Watchmen Chapter 5: Fearful Symmetry

V.8.1 - V.8.9 Echo of triangle: patterns, repetitions.

V.9.6 - V.10.1 Match cut -- pirate survivor eating seagull leg, Dan Dreiberg eating chicken leg. Predator, prey; mild-mannered seaman (or banker) becomes crazed killer (or superhero).

V.11.5: Silhouette graffiti -- the "Hiroshima lovers."

V.12.7 "Even the word gone would be gone."

V.12.9 News vendor: "It's our curse. We see every damned connection. Every damned link." V.13.1 AND SPEAKING OF SEEING EVERY DAMNED LINK! -- check out what Adrian is doing with his V-for Veidt (V-for-Villain?) cufflink in this panel. It wasn't until cross-checking one of Greg Bole's enormously sharp readings (which see) that I saw this. He appears to be slipping out the poison pill that he'll shove into the mouth of the "assassin" in V.16-1-5. (Thanks for honing my paranoia, Greg.)

By the way, the connection between this panel (13.1) and the panel three pages later (16.1) may support the "supersymmetrical" reading of Chapter V, according to which every panel in the chapter matches up thematically with a corresponding panel on the other side of the centerfold.

V.14-15: A tour de force of violence -- and geometrical layout. This whole two-page spread is arranged symmetrically around a giant "V," part of the golden logo in Adrian Veidt's headquarters lobby. There are three panels to the left and three to the right of the central panel (in fact, the two pages preceding these also have the same number and a similar arrangement of panels). A larger version of this spread (800x675) is also available.

Now the interesting stuff. This is Chapter V of Watchmen. "V" for "five." But true fans of Alan Moore will also remember V for Vendetta, where the terrorist-hero "V" names himself after "Room Five," the cell in which he was housed in a death camp. On one level, this is clearly Alan Moore having a dark sort of fun with his fans.

But in Watchmen there are always many levels of meaning. Note that this two-page spread comes in the middle of Chapter V (i.e., where the staples would have gone in the monthly comic). This is the middle of the story, the point of convergence where right and left, what you've seen and what you're about to see, come together. "V" indeed. Could this sequence be the pivot point or narrative center of Watchmen as a whole? No, since the mathematical middle of this 12-part epic comes at the end of Chapter VI. Typically, and in keeping with Watchmen's deep thematic about time, Moore has brought us to a center which is not a center. We've come to the middle too soon.

Likewise, is this a "V" or an "X"? Look at the center panel of pages 14-15 again. Notice how the lower part of Veidt's body (victim turned killer) and the upper part of the assassin's body (killer turned victim) form the lower half of an "X." There are multiple planes of symmetry here, as in Dr. Manhattan's crystal palace on Mars (see chapter IX). Things are more complex than we might suspect. And what's the difference between an "X" and a V"? Well, continuity, for one thing. "V" indicates convergence on a single point: the moment of revenge, or vendetta, for instance. "X" indicates a crossing pattern or chiasmus. There is a meeting, a crossing-over, after which two lines once again diverge. If "V" was the operative geometry of V for Vendetta, does "X" mark the plot (as one of my students has written) for Watchmen?

V.18.7: "My face."

V.20 The survivor in the Black Freighter story feasts on raw shark meat. See Below, 22.6 and also Greg Bole's note on Rorshach's dietary habits.

V.21.8 Joey the cabbie stops to buy a copy of Hustler from Bernie the news vendor. (Joey is Moore and Gibbons' rather crude idea of a "butch" lesbian.) She insists that the vendor put up a poster for a "Gay Women Against Rape" benefit. The poster shows a pink triangle on which is superimposed a "toothed" symbol of femininity. Note how this image recapitulates the image in the previous panel (V.21.7) in which the marooned sailor is tearing hunks out of his dead shark. See next note.

V.22.6 "Raw shark" becomes "Rorschach" (pronounced in Brooklyn or Long Islandese) -- echo from events in "Black Freighter" comic, see above.

V.25.6 Veidt hairspray.

V.26.3 , 5 "Here be tygers" (lame allusion); "I'm burning!" More (William) Blake. But recall also that Blake was the Comedian's surname.

V.26.9 "The guy's an animal."

V.27.9 Rorschach (roar-shock) bursts through the window with a snarl.

V.28.7-8 Karma: everything evens out (note pattern of circle).

V.Doc.1 Comics in Watchmen's world were saved in the fifties by superheroes and masks. As in a sense were comics in this world, too. Actual photo of Joe Orlando in front of EC offices, ca. 1953. Joe Orlando was VP in charge of talent at DC when Watchmen project was conceived. EC ("Entertaining Comics") was the proud parent of Mad and Tales from the Crypt, run out of business in the late fifties by Congressional harrassment and the Comics Code.

V.Doc.4 Max Shea goes on the write a "twice-filmed" novel; talk about your wish-fulfillments. But on the other hand, see JohnMAC33's note.