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I agree with others that he takes the money from criminals he beats up. After all, he steals food from people's houses, and the fact that he can't turn the money in means it's not a case of real hypocrisy. He'd think of it, as others have said, as making good use of money that would otherwise have financed crime.

How come no one told me i spelled "far" as "fart?" Damn auto correct!

Anyhow, Rors is a professional moocher!

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You can never say never and never say always.

And because you view it as hypocritical, I should too? My point was that absolutist morality is inherently idiosyncratic. He lives by his own rules and sees actions, which you or I might consider the same, as separate. I mean with Truman and Veidt, the action is basically "kill a lot of people." But if racism is a factor, and I think it could be, Japanese people aren't really people (to him, not to me).

Would you consider it hypocritical for a moral absolutist to condone the slaughter of cows and not the slaughter of humans? They're both slaughter. Or how about condoning the picking of innocent, living apples and not condoning the slaughter of humans? Again, both actions end lives. Everyone draws the line somewhere, even absolutists.

Also, I think it's important to keep in mind that we're the ones imposing terms like "absolutism" on the character. All he says is that evil must be punished, that he'll never surrender and that people need to be aware of what Veidt did. When he kills himself, he doesn't say, "Hey Jonny, I think you should kill me because I can't reconcile my absolutist morality with what Veidt has done to the world. Thanks!" He says "Of course. Must protect Veidt's new utopia. One more body amongst foundations makes little difference. Well? What are you waiting for? Do it."

His motivations are subject to interpretation. And assigning him a philosophy and then criticizing him for not following it is just ridiculous.

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Uh... Hey... Hey, forget it. It's okay, man. It's okay. [pause] Uhh...

Well, doesn't this just flag you as having no idea what you're talking about.

Not only is objectivism written into the character as obviously and explicitly as it could be, Moore himself has described the character as such. Once more, he's based on The Question and Mr. A, two Ditko-created embodiments of Randian and Kantian objectivism, neither of which are abstract adjectives subject to semantics or interpretation, by the way. I'd love to hear that argued against or dispelled.

That undermines everything else you have to say. You earlier argued that Rorschach is not a hypocrite, and here you list a multitude of examples that peg absolutist objectivism as inherently contradictory to itself. Of course, the only way your point makes any sense is to assert that Rorschach is not an objectivist, which is a fallacy that speaks for itself.

The entire point of the character is to show you that objectivism is ultimately and inextricably tied to personal subjectivity, personal opinion, and personal point of view. Nobody can feasibly be a perfect embodiment of black-and-white morals, and, if you claim that you are or you claim that you definitively and objectively (there's that word again!) know what is "right" and what is "wrong," you are almost automatically a hypocrite.

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He did it.

I know that Moore had said that and though I haven't actually read Ditko, I've read that Rorschach is based on those characters before. But I don't think it's necessary (or even advisable) to think that authorial intention = the law. I mean, if you read Mein Kampf, would you interpret it only as Hitler wanted you to? I agree that Rorschach was written with particular philosophies in mind, but I don't think his words or actions really convey it.



There is nothing within the pages of Watchmen that says we have to see him as one. And I think analyzing a text in a sort of isolated way is more objective (so to speak) and valid than thinking, "Well the author said this, therefore it's true."



I find Rorschach's speech to Dr. Long (ch. 7, pg. 26) incompatible with your theory. A few quotations:

"Live our lives, lacking anything better to do. Devise reason later." (Sounds pretty nihilist to me.)

"Existence is random. Has no pattern save what we imagine after staring at it too long. No meaning save what we choose to impose." (Mmm, that's some good existentialism.)

"Was reborn then, free to scrawl own design on this morally blank world." (Emphasis mine.)

In the first chapter, he writes that "there is good and there is evil, and evil must be punished. Even in the face of Armageddon, I shall not compromise in this," and of course he repeats that basic sentiment throughout the book. But it's undeniably vague.

Considering the above explanation of his motivations, doesn't it follow that "good" and "evil" are idiosyncratically defined concepts for him -- his own design? And without any elaboration from him on how exactly he defines them, we have to work backwards; that is, we must look at specific judgements and choices he makes to see what he considers good and evil. Why you'd prefer to assume you know what exactly his beliefs are and then evaluate his canonical behaviour using those standards, I don't know.

Anyway, from my perspective, he's not a hypocrite.

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Uh... Hey... Hey, forget it. It's okay, man. It's okay. [pause] Uhh...

Heh heh... "Fart stretch"

Maybe Rorschach works for the Gordian Knot Lock Company, and that's why he's always kicking doors in. He does seem to be their primary mode of income.

Fixed

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i think we need to establish about how much money rorschach would need in a month. i have tried to find out how much such a crummy apartment (it´s really more like a room - does it even have a seperate bathroom?) in a run-down part of the town let by a private person might have cost. no success, but could it have been more than, say, 100 dollars? probably even less.
i think rorschach has next to no expenses apart from rent. he hardly seems to bother about food, grabbing the odd snack (raw egg, sugar cubes) here an then. a coffee at the gunga diner won´t set him back much. then there´s the newspaper - that´s also cents.

my theory: he can´t have a steady income. why? because the landlady complains about him not paying rent regularly. if he had ready money, he´d pay her punctually, i´m sure. so, no steady day job.
the same argument goes for robbing criminals. apart from his moral code, i believe that he gets so many baddies, if he´d take money from them it would make up a "steady income". so, no taking money from criminals either.

plus, when he´s taken by the cops, he only has some loose change that doesn´t even make one dollar.

so i guess scraping together some dollars by checking the trashcans and selling stuff he finds there or maybe doing an odd job here and there might be realistic - really his room is the only thing that keeps him away from vagrancy, in all other aspects he might as well be a vagrant.

I think this is a decent theory. He's clearly been living there a while (how else would he build up those huge stacks of New Frontiersman issues and also filthy dishes), and her asking for rent is "usual," so he's at least chronically late about paying, when he pays at all. There aren't very many good explanations for why a landlord, even one desperate for income, would put up with him stinking up the place and being generally unpleasant to be around if he's not pulling his own weight with the rent. She must feel sorry for him or something. When you think of it that way, Mrs. Shairp is a much more sympathetic character.

As far as his actual source of income, I'm surprised no one's mentioned it yet. Besides trashpicking, where else do hobos get money? People give it to them. You see a crazy guy wandering around with a sign, maybe you feel sorry for him and give him the quarters in your pocket, the ones you were saving for a nice game of Galaga. It's not a very reliable source of income, but there are people who have places to live but do the homeless-person-with-sign thing anyway.

When Walter pays rent, I bet he pays entirely in coin.

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"Under no circumstances should anyone encourage the ordinary person to be funny."
--Bob Mackey

Which would be one of many reasons why Mrs. Shairp hates him. I hate it when people pay for things that way, if it's more than a dollar.

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Just my two cents, but here goes:

Rorschach, it seems to me, is not a Spiderman type, "swing through town stopping every crime I see," hero. He understands that his time is important, and chooses to focus on the worst criminals. He stalks the most evil and corrupted elements of society, murderers, serial killers, rapist, etc. This takes time, and lots of detective work. He would be sure of the facts, and the subjects guilt, before invoking his extreme brand of justice. This would make Rorschach's "victims" few and far between. This is supported by the detectives talking about him in the opening of first comic, where he is "still out there". This line always lead me to believe that evidence of his activities arrives sporadically, after long lulls.

If we accept the above as true, then it is not a long stretch to assume that Rorschach would have contact with the families of the people he is seeking justice for. He would need to talk to them to get all the information he can, so he can begin investigating. Following this line of reasoning, he would let them know how the family can contact him with any new information, i.e. the trashcan/Mailstops. Finally, when Rorschach does find and punish those responsible, he may inform the family, to give them a sense of closure.

This, in theory, could lead to several "rewards" for Rorschach's help. Though I do not think he would accept a large cash gift, I could imagine money left in one of his Mailstops.

Finally, as others have said, he walks the streets by day with his "The End is Nigh" sign. There are all kinds of "goodies" that one can find simply walking around a large city. It is not uncommon to find coins, (once, my kids and I found almost $2.00 worth of quarters, dimes & nickles ), bits of odd jewelry, lost or forgotten electronics, and other "valuable" items that can be turned into cash at a pawn shop. If that is not enough, he also digs through the trash, finding more items of value. Remember, one man's trash is another's treasure.

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If all the world was apple pie, and all the sea was ink
and all the trees were bread & cheese, what would we have to drink?

i´m pretty sure he´d punish a pimp, if he caught one in the act. he definitely leaves the hookers alone. i think he sees them more as victims than actual criminals, weak, corrupted, but not downright evil. it might also have something to do with the fact that he´s generally uncomfortable with the opposite sex. i guess prosecuting hookers would force him to get more contact with this problem that he´d care for.
and i really, really don´t think he´d take money from criminals. there is just not a scrap of evidence for this.

Actually, he did basically let that slide (he noted the seller's address to report later, but left the vial on the table). On his next visit, he gave Moloch grief about having an unregistered gun, but just told him to remedy that situation "soon" on his way out.

The obvious explanation is that he had higher priorities (information), and once satisfied that Moloch was telling all he knew didn't see any need to pursue the side matter beyond its intimidation value.

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Why are so few of us left active, healthy, and without personality disorders?

Previously in this thread , not being able to swallow any suggestion that Rorschach might take money or valueables from the criminals he catches (due to his inflexible personal moral code), I posted the hypothesis that he made his living by roaging through trash, that is to say, obtaining money scraped from loose change found in old clothes and/or from selling reusable or recycleable items. This is in perfect agreement with the following facts:

- His very modest lifestyle;
- His nearly constant foul smell;
- The foul smell of his apartment;
- His habit of scavaging items and taking them (an extension of the trashcan behavior);
- His various references to knowing the hidden, ugly, underbelly of the city.
- He actually hid his uniform and face" among the trashcans in an alley once;
- He is only found with loose change on him.

The only actual evidence I could offer at the time, however, was his journal entry for October 21st, 1985 (Watchmen V, page 11, frame no. 7):


The word "deposit" as a description of the items people threw away in the garbage can is the key point.

However, I believe I have found much stronger support for my hypotesis that Rorschach's "day job" is basically foraging through trash. It is a series of tiny details in frames from Watchmen V. Particularly:

- In frame 5 (center frame) of page 12, we can see in the background Rorschach with his sign leaving the Gunga Diner towards the trashcan;

- In frame 9 of page 12 (bottom right frame) we clearly see him in the background stooping over the trashcan going through it's contents;

- In frame 4 of page 17 (middle left frame) we see Rorschach in the background walking not FROM, but TOWARDS the trashcan while holding up his sign;

- In frame 6 of page 17 (middle right frame) we see Rorschach walking in the foreground holding his sign and still going in the direction of the can;

- In frame 8 of page 17 (bottom middle frame) we see Rorschach in the background bending over the trashcan once again;

- Finally, in frame 1 of page 18 (top left frame) we see Rorschach retrieving what he thinks is a note from Moloch.

We know Rorschach enter the Gunga Diner shortly after waking up (11 am), goes straight to the trashcan, then goes somewhere briefly (perhaps around the block) and then approaches the trashcan a second time from the other side, until he finally dives into the trashcan a third time, now in the evening, to retrieve the note. In the space of a few hours, he went through the contents of the trashcan three times. Far too much to be accounted simply by any eagerness to hear from Moloch (which likely does not even exist since he does not mention it).

Also, reviewing this stuff, I noticed another small detail I had passed before: the only thing Rorschach buys in the Gunda Diner is a cup of coffee, nothing else (though he does play with the mustard to make a Rorschach figure on a menu or napkin).

From all of the arguments and evidence above, it seems to me like case closed: Rorschach made a living out of trashcan diving!

What do you guys think? Below I give you a collage with all the six frames I mentioned above shown in sequence.

Good grief, I'd never noticed all the trashcan diving before! I'll have to pay closer attention on my reread! (I loaned my book out, oh the agony. I have it on my computer but it's not the same.) Thanks for your detailed post!

I too think that he gets most of his stuff dumpster diving. (Ahem, I'm still using a table I got out of the trash over 20 years ago, ahem). However, if you are observant, you can find all kinds of things just dropped on the street. Money, gift cards (found one of those myself the other day, fully loaded Starbucks gift card. It had been run over a few times and forgotten on the street.), recylcables. Plus I think that people probably throw money his way too. Not sure he puts out a can for donations, however, I wouldn't be surprised either.

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Biosynth. Rorschach Fangirl.
http://rorschachsjournal99.blogspot.com/
http://gothicdragon99.blogspot.com/

Wow....I never noticed the dumpster diving. Great find, Wyart!

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I found this! It reminded me of this thread, hahahaha:


http://mistress-samwise.deviantart.com/ ... -115362774

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Yep, pretty much as I pictured it. Nice drawing!

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Biosynth. Rorschach Fangirl.
http://rorschachsjournal99.blogspot.com/
http://gothicdragon99.blogspot.com/