WatchmenComicMovie.com Forum

I know, I'm poking fun.

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You wouldn't call a "Machiavellian complex" a mental issue?



Uh huh...*SNNORRRRE*



Me too.

Well, not really, it's just a line of thinking

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@RealSlimCAvery

I'll remember that, if we ever have the chance to meet.

should I be afraid?

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@RealSlimCAvery

Yes, because "the ends justify the means" is actually a nice way of saying "kill every son of a bitch you ever meet."

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I shan't dignify any of that with a reply.

You're being facetious, but unfortunately you're not extremely far off. I would veer away from anyone who has actually subscribes to a Machiavellian mode of thinking... it's tantamount to sociopathy: Treat others any way you need to in order to achieve your goal.

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You can make your superhero a psychopath, you can draw gut-splattering violence, and you can call it a "graphic novel," but comic books are still incredibly stupid.

-Bill Watterson

I think Veidt subscribes more to a Machiavellian style of morality: "immoral" acts can be moral if the alternative is worse. He never chooses immorality just for the hell of it. He lets everyone he can possibly afford to live.

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Whether or not the outcome is "good" or not in a given situation, a true Machiavellian attitude is close to how a sociopath thinks. Sociopaths ignore what is right/wrong (if they subscribe to a traditional moral code to begin with), or at least bend the rules of morality in their own mind to accommodate their situation. Good becomes bad and bad becomes good dependent upon what they desire, and decisions are made based upon a self-justification to their warped codes of conduct and/or morality, which only really exist to further reinforce their own deviant behavior.

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You can make your superhero a psychopath, you can draw gut-splattering violence, and you can call it a "graphic novel," but comic books are still incredibly stupid.

-Bill Watterson

Ok. But being a sociopath doesn't make him wrong, even if he is one.


But I don't think Veidt does, and that's what's relevant. He would rather not do these things, but he does in order to ensure the security of his plan to prevent an even greater disaster.


"Rules of morality"? Even assuming there are such rules, Veidt puts forth a simple idea: an act which, independently, would be considered to have a negative impact on society, if committed to prevent a greater negative impact, is moral, so long as it is more reliable than any other available solution.


Veidt follows a simple, ethical, logical code. The only deviant behavior he's guilty of is saving the world and then working to make it a better place after he accomplishes that. Everything else was a means to that end; an unfortunate consequence. He avoids killing, and he barely even has any vices except a substantial ego - even his absurd fortune was merely accumulated so that he could afford his plan.

Compare him to someone like Nite Owl, who beats up someone in a bar just because they give him bad news. Rorschach, who barhops, beating up lowlifes, even if they've done nothing wrong - hospitalizing many of them - not to mention his rampant right-wing biases and prejudices. Blake, a sadistic war criminal. All three of them take pleasure in violence at points. Rorschach even calls it his "exercise." Veidt? The closest he comes to that is when he kills Blake, and even then it's because Blake tried to tell someone about his plan, not because he wanted to.

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Great, we're at least partially in agreement about what constitutes a sociopath.



Rules of morality, or one's personal moral code, defines one's personal conduct or behavior. Those rules exist inside each of us, although the definitions aren't identical for everyone (obviously).



Everything you just stated here supports the Machiavellian/sociopathic mindset. Of course, one would have to rationalize a means that deviant to begin with in order to accomplish that sort of end. A logical and ethical code has to somehow be drastically readjusted to accommodate a plan to kill millions and make it A-OK in the perpetrator's mind. No one starts out in life with the idea that murdering millions of people is acceptable, unless that person was born a true psychopath.

And yes, murdering another person (let alone a few million) is considered deviant behavior in just about all modern societies, regardless of the reason why.

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You can make your superhero a psychopath, you can draw gut-splattering violence, and you can call it a "graphic novel," but comic books are still incredibly stupid.

-Bill Watterson

Obviously, when we're young, we have black-and-white codes of morality, but the inability to recognize acceptable negatives is a distinct sign of intellectual immaturity. You can't be expected to make good decisions if you're hung up on not being able to do bad things to prevent worse things.

The owner of a company would be expected to fire employees if it meant saving the business from total disaster. People on a lifeboat would be expected to throw others overboard (or sacrifice themselves) if it meant preventing the boat from completely capsizing. A person with a gun would be expected to kill someone if it meant stopping a bombing.

Veidt just raises the stakes on that. Just like 1=1 proves that 1,000,000=1,000,000, if it is acceptable to kill one person to save the lives of two thousand, it is acceptable to kill three million to save the lives of six billion.


What about the death penalty? What about police officers who shoot at criminals? What about hostages put in situations where they have to kill an innocent person, or the whole group will die? We tolerate murder very, very frequently.

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Deviant is not synonymous with "bad" or "wrong" necessarily. You are interpreting it as such.

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You can make your superhero a psychopath, you can draw gut-splattering violence, and you can call it a "graphic novel," but comic books are still incredibly stupid.

-Bill Watterson

The fact that many of you are forgetting is that Veidt killed his own men.

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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 was only joking about Veidt killing the cat, and I really don't think that anyone involved in this discussion thinks that they're arguing about whether or not Veidt killed little Cleo (with the possible exception of Dr. Brooklyn, who I think took my attempt at humor at face value).

This argument is really about what every argument is about in regards to Adrian Veidt; whether or not he, or anyone, had or has the moral or ethical right to make decisions for other people. Veidt, on the authority of no one, decided it was okay to murder several million people in order to, in his mind, save the world. Did he savve the world? If so, isn't he justified in his actions? That's really what we're discussing, I think.

Just so we're clear.

That's probably the best argument against Veidt - but then again, someone was going to make a decision. Nuclear war was in the hands (literally) of two people - people who had allegiances to their respective countries, who were facing incredible pressure, who weren't nearly as intelligent as Veidt.

So who better than Veidt; impartial, his plan and himself free of all suspicion and pressure, his IQ through the roof, having predicted the state the world would be in and put into motion a plan to stop it before the countries even began thinking about looking to a route other than arms escalation?

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I think it's difficult to judge Veidt's actions because we're reading the novel as an outsider. But if I were one of the characters in the story, and I had a loved one who was included in those people Veidt murdered, I'd have condemned his act whatever his reasons for it might be. I'd probably would want to kill him with my bare hands.

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moonwalkerwiz

Which is, of course, the best argument for Veidt.

This is where the trouble starts, of course. I think Veidt is a sociopath with a hidden agenda, others (such as yourself) think he's the world's savior. My point, I believe, is that all discussion about Veidt can be boiled down to these viewpoints (poorly worded on my part as they may be).

I take exception to this... I'm trying to coin the name Nefertiti the Kitty and you're not assisting. Cleo, my ass.



Actually, I was attempting to go for a slightly different angle (of course failing with my feeble brain), and analyze more the type of mind that would actually make a decision like Veidt did versus whether or not the decision was right or moral, since that card's been played to death.

...

Although in my opinion, the two are not entirely disparate.

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You can make your superhero a psychopath, you can draw gut-splattering violence, and you can call it a "graphic novel," but comic books are still incredibly stupid.

-Bill Watterson