Watchmen: Is Rorschach Right or Wrong?

      Rorschach, or Walter Kovacs, is a mysterious character in the graphic novel Watchmen. The reader is not sure whether to call him a psychopath or misunderstood hero. In the end, Rorschach is faced with a critical decision. Should he compromise his morals and ignore the fact that he knows Ozymandias was behind the attack on New York City which resulted in the deaths of thousands of innocent people in order to keep the peace between nations on the brink of war? Or should he stick with his moral compass that is telling him to be on the side of the innocent people that lie dead in the streets? The fact that Rorschach chooses to try to walk away from Adrian's hideaway convinces me that he is acting on the side of good.

     

      The above panel occurs in Chapter 1 after Rorschach has looked into The Comedian's death and tries to warn some of his masked comrades that there is a methodical killing spree going on, and they are the targets. No one wants to listen and Rorschach wonders to himself why one life matters to him when the world is on the brink of Armageddon. His answer is that evil must be punished, even if there is a larger threat on the horizon. The person behind The Comedian's death and other killings cannot be let off the hook just because there are other things to worry about. A murder is a murder.

   Rorschach makes a similar comment in Chapter 12 when he is about to leave Ozymandias's arctic fortress because he does not want to have anything to do with letting Ozymandias get away with his twisted idea of saving the world. Dr. Manhattan follows Rorschach outside and Rorschach knows that he is about to die. He says, "one more body amongst foundations makes little difference." He is commenting on the fact that Dr. Manhattan does not value a single life as he does, but life as a whole is more important. Dr. Manhattan then obliterates Rorschach. Even though he did some wrong things along the way, I believe Rorschach had the best intentions all along. Even though he probably knew he was not going to make it out of Ozymandias's fortress alive after declaring his opposition, I believe Rorschach was right in standing up for the innocent people that had died.