Rorschach (character)

Rorschach
File:Rorschach2.jpg Rorschach (front) and the other characters of Watchmen
Publication information
Publisher	DC Comics
First appearance	Watchmen #1 (1986)
Created by	Alan Moore (story) and Dave Gibbons (art), based on The Question created by Steve Ditko
In-story information
Alter ego	Walter Joseph Kovacs
Team affiliations	Crimebusters, Nite-Owl (II)
Abilities	None, but is a ruthless, extremely resourceful fighter and investigator.

Rorschach is a fictional character in the comic book series, Watchmen, written by Alan Moore with art by Dave Gibbons and published by DC Comics. The character was derived from The Question, created by Steve Ditko.

Character history

His real name is Walter Joseph Kovacs, born March 21, 1940. His mother, a prostitute who resented his interference in her business, abused him viciously. At age 10, he was cruelly abused by two bullies and attacked them, partially blinding one with a lit cigarette, and became a ward of the state, sent to the Lillian Charlton Home for Problem Children. In high school, he excelled in religious education and literature, as well as in boxing and gymnastics, and also wrote an essay in which he praised President Truman's decision to use nuclear weapons against the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, asserting that the bombs helped save lives by stopping the war.

During those high school years at age 15, Walter was informed of his mother's gruesome murder; her pimp force-fed her a bottle of Drāno until she died in agony. Walter's only reaction consisted of the single word: "Good."

Reaching maturity, in 1956 at age 16 he found work as an unskilled garment worker; noting in his journal "Job bearable but unpleasant. Had to handle female clothing". Working in this capacity, in 1962 he grew fascinated by a new fabric made possible through technologies developed by Doctor Manhattan, containing viscous fluids between two layers of latex. Two liquids, one black and one white, continually shifted in response to heat and pressure, forming symmetrical patterns like a Rorschach inkblot test while never mixing to produce a grey colour. Kovacs learned of the fabric when a young woman chose not to buy a dress which she had ordered made from it; subsequently Kovacs took the dress home and experimented with the fabric. He learned to cut the fabric and maintain the seal using heated scissors.

Two years later, when Kitty Genovese (both in real life and in Watchmen) was brutally murdered in front of a building full of tenants who didn't bother to help her, Kovacs decided that she had been the woman who had ordered the dress ("Young. Pretty. Italian name. I'm sure it was her"). Kovacs cut up the dress, making it into a mask and becoming Rorschach (taking his name from the test) to avenge the powerless victims of crime.

Eventually, in 1965 he teamed up with another superhero, Nite-Owl (II), whose technical skills and resources complemented his skills as an investigator.

In 1975, Rorschach was searching for a kidnapped child and found her captor's vacant hideout. A cursory inspection revealed, to his horror, that the girl had been murdered, butchered, and fed to two German Shepherd dogs. In the face of this atrocity, Kovacs' mind snapped and assumed the mental identity of Rorschach as a separate personality. He killed the dogs with a meat cleaver and waited for the kidnapper. When the man returned, he wordlessly chained him to a pipe, ignoring his claims of innocence (the man tells to Rorschach: "you can't prove anything, there's no evidence", which indicates he fed the girl to the dogs to get rid of the 'evidence'), then placed a hacksaw near him and set the house on fire. Finally speaking, he told the terrified man that he would not have time to cut through his restraints before the fire killed him (implying that he would have to sever his own arm to escape). Kovacs calmly watched the structure burn from across the street; the suspected kidnapper did not emerge. In a much-later interview with a psychologist, Kovacs explicitly mentions the incident as the point after which he became "Rorschach, who sometimes pretends to be Kovacs"; before that, he claims, he was only "Kovacs pretending to be Rorschach."

After the Keene Act passed in 1977 (outlawing costumed vigilantes) demanded his retirement, he grew even more violent, murdering notorious multiple rapist Harvey Charles Furniss and leaving his corpse in front of a police station; a note pinned to his chest read, "Never!" True to his word, Rorschach remained an active "adventurer" in open defiance of the Act.

Events of Watchmen

During a mid-1980s murder investigation of a man named Eddie Blake, Rorschach discovered that the victim was the alter ego of The Comedian, an amoral government-sponsored "costumed adventurer" and former colleague. Suspecting a plot to eliminate superheroes, he pursued the investigation accordingly, interviewing and warning several former members of the hero community. Although no one took his theory seriously, the sudden public denunciations and subsequent self-exile of Doctor Manhattan and the attempted murder of Adrian Veidt (the former Ozymandias) bolstered his confidence that he was on the right track. Before long, however, he was framed for the murder of Moloch, an ailing former adversary, and was arrested. Not surprisingly, Rorschach chose to fight back, improvising methods with ordinary household materials.

In prison Kovacs was examined by a clinical psychologist, and subject to numerous death threats and attacks by vengeful prisoners. A former organized crime head called The Big Figure orchestrated a prisoner riot as a distraction while his flunkies attacked Kovacs. He easily, almost leisurely, dispatched the would-be assassins before drowning The Big Figure (a diminuitive old man) in a toilet, again showing his ingenuity and sadism. Immediately after this incident, he was freed by Nite-Owl (II) and Silk Spectre (II), who sought his help in their own investigation.

Investigating jointly, Nite Owl and Rorschach learned that the mastermind behind the plot was Adrian Veidt, who had been hailed as the smartest person in the world. Rorschach and Nite Owl traveled to his home in Antarctica to confront him; however, they were unable to prevent him from accomplishing his ultimate goal. Before the duo arrived, Veidt teleported an enormous Lovecraftian "alien" that he had manufactured into the heart of New York City, killing millions and psychically traumatizing millions more. Exactly as Veidt had predicted, the hoax united the world against the perceived alien threat and thereby avoided a brewing nuclear showdown.

Shortly after Veidt confesses his plot to Nite Owl and Rorschach, they are joined by Doctor Manhattan and the Silk Spectre. After a brief struggle, the adventurers realize that by exposing Veidt's act they would only manage to return the world to the brink of nuclear catastrophe. The other heroes agree that they must keep the hoax a secret, but Rorschach flatly refuses to comply ("No. Not even in the face of Armageddon. Never compromise."). Manhattan attempts to persuade him, but Rorschach maintains his defiance. In tears, he demands that Manhattan kill him; wordlessly, Manhattan complies.

However, Rorschach's legacy may have greater consequences; prior to departing for Antarctica, he wrote a lengthy journal detailing his investigation and sent it to a reactionary fringe newspaper. Whether or not the journal's contents would be printed, or whether it would be taken seriously by the public since his mental illness is well known, was left as an open question at the very last page of the Watchmen comics series.

Analysis

Rorschach is an extreme example of moral absolutism, who believes in an unalterable moral code that requires the strict and severe punishment of any infraction. His opposition to the evil of crime is contrasted with his total lack of empathy for criminals, whom he treats as non-human, and his disdain for conventional morality, law, government, and the police, being willing to torture or execute criminals in the pursuit of his aims. Rorschach is thus himself strangely inhuman and not entirely "good". His view of the world is in "black and white". There are no shades of gray - thus reflecting the properties of the mask that he wears.

After the discovery of Ozymandias' plot, Rorschach might have cracked when faced with such a moral ambiguity. This would explain why he demands for Dr. Manhattan to kill him; he would rather die than accept it.

In his interview with a prison psychologist, Rorschach reveals that his bleak world view is informed by the idea that the world has no inherent meaning, only that which human beings attribute to it, stating that "[Existence] Has no pattern save what we imagine after staring at it for too long". His belief that there is no God, no "metaphysical" side to morality allows him to sit in judgement of what he regards as the depravity of humanity. The symbolic meaning of the name "Rorschach" that can be derived from this is obvious.

However, Rorschach as a character shows inconsistencies and progression. As a child he is depicted praising the atomic bomb as a viable solution, but in his adulthood refuses to condone a similar act in Ozymandias' plot.

Sexuality

Rorschach is shown with a troublesome childhood, raised by an abusive mother who works as a prostitute. As a child in a foster home he reports sexually-charged nightmares influenced by his mother's profession. He is uncomfortable with sexual imagery, pausing disdainfully at the sight of naked couples in their bedroom windows or the graffiti image of an embracing couple.

Additionally, Rorschach treats homosexuality as a deviance, suspecting Ozymandias of the orientation and filing the observation for further investigation. However, he displays homosexual tendencies at several points - a less overt facet is his discomfort with women, displayed in his description of working with women's garments as unpleasant and his restitching of a dress to look less like a woman, as well as an off-hand comment about disliking Silk Spectre II's costume.

On the other hand, many real life homosexuals have no problems whatsoever about touching women's garments - in fact, many of the most famous designers are homosexuals. The dislike of Rorschach could be interpreted simply as a result of disturbed childhood and religiously puritanic moral views. He might as well have secretly coveted all those women around, feeling uncomfortable and guilty about his strong heterosexual desires. After all, the strongest sexual image in Rorschach's mind was probably his prostitute mother, and Rorschach might have constructed strong barriers in his mind to block the unwanted memories and desires.

The strongest indication of a homosexual undercurrent in a scene contrasting his relationship with Nite Owl II with that of the same Nite Owl and Silk Spectre II. When Nite Owl takes the hand of the Silk Spectre to help her into his Owl Ship, he unwittedly testifies to his interest in her by holding her hand too long, causing him embarrassment when she pulls away after the awkward pause, leaving him to clutch his hand with chagrin. When Nite Owl and Rorschach get into a verbal altercation while researching the Mask Killer, they shake hands after the latter's apology, and Rorschach holds it a bit too long, forcing Nite Owl to mimic Silk Spectre's pull-away.

However, as Sigmund Freud stated, "sometimes a cigar is just a cigar". After all, Nite Owl was probably the only 'friend' Rorschach had ever had. Being a man of mixed emotions and without normal social skills, holding Nite Owl's hand was the only time Rorschach really tried to communicate with another person. The result was awkward due to his lack of social skills, not necessarily due to his sexual tendencies.

Rorschach's black-and-white violent ideology may be the product of self-loathing or confused sexuality, much as Silk Spectre II deals with restructuring her worldview based on childhood difficulties and Doctor Manhattan finds his future personality and interests affected by his interaction with his father. With the undercurrent of implied homosexuality among the first generation of vigilantes such as Hooded Justice, Captain Metropolis, and Silhouette, it's possible that Alan Moore inserted similar themes in the interaction of the second generation. Of course Rorschach might simply be totally asexual, and view all forms of sex "impure".

Artistic Details

Although the black-and-white pattern on Rorschach's mask changed from frame to frame, apparently randomly, there are several aspects in which the pattern has significance:

• The pattern is identical during three moments when Rorschach registers surprise:
  • Chapter 1, Page 8, Frame 2, upon discovering Edward Blake's hidden Comedian costume and gear;
  • Chapter 5, Page 24, Frame 5, upon discovering that Edgar William Jacobi (aka Moloch) has been shot; and
  • Chapter 6, Page 20, Frame 9, upon realizing that the bone being fought over by Gerald Grice's dogs is a human femur.
• During Rorschach's arrest (Chapter 5, Page 28, Frame 3) he asks himself who has framed him. His mask pattern resembles a question mark.
• The pattern resembles the "embracing lovers silhouette" (a common visual theme throughout the series) immediately after a frame of Laurel Juspeczyk (Silk Spectre II) and Dan Dreiberg (Nite Owl II) embracing (Chapter 12, Page 23, Frame 1).