Manhattan

Watchmen by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons

     Since the point of this blog is to not only detect the purpose of setting a fictional story in a real city in order to create realism, but also the city’s effect on the story and the story’s effect on the city, perhaps you are thinking… how does the graphic novel Watchmen have anything to do with this? It is indeed set in the very real city of New York, particularly Manhattan, but the storyline is as about as unrealistic as you can get…  Nixon, a notoriously unsuccessful president, seeking a third term, and America not only had a definitive victory in Vietnam, but is was caused by an INVINCIBLE BLUE SUPER GOD MAN… Dr. Manhattan… umm… yes, where am I going with this? I promise I have a point.

     “The underlying principles behind the switch from using fictionalized street names to real street names” by authors such as Hammett, Chandler and Fisher, is because readers that “know these things are real" will "start to suspend disbelief” (Effron, 331). I know that it takes a ridiculous amount of suspension in your beliefs to accept that Watchmen could be a true story, but nonetheless, the fact that real corners of New York are explored by these masked adventurers, and real historical figures are included (although history itself rewritten) adds an interesting dynamic. It’s almost as if it could be true and it was written as a conceivable alternate universe for what may have happened in the first masked hero, the “Hooded Justice” did decide to fight crime. Perhaps you don’t quite believe that Dr. Manhattan could exist quite yet, but I definitely believe that, put into a world such as this, heroes such as the Comedian, Rorschach, and the Nite Owl would indeed behave in such a way that they do and would indeed experience the trauma, scars, and psychological damage. If these certain people did exist, in reality, these would be the very problems that they would face. In order to legitimize the suffering and conflict that these hooded heroes endure, Watchmen takes place in city very familiar and real to us.

     Like San Francisco’s characteristic of deception, Los Angeles’s thrill, and Harlem’s shadows, Manhattan, through the graphic novel Watchmen, is personified affecting the lives of our hooded adventurers. However, Manhattan has much bleaker characteristics according to Watchman. Unlike the other cities, which to certain degrees help the detectives with their pursuit of justice even if it means the use of dishonesty in the duration of their case, New York’s level of crime is far more devastating to the vigilante. The crime, whether committed by individual citizens or on a geopolitical scale, is traumatizing and tests the heroes in their idea of justice. In the end, our heroes agree that one of the hugest crimes against humanity and wide scale mass murder would need to go unpunished. In this way, the darkest side of the city possible is revealed by Manhattan. Throughout Watchmen, New York becomes one of the most interesting elements in the novel. New York’s crime and corruption not only tests the masked adventurers and super heroes, but New York eventually becomes a specific character, the tragic victim to the degeneracy and conflict of the world.

     Reading Watchmen has not only changed my previous understanding of New York, but has complicated my understanding of justice. You can choose to look at New York through two different perspectives: the clear cut right and wrong of Rorschach or accept the idea that there are subjective grey areas and perhaps the existence of a noble deception or crime. Is murder always wrong? Does that mean killing as punishment or retribution for murder is okay? Is murder committed in order to save lives justified? Is murder, even mass murder, in order to bring unity and peace warranted? New York has taken on a dark and dangerous character in my mind. What seems like horrible sin and crime is either unpunished or the justice served is almost as horrendous as the original crime. What is justice?

New York, man.