Watchmen - We need to talk 2

[Relish in Chaos]

OK, this is the final Watchmen thread that I'm going to make for a while, addressing a few points that I wanted some clarification or, at least, theorizing on.

1. Dr. Manhattan's distinctly different relationships with Janey Slater and Laurie Juspeczyk. With the former, he is very much in love with her until the accident, at which point he lies to her that he will always be with her, and later ditches her for a teenage girl with a better "atomic structure" (whom he knows he will enter into a relationship with and said lady would eventually leave him before he goes to Mars) after Janey becomes too noticeably old for him (while he remains at thirty).

But, even though Laurie seems to only be kept around the military base with Dr. Manhattan to keep him satisfied and relaxed, Dr. Manhattan doesn't just ditch her when she gets old like he does Janey (although we don't really know how old Janey was when Manhattan dumped her; Laurie was 35-36 during the series' current events). After the scene where Laurie freaks out because Dr. Manhattan's quite literally double-teaming her, he claims that he was only doing it to make her happy, implying that he really does love her, despite his slipping humanity, and when she - his last remaining anchor to humanity - leaves him, and he's tricked into believing he gave cancer to his ex Janey, he leaves Earth entirely.

OK, this isn't actually a question. Just some thoughts.

2. Why was Denis Healey Prime Minister of the UK, instead of Margaret Thatcher, in Watchmen's 1985? Did Moore hate Thatcher that much that he refused to put her into his fictional graphic novel, while at the same time extending Nixon's term? Since most of the world's major events seem to have been affected by superheroes' existence (although the main countries affected appear to be US, USSR, and a few Middle Eastern countries), does this mean that there were superheroes (even if they were failed ones that never gained the notoriety of the US superheroes and eventually died) in the UK and, perhaps, other countries too?

What are your thoughts?

 

[bearlotz]

1) He knew that "I'll always be with you, Janey" was a lie because he knew it would change, but he knew he would say it so that means that in his perception he had already said it at the same time as he was contemplating saying it at the same time he was saying it...you see where I'm going with this? Pretty sure someone covered this topic in your last thread, but to briefly recap: Dr. Manhattan's perception of time is simultaneous. That means that he sees all events in his own timeline (barring those obscured by a large number of tachyons,obviously) as being past, present, and future. Use the "DVD model" of time: if the universe is a DVD then we are living in the actual show contained on the DVD while Dr. Manhattan is in the position of looking at the DVD placed on a table (with the ability to see all the events contained on that DVD without using a player...it's not a perfect analogy, I know). He doesn't really have any way to alter his course through "time" because for him it has already happened, although he was in fact making the decisions as though he had free will at the time or else he would have seen something different happening. This idea that the entire system can be predicted while accounting for the actions of free-willed agents acting on the system is sometimes called "Divine Middle-Knowledge". That's why it was such a big deal for him to not know what was going to happen in the main plot: for the first time since the accident, he actually had freedom. He could choose his own path without knowing what would happen, and we see how that turned out.

As for Laurie, he may have been attempting to maintain some base level of connection with humanity, he may have really loved her at some point, or he may just be acting out a script that he thinks will keep everything on an even keel. He's actually pretty deeply involved with the Karnac project while that whole thing is going on, so I think the "script" explanation is most likely; even if he is losing his attachment to humanity and the human condition as a whole, it's still possible that he found this particular specimen to be interesting. After all, his own perceived future would have been different if he hadn't freely chosen to spend time with Laurie, so there must have been some reason for the decision.

2) Maybe he hated her, maybe he didn't do proper research, maybe he (like myself) found it to be such a minor point that he just didn't pay it any mind. Honestly, that has such little bearing on the main theme of the story that I never really noticed it and now that you've pointed it out I don't think it makes any difference whatsoever in how I view the work. Historical accuracy is just another casualty of the creative process sometimes.

 

[Relish in Chaos]

1) He knew that "I'll always be with you, Janey" was a lie because he knew it would change, but he knew he would say it so that means that in his perception he had already said it at the same time as he was contemplating saying it at the same time he was saying it...you see where I'm going with this? Pretty sure someone covered this topic in your last thread, but to briefly recap: Dr. Manhattan's perception of time is simultaneous. That means that he sees all events in his own timeline (barring those obscured by a large number of tachyons,obviously) as being past, present, and future. Use the "DVD model" of time: if the universe is a DVD then we are living in the actual show contained on the DVD while Dr. Manhattan is in the position of looking at the DVD placed on a table (with the ability to see all the events contained on that DVD without using a player...it's not a perfect analogy, I know). He doesn't really have any way to alter his course through "time" because for him it has already happened, although he was in fact making the decisions as though he had free will at the time or else he would have seen something different happening. This idea that the entire system can be predicted while accounting for the actions of free-willed agents acting on the system is sometimes called "Divine Middle-Knowledge". That's why it was such a big deal for him to not know what was going to happen in the main plot: for the first time since the accident, he actually had freedom. He could choose his own path without knowing what would happen, and we see how that turned out.

As for Laurie, he may have been attempting to maintain some base level of connection with humanity, he may have really loved her at some point, or he may just be acting out a script that he thinks will keep everything on an even keel. He's actually pretty deeply involved with the Karnac project while that whole thing is going on, so I think the "script" explanation is most likely; even if he is losing his attachment to humanity and the human condition as a whole, it's still possible that he found this particular specimen to be interesting. After all, his own perceived future would have been different if he hadn't freely chosen to spend time with Laurie, so there must have been some reason for the decision.

Ah yes, now I see.

2) Maybe he hated her, maybe he didn't do proper research, maybe he (like myself) found it to be such a minor point that he just didn't pay it any mind. Honestly, that has such little bearing on the main theme of the story that I never really noticed it and now that you've pointed it out I don't think it makes any difference whatsoever in how I view the work. Historical accuracy is just another casualty of the creative process sometimes.

I know, it's just one of those little things that I don't think an author like Alan Moore would've just thrown in without doing the proper research. Like, there must be a reason for it. But I understand we can never get conclusive answers for things like this, just like how we might never know how serious Moore was about insinuating that Nixon might've hired the Comedian as his personal "assassin" of sorts for JFK (I don't believe this part; that would've happened regardless of a superhero's intervention), Woodward & Bernstein (I do believe this part, since it's one of the things that didn't happen in our universe but did in this world affected by superheroes), or both.

 

[Queen Michael]

2 It's the kind of thing that you throw in to show people that it's a different world. INertia of history aside, the politics of England would obviously look at least a little different with with a creature like Dr. Manhattan in the world.

 

[Relish in Chaos]

2 It's the kind of thing that you throw in to show people that it's a different world. INertia of history aside, the politics of England would obviously look at least a little different with with a creature like Dr. Manhattan in the world.

Suppose so. I guess, at times, I wish Alan Moore, being a British writer, showed us how Watchmen affected the UK beyond what could almost be misconstrued as a throwaway line, since it almost makes me want to speculate wildly as to how Thatcher never became PM/was kicked out and Healey became PM instead.

So I agree with you. Perhaps it was meant to mirror how Nixon was still the President of the USA post-1974, instead of Ford, Carter and Reagan (I do like how, during Mason and Sally's chat in chapter VIII, Sally refers to the economy as "Nixonomics"; presumably, a nod to "Reagonomics".

EDIT: A fan theory that I've now developed since is that the reason Healey became PM instead of Thatcher is because she openly vocalised her opposition to Dr. Manhattan (for whatever reason; I mean, we know that Liddy, at least, in the Watchmen world was creeped out by Dr. Manhattan because of his "Spock"-like distantness, and, presumably like the others, tolerated him because he was their ace-in-the-hole against USSR), and the UK were allied with the US during the Cold War.