From: Michael Straight <straight@email.unc.edu>
Subject: Re: (urth) WATCHMEN (spoilers)
Date: Fri, 17 Sep 1999 08:47:54 


A few more tidbits about Watchmen/Severian (plenty o' spoilers)

It's been pointed out in newsgroup discussions, that Veidt's plan is
particularly suspect because he gets his information about the world
by...watching television!  Perhaps Moore is saying, yeah this daft plan
could work if the real world was the world you see on TV.

Veidt has been accused of sadism, from the murder of the Commedian and his
secretary to coming up with a plan to "save the world" that requires
killing so many people.  If he were genuinely interested in saving the
world, you'd think he'd have put his energy into getting Dr. Manhattan to
step in and fix things, rather than driving him off.  

For that matter, his efforts to hide from Manhattan show his
misunderstanding of how Jon sees the future.  Jon doesn't look into the
future in order to change it.  

Does Severian even know what bringing the New Sun will do to the Urth
before he does it?  Somehow I thought he was suprised by all the
destruction it caused.  If so, he seems not at all comparable to Veidt. 

-Rostrum


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