophobic, and misogynistic argument from.

There is no such thing as necessary evil. That kinda thinking is what brings about people like Ozymandius.