Comment on Ligma
ArgumentativeMonotheist@lemmy.world 2 days ago
Okay, serious talk: was Ozymandias wrong in his assessment of the world and his (temporary, of course, nothing lasts forever) solution to nuclear annihilation or were his methods simply distasteful? If a nuke dropped on New York could stop WW3, at least put it on hold for 50 years, would it not be worth it? If an entire American state was glassed but in return Western/American imperialism stopped being a thing, would it not be worth it? I feel like the global South, victims of Western amoral moves, pillaging and murder, would not only consider it worth it but light as a retribution…
What do y’all think? 🤔 For the record, I’m basing this on the movie, idk if the comic is fundamentally different or mostly aesthetically so.
Uruanna@lemmy.world 2 days ago
The main difference was he didn’t nuke various cities, but created some giant mutant psychic squid and teleported it on New York, killing millions (somehow, between the splash and the dying psychic squid causing mass mind liquefaction), and making the world think they were being attacked by some space alien, rather than making Dr. Manhattan the enemy. Movie version was quite a nice twist.
Killing the people has never been proven to be a very effective way to stop a rogue government, if the government is not physically impacted by random civilians getting killed, however many of them are killed. But in Watchmen, he didn’t simply kill civilians - he faked a common threat that the governments would be afraid of to divert their attention. Space squids in the comics, Dr. Manhattan going biblical in the movie. Depends how hard the governments buy it. In the movie, Dr. Manhattan siding with that idea means he could probably sell it well enough to make it believable - giving the world an ultimatum after someone else already pressed the button. Who knows about the squid version. The conclusion given in the comics / movie is that he was kinda right as long as Dr. Manhattan said screw it and supported it (mass slaughter notwithstanding, of course). The whole premise also does rely on the inevitability of shit hitting the fan, which… yeah, world with or without superpowers, it’s hard to reject that notion. But today? Who knows if some sort of walking god nuke just glassing Moscow, Washington, and a bunch of other big capitals would even be enough to curb down the delusions of our major fascist nazi nutcases, outside of actually vaporizing the entirety of their armies, including the fascists in chief themselves in all countries.
ArgumentativeMonotheist@lemmy.world 2 days ago
Thank you for the thoughtful post! And yeah, perhaps strategically destroying arms factories and bases, and targeting those in power, would have worked better, that makes sense.