• Snot Flickerman
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    3 days ago

    Alan Moore wrote Rorschach for a fucking reason and it wasn’t because “Rorschach was right!”

    Moore was clearly aware of people who are sympathetic to great causes but would undermine them and destroy society just to be able to say that they were right.

    Rorschach was right in many ways, but he spent his time looking down on everyone and anything else. His hate for the world was visceral and colored his perception. He was happy to destroy the world just so he could prove to himself that the world was beyond redemption.

    The streets are extended gutters and the gutters are full of blood and when the drains finally scab over, all the vermin will drown. The accumulated filth of all their sex and murder will foam up about their waists and all the whores and politicians will look up and shout ‘SAVE US!’…and I’ll look down and whisper ‘No.’

    -Rorschach from Moore’s Watchmen

    He doesn’t support these movements because they’re filled to the gills with fucking Rorschachs.

    • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
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      3 days ago

      V for Vendetta had a similar message. V was really not all that much better than the people he was fighting. He tortured the fuck out of Evey in order to get her to do his bidding. I’m sure it pissed him off to a huge degree that people started adopting Guy Fawkes masks as an actual symbol of revolution. Moore chose that mask for a reason. That reason is that Guy Fawkes was both fighting oppression and trying to turn England into a theocracy.

      • Captain Aggravated@sh.itjust.works
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        2 days ago

        There’s also the factor that the movie is very different from the original comic, and the folks who adopted the Guy Fawkes mask as a hacktivist icon mostly just saw the movie.

      • mosiacmango@lemm.ee
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        3 days ago

        The issue with subtle critiques of facists is that facists will enjoy them non ironically.

        See Watchmen, V for vendetta, starship troopers, warhammer 40k, on and on.

        • DragonTypeWyvern@midwest.social
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          3 days ago

          40k isn’t a critique any more, and I’d argue it stopped the moment the Emperor became an actual strongman who is the bestest and smartest and handsomest immortal wizard human to ever live who guards humanity in its sleep uwu step on me daddy~~~~

          Compared to the original, first edition version, where everything was at the whims of unreliable narration and it was understood that whatever the Emperor was in 30k, and that is a very big question, he’s a corpse on a throne in 40k.

          Starship Troopers stopped being a critique the minute the first film ended, and the book never was.

        • prole
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          2 days ago

          That’s why you gotta watch movies like Inglorious Basterds. Make it impossible for them to claim that shit.

      • The Octonaut@mander.xyz
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        3 days ago

        trying to turn England into a theocracy.

        Oh! You come with the anti-Catholicism baked in. The Brits will love you.

        Fascinated by the continued adherence to the idea that overthrowing a monarch who is simultaneously the head of the national church is a movement toward theocracy.

        • MothmanDelorian@lemmy.world
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          3 days ago

          Replacing the secular head of state with the clerical leader would be a significant step towards theocracy. The monarch of the UK might be the head of the faith but they are not seen as a member of the clergy. The Pope, who would ultimately have controlled the UK had Fawkes succeeded, would be a theocrat.

          • The Octonaut@mander.xyz
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            3 days ago

            The Pope, who would ultimately have controlled the UK

            There’s the anti-Catholic education paying off. Which countries did the pope control again? Why would the UK have been different from Spain, France or Italy? Why does being crowned by a pope or an archbishop differ? How, with apparent seriousness, are you defining the man who said this in parliament as a “secular head of state”:

            The state of monarchy is the supremest thing upon earth, for kings are not only God’s lieutenants upon earth and sit upon God’s throne, but even by God himself, they are called gods. There be three principal [comparisons] that illustrate the state of monarchy: one taken out of the word of God, and the two other out of the grounds of policy and philosophy. In the Scriptures, kings are called gods, and so their power after a certain relation compared to the Divine power.

            Even today British monarchs are ordained as kings with holy oil. It is not a secular position.

            Mind-boggling that even young children don’t see through this blatant myth-building for what it is. The same scaremongering is used even today by regressive Orangemen about papish plots.

              • The Octonaut@mander.xyz
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                3 days ago

                I’m not ignorant of history. I’m on paper still a Catholic, since the Irish church decided to stop taking excommunication requests in 2005. Thanks for the Wikipedia article though.

                Yes, very clever, the area the pope literally was sovereign of was under his control. I’m sure a clever guy like you understands the difference between that and the idea that literally any Catholic is 100% subservient to the Pope at all times regardless of their own rank and power, which is the sort of nonsense you’re usually railing against when it’s your flavour of old-timey god-stuff.

                Tip though, and a bit of genuine sympathy here, when the UK continues down it’s path of right-wing bigotry and you feel your family isnt safe again, you are now in a Common Travel Area with a far more welcoming “Catholic” nation. Feel free to walk across the border unchecked and I promise I won’t you rat you out for describing a basic awareness of England’s anti-Catholic biases as a “need to be a victim”.

                • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
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                  That has nothing to do with cleverness. You asked which countries the Pope controlled and I showed you. Facts have nothing to do with cleverness. I’m not clever, I’m almost certainly far stupider than you. I just know history.

                  Also, I never said every Catholic is 100% subservient to the Pope or even implied it, so why are you putting words in my mouth? Are you usually this dishonest?

                  • The Octonaut@mander.xyz
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                    3 days ago

                    I’m not accusing you of that (in fact I literally said that you understand its not that), but I’m guess you’re ignorant of how that is how it is taught in the British curriculum. The motif you’re talking about Alan Moore using - the Gunpowder plot and therefore Guy Fawkes wanting to replace the noble British monarchy with a foreign theocracy - relies entirely on that context. British history is carefully curated with “that was a foreign plot and the British nation bravely survived it” vs “a foreign ally saved and restored our glorious nation”. For many, the presence of Catholicism is one of the primary deciding factors in that.

                    Are you usually this unable to take criticism without insulting people? (Yes, daily)

            • MothmanDelorian@lemmy.world
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              3 days ago

              As the Papacy coronated Kings they had a role to play in the legitimacy of any King. The Papacy has a history of playing favorites in this regard.

              Please provide a source that substantiates the idea that people currently living in the UK see the monarch as a religious leader.

              I don’t think anyone is promoting an anti-Roman Catholic ideology as much as you have an apparently biased and flawed understanding of Fawkes goals.

        • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
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          3 days ago

          Please do read about the Gunpowder Plot because you clearly don’t know about it if you think this is some anti-Catholicism thing.

          Also, I am talking about Moore’s point, not whether or not you believe the point is based in fact.

          But your need to be a victim when you aren’t even a factor here is relevant.

        • Scubus@sh.itjust.works
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          3 days ago

          anti-catholicism baked in

          Thats called a brain, my dude. They’re normally included in the package.

    • Juice@midwest.social
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      3 days ago

      What part of rorschach’s views are revolutionary? Rorschach is a chud. Maybe his views are extreme but not revolutionary. False equivalence be wilin