Why Five?

by Jessica Furé

Chapter V, "Fearful Symmetry," is not the center of the book. There. I've said it. Mathematically, as Stuart Moulthrop points out, there is no real center here -- the exact center of Watchmen would fall between Chapters VI and VII. This argument also applies to J. S. Brogee's important theory that since Rorschach's journal starts in I and ends in X, V would be the center of that ten-issue arc. Unfortunately, since ten is also an even number we have the same problem, namely that the center actually falls in empty space. Working through this problem makes me think about Yeats: "Things fall apart, the center cannot hold." That's certainly true when the center isn't here.

So why bother to focus on Chapter V? Chapter V is at the figurative center of the book, though the same can be said for many other chapters, themes and motifs. According to Alan Moore, "Watchmen was designed to be read on a number of levels. To a certain degree, all interpretations are true" [see his interview in Comic Book Rebels]. Watchmen is a sphere, and within a sphere any point may lie along a line leading to the center. Chapter V is remarkable for the sheer number of axes that may be drawn through it to the heart of the text.

I can say that Chapter V contains a thematic center of the book. The connections, both obvious and obscure, lead one to startling realizations about the layered structure of the text. When broken down into its component parts, Chapter V, "Fearful Symmetry," as a chapter, as V, both letter and number, as an invocation of fear, and of symmetry -- provides valuable tools for deconstructing the work as a whole.

Finally, I can say that Chapter V connects outward, drawing other sources and concepts into Watchmen. These outward references anchor themselves into the text and create new meanings that resonate through the book. And I can say that if you keep looking this closely at Watchmen you'll go crazy, or blind. Or both.

The Lay of the Land

At its most basic, one of the most remarkable things about Chapter V is the perfect mirror symmetry of the layout. Page one corresponds to page twenty-eight, two to twenty-seven, and so forth. This correspondence goes beyond having the same number of panels on each page: the panels themselves are matched in a pattern . The pages, when placed together, have mirrored panels, creating an effect similar to that of a Rorschach blot. Panel one of page one is meant to be laid directly against panel three of page twenty-eight. When this is done, the echoing of visual patterns, of light and dark, of body positioning and of basic forms, is startling. This may sound like an arcane, overly-technical analysis, but there is an underlying textual meaning to this view.

Visual patterns are a crucial component of Watchmen, which is ultimately a strongly visual work. As opposed to print, the media of comics subverts the idea of abstract, printed language by creating a visual representation of the spoken word as it is spoken, effectively hiding the print within an image, even though the words stand plainly distinguished in a frame or word balloon. A sound is implied, but does not occur. This is overlaid by the text in the narrative boxes (text such as Rorschach's journal entries) and the text that appears as a seamless part of the image, such as the movie marquees, the advertising slogans, the newspapers and the print in the comic-within-the comic.

The layout of Chapter V echoes the structure of the symmetrical letter V, both halves of which match perfectly when it is folded in the middle like a book. This echoing reinforces the implied contact between text and image. We have to think about the letter but also about the visual structure of the letter.

Watchmen is primarily concerned with detecting hidden patterns, with the ability to sense a forming structure without seeing the obvious all at once. The visual elements of Chapter V mirror the basic plan of the book and the structure of the chapter.

The Characters

If you don't know it by now, characters who appear in Chapter V show up in a carefully staged pattern. Each pair of matched pages -- 1 and 28, 2 and 27, etc. -- feature the same characters. It's not a perfect symmetry: for example, Roy Victor Chess stands with the two Bernies on page 8, and on the counterpart page, 21, Joey the cab driver is at the newsstand; but the general pattern holds. Notice that Joey and Chess are both drivers, and that they each bring a triangle into the scene.

This pattern moves through various scenes and character combinations until it reaches a peak at pages 14 and 15, the center of the chapter. Guess who's waiting for us there? Once we reach Veidt, the pattern repeats itself in reverse order. The chapter ends where it began, with Rorschach, Jacobi's house, and the reflecting puddle.

With one notable exception, the characters in this chapter are the active or mobile figures in Watchmen. Their movements draw them together in a spiraling pattern. We have Rorschach, closing in on his mask-killer, then we shift to the police detectives, trying to close in on Rorschach. Next, we have the newsstand owned by Bernie, the representative common man in Watchmen, followed by the story of the shipwrecked sailor in the pirate comic that is being read by the second Bernie, Watchmen's other common man -- the reader. We then switch over to Dan and Laurie, who are slowly but surely moving together as a couple. Rorschach's disturbing inner dialogue is next, and we might note that he is creeping closer to the center of the plot, as well as the center of the chapter. After this, we return to Bernie, who this time shares his space with the shipwrecked sailor (or vice versa), and so we come finally to Adrian Veidt.

As if the massive "V" in the exact center of the chapter isn't enough, along with the ubiquitous pyramids and product placements, we can take a cue from Sesame Street here: "V" is for vigilante, villain, and Veidt - that's good enough for me. It's no coincidence that Bernie and the sailor occupy the pages next to Veidt's. Until the end of Watchmen one is tempted to believe that the sailor's story is Bernie's story, too, since their thoughts and circumstances constantly overlap. This seems true until their similarities come to an abrupt end: Bernie dies, while the sailor becomes a murderer and a monster.

The sailor's story is Veidt's story, one of transformation from human to inhuman. This does not negate the sailor's connection to Bernie; rather it creates a connection of sorts between Bernie and Veidt. Bernie and Veidt are in direct opposition to one another. One is the common man, the other a superman ("the smartest man in the world"); but this is just the beginning. Veidt takes action, Bernie is acted upon. Veidt is secluded, Bernie is on the street. As a newsvendor, Bernie "sees all the links" (or so he imagines), but it is Veidt who engineers those hidden connections. The most subtle difference, though, involves a conflict of cultures and media. Bernie is an old-fashioned newspaper vendor, a purveyor of print. Veidt, with his multiple TV screens, is the man of the monitor. At the end Veidt is alive and Bernie is dead, replaced by a vending machine. (One more vote of confidence cast for the machine culture, eh?). The structure of Chapter V brings this conflict into sharper focus.

Of course, there's always a conflict we don't see. Remember the notable exception to the characters in motion, the one who isn't physically present in Chapter V? Dr. Manhattan is mentioned throughout "Fearful Symmetries." His absence motivates much of the action, including Rorschach's second visit to Jacobi's house, the escalation of international tensions, and Dan and Laurie's budding relationship. This absence also points to a prominent motif in the book.

Watchmen contains a running theme of symmetry and symmetrical images, but it is also concerned with marred or broken symmetry. In other words, there are patterns which are notable only for their discrepancies, just as the "center" is notable for being off-center. One such pattern is the sailor/Bernie correspondence, and another is the pattern of character growth evident in Adrian Veidt and Jon Osterman. They are the two characters in Watchmen who can be called super-human, both having abilities beyond those of ordinary people (unless, of course, said people send away for the Veidt Method).

The term superman, or its originating phrase, Übermensch, belongs more accurately to Veidt. Veidt is still a man, even though he becomes inhuman when he places himself above his fellow men and appoints himself arbiter of humanity's destiny. Jon Osterman, on the other hand, undergoes the process of becoming para-human. It takes the events of Watchmen for Dr. Manhattan to realize that he is no longer Osterman, or even a man. By the end of the work, he has come to grips with his transcendence of the human state (XII.18.2). The final confrontation between over-man and para-man (XII.17.4-5, XII.18.1-4) highlights this essential difference, as does their final consultation (XII.26-27), where Veidt seeks reassurance from Dr. Manhattan, asking him a final question ("I did the right thing, didn't I?") as Manhattan disappears into the miniature solar system. His final line is cryptic: "Nothing ends, Adrian. Nothing ever ends." Veidt is left standing alone with his shadow, a representative of man and his uneasy relation with a god who may or may not be gone for good.

Other Worlds

This opposition dovetails neatly with Moore's dissection of the superhero genre. Watchmen is, among many, many, other things, a look into the psyches of costumed heroes. Moore explodes the conventions of the genre by treating his characters like humans, and showing how the conditions of everyday life affect the heroes even as their actions transform these conditions.

Moore's initial idea was to take an extant comics continuity and bring it closer to reality. As detailed in the hardcover edition of Watchmen published by Graphitti Inc., his first working version was based on characters developed for Charlton Comics, a house that went defunct in the 1970s and was later accquired by DC. During DC's massive continuity re-vamp, the Charlton characters were scheduled for assimilation into the mainstream DC universe, making them off-limits to Moore. In response, Moore and Gibbons decided to create a new set of characters one step removed from their original templates. The storyline hinged on a sense of nostalgia and history, so they created the appearance of a long-standing universe, artificially aging their imagined world. At first glance this may seem like cheating, but it's not.

The real cheats are the "imaginary tales" and "what-if" plots that ran rampant in comics prior to the late eighties, producing stories like "The Day Superman Did It With Lana and Lois" and "What If Spider-Man Swung The Other Way." (These are only slight exaggerations.) The events in the stories never happened, and had no real impact on the characters' continuity. This culminated in the obliteration of the entire DC Universe history during Crisis on Infinite Earths, which turned the previous fifty years into to one long imaginary tale.

With Watchmen, Moore laid the groundwork for resurgence of the other-world concept, a variation on the alternative-universe theme. The idea of alternative but real worlds hearkens back to the pre-Crisis DC Universe, but with one vital difference. While DC's "infinite earths" were linked together, requiring more maintenance than DC was willing to provide, the idea of separate realities that were definitively disconnected from the mainstream was easier for comics companies and more palatable to readers.

Most other-world stories depict a situation one step away from the regular comic-book continuity. Watchmen is set one step away from both the Charlton comics and reality. Moore goes even further afield: his artificial history of a comics universe is a copy of something that was fictional in the first place, and it serves to underscore the off-centeredness of the work.

Watchmen's doomsday clock stands at 11:55, one five-minute segment away from midnight. The action takes place on the cusp of November, one month away from the end of the twelve-month cycle of the year. It also occurs between Halloween (October 30th) and Guy Fawkes day (November 5th), two holidays that involve masks and upheaval, just like Watchmen. (More about the Guy Fawkes connection below.) Are we seeing a pattern here? I'll give you 'till five to get it. I, II, III...

Other Works

Moore began work on Watchmen in 1985, the year George Orwell's 1984 became awkwardly positioned as a dystopian vision of the future, since its future (or date anyway) was now in the past. There was a new selection of potential horrors to choose from and a shift change for the social bogeymen in our collective closet. Moore transferred some of his personal anxieties into Watchmen, making it his own version of 1984 -- or 1985.

Concurrently, though, he was attempting to finish a Brit-centric social satire called V for Vendetta. Powerful and sophisticated, this other work is also dark and disturbing. The American reader can be expected to miss a little in the translation. Watchmen absorbed some of the politics of V for Vendetta as well as the copious "V" variations with which Moore seemed almost obsessed.

V for Vendetta revolves around the Guy Fawkes motif. The opening of the first and third acts take place on Guy Fawkes Day one year apart. The protagonist, V, wears a Guy Fawkes mask and hat (instantly recognizable to British readers). V is planning an overthrow of a corrupt regime just as Fawkes aimed to do, and ultimately, V is the instrument for the immolation of the Parliament building, the same target Fawkes hoped to destroy. V for Vendetta ends on an unfinished note. V's successor, Evey, takes a new initiate into the shadow gallery, and Finch, the detective, having gained a small enlightenment along the way, begins a long walk down a dimly-lit road. ("Nothing ends, Adrian...")

Finale

The "Fearful Symmetries" of Chapter V are the stuff Watchmen is made of. We analyze the cracks in the case, the hidden clues, the little tip-offs, trying to see the big picture.

Watchmen is, more than anything else, a detective story, one that includes the reader in an interactive form. The story segment ends with a mirror of the book's end: Dan and Laurie are together, Dr. Manhattan is gone, Veidt stands at center and Rorschach is dragged forcibly away.

Artifactually, Chapter V ends with the discussion of the pirate comic genre in the excerpt from the fictional Treasure Island History of Comics. This set piece encapsulates Moore's examination of the superhero and the comics medium and delivers a bitter stab at his discontinued run of Swamp Thing. It reminds us of the importance of the comic-within-the-comic and adds another element to the building conspiracy by underscoring the disappearance of Max Shea. Most importantly, it reinforces the link between comics and their readers. We are like the second Bernie, having to read the comics over and over again -- and perhaps occasionally wanting to yell, "Ripoff story ain't got no endin'!" At the same time we are like the other Bernie, convincing ourselves that we can see all the links, and like Rorschach, trying to move closer to the truth.

But nothing ever ends...