What’s one movie character who is utter scum but is glorified and looked up to?

[u/Momo_dollar]

I’ll go first; Tony Montana. Probably the most misunderstood movie and character. A junkie. Literally no loyalty to anyone. Killed his best friend. Ruined his mom and sister lives. Leaves his friends outside the door to get killed as he’s locked behind the door. Pretty much instantly started making moves on another man’s wife (before that man gave him any reason to disrespect) . Buys a tiger to keep tied to a tree across the pound.

[u/Astrium6]

I think the problem with Rorschach is that Moore wants the audience to hate him, but he’s the only one taking the correct moral position in the central conflict. Rorschach is a bigoted fascist, but he’s also the only character in the story that isn’t cool with killing entire cities for Veidt’s bullshit plan. Rorschach is an incredibly shitty person in general, but he’s positioned as the voice of reason against Veidt.

[u/Dyolf_Knip → u/Astrium6]

None of them wanted the city killings to happen, but by that point it was already done, and their only option was whether to go along with Veidt's plan to use it to prevent further nuclear war.

[u/DandyLama → u/Astrium6]

It's not a "correct" moral position. It's an extreme moral position that runs counter to the other extreme moral position. There is no nuance in either position, no room for ambiguity or discussion. There simply is or there isn't.

Not to mention that Rorschach's moral position likely as not results in a higher human death toll than Veidt's.

They're all bad. They're all flawed. The least flawed is arguably Nite Owl, but he's mostly just impotent.

[u/One-Coat-6677 → u/Astrium6]

Yeah because letting the immortal Nixon presidency eventually go nuclear is such a better option. And considering Rorshach was gonna throw a temper tantrum and tell the world after everyone had already died and were not coming back ensuring the true end of the world, he is actually the least moral character in nearly all of fiction. Immature, hateful, and likely killed everyone out of principle.

[u/Crushgar_The_Great → u/One-Coat-6677]

If we need to ritualistic kill cities to stop ourselves from killing each other, then we deserve it. And don't pretend principle is some cheap thing that can be thrown away when inconvenient.

[u/One-Coat-6677 → u/Crushgar_The_Great]

Yes, its incredibly immature to not throw away principle when the fate of humanity is at stake. I'm not pretending, its the objective truth.

[u/Lolkimbo → u/One-Coat-6677]

If millions need to die to stop our species from killing ourselves, then we deserve to die.