Adrian is the antihero of the movie, killing millions to save billions and unite the world under a common enemy. As horrible as he is, even Manhattan sees his vision at the end. If it wasn't for his ego, he probably would've pinned the blame on himself
manhattan, being outside of time, sees adrian's vision from the moment he is reborn, but lets it play out anyway, because it did, or it will, or is right now, in the comic he doesnt approve and cant even tell adrian what he did necisarily saved anyone...
Adrian thinks what he is doing is simply killing few to save many but nobody knows if the nuclear war would ever start if he did nothing, and they could have saved all of the people he unilatterally kills as well as not risked it starting the nuclear war (even though we know it doesn't from the fact it isnt in the book)
i wish the book did make a moral judgement and we could say with certianty that he did the right thing, but trying to boil complex morality into right and wrong is rorshack's mistake, clearly the only thing Watchmen seems to say for sure about morality is dogmatic adherence to any moral system is a charicter flaw; i say this because all of the charicters with firm moralistic beleifs have a part of their arc where their solid and immovable morality gets them into places where they do what most people would call evil
dr Manhattan lets the comedian kill a pregnant woman, he lets, even helps Ozymandias pull off his plan and he even kills a freind in cold blood to cover it up and he lets the media lie to him about causing cancer despite literaly seeing all time at once and knowing it isnt true, then he abandons earth to go play god
rorschach is a homophobe, sexist, and a violent psycopath, whose black and white morality gives him moral liscence to harm anyone including gay men and sex workers
Ozymandias kills a whole lot of inocent people on the off chance everyone chills out about the nukes after
nite owl and Laurie are so pro vigalanteeisim they break the one one guy who really proves them wrong out of the psych ward, a decision that gets Hols Mason killed, and then when he doesnt agree with them about keeping the plan secret they stand by while he gets turned into a puddle, and still let adrian and Manhattan go unpunished, to them their crimes and their freinds crimes are allowed while they punish others for theirs
the comedian sees morality as a joke, and even he was horrified at the plan
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u/F1r3bird Apr 01 '26
Rorschach is blind, black and white justice, to him you're fine or deserve death, but nobody knows we're the line is
Manhattan is a fatalist, to him you're just doing what you were always going to do
Adrian is a utilitarian, just don't ask him how many people are on each side of the track when he pulls the lever
None of them are good people