the closest we get to a hero in the currently operative adventurers are niteowl ii and silk spectre, both of whom are aware they operate in the moral gray area of relativism and are constantly haunted by the question of whether or not what they do is right. as if to drive home that no, no it is not, they can’t engage sexually until they engage in violence. they try to justify their actions as being the best thing they can do in the moment given the constraints of the scenarios they find themselves in, but ultimately their actions are selfish and self serving. in many ways, this is why the comedian laughs. this contradictory form of nihilism is the joke all the adventurers must grapple with. they each respond differently. silk spectre chooses not to analyze or engage with the joke, preferring not to get it. niteowl ii and rorschach are different versions of understanding the joke, and choosing to carry on as if it wasn’t even the truth of their reality, choosing instead to lean into the philosophies they represent: relativism and objectivism, respectively. in walter kovacs telling mr manhatten to kill him, we see the failure of objectivism: objectivism leaves no room for making the best of a bad situation, de-emphasizing harm reduction and harm prevention in the name of righteousness. in niteowl ii’s inaction, we see the failure of moral relativism. niteowl ii is driven to inaction by his inability to take any real kind of a moral stance.

watchmen is such a misunderstood comic…