I wouldn’t go so far as to say Veidt is blind to the “idiocy” of his plan. He fully accepts that his actions are “an act of war/terrorism”, but he accepts the ends justifies the means. And I think he is also aware of the war buildup to protect us from aliens. But it was in the face of an immediate threat of total war AMONG humans, one with potentially catastrophic results. It wasn’t like it was buildup for buildups sake, it was simply a change in the target of the buildup (from each other to another). It was an immediate and necessary first step, not an idioitic idea from a vain egotist.
[Snipping your analogy, which is a good one, just so I don’t get bogged down in how it does or doesn’t apply.]
For me, it comes down to whether or not Veidt’s plan saved lives: were the nuclear war deaths a sure thing? Just about everyone thinks so, in the story. The harm would have been greater by a very large amount.
In which case customed heroism is itself not moral, right?
“We” might; I don’t. It’s a theory based mostly on a recent New York Times article about the movie.
I think the Comedian was a bully who enjoyed hurting people. He became a crimefighter so he could feel good and receive plaudits for his hurting people.
He does evil in the service of good and enjoys the evil and is able to feel good about himself. He later questions whether the evil that he has done for his country is for good. His reactions to Veidt’s scheme is that the amount of evil to done for good is to massive for him to get his mind around.
In Veidt’s mind. He’s brilliant but also a pretentious ass who thinks he’s balanced the scales by making himself “feel every death.” I don’t know much about Moore, but there’s no way he expected his audience to swallow that touchy-feely junk unironically. (From what I can tell it seems pretty far from his own views. Watchmen itself takes a pretty jaundiced view of such simple morals. Arms dealers are about the most reliable storybook and movie villains in existence.) He’s apparently okay with the fact that he’ll profit immensely from the carnage, because hey, somebody’s got to, and he might as well be that somebody because he’s the wisest.
Not that that’s like the Comedian or anything. 
Hey, the world was tough. He hadda be tougher.
Putting aside Veidt’s massive ego, I think most of the evidence supports his “interpretation” of Comedian’s reaction to learning the plot rather than the idea that all of a sudden human lives meant something to the Comedian and he couldn’t deal. Comedian had very little regard for human life. Granted the scale is much larger (hundreds maybe thousands vs. 3 million), but I don’t find that as a compelling reason for Comedian’s actions. Had Blake tried to stop the plan, or immediately report it to the authorities, or some such, I could give credence to the idea that he suddenly realized the value of human life. But he didn’t. I think Veidt’s description fits the Comedian, his actions, and his psyche much better than this idea that he had some kind of revelation about life.
I agree. I said Veidt’s a narcissist, not that he’s wrong.
You mean because you’re hurting the bad guys to save people? I would say that there’s an exception to the “don’t hurt people” rule when you’re trying to stop them from hurting others. Plus, most costumed heroes try to avoid actually killing the bad guys. Whereas Veidt made no effort to avoid killing, and he killed innocents. In my view that makes a big difference.
I’ve read some leaks from preview screenings, and according to what I’ve read:
[spoiler]Instead of the fake alien, Veidt creates some sort of device that is supposed to harness Dr. Manhattan’s powers for some beneficial reason, but which actually causes devastation, for which Veidt frames Manhattan, making Manhattan the “villain” that humanity must unite against. As I understand it, again based on the leaks I’ve read, the essential parts of the original ending are still present: Veidt’s plan works, the “good guys” agree to cover it up for the greater good, Rorschach won’t go along, Manhattan has to kill him.
If that description is accurate, I think I’ll be satisfied with the new ending.[/spoiler]
If you trust Wil Wheaton:
More at the link.
Having seen Watchmen recently, I’ve decided that my earlier verdict that Comedian=Joker was a little glib. They have a lot in common in their cynical take on the human condition: the Comedian expresses his in a gleefully nihilistic brutality in the service of his government paymasters, the Joker in elaborate schemes to peel back what he sees as society’s thin veneer of sanity which masks the meaningless chaos of existence.
The fundamental difference, though, is that for all his cynical brutality, the Comdedian, although he doesn’t even realise it himself initially, hasn’t entirely given up on humanity: it isn’t a pose, a facade of cynicism hiding an idealistic heart a la Rick Blaine, but he’s genuinely horrified when he discovers Veidt’s scheme. He thought he didn’t care, but when he realises the magnitude of what Veidt is planning, he really does despair: it makes his own gleeful brutality seem trivial. The Comedian thought that his nihilism was driving a stake through the heart of humanity, but it turns out he was merely treading on its toes occasionally.
The Joker, on the other hand, truly has given up on humanity: his reaction to Veidt’s scheme - particularly the fact that it was at least ostensibly in the service of saving mankind from itself - would probably be to treat it as a colossal jest, the ultimate black joke. If the Joker had discovered what Veidt was planning, his response would be fits of admiring laughter instead of tears of despair.
Addendum: what really breaks Blake in the end is the realisation that the havoc Veidt is going to wreak because - for all Veidt’s posturing - he cares about humanity is far worse than anything Blake did by not caring: Blake, for all he thought he was the ultimate badass, hurt a few people; Veidt, who sees himself as the ultimate humanitarian, plans to kill millions.
I think the the thing that gets him is sort of indirect. The Comedian sees himself as humanity writ small; humans do all sorts of terrible things and don’t care, so he can do all sorts of terrible things and not care to humanity. But when he uncovers what he does, he realises he does give something of a shit - and that’s terrible, because if he cares, if he does have a conscience, then humanity at large does too, and the results of not just the plan but everything he’s done are truly horrifying.
He’s a fascinating character, is Eddie. Moore doesn’t pull his punches in depicting just what despicable things he’s done - he isn’t a standard villain who discovers his heart of gold - and yet you end up feeling an odd sympathy for the poor old bastard: his one-time victim Sally Jupiter having a fling with him ought to be a just a plot contrivance to set him up as Laurie’s dad, and yet it rings wholly true.
There’s a minor plot hole in the comic. After the Crimebusters meeting in 1966, the Owlship is clearly visible. But in 1975 when Laurie and Jon visit Adrian at Karnak, Adrian says fast and safe airships may “soon” be economically viable. So, did Dan get some kinda prototype?
Archie is not “economically viable” if she is an airship (dirigible) at all. I see no space for lifting chambers, so I have to think Archie works more like a hovercraft than an airship.
I always kinda wondered if one of Dr. Manhattan’s near-supernatural innovations or inventions was taken to the next logical step by Dan in designing the Owlship, because there’s obviously no way IRL for a craft of that size, obvious weight and configuration to stay in the air as it does.
As for Eddie… I agree with much of what’s been said here. Another distinction between him and the Joker is that he is, deep down, a patriot, but one who has done terrible, terrible things for his country. If he were a maniac like the Joker he wouldn’t have been exempted from the Keene Act and quite possibly would have been forcibly retired or killed on President Nixon’s orders.
The Comedian loves America, and part of what nearly unhinges him when he learns of Veidt’s plot is that the awful damage NYC will suffer just might be necessary if World War III, which would destroy the entire country, is to be averted. (Remember that he anticipates WWIII, with “the nukes flying like junebugs,” during the abortive Crimebusters organizational meeting). If he blows the whistle on Veidt’s plan, it just might be shut down, but then WWIII would probably break out. If he says nothing, then he will be complicit in the worst tragedy to befall his country since 1776.
No wonder he practically imploded.
I disagree about Blake’s patriotism: I always saw it as an outlet for rather than the motivation behind his brutality: he just liked beating people up, and joining WW2 to fight the Japanese and then becoming a black-ops Government thug Government provided him with a legitimate excuse to do so. I never got the feeling that he cared about his country one way or another, except insofar as it gave his violence a sanctioned release. The Comedian was shown as revelling in the horror of Vietnam simply because it was the perfect theatre for his brutality, not because he saw the US as being justified. A genuine patriot might have killed Woodward and Bernstein on Nixon’s orders, but would he have shot Kennedy? Yeah, I know that assassination was much more ambiguous in the comic; I wish the movie had left it that way.
Incidentally, am I the only one who thinks that part of the reason Ozymandias killed the Comedian was that Veidt harboured a grudge for Blake beating him up the first time they met?
Well, Blake did win in the short term, devastating uppercut and all.
I suspect Ozy enjoyed it, but once Blake knew about the conspiracy he had to get added into the pyramid of mass murder that Veidt was building.