What makes a character deep?

Silentpony_v1legacy

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Squilookle said:
I ignored it because it was mindless nonsense, not worth considering. What, Rorschach is himself a Rorschach test and no one can predict him?! Ludicrous. He's a man in a mask. He's no more an unpredictable, self-interpreting Rorschach test than Batman is an actual bat.
To imply that the man who out-thought God himself would run afoul of the first day Psy 101 joke test? Absurd. Simply absurd.

Rorschach eats. He poops. He sleeps. He walks. He breathes. He bleeds. and I predicted all of that, without once taking the test. And the fact Rorschach was caught by the police in a trap Ozy set for him shows he's predicable. Ozy knows him. He can predict him to the individual movement he makes in a room. Knowing he'll walk back and forth for a valuable minute, rather than check to see if the Monarch is dead.
Ozy should have known about the journals he keeps, known he'd give them to the press, conspiracy or not, and would have already bought every single newspaper in the world to make sure the journal never sees ink. Because, not to belabor it, but he out-thought a God, who can be everywhere in all time, ever, at the same time. And its bad writing that he didn't.
Hell I remember hearing that Alan Moore himself doesn't think Watchmen was well written, and especially hates the movie.
 

Silvanus

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Silentpony said:
Ozy should have known about the journals he keeps, known he'd give them to the press, conspiracy or not, and would have already bought every single newspaper in the world to make sure the journal never sees ink. Because, not to belabor it, but he out-thought a God, who can be everywhere in all time, ever, at the same time. And its bad writing that he didn't.
Dr. Manhattan is not a deity. The story quite pointedly shows at several points that despite his great power, he is not all-seeing or all-powerful, and is still subject to some very human limitations. Recall his surprise and how unsettled he gets when learning that Moloch has cancer; recall how he changes his sense of perspective on human life as the result of a conversation with Silk Spectre. He is not omniscient, omnipotent, or omnipresent. Recall how he does not save the woman in Vietnam from the Comedian; this is the writer illustrating to us that there are behavioural restrictions to how he will/can act, even when something is within his physical power.

Ozymandias outsmarted him at one point, because he is exceptionally intuitive. That doesn't somehow mean he is able to predict every action everybody would take. The graphic novel never suggests that to be the case, and it doesn't make any sense as an extrapolation.
 

Silentpony_v1legacy

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Silvanus said:
Silentpony said:
Ozy should have known about the journals he keeps, known he'd give them to the press, conspiracy or not, and would have already bought every single newspaper in the world to make sure the journal never sees ink. Because, not to belabor it, but he out-thought a God, who can be everywhere in all time, ever, at the same time. And its bad writing that he didn't.
Dr. Manhattan is not a deity. The story quite pointedly shows at several points that despite his great power, he is not all-seeing or all-powerful, and is still subject to some very human limitations. Recall his surprise and how unsettled he gets when learning that Moloch has cancer; recall how he changes his sense of perspective on human life as the result of a conversation with Silk Spectre. He is not omniscient, omnipotent, or omnipresent. Recall how he does not save the woman in Vietnam from the Comedian; this is the writer illustrating to us that there are behavioural restrictions to how he will/can act, even when something is within his physical power.

Ozymandias outsmarted him at one point, because he is exceptionally intuitive. That doesn't somehow mean he is able to predict every action everybody would take. The graphic novel never suggests that to be the case, and it doesn't make any sense as an extrapolation.
Moloch's cancer was because of Ozy. He was running the long game, purposefully clouding Manhattan's sight with partials so that he couldn't see the future. Remember when Rorschach went to him to predict the future and he couldn't. It wasn't that it wasn't within his powers, its that he was being blocked. By Ozy. Who had orchestrated the entire thing. Every single person who got cancer got cancer specifically because Ozy exposed them to a specific type and amount of radiation to frame Manhattan, all the while preventing Manhattan from seeing the future.
and in Vietnam Comedian makes is clear Manhattan could save the woman, and still does have that power, he just doesn't care. He could have stopped the glass, the bullet, the gun, and still could go back in time to prevent it, and simply didn't care enough to. Manhattan could have stopped Comedian, but chose not to.
Ozy did out-think a God, and the first step was to let the God think he was still a God.

and yes Ozy did predict people's exact movements, down to the second. He showed that with Rorschach, Manhattan, Owl, Comedian and Spectre. Every single one of them did exactly what Ozy predicted, down to the heartbeat, except for, badly written it was, a major glaring plot-whole with Rorschach
 

Silvanus

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Silentpony said:
Moloch's cancer was because of Ozy. He was running the long game, purposefully clouding Manhattan's sight with partials so that he couldn't see the future. Remember when Rorschach went to him to predict the future and he couldn't. It wasn't that it wasn't within his powers, its that he was being blocked. By Ozy. Who had orchestrated the entire thing. Every single person who got cancer got cancer specifically because Ozy exposed them to a specific type and amount of radiation to frame Manhattan, all the while preventing Manhattan from seeing the future.
I'm well aware of that. It still serves as an illustration that Dr. Manhattan is not omniscient. He's never presented as such.

Silentpony said:
and in Vietnam Comedian makes is clear Manhattan could save the woman, and still does have that power, he just doesn't care. He could have stopped the glass, the bullet, the gun, and still could go back in time to prevent it, and simply didn't care enough to. Manhattan could have stopped Comedian, but chose not to.
Ozy did out-think a God, and the first step was to let the God think he was still a God.
Hence, behavioural restrictions, as I said. Another illustration of how limited he is.

Silentpony said:
and yes Ozy did predict people's exact movements, down to the second. He showed that with Rorschach, Manhattan, Owl, Comedian and Spectre. Every single one of them did exactly what Ozy predicted, down to the heartbeat, except for, badly written it was, a major glaring plot-whole with Rorschach
That's combat. Would you believe that Mr. Miyagi is able to predict exactly what everybody is doing when they're at home, just because he can predict a fly's movements fast enough to catch it with chopsticks?
 

Agema

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MrCalavera said:
Was there a sequel to Alan Moore's Watchmen...
No, and hopefully there never will be.

More people need to learn the value of leaving stories be, rather than choosing a lazy payday with work of diminishing returns. In that sense, Alan Moore has outstanding artistic integrity.
 

Addendum_Forthcoming

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Samtemdo8 said:
No one even answered my question regarding the Sniper from Phone Booth :(
I haven't seen Phone Booth. I suppose the real question is why they're doing it? Does it make sense? Is everyone else a purposeful idiot to artificially inflate the horror and tension of a sniper and a guy in a phonebooth?

The argument of a deep character isn't necessarily the narrative dump of their lives. Rather do they feel utterly at one (or utterly juxtaposed) to the environments and situations that arise in it?

If not then no.
 

Samtemdo8_v1legacy

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Addendum_Forthcoming said:
Samtemdo8 said:
No one even answered my question regarding the Sniper from Phone Booth :(
I haven't seen Phone Booth. I suppose the real question is why they're doing it? Does it make sense? Is everyone else a purposeful idiot to artificially inflate the horror and tension of a sniper and a guy in a phonebooth?
Oh you must see this movie if you want to nearly shit your pants.

Basically the Sniper is not your mere sociopathic killer. He targets people he deems to be "crooked" and the case of our protagonist in the Phone Booth, he did some crooked things, particularly between 2 women in his life.
 

Addendum_Forthcoming

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Samtemdo8 said:
Oh you must see this movie if you want to nearly shit your pants.

Basically the Sniper is not your mere sociopathic killer. He targets people he deems to be "crooked" and the case of our protagonist in the Phone Booth, he did some crooked things, particularly between 2 women in his life.
Oh, well .. if it's clever I'll watch it sometime. Maybe tonight if I can't sleep.
 

Samtemdo8_v1legacy

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Addendum_Forthcoming said:
Samtemdo8 said:
Oh you must see this movie if you want to nearly shit your pants.

Basically the Sniper is not your mere sociopathic killer. He targets people he deems to be "crooked" and the case of our protagonist in the Phone Booth, he did some crooked things, particularly between 2 women in his life.
Oh, well .. if it's clever I'll watch it sometime. Maybe tonight if I can't sleep.
Brace yourself for a Nostalgia trip though because the movie does indeed SCREAMS the Early 2000s.

The Post 9/11 look and imagry of movies is at its strongest here.
 

Silvanus

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Agema said:
No, and hopefully there never will be.

More people need to learn the value of leaving stories be, rather than choosing a lazy payday with work of diminishing returns. In that sense, Alan Moore has outstanding artistic integrity.
I'm sorry to tell you that DC published a prequel series entitled 'Before Watchmen [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Before_Watchmen]' in 2012, primarily focusing on each member individually, and also published a sequel crossover with other DC properties (Superman et al) in 2017, called 'Doomsday Clock [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doomsday_Clock_(comics)]'.

There is no sequel with Alan Moore or Dave Gibbons on board, though.
 
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Samtemdo8 said:
Before I say anything, Is the Sniper from the movie Phone Booth a deep character?

He's a mysterious one, and so much that it's difficult to call him "deep". All we know about him, that he's smart enough to do what he did, and that he can shoot, and has some sort of wicked moral code, that only he understands... or he doesn't. And maybe he's just a psycho that likes to torture people he doesn't like. Not enough info.
 

Samtemdo8_v1legacy

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MrCalavera said:
Samtemdo8 said:
Before I say anything, Is the Sniper from the movie Phone Booth a deep character?

He's a mysterious one, and so much that it's difficult to call him "deep". All we know about him, that he's smart enough to do what he did, and that he can shoot, and has some sort of wicked moral code, that only he understands... or he doesn't. And maybe he's just a psycho that likes to torture people he doesn't like. Not enough info.
And hopefully he remains a mystery and no studio is gonna make a sequel to this movie.
 

rosac

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Samtemdo8 said:
MrCalavera said:
Samtemdo8 said:
Before I say anything, Is the Sniper from the movie Phone Booth a deep character?

He's a mysterious one, and so much that it's difficult to call him "deep". All we know about him, that he's smart enough to do what he did, and that he can shoot, and has some sort of wicked moral code, that only he understands... or he doesn't. And maybe he's just a psycho that likes to torture people he doesn't like. Not enough info.
And hopefully he remains a mystery and no studio is gonna make a sequel to this movie.
Nah it'll be a prequel about his origins, obviously.