V, the eponymous character of V for Vendetta by Alan Moore serves as the enigmatic anti-hero of the story who rebels against the oppressive rules of an unjust system by using violent and unconventional methods to do so. The anti-hero typically wields the personality of a sinister villain, but also the intentions of an honorable hero. Often times, the anti-hero may harness a deeper philosophy of morality than the typical hero because anti-heroes understand that the standards in society do not always reflect genuine justice. Therefore, by using unconventional methods and disobeying established laws to achieve their objectives, anti-heroes can ironically use the intimidating ruthlessness of a villain to fulfill heroic deeds. In all representations of literature and media, the nature of anti-heroes have always been and will always be the the main structure of ethical debate. The ethical debate over challengeable intention, circumstance and object truly illustrate the complexity of social justice. While the hero serves as the ideal version of perfect ethics, the anti-hero is the more realistic representation of humanity’s debatable and diverse worldviews in the real world. Due to an anti-hero’s rebellious nature towards the social system, authors often portray them as ruthless revolutionaries who use debatable practices to punish immorality or …show more content…
Apart from the actual superheroes themselves, the science fiction setting of the graphic novels allows the author a greater scope of imagination to express their contemplations in topics such as humanistic ethics and scientific theory. Specifically in The Watchmen, Dr. Manhattan is not only an incredibly powerful being of near omnipotent power, but also one who has unrivaled knowledge of space-time and the fundamentals of the universe. Moore’s intentions of including Dr. Manhattan as one of the lead characters helps the audience understand his abstract philosophies of the universe. In The Watchmen, Moore illustrates Dr. Manhattan as an all-knowing supernatural being that can manipulate physics on a quantum scale and perceives the past, present, and future as simultaneous. While often regarded as a godlike figure, Dr. Manhattan ironically can not act upon his omniscient knowledge as he is still a puppet or prisoner of fate like the regular people. While superheroes serve as creative characters in fiction, authors use them to explain abstract symbols, philosophies, concepts and theories so that people may understand and apply those understandings to real life. As a result, this method of explaining the surreal can help people have better wisdom of the universe and influence them into engaging in heroic