“Watchmen” by Alan Moore

Heroism encompasses great acts of bravery aimed at attaining a certain noble end.  However, the criteria for heroism used in the novel by Moore highlights that he perceives heroism to have a connotation on morality. Accordingly, this essay seeks to figure out the heroes in Alan Moore’s novel, Watchmen and also to possibly identify other characters that do not qualify to be heroes.

The setting occurs during The Cold War when a group of superheroes came to the rescue of humanity from the imminent Third World War that was orchestrated by growing tensions among state powers (Moore, Gibbons and Higgins). Adrian Veidt emerges as a hero when his intelligence saw the restoration of temporary peace after he helped in managing the situation and avoiding the worst to happen after the invasion of the aliens and massacring millions of people in New York. Similarly, the journal entries depicted towards the end of every chapter highlights that heroes serve the society for mundane motives like reputation, power or to advance an ideology. Usually, heroism involves putting others first, even at one’s peril. Sally Jupiter is portrayed as a Heroin since her motives are revealed to be focused on fighting crime with the hopes of advancing her career in modeling and formulating her destiny out of it. Likewise, Rorschach refused to lower his morality when Night Owl, Silk Spectre, and Doctor Manhattan tried to conspire with him about nuclear confrontation, thus, prompting Doctor Manhattan to kill him instantly society (Moore, Gibbons and Higgins 27). He died a hero defending humanity. Contrarily, Night Owl and Silk Spectre eventually ended up doing nothing, while Doctor Manhattan is not concerned with the welfare of people, whereas Ozymandias butchered hundreds of thousands of people; thus, painting the characters as non-heroes.

In conclusion, the beauty of the story in the novel is that it encourages people to be heroes in their walks of life. Heroes are not extraordinarily people, they also have flaws. As such, Moore highlights that choosing an idea for the wrong and right and acting on them is the best part of being human. Ideally, the novel’s mysterious ending is an indication that since an individual has aptitude to choose his or her ethics, a person’s fate is firmly in one’s hands.