WatchmenComicMovie.com Forum

And you have every right to do so. I won't insult you for the way you feel, I was just expressing my feelings on the subject.

hello all, i´m a long-time watchmen fan but only recently i´ve discovered this forum ... looks like a good place indeed!

i´ve lurked a bit and read some topics, and since i´m very fond of the many levels the watchmen characters display, i´d like to chip in my two euro-cents here ...

rorschach´s sexuality, eh? i´ve read some very interesting thoughts here, and i agree with most of what alea iacta est said, for example.

to add something:
let´s not forget that rorschach sees the world exclusively in black and white terms. everything he encounters is neatly sorted into good and bad. the important thing is, that he has made up his own set of standards for good and bad. these personal standards don´t necessarily coincide with society´s standards, much less with the law. society, and the law as a product of this, are for roschach very often too flawed, too corrupt to accept. (still, he can be a stickler for rules, e.g. when he berates moloch for possessing a gun without the necessary licence)
he bases his standard on a moral highground, which is very similar to conservative views and values ("sex = private issue", "normal = heterosexual", "homosexuality = bad").

he most certainly does not hate women in general - as long as they are "good women", they are to be protected (he frequently hunts down rapists) and respected (he makes a point of being respectful to laurie, even when he´s suspicious; but he calls her mother and his landlady "whores").

that´s not all there is, though. we´ve established that rorschach (or walter) is an extremely messed-up being. it struck me that, in fact, he´s also very childlike. his romanticized view of "love" shows this attitude. romantic "love", for a child, is this big, clean picture of mommy and daddy holdng hands and being happy. the sweaty part doesn´t enter this picture, it would spoil it entirely, like walking in on your parents when they are getting it on. a child would never want to see this, it would make him/her feel extremely uncomfortable. walter, however, was forced to witness exactly this, presumambly more than once, and under far worse circumstances.
usually, however, children grow up, face the embarrassing teen years, discover just how sex fits into romance and go through live with this changed attitude.
rorschach wasn´t allowed to experience this change - so maybe he has not grown up emotionally.
now and then, he makes very feeble attempts at connecting emotionally: in the interview with dr. long, he calls the minutemen his "friends", but he´s having trouble of reacting to dan´s freindship in an appropriate way - hence the prolonged handshake, which touches him extremely (that´s how i always read it).

(and, help me out here people: doesn´t he pocket dan´s "nostalgia" bottle at one point? does he use it, because he´s realized he smells? could this be a child-like attempt at trying to please? gosh, there really are so many details in the GN....)

okay, i´m done rambling for now. please excuse the mess.

I always assumed that Rorschach held on a little too long to Dan's hand because he was not used to shaking hands. He had no idea what was an acceptable length of time to shake. Also it was probably a pretty emotional event for Rorschach since it was essentially the first time he had admitted how deep the comradery went and how good a friend Dan had been to him. And then there's the impending of the world. He wanted Dan to be sure how much his friendship meant because Rorschach figured there may not be another chance.

good point. unlike dan, rorschach pretty much expects (the two of them) to die in antarctica, so he would be concious of the fact that this might be his last chance. it´s almost a good-bye, if you want, the good-bye they won´t have later on.

Rorschach always struck me as a particularly dramatic case of what is called Borderline Personality Disorder.

One of the elements of BPD is orientation confusion (not being gay, but just not being able to tell if you are or not as clearly as most others). That ambiguity can really drive a BPD person nuts as they want things to fall into neat categories (things are black or white... no gray). Combine that with the details of his upbringing regarding sex and his ultimate solution (concious or unconcious) to simply remove it from his psychology is understandable (and quite a neat trick, I might add).

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Existence is random. Has no pattern save what we imagine after staring at it for too long. No meaning save what we choose to impose.
= Rorschach smile... What? You can't tell he's smiling?

I see Rorschach as not a homophobe, just hating of heterosexual sex, but not hating regular heterosexual. On his view of homosexuals, I think he goes, "Hmm, kay. Not normal, but I don't hate them."

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"And all the politicians and whores will look up and shout "Save Us!" and I'll look down and whisper "No". "

I think this is probably closest to my interpretation of the character. I think there DEFINITELY was homosexual undertones intended in the hand holding scene and I've always considered Rorschach's asexuality to be symptom of his repressed homosexual tendencies, or least his inherent confusion about his sexual orientation as pointed out by Hermann.

You cannot prove without a shadow of a doubt that Rorschach is gay OR straight, as Alan Moore never stated his sexuality point-blank.

However, there is strong evidence suggesting that Rorschach has latent homosexual tendencies (and is deeply, perhaps unconsciously, closeted):

- Moore is careful with his dialogue, and he knows how things are interpreted. Therefore, the dialogue in this pic, which is extremely suggestive, as well as the entire scene when this occurs, was ON PURPOSE. Moore knew how this would be perceived.

- Nostalgia cologne was found in Rorschach's pockets on arrest, and previously a character remarked "Is he wearing COLOGNE?" In one of Veidt's letters, towards the end of the book, Nostalgia cologne was revealed to be marketed towards the gay community, as Veidt said it was an untapped market.

- The "had to handle womens' clothing" scene and the excerpt about his childhood, where he was described as being uncomfortable around females but less show around his male peers.

- The entire book is about de-constructing the superhero trope. A right-wing, extreme vigilante ending up as gay is in the same vein as the wealthy, handsome, kind, charitable Veidt being the ultimate villain.

- This is going to seem cocky, but really, just LOOK at the guy. If his behavior (especially around Daniel) isn't typical closeted behavior than I don't know what is.

- SEVERE TRAUMA RELATED TO WOMEN. This is going to psychologically cripple any possible relationship he could ever have with a woman, as his association with women is women=whores. It's unlikely he'd even have a female friend.

Oh, now that is interesting.

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He nicked it from Dan, who is quite certainly heterosexual (3-24-8); and I think his motivation was the remark by that guy whose finger he broke about his body odor. Looks like it preyed on his mind. When he jumped out of the window, the bottle broke, he got cologne all over him and the policeman made the comment above.

To add another interpretation of the infamous handshake scene: When I first read it, I interpreted it as Rorschach trying to test whether Dan was the real mask killer. Hold his hand, look at him and watch whether he can stand it.... Ok, I am not so sure about that interpretation nowadays. Just saying that there are a lot of possible meanings.


Can you elaborate? You mean like slobbering cold beans?

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well, i think we have no way of telling for sure. my personal view is that there are much more hints to rorschach being anti-sexual than gay. but unless alan moore pulls off a dumbledore, we´ll never know.

but - and i´m playing cassandra here - i now predict that, once the movie comes out, we´ll have a HUGE wave of fanfiction of slash stories featuring rorschach and dan. mark my words. you read it first on watchmencomicmovie.com. don´t say i didn´t warn you.
*shudder*

this might be fun: let´s have another thread to predict horrible WM fanfiction scenarios. because there will be. tons.

But there is already fanart and fics... and not only Rorschach/Dan.
Don't ask where.

*snicker*
too late. i WILL ask where. pm me, if you like. as far as i was aware, there does exist some stuff, but rather random, and very little, compared to what other fandoms spawned. don´t get me wrong, i don´t hate fanfiction in general, i just hate bad fanfiction, and by bad i mean poorly written stuff, with no respect for the source material, and unconvincing character portrayal. there´s one short list (not really an archive) i found when googling "watchmen" and "fanfiction", and the stories there were of pretty good quality. one text stood out especially, an interview with dan, in the style of the additional GN material, very much in character; and another story featuring rorschach and dan, a short encounter on christmas eve about two years after the keene act, that was well done, too. so, if it´s good stuff, i appreciate it.

and sorry for going off-topic, y´all!

Dear lord no

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Although I haven't had Watchmen dreams, I might have a nightmare after having read about Ror's and Dan's possible fan fiction! lol

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You can never say never and never say always.

my job here is done.
MUAHAHAHA!

if a fan-fic is to be made, it shouldn't warp the source's plot. i.e. ror and dan getting together. i blame Rule 34.

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Gays have a champion in Hooded Justice. As much as you wish Rorschach was gay too, he isn't.

Wish I saw this thread earlier, as there was some good guesses but there is a definite explanation on V:18:6,7 , but I don't think many of the posters will get to read this as the thread seemed a little dead.

Rorschach isn't gay, but Kovacs is.

To quote it exactly
"Putting them on, I abandoned my disguise and became myself, free from fear or weakness or lust. My coat, my shoes, my spotless gloves...my face"

If he was asexual he would have no feelings of lust. He hates being Kovacs, only feels himself when he has his "face" on. Classic closeted behavior for someone who is ashamed of being gay.

Combined with all the other things pointed out in this thread , Moore could not have made it more clear. Kovacs starts to gain control again after the incident with the landlady and the kids, after which he holds Dan's hand a "little too long" which directly relates to earlier with Dan and Laurie.

Plus, I think he lets Manhattan kill him because he knows Kovacs is getting more control, and can't stand to live with him again.

I thought that right after the first reading, and after countless readings I still feel that way. Don't know if he ever acted on his feelings, but Kovacs without a doubt is homosexual.