Much has been written over the years about Watchmen, from the psychology of the characters, to the technical details of the story. However, I would like to add my grain of sand and be able to contribute my opinion on the parallelism and symbolism that exists in 3 specific characters: Ozymandias, Rorschach and Dr. Manhattan. These characters play the role, in my opinion, of demonstrating that the concept of hero is more complex than we think.
Ozymandias, the villain who dresses as a hero
Adrian Veidt is the main antagonistic figure of the work (the "villain"). However, he is the closest to the idea of superhero that the works of DC and Marvel have instilled in us for years.
Ozymandias is an attractive, strong, friendly, successful, intelligent and self-confident character. You saw (in the movie) a basic outfit of any superhero and does not hide his face; It stands like the heroic figure that will save the day. However, behind that image we have someone who is willing to become a mass murderer, ending the lives of millions of innocent people in order to fulfill his vision of world peace. For him, the end justifies the means. In this case, the villain dresses as a hero.
Rorschach, the hero who dresses as a villain
If Ozymandias is the "villain" who presents himself as the ideal superhero, on the other hand we have Rorschach, who is a clear contrast to the previous character. We can appreciate this in how it acts and looks.
Walter Joseph (the real name of Rorschach) has, at first glance, the common characteristics of a villain, that is, an unpleasant attitude to both known and unknown characters, almost no social relationship with others, very violent behavior, lack of empathy, absence of remorse when it comes to killing or torturing someone he regards as bad. In other words, Rorschach psychologically has characteristics of a psychopath.
As for clothing, Rorschach is completely covered in black and permanently uses his iconic mask to hide his face from both allies and enemies, thus showing a clear distrust and a rejection of the world seeing who he really is.
However, he is the only character who fights to the death to try to stop the massacre that was about to perform Ozymandias, and thus save millions of innocents. From my point of view, Rorschach is the hero who dresses as a villain.
Dr. Manhattan, the hero who failed
As the last character we have Dr. Manhattan, a being whose power goes beyond the understanding of any other character, we could categorize him as a "God" within his universe. He seems able to do and undo everything, start and stop everything, Dr. Manhattan seems capable of changing everything. However, even with all that power, he is unable to stop the death and hatred that grows in the human world.
Jonathan Osterman became the most powerful being, but even so, his story is a story of failure, proving that power is nothing, strength is nothing, "the important thing is to send the message." We could notice how Dr. Manhattan initially tried to use fear to change the world and failed, then he tried to use love and the result was the same. Even with all that power, people continued to fall more and more into chaos that didn't seem to end. That is why I find his iconic phrase so precise: "I am tired of the world, of the people."
As we could see, there is a clear parallel in the previous characters, especially between Ozymandias and Rorschach, who, in my opinion, were created to be the opposite of the other. For his part, Dr. Manhattan represents, among other things, a critique of the concept of superheroes in general, and how this is based, in the vast majority of cases, on the physical strength and power that a character possesses to achieve Resolution of a particular conflict.
At this point, I would like to thank all those who stopped to read my first post on Steemit, it goes without saying that the writing represents my personal opinion, so that perfectly any of you can have a different perspective of mine. Thank you very much for reading my little analysis of the parallelism that exists in Watchmen in relation to the concept of the superhero.