Contributed Notes for Chapter V
Howard L. Price Book 5: The center spread is indeed laid out in parallel -- a Rorschach blot. If you take the left and right page and lift them so they meet, revealing the pages each page covers, you will get another Rorschach blot. I don't know the actual page numbers used, but the concept is page 12 & 13 make a blot, pages 10 & 15 make a blot, and so forth throughout the end of the book.
Howard L. Price Books 5 and 6: Note how the psychiatric journal entries start off in first person and eventually end up without any personal pronouns whatsoever, looking more and more like Rorschach's journal.
Greg Bole V.1.1 (and V.3.9) The R's form a skull above the crossbones -- a pirate reference, a reference to Rorschach's symbol, and another reference to symmetry.
Greg Bole V.1.7 The name of the bar, "Rumrunners," is another pirate reference.
Greg Bole V.7.1 The poster is chock-full 'o refs. Triangle=pyramid, Buddah=enlightenment, and yet another familiar bloodstain.
Greg Bole V.12.6 Grateful Dead poster (I guess the name reference is self explanatory) has skull and crossbones, another pirate reference, seen again in V.22.9. The poster also has a winged scarab, Egyptian reference. That is, to the Egyptian cult of the dead. -- sam
Greg Bole V.12.9 Rorschach checking trash drop in the background.
Joshua Merrill V.3.4 Moloch's lock was also installed by the Gordian Knot Lock Company, just like Dan's. Rorschach seems to have no trouble forcing his way past this company's locks! V.7.6 One of the posters picked up by the two detectives in the apartment where the man murdered two of his children is a Grateful Dead poster with the skull-and-crossbones motif, like the insignia of the Rum Runner (Moloch's apartment building) and Rorschach's double-R calling card. V.7.9 The poster on the back of the door has Buddha, but within a triangle (or pyramid, if you will), which is Veidt's symbol throughout the book. Also, the poster has a bloodstain over the right eye, like the Comedian's smiley button. V.16.8 Your theory about the "V" as a convergence point for the story, or alternately the "X" as a point of intersection, is visible here, too. The V of Veidt is reflected on the floor, making an X. V.22 The Grateful Dead poster with the skull-and-crossbones shows up again, this time when the two detectives get a tip about Rorschach.
J.D. LaFrance
In [a videotaped interview] Alan Moore has this to say about this issue [Chapter V]: "In terms of Watchmen, that issue is where we actually go for the heart of darkness, we go to the very centre of this black, depressing sort of pre-nuclear worldview that had a ring of honesty."
Joshua Davis V.8.2-4 There is a scene at one point in which a Pyramid Deliveries truck stops at Bernie's newsstand, and Bernie trades words with the delivery man as they exchange papers or magazines. Close inspection will show the delivery man to be none other than Roy Victor Chess, who Rorschach later grills at Happy Harry's (X.14.3), and who played a part in arranging Veidt's "assassination" attempt. A related note about the name Roy Victor Chess, though I can't attest to its relevance -- Chess was a record company in the 1950s, if I'm not mistaken, and RCA manufactured a phonograph player called the "Victor Talking Machine," which I suppose wouldn't be a bad label for Moore's character himself, once Rorschach gets ahold of him. I don't know what reasons Moore would have for phonograph reference, so perhaps this one's just a little too fervently grasping at straws...
Kennedy V.5.8 I suppose Moloch is either a claustrophobe or is extremely weak, as Rorshach had no trouble sitting in the fridge for awhile without suffocating and then getting out earlier. (My favorite issue, for the record, but I started to have a crush on Rorschach after a point.)
JohnMAC33 You think a twice-filmed novel is unreal? (End of chaper 5, Fogdancing) Well, expatriate American thriller author Paula Gosling penned a book called A Running Duck while living in the United Kingdom. It was renamed Fair Game later. In 1985, Fair Game became Cobra, a Sylvester Stallone/Brigitte Nielsen flop. However, in 1994, Warner Bros. made a second film version of Fair Game called--Fair Game. Yes, the William Baldwin/Cindy Crawford flop was based on the same book as Cobra! So, there , a twice-filmed novel. Call me a running duck, but does twice flopped count? ; -) sam
Todd Glaeser Re: the Center that is not a center You are correct that issue five does not include the mathematical center of the novel. However, it is the center of the issues which contain Rorshcach's journal, (which he finishes and mails in issue ten). Should we consider the symmetry of the journal chapters as seperate from the entire novel?
Adam Noble V.14.1 Not really relevant, but the scene where Adrian's secretary is shot is very similar to the scene in Alan Moore's "Batman: The Killing Joke where Barbara "Batgirl" Gordon is shot.
Adam Noble V.17.9 Notice how the moon and the sail across the corner of it look suspiciously like our favorite happy face.
John Harmon V.14.1-2 It seems to me that the supposed attempt on Veidt's life in Chapter V was actually no such thing. Rather, I believe that the assassin was hired to kill Veidt's secretary. I'll list a few of the details which lead me to believe this:
As you note on your site, Alan Moore makes very good use of the comics medium in Watchmen. All these little visual details that can be picked out by going back and looking at the panels again. The above is one of my favorite, shedding a little more light on Veidt's character, his ruthlessness in putting ends above means. This is a very interesting note in that it points to a very important fact -- namely, that chapter V is the beginning of the "obvious cracks." This is where Moore begins to plant the big clues, and where Veidt's carefully laid plans begin to start showing. -- jef |