Watchmen: Nite Owl

With the Watchmen movie coming up, it's understandable that the topic will come up in conversation occasionally. However, every time it does I get an odd look the moment I mention my favourite Watchmen character.

Nite Owl.

People just look at me as if I misprounouced the name of my fiance on the alter, but it's true.

"But he's so boring!"
"He doesn't really DO anything."
"He's like Batman without anything interesting."

One particular interpretation I've heard of the Watchmen shows three of the main characters as 'aspects' of Batman. Veidt is Batman's intelligence without his morality or desire for vengeance, Rorscharchs is Batman's vengeance without his cunning or morality, and Nite Owl is Batman's gadgetry and sense of justice.

Nite Owl is just a guy who is morally good at heart who happens to have a knowledge of mechanics/electronics and a desire to help the world, who gets in WAY over his head.

The others are either so crazy, have their heads so far into the clouds or so caught up in their own problems they don't really notice just what they're getting into. Nite Owl is the one person who has his head on his shoulders firmly enough to realise what's happening is bigger then any of them (well, except maybe one or two).

Rorsharch is an amazing character, but there's nothing actually LIKEABLE about him, same with the Comedian. Both of them are FRIGGIN' MENTAL. Veidt and Dr Manhattan are both highly interesting character studies of what would occur if you gave people these abilities, but still they're not particularly empathisable, and I, for one, never felt like I could relate to them. Silk Spectre was too caught up in her own problems, and I never really got a feel for the character.

Nite Owl is a (relatively, he still dresses as an Owl and fights crime) sane individual who just wanted to try and help. When the Keene act passed, he didn't have some grand scheme to avoid it, or just go crazy and ignore it. He was as surprised as anyone and was afraid to break it.

Let's face it, all nerds have harboured hidden dreams of one day being a superhero, and for most of us Nite Owl is a look at who we would have become had we done so. A relatively normal person who is out of his/her depth, but still tries to do their best. I find that incredibly relatable, which I imagine was the point to the character. It's Nite Owl who grounds the whole story, his feeble protests that remind us that what's happening IS extraordinary, something we often forget in the constant realm of comic books where death is temporary and breasts are forever perky.

I am looking forward to seeing Nite Owl in action in the movie.

I am wordslut. It's like a wordsmith except less classy

... So I'm standing there looking the Prince in the eyes with a look of sheer surprise and embarrassment on my face. This only got more awkward when I felt urine seeping down my trouser legs and staining my pants. Although apparently when a Prince pisses on your leg in that culture it's a sign of respect.

• 1. My accent has been described as a weird amalgamation of mostly Australian, with a strong degree of English and American in place. It's at the point where when I went overseas people couldn't pick where I was from.

Two things. Firstly, as some of the more astute of you will have noticed, I am adding a new thing to the list of "what is to be included with every post". I am directly stealing the idea from Carlo's (www.pixcapacitor.com) and for the next one hundred posts I will include a single fact about myself. Some will be weaker then others, but you get what you paid for, and I ain't getting paid shit for this blog.

Secondly, a small update. I have finished the overall concept overview of my comic book proposal I am going to be sending it. It is approximately 19,000 words (for those of you who need a comparison, an Honours thesis is supposed to be about 15,000). When this is included with the already completed script for the first issue (which is about 4,500) it works out to be over 23,000 words written on this.

I wish I had the capacity to write academic stuff like I do nerdy stuff, I would be an Honours KING.

I started doing this 18th of August, according to Windows, which means I've been writing more then 1,000 words a day, on average. If I could write PRACTICAL stuff with this much promiscuity, I would be a wordsmith/slut.

Is it sexist if the most dangerous, evil person in the world is a woman?

... So there I was, looking the hermaphrodite straight in the eyes to avoid looking at his/her exposed genitals. I was gobsmacked for a second, before repeating the question. "Yes, those are lovely, but do you have the time?"


So, I have a HUGE backstory in my head (and rapidly getting onto paper) for the comic book proposal I'm going to send in and be ignored with. Something I noticed rapidly was my urge for equality of the sexes meant that many of the heroes (nearly half, go me) were women. I've always been a fan of the strong female character who has just as many flaws as the male characters do, not in a sexual way, it's just something I find interesting in a story (although Xena can be my sheath anyday). But as I was coming up with characters, more and more of the villains were men, with like TWO women. I was mortified.

"Damnit Steve!" I exclaimed in public in an expression of the schitzophrenia I wish I had, "women have the right to be evil bastards just as men do, you sexist pig!"

Thing is, rewriting so many villains into female characters would be kinda awkward. So I went the easy route, took the single most powerful badarse evil bastard in the world and turned them into the single most powerful badarse evil bitch in the world.

Then I pondered if people would misread it as me being a sexist pig. "So this guy thinks women are the cause of all evil, huh?" proclaimed evil Freud, stroking where his goatee would've been if he was good Freud (that's how things work with evil twins. If you're clean shaven, evil twin get a goatee, if you have a goatee, evil twin has no goatee and short pubes).

To which I responded in the internal debate waging in my head "But wait! The most powerful superhero is also a woman! Ha ha!"

And then my stereotypical early 20s male side said "So it'll have a chick-fight to end all chick fights, huh? Awesome. Awesome to the max."

I was tempted to say "Screw you all, every character is a hermaphodite, that way no one but conservatives can be offended!", but realised by stereotypical early 20s male side was right. It would be awesome to the max.

P.S. For a dose of irony I was tempted to name this post "Is it sexist if the most dangerous, evil person in the world is a babe with double D's and skanky clothes?", but I'm skating on thin ice as it is.

Say cheese!

... All I could think to say was "I just shat myself", to which Mr William Shatner took umbrage, but apparently it was the password, so I was allowed into the treehouse.

I have no idea where I'm going with life. Currently I have two distinct possibilities in front of me.

1. Get into Honours. This requires a class act of Blarney-stoning in which I convince the Honours convener that I was a victim of the Bellcurve and deserve to get in. Then it involves doing serious research about the nature of internet society, possibly cyber crime so that, worst comes to worst, I can get a reasonable job eventually with some cyber-protection group working for 'the man' or some crap.

The major problem is I just KNOW I'll bollocks up the research somehow. The fact of the matter is I'm genuinely not really an academic person. I can't quote anyone outside of popular culture, I have trouble remembering the theories of particular MAJOR theorists within Sociology (and everything else) despite having studied it for THREE AND A HALF YEARS.

2. Say 'bollocks to Honours' and apply for a diploma in Screenwriting. I've been doing research into the AFTRS Diploma in screenwriting, and already put stage 1 of a 3-stage application in. I do want to try and get into Screenwriting, even if I'm stuck in a boring drama series or something.

A problem with this is as the Diploma is part time, I won't qualify for Vet-Affairs support, so I'll have to (shock horror) get a job. Probably the main problem, however, is that I just KNOW it'll be full of arty wanky people.

"And what does this fight scene between the two protagonists say? Does it imply the inherent instability of relationships within civilised society?"
"Well, no, more just they think the other is a Russian spy."

Sometimes a cool fight scene between a cybernetically enhanced Ninja and a magical Samurai is just a fucking cool fight scene, and not an allegory for the inherent opposition within society between rationality and mysticism.


In the end I'll probably apply for both, and to be perfectly honest take the Screenwriting diploma if they accept me (which I'll find out before the Honours thing)

Ideally though, the comic I'm currently trying to write at the moment (80% through the 'overall' part of the proposal, with 10,000 words down, and finished the script for a first issue at 5,000 words. I plan on writing scripts for issue 2 and 3 to give them an idea of where it will go after the overall series introduction) will be sold to Dark Horse, they'll give me wads of cash I can use to buy a Stormtrooper suit, exercise equipment, masses of alcohol, and potentially a hooker or two (cocaine not included, unfortunately). And maybe if there's some left over I'll do things like 'plan for the future'.

P.S. On an unrelated note: http://www.philosophersnet.com/games Go, play, be merry. My pseudo belief in the Force actually did pretty well in the God-battleground. Second highest honour. Only trouble it had was one of semantics, in which it thought the inherently man-made nature of the force could condemn a serial rapist.