Thread:Mesektet/@comment-3581997-20160615160106/@comment-3581997-20161219114528

I know what you mean, the ending, while welcomed seems too rushed, if we had gotten to the same place but Ozymandias had more time to lay out what was going on, or Manhattan had been given just one extra strip where he had a revelation about the nature of his place it would have made more sense. But we got what we got. I often wonder about the symbolism of Doctor Manhattan.

When I was younger I thought he was meant to symbolize God, a being with the power to fix everything but losing any sense of responsibility. However over time I came to see him, not as symbolic of God, but of the reader. God as no agency in mortal affairs, the reader does and seeing as how those ostracized by society not only become nihilists but often look for their entertainment in non-generalized areas, like say comics, perhaps Moore was saying to the reader "Hey reader! I see you there looking all smug and bored and just reading comics cause you think the real world doesn't matter. Well guess what jackass, the potential to change this crappy world lies in you! But what do you do? You act bored and too cool or smart to actually fix any of the problems you see in the world."

The eighties is when nihilism was becoming cool. But some many people, as today, were trying to deal with being nerds, geeks, losers etc by cloistering themselves off in their hobbies and saying "The world just doesn't get me." and then just becoming disenchanted with it, leading the outsiders to become elitists. I think now that Doctor Manhattan is Moore's sly way of telling those disenchanted with the world to stop complaining and start doing.