50 pages • 1 hour read
Alan Moore, Illustr. Dave GibbonsWatchmen
Fiction | Graphic Novel/Book | YA | Published in 1986A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Chapters 7-8Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 7 Summary: “A Brother to Dragons”
Laurie climbs aboard Dan’s old Nite Owl ship, playing with the buttons until she sets off the flamethrowers by accident. Laurie wonders why he has kept it ready, thinking that perhaps he will have to use it again, but Dan insists that his whole career was “just a schoolkid’s fantasy that got out of hand” (216). Even so, he is glad his career advanced his knowledge of aviation. He shows Laurie the intricacies of the ship, and she marvels at it and how expensive it must have been. Dan admits that he became a costumed hero because he was “rich, bored, and there were enough other guys doing it so I didn’t feel ridiculous” (220). He also looked up to Hollis and wanted to be “part of a fellowship of legendary beings” (220). They banter about the harmful effects of being a costumed adventurer, and what might be sitting within Dan’s utility belt, but then he shows Laurie his night-vision goggles, and she is impressed, even though she still jokes about them.
Laurie admits that she does not miss Dr. Manhattan, that she is used to being alone and enjoys having her privacy back. Dan talks about how he still writes for ornithological journals, but the news interrupts with stories of Rorschach’s imprisonment, Soviet advances into Afghanistan, and the missing writer of “Tales of the Black Freighter.” They laugh and talk and then begin kissing, and the narrative switches between a televised gymnastics performance by Ozymandias and Laurie and Dan’s attempts to have sex, which are frustrated by his inability to achieve an erection.
After a dream in which he and Laure are kissing and then vaporized by a nuclear bomb, a still-naked Dan goes to his basement and puts on his Nite Owl goggles, telling Laurie about his anxieties regarding the impending war and Rorschach’s theories. Laurie suggests that they take the ship out, so Dan puts his costume on, and they fly out. They discover a tenement fire, and after Laurie reveals that she is wearing her costume as well, they pull off a daring rescue. Once they drop the people off on a nearby rooftop, Dan and Laurie have sex aboard the ship. With renewed confidence, Dan decides that “we have certain obligations to our fraternity. I think we should spring Rorschach” (240).
The concluding passage is from Dan’s contribution to the Journal of the American Ornithological Society, entitled “Blood From the Shoulder of Pallas.” He argues that an overly scientific fixation on owls distracts from their artistic beauty and that the collection of data should not exclude “the flash of poetic insight” (242): There is as much to learn about owls and other birds of prey from sculpture and mythology as from empirical observation and classification. Dan writes about how he let his boyhood enthusiasm dwindle under the weight of adult concerns and routine, until he heard an owl screech in a parking lot. Rather than scare its prey out of hiding, the screech was meant to “transfix the chosen morsel, pinning it to the ground with a shrill nail of blind, helpless terror” (243). Under the shadow of nuclear war, Dan could empathize with the silent terror of the victim, glad that this time it was not himself or his fellow human beings facing death from above. This profoundly emotional experience did not turn Dan off of scientific inquiry; in fact, he writes, “I hurled myself into the study of my subject with renewed fervor” (243). Rather, he was able to see how science and poetry “enhance one another, a more lyrical eye lending the cold data a romance from which it has long been divorced” (244). We should not just learn facts about owls, he argues, but think about what wisdom they can teach us.
Chapter 8 Summary: “Old Ghosts”
Hollis Mason calls Laurie’s mother, Sally Juspeczyk, to tell her that Dan and Laurie have resumed their adventuring, and Sally jokes that “maybe she’ll finally thank me for all the training I made her do” (248). Meanwhile, Dan and Laurie are preparing to break Rorschach out of jail. Although Laurie is skeptical, Dan thinks that Rorschach might have a point despite his penchant for paranoia and that he might have valuable information on a potential plot against their group. Laurie still finds it ridiculous that they would get back into their costumes and try to save the world, but Dan argues that if things really are that serious, then they will have to do something.
In prison, a group of inmates gathers outside Rorschach’s cell and taunts him. They tell him that the inmate he scalded will soon die, after which the prisoners will demand punishment. A detective visits Dan’s apartment and asks him about his connection to Blake and, noticing Dan’s owl wall calendar, implies knowledge of his nighttime rescue at the tenement. The detective leaves, and Dan tells Laurie that with the police suspicion, they will have to act fast to retrieve Rorschach. Media outlets argue over whether the current crisis justifies the ban on costumed adventurers or demands their return, and there is a brief cutaway to Max Shea, the author of “Tales of the Black Freighter,” watching a boat sail away while someone named Hira Manish draws an image of some kind of monster.
Back in prison, the inmates return, and when one reaches his arms through the bars, Rorschach uses rags to tie his arms to the bars, his hands covering the lock. His companions slit his throat in order to gain access to the lock. Nite Owl’s ship flies over the prison yard just as a riot is breaking out over the death of Rorschach’s scalding victim, and the heroes charge in. The inmates use a blowtorch to enter Rorschach’s cell, at which point he smashes open his toilet, and the water electrocutes his assailant, prompting the others to flee in terror. Laurie still doubts the value of rescuing Rorschach, and Dan admits that “it’s just so hard reaching him […] in this sordid, violent twilight zone” (264). They find his cell, empty save for corpses, and then finally find Rorschach, who asks to visit the men’s room—where he dispatches his final assailant—before going with his rescuers.
Back at the apartment, Dr. Manhattan greets Laurie and asks her to join him for a conversation on Mars. As Dan and Rorschach depart ahead of the police, news of Rorschach’s escape with the help of “some owl character” prompts a riot on the streets (271), and members of a gang crash into Hollis Mason’s shop to beat him to death, just before a group of children come to trick-or-treat on Halloween.
The closing section is an excerpt from the right-wing newspaper New Frontiersman. It condemns the more liberal Nova Express for its criticism of masked vigilantes, claiming that masked men have been some of the greatest figures in American history. Nova compares masked adventurers to the Ku Klux Klan, and the Frontiersman embraces the comparison, praising them as having “perfectly reasonable fears for the safety of their persons and belongings when forced into proximity from a culture far less morally advanced” (276). The Frontiersman editor goes on to speculate that the disparagement of costumed heroes is part of a plot to weaken America and advance world communism. They similarly claim that communism is responsible for a series of disappearances involving writers and artists, including Max Shea.
Chapters 7-8 Analysis
This pair of chapters most directly challenges the idea of masked vigilantes and their relationship to The American Psyche. Dan Dreiberg, whose multitude of gadgets and unearned wealth make him a clear analogue of Batman, is likely speaking Moore’s viewpoints when he rejects his crimefighting career as a “schoolkid’s fantasy that got out of hand” (216). His indulgence in crimefighting has caused him to remain in a state of arrested development, so he sits around the relics of a gloried past while doing absolutely nothing to contribute to society as Daniel Dreiberg. This pairs with Moore’s frequent criticism of the United States as a society that struggles to define its relationship with the outside world except in terms of violence and domination: While Dreiberg is gentler than many of his companions, he still needs a mask and gadgets to feel like himself. He could have pursued a career in ornithology, but “most people find it all pretty boring” in a country that values practical knowledge over scientific study for its own sake (223). The crisis of Dreiberg’s masculinity is then expressly tied to the apparent diminishment of American military prowess following the comic’s fictional Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. His initial fumbling attempt at sex with Laurie is juxtaposed with the supreme athleticism of Adrian Veidt on TV, wowing an audience with gymnastics moves. It is only the thrill of a rescue, along with the sight of Laurie in her old outfit, that allows Dan to “perform” in both senses of the word, and his immediate response to both the rescue and coupling is to undertake another rescue.
Given that the United States imprisons more people, in absolute numbers and per capita, than any other country on the planet, it is notable that an American archetype like Rorschach is utterly at peace in prison. Having confounded the psychiatrist who tried to treat him, Rorschach feels at home amid a prison culture of violence and chaos. When Dan and Laurie come to rescue him, he offers no reaction and does not go with them until he has killed everyone he wants to kill. Meanwhile, the media debate between Nova Express and New Frontiersman triggers an argument on the street about costumed adventurers, defending their respective positions with appeals to American virtues. Critical of superheroes for their unaccountable violence, the publisher of Nova insists that it is “financed by, of all things, a very ordinary, very all-American delivery company. Certainly not by Moscow. As for [New Frontiersman]’s editorial, I’d call it ‘spirit of Nuremberg’” (258). In response, New Frontiersman defends masked adventurers as true to “the spirit of ‘76” (259), denoting a revolutionary refusal to bow to authority and instead fight for what they know to be right. Paired with news of the prison riot, the debate erupts into a street battle that takes place during a distinctively American activity involving costumes and masks: trick-or-treating on Halloween.
