To the happy few

So the guy says, “What are you doing? You come to fix the radio, but you’re only walking back and forth!”

I say, “I’m thinking!” Then I said to myself, “All right, take the tubes out, and reverse the order completely in the set.” (Many radio sets in those days used the same tubes in different places – 212’s, I think they were, or 212-A’s.) So I changed the tubes around, stepped to the front of the radio, turned the thing on, and it’s as quiet as a lamb: it waits until it heats up, and then plays perfectly – no noise.

When a person has been negative to you, and then you do something like that, they’re usually a hundred percent the other way, kind of to compensate. He got me other jobs, and kept telling everybody what a tremendous genius I was, saying, “He fixes radios by thinking!”

— Richard Feynman, in Surely You’re Joking, Mr. Feynman!

Watchmen ticks like clockwork, with all the interwoven plots and subplots playing off each other in masterful fashion. (Again, in a way that would be hard to accomplish in a different medium). For all its artistic quality, I would rather have a more humane (huma-a-ne, as Clawdia might say) and optimistic view of the world. Even though Rorschach is a modern day Javert, his uncompromising attitude almost seems reasonable when compared to the hubris, indifference or appeasement of other characters. “No. Not even in the face of Armageddon. Never compromise.” I tend to agree; compromise is good when it arises from compassion or love, but it should never be used as the basis for Utopia. “Of course. Must protect Veidt’s new utopia. One more body amongst the foundations makes little difference”. That is the true tragedy of the watchmen: they are unnecessary; there is no dilemma other than the one they create for themselves, while the rest of the world is oblivious to their hyperbolic delusions.