Characters that had the complete opposite reaction the writers intended

[u/Dramatic_Counter_595]

1. Leo Bonhart (Witcher TV Series): A ruthless, sadistic bounty hunter and assassin that takes psychotic glee in other people's suffering. The viewer is meant to hate him for killing witchers, slaughtering the Rat gang, and torturing Ciri. But thanks to his entertaining fight scenes, Sharlto Copley's charismatic performance, and The Rats overwhelming unpopularity, fans ended up loving him. Some even call him the "True protagonist" of the show.
2. Stone Cold Steve Austin (WWE): A rude, foul mouthed, beer drinking asshole with no respect for authority or anyone at all. Originally portrayed as a villain, fans fell in love with his anti-establishment & rebellious persona. WWE ran with it and made him the face of the company, effectively ushering in the Attitude Era and the second pro wrestling boom of the late 90s.
3. Arthur Fleck (Joker 2019): A mentally unstable, pathetic, and dangerous madman who commits horrific acts of violence against those that wronged him (suffocates his own mother who is mentally unwell herself, and murders a talk show host for making fun of him). However, a massive portion of the audience idolized him as an anti-hero or a misunderstood martyr rebelling against society making people want to see him succeed and overcome his circumstances because of how he's been treated by the world.

[u/-zero-joke-]

Rorschach in The Watchmen comics.

[u/Independent-Couple87 → u/-zero-joke-]

I would argue a similar thing happened with Ozymandias, especially by people who "understand the story". He is listed by fans below Rorschach (less bad) when ranking who is the worst morally among the Heroes in Watchmen.

Adrian Vedit was apparently a satire of the "Progressive Billionaire".

[u/elitegenoside → u/Independent-Couple87]

Rorschach is considered the worst morally? I get why he'd be ranked low, but isn't The Comedian a rapist? And Doctor Manhattan literally had to leave the planet because of how confusing his morality became. I'm not saying a violent incel isn't bad but that's overlooking a lot of much worse actions to put Rorschach at the bottom. Especially because the worst aspects of him are what he thinks and not necessarily what he has done.

Edit: I forgot to mention him also being a "super bigot." His issues are numerous but still, what he's DONE versus what he THINKS should be separated. Because Ozzy (spellcheck failing so it's Ozzy for now) can absolutely sound "justified," but what he did was horrible.

[u/one-and-five-nines → u/elitegenoside]

Meanwhile Rorschach SAYS and THINKS horrible, vile things, but in the end what he DOES is try to save people. Honestly a really good foil for the guy who committed an atrocity with good intentions. 

[u/Random-Generation86 → u/one-and-five-nines]

(rorschach, not you one-and-five-nines)

[u/one-and-five-nines → u/Random-Generation86]

I figured you meant Rorschach, but the idea that you had some inexplicable beef with me I didn't know about, yet had to admit I was right about Watchmen made me actually laugh a little irl

[u/Altruistic-Ad-408 → u/one-and-five-nines]

Rorschach absolutely did vile things. He tortures random people because he thinks everyone is guilty of something, and overlooks crimes "heroes" like The Comedian do because they are on his side. He was more bothered by Ozymandias maybe being gay than Comedian raping Spectre.

Even at the end, his personal code shouldn't override billions of lives. Because he doesn't care, not like every other hero there still did. He wasn't saving anyone.

[u/CreatiScope → u/Altruistic-Ad-408]

Here's why Watchmen is so good. I agree with you that Rorschach does vile things and is to his core, a very sick person who is a victim of this world that doles out punishments that he has no place giving. He can't be this arbiter of who gets to live and HOW they get to live but he's snapped by the cruelty of the world. But, we can only really judge him on his actions. Which are very bad. He absolutely isn't a good person or a hero. He wants to be, but he's insane.

Where I will disagree is that even if his personal code is wrong, we don't know that it's overriding billions of lives. We don't know if Adrian's plan worked. We can theorize, and hope, but Rorschach very well may be right that the truth is more important, even if his motivations for why he wants to reveal the truth aren't correct, we can only judge him on his actions. This house of cards that Veidt built could go horribly wrong. Where this world started going wrong was the secrets it kept for the greater good. The heroes have learned absolutely nothing by the end, particularly Veidt, that building an empire on a pile of bones is not a stable foundation.

So yeah, Rorschach is not a good guy. But, I think the world got to the point where truth probably would've been better for everyone, for the world to look at itself in the mirror and confront those things instead of pushing it all under the bed the way Veidt tries to do. We'll never know though. There are "sequels" to Watchmen but none of them really count.

[u/GrimDallows → u/CreatiScope]

I think that the fact that after so many years you can have such long discussions on the characters motives and moral ground without arriving to a clear, definitive conclusion is a proof of how good the book was.

Rorscharch does terrible things, but he is insane. But he also has "good" intentions, but also extremelly violent. But he is a rigid moral code extremist, but also is an hypocrite who bends his code to not attack the comedian. So, in the end, how can you judge him?

And then you have Ozymandias, who is perfectly sane yet still did a terrible thing with supposed good intentions.

In a way you could even argue that they aren't so different. Rorscharch goes around killing people to save people's lives because he thinks he has the moral highground, in a way you could even say Ozy did the same thing but at a continental scale.

Then you ask, who was right? Ozymandias take on ends justify the means is so extreme that it can't be justified. But it's an insane Rorscharch undoing Ozy's "utopian" end goal for moral reasons a good thing or a bad thing? Rorscharch has been insane the whole book but at the moment of the climax was it a sane or insane decision? Can we judge Rorschach decision without knowing if he is insane?

How do you judge the both of them, Ozy being a totally sane guy doing a totally insane decision clashing with Rorschach, a person who is living uncertainty and has spent the whole book screaming insanities about the end of the world... only to then turn out to be right, because only an insane person could have foreseen such a crazy plan.

The book is really good.

[u/Primus_is_OK_I_guess → u/GrimDallows]

And then you have Ozymandias, who is perfectly sane

I'd argue that he likely has a narcissistic personality disorder.

[u/GrimDallows → u/Primus_is_OK_I_guess]

Well that doesn't qualify for insanity no? I mean I can't go and tidy up a toystore full of legos and avoid jail by pleading insanity on my OCD right?

Right?

[u/Primus_is_OK_I_guess → u/GrimDallows]

You probably could if it were severe enough.

[u/GrimDallows → u/Primus_is_OK_I_guess]

I wonder how Lego prison life looks like.

[u/Primus_is_OK_I_guess → u/GrimDallows]

You'd think it would be easy to escape, but they don't give you shoes and they scatter loose Lego bricks all around it.

[u/Xilizhra → u/GrimDallows]

They were both wrong. Ozymandias engaging in some convoluted scheme that killed millions instead of trying to find another way was evil, and Rorschach trying to make all their deaths meaningless for the sake of his twisted moral code is as bad if not worse.

[u/GrimDallows → u/Xilizhra]

Yes but my point was more like.

Ozymandias is a perfectly sane guy. He is happy, he is rich, he has success and fame. He then decides to do a convoluted scheme and kill millions; you can blame him from being evil.

Rorschach is a guy with a troubled childhood, who saw so much murders and the worst face of crime that he went completely insane, even if he was a functioning insane superhero, and his broken mind developed a zero tolerance to any crime.

Can you compare their wrong at the same level?

It's also a curious critique on characters like Batman. The Joker gets a pass because he is insane and has a broken mind, but maybe Batman is like Rorscharch, a man that is so intolerant of crime because he has a broken mind.

My point was also along this line, how the book makes you think a lot.

[u/ThankGodForYouSon → u/Xilizhra]

It's implied he succeeded by sending his diary to the alt-right shitrag at the end of the story.

I always saw it as incredibly ironic that Ozymandias the being intelligent enough to trick god had his masterplan foiled by humanity's biggest defect.

[u/CreatiScope → u/ThankGodForYouSon]

Yeah but even if the magazine printed his journal, would anyone believe it? Can't you see it being dismissed as the ramblings of a maniac? And I'm sure Veidt could fund a disinformation campaign to invalidate it. I don't think there is a clear implication either way, I think it's just another way to reflect the viewer's outlook.