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I'm not talking about the Doomsday Prophet we all know and love. Aside from swiping food from Moloch and Dan, he actually goes into a diner and pays for a cup of coffee ( 5-11-7). Where does he get the money? He's no longer in the garment trade, surely?

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Yeah, as crappy as his apartment was, he still needed rent money.

My guess is that he scrounged around, grabbing loose cash or stuff he could pawn during the day, and probably during the night as Rorschach. It's not much of a stretch to imagine Rorschach taking cash off of a drug dealer he'd just beaten to a pulp. Stuff like that.

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He did it.

I wouldn't put it past him. Makes me wonder what he did with the pair of keds he found in his 'maildrop'. I call trashcans that now. I get weird stares from my co-workers .

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I'm thinking he's on welfare. He's so quick to talk about decent men who believed in a day's work for a day's pay at the beginning, when he clearly doesn't do so himself. He's also quick to condemn his landlady for "cheating on welfare"...given what we know about him...and his often hypocritical nature, I've always imagined he probably does the same.

The psychiatric report indicates that he left the garment industry after "becoming" Rorschach. It's possible that he never held a job after that. He's hypocritical enough to steal from Dan and Moloch--maybe he picks the pockets of the criminals he assaults, with the justification that the money then won't be going towards drugs, prostitutes, etc.

What I wonder is, why is Rorschach a hypocrite? Hurm...must investigate further...

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I've wondered this myself. I tend to agree with that above, that he steals the money from criminals, like drug dealers.

You know what's hypocritical about him? He doesn't "punish" prostitutes and pimps. He'll "punish" those, like Moloch, who don't have a gun license or a prescription paperwork, but he doesn't "punish" those guilty of prostitution? Weird!

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Maybe he does love his mother after all...

No, I don't. Gimme one of those beers.

ETA: I can't help but wonder, had Dr. Manhattan not killed him, does anyone else think that Rorschach would have become another verson of Byron "Mothman" Lewis, mentally ill and instiutionalized?

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You beat me to the punch, LR. There's whole categories of crime that Rorschach blithely passes on by (okay, "creepily passes on by") on his way to harass bar-flies and elderly cancer patients. Granted, Ror may be picking his fights more carefully now that he's operating 100% outside of the law, but it is an interesting foible to see in a character that prides himself on not compromising, even in the face of death.

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"The light is taking me to pieces, and I'm afraid I just blue myself."

I like to think that because he passes the whores by (and refuses their offers) he can't bear to harm them because those women remind him of his mother. Underneath the 'face' of Rorschach, perhaps there is still that scared 10 year old boy, worried that someone was hurting the women who so remind him of his mother.

Norman Bates complex?

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I don't doubt it.

If they could catch him again, probably, but I don't see him staying their for long. He's an elusive little minx.

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I wouldn't say Norman Bates . . .

Bates was infatuated with his mother, his mother was the central focus of his life, whereas Rorschach did his best to shove his mother out of his psyche, but, as hard as he tried, there was still a tidbit of sentiment left, and it may have manifested itself in him turning a blind eye to whores. Very interesting discussion . . .

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He did it.

He's an elusive little minx.

O dear me. I snarfed coffee out of my nose at work.

He's our elusive little minx.

Can I have my clothes back?

Get back in the fridge!

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He says "Mother" before he opens his eyes for the first time as Rorschach, so maybe the Norman Bates interpretation is right. I don't think it's just his mother, but the abyss around him that whispers "no" uncaringly when he looks for meaning or love in existence.
Mothman always seemed to me to be a Golden Age counterpart of Rorschach or Veidt. There are some costume similarities in the zigzagging, and the moth is a creature that flies into light, which puts me in mind of Veidt's role as a "modern prometheus". Rorschach also gets shown the light by Dr Manhattan, and he definitely would have had some kind of crack-up after the squid. Hooded Justice also seems to be the counterpart of one of those two characters, but I'm not sure which. He and Mothman could each be a blend of the two, for whatever reason.

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Gone fishin'

There is also the dream that a 13 year old Kovacs has (see Dr, Long's psych report) that upset him 'physically'. A teenage wet dream about his mother? *shudders*

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Yeah, the monster image of his mother in that dream has a moth or butterfly shape to it, and we know symmetry is an important motif in the book.

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Gone fishin'

The 'butterfly' image also shows up on Rors' mask minutes before he screams at Manhattan to kill him. I wonder what that means?

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Well it might be more accurate to call it the reverse of a butterfly, if I can backpedal over what I said. It's some kind of dissolution that to Rorschach is deadly. It's a synthesis on many levels; of warring nations into peace, and Dan and Laurie's shadows in Veidt's palace before they get it on, and it represents the end of the conflict which defines Rorschach's life. When Jon leaves that scene to confront Veidt he walks past some aquariums and butterfly cases that suggest that something has been captured or contained. It's pretty sad to see that symmetry of Rorschach's face condense into a black spot in the cold of the Antarctic snow.

Here's a quote from RLS in the 'Blood from the Shoulder of Pallas' thread that may explain the synthesis, and Rorschach's role as a being of Reason.

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Gone fishin'

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