How Minor Characters Indicate the Severity Struggle of The Watchmen
In scripting The Watchmen, part of the goal of the creators was to change the way people view superheroes and the entire genre that was almost trivialized in their fight for justice to some infantile level that is best an exaggeration of the struggle of the average hero in any film. They live in worlds that were unrelatable, and thus, the lessons that could be taught and learned by the work were not nearly as relevant. However, the slew of minor characters in the work who are expended in the fight signifies the sheer size of the daunting task of restoring order. In this particular work, the numerous minor characters end up dead for one reason or another. They serve a particular purpose in helping the authors bring to bear the ultimate purpose of the work (Moore), which is to rid the evil element.
Critically, the goal of this work was to make sure that the heroes were put into a modern setting. The goal was to drop them into a more modern sociological experiment to allow the readers to think about the superhero as being a part of society. With this in mind, the minor characters then serve as a means through which one can view and frame superheroes but also to add the quantity of those in the fight as opposed to the lone wolf archetypal hero. They are included not only to provide aid, but they also exist to serve as a contrast. They serve as a screen and the inclusion of more elements of societal control than the hidden Batman in his lair or Spiderman in his Aunt’s apartment.
In addition to setting, a major portion of the story is about who would watch the people who are watching, as in who will represent the judgmental view of society that forces people to act in accordance to the law. The concept is about policing the super powerful. The minor characters exist, then, to show in some ways that it is all but impossible to police these people in many cases, but that simultaneously, they indicate the difficulty in accomplishing the task at hand without breaking a few rules. It serves as a treatise on the danger that comes when certain people in society, however noble they may appear, have been given extreme power to do what they want.
Works Cited
Moore, Alan, Leslie S. Klinger, and Dave Gibbons. Watchmen: The Annotated Edition. DC comics, 2017.
