Post by paulpogue on Apr 6, 2009 17:58:46 GMT -8
As Rorschach, Walter Kovacs is all the short-tempered, single-minded willfulness of a small child, fused with all the well-honed combat and strategy skills of an adult who's survived decades of Hell, and if he was a real person, I'd argue that this should scare the shit out of everyone who understands what that actually means.
One of the things I really liked about the comic was that everyone was appropriately scared shitless of Rorschach. The only people who aren't terrified of him are the other heroes -- and to be fair, I think they're hiding a little bit of fear. Dan may be the only person who's genuinely unafraid of him, and that's largely because of the whole exasperated-big-brother thing he's got going on.
Another subtle note I never really picked up on until all this prompted me to reread the whole series again: Rorschach is actually genuinely respectful of Laurie all the way through, to the extent that he's even able to be respectful of a woman. As best I can recall, he never actually insults her, never calls her a whore (which he pretty much does to every single woman he comes across in the series), and seems to really mean it when he tells Dan "Shame Miss Juspeczyk can't join us." The closest thing he comes to an insult is "Never really liked your costume. Sorry." Which -- the bad little boy inside all of us again -- is actually precisely what Laurie thinks of the costume too, but Rorschach will say it to her face.
All that aside, though, the thing that really jumped out at me was their first meeting in the book, when he calls her "Miss Jupiter" and she yells at him about how her mom was trying to hide her Polish background. From that point on, Rorschach never, ever addresses her as anything except "Miss Juspeczyk," which is probably the most respectful gesture he extends to anyone all through the book. (Except for making up with Dan, but that's a different thing entirely.)
