Stuck in a time loop

This was a cold open to a youtube video and I am crying LOL

In the comic, Laurie points out that the unlikelyhood of her own specificity isn't actually less unlikely than the circumstances by which billions of other people came to exist- and that, exactly, is Manhattan's point. He expressly extrapolates this logic to the rest of humanity- Earth is a miracle factory by virtue of being the one place that can support humans, all of whom have the exact same kind of contradictory history and interiority as Laurie, all of which he was paradoxically blinded to due to his power-induced self-absorption.

This, in turn, ties into one of the biggest ideas that the comic has regarding the superhero genre, which is that it's necessarily myopic, because it's very difficult to tell a superhero story that doesn't on some level implicitly buy into the idea that the superhero specifically is uniquely worthy of attention- the world contorts itself around the person who's name is on the cover. Structurally, non-superhero characters in superhero stories find themselves in an orbit; supporting cast members, love interests kept in the dark, civilians to be saved. Cape stories that deliberately defy this dynamic exist- Watchmen itself is one of them!- but are visibly positioning themselves opposite the standard assumptions of the genre by doing so. Many of the other characters embody this myopia. Rorschach's whole opening spiel is about how intellectually and morally elevated he is over the teeming masses, and his mask killer theory is fundamentally motivated by an ego-flattering desire for the neutered institution of costumed heroism to be relevant enough to sit at the center of a widespread conspiracy. Comedian's gleeful amorality is a means of justifying his horrible actions as the work of a man who's fundamentally above and smarter than every convention and concern of the little people. Dan is the most "normal" and in ways the most cynical about the change-making potential of heroism, but when he finds out about Hollis's murder it takes less than a second for him to start throwing his weight around and threatening Comedian-tier atrocities against the entire neighborhood- because Hollis was one of the characters who mattered. And, of course, Ozymandias, who positions himself as above the sophomoric dynamics of traditional superheroism, is nonetheless still pursuing a plan by which he, the Big Man Of History, unilaterally sacrifices countless nameless NPCS in order to trick the rest of the unthinking hordes into behaving themselves, eschewing anything remotely involving collective action. Almost everything untoward that happens in the book can be directly tied to a failure to internalize what Manhattan did- that other people are important. That everyone who gets blown up at the end of issue 11 could have been the subject of a whole comic book themselves.

truth over solace in lies

finished one of the most amazing reading experiences in my recent memory! these two are my very favourites.