#am i posting this because i want to draw something based on this with trieu as god? mayhaps but it's way too fucking long so we'll see

[qrovidcore]

hey what’s up tumblr i’ve now seen hbo’s watchmen all the way through Three Fucking Times and i very well may go for a fourth if given an excuse whoops and apparently i can’t stop thinking about Laurie’s joke in She Was Killed By Space Junk, no i’m not the first person to analyze this and i’m sure i won’t be the last but i sure do have some Thoughts^TM,  so here’s some meta let’s go.

major spoilers ahead for the entire series:

Hey, it’s me again. I’ve got a joke. Stop me if you’ve heard this one. There’s this guy, he’s a bricklayer. He’s really good at it. He’s a real master of his craft. Because he’s precise. Every brick has its place. Anyway this guy has a daughter and he’s gonna teach her to be a bricklayer because after all, all a man has is his legacy. So dad decides to build a barbecue in the backyard. He does the math. He figures out exactly what he needs and he shows the daughter how to do everything. Step by step. And when he finishes, it’s a beauty. It’s a perfect barbecue. Just the way he drew it in blueprints. Only one problem. There’s a brick left over. One single brick. The guy freaks out. He must have done something wrong. He’s gonna have to start all over again. So he picks up his sledgehammer to knock the thing to pieces and his daughter suddenly says ‘daddy wait! I have an idea.’ She picks up the orphan brick and throws it up into the air as high as she can. And then…shit. Messed it up.

Okay forget that joke. Can I tell you another one?

As I said, I’m not the first to break down that Laurie is referring to specific people who have an influence on the story, there’s plenty of meta posts online that’ll say the same thing. I just think this is a Really Clever way to introduce us to her, to the major players in this story, and to the events from the comic that are going to end up being referenced. Anyhow, the bricklayer here is The Comedian. Laurie’s father. I’ll get back to this and how it connects later, but given that one of Watchmen’s major themes is the concept of legacy - who carries it and how, and what happens when that legacy is painful - this is a neat little hook into that idea. Laurie’s dad’s legacy. What she’s done with it, what she’s going to do with it, how she feels about it. Again, coming back to that.

Okay. Forget the brick. New joke. Three heroes die and they all show up at the pearly gates. God’s there and he’s going to decide what their eternal fate shall be: heaven or hell. Our first hero is dressed up like a big owl. God says to him “I gifted you the ability to make fantastic inventions. What did you do with this amazing talent?” Owl guy says “I made this really awesome flying ship and lots of cool outfits and weapons so I could bring peace to the city.” God asks, “So how many people did you kill?” Owl guy seems offended. He says “Zero. I didn’t take a single life.” God frowns. “Sorry owl guy, your heart’s in the right place but you’re just too soft.” God snaps his fingers and the hero goes to hell.

I'm not super into the comic so it took me a while to get that she's referencing Nite Owl. I think this is strange since he doesn't appear in the show himself, whereas everyone else she talks about does, but I suppose it gives a more rounded-out view of the different approaches to heroism, and what exactly constitutes it, and also ties in another one of the original Minutemen. They did cut this over her arrest of Mr. Shadow in the bank, which makes me wonder about his role and why he appeared, and I still find it strange that this part of the joke wasn't about someone who had more of a presence in the show. (Though that being said, DC making fun of Batman, their own big-ticket character? 10/10 thank you for this).

Where was I? The pearly gates await our next hero in line for Almighty judgment. Our hero number two is confident he can game this out because that’s his God-given talent: smarts. Some might even say he’s the smartest man in the world. “So what did you do with that big brain I gave you?” asks God. “As a matter of fact, I saved humanity, ”says Smarty Pants. “Well how’d you do that,” asks God.” “Well I dropped a giant alien squid on New York and everybody was so afraid of it they stopped being afraid of each other.” “OK,” says God. “How many people did you kill?” Smarty Pants smiles. “Three million, give or take. But you can’t make an omelet without breaking a couple of eggs. “Christ,” God says. “You’re a fucking monster.”  “Am not,” says Smarty Pants. God snaps his fingers and our hero goes to hell.

GOD YES PLEASE DRAG OZYMANDIAS. GET THIS FUCKER’S ASS. Though the line that’s sticking out to me here is “You can’t make an omelet without breaking a couple of eggs.” Watchmen’s got an egg motif - and that’s an entire post on its own - and wow this is a place to drop it. I find it interesting that it’s given to Adrien here. Especially since it comes back later, when Will tells Angela that that’s what Jon said in justification of giving his life to stop the 7th K/Cyclops and Trieu. Eggs are used for a lot of things, but this line ties the motif solidly to a value of life here - how Adrien is the way he is because he refuses to value other peoples’, and maybe how Jon is the way he is because, when you can see the future laid out before you and live knowing how you’re going to die, how do you learn to value your own?

Okay. We’re down to the nitty gritty now. One hero left. God cracks his knuckles ready to administer the final reckoning. Now Hero Number 3 is pretty much a god himself. So for the sake of telling them apart, he’s blue and he likes to stroll around with his dick hanging out. He can teleport, he can see into the future, he blows shit up. He’s got actual superpowers. Regular God asks Blue God what have you done with these gifts?” Blue God says “I fell in love with a woman, I walked across the sun, and then I fell in love with another woman. I won the Vietnam War. But mostly I just stopped giving a shit about humanity.” God sighs. “Do I even need to ask how many people you’ve killed?” Blue guy shrugs. “A live body and a dead body have the same number of particles so it doesn’t matter. And it doesn’t matter how I answer your question because I know you’re sending me to hell.” “How do you know that?” asks God. Blue God sounds very sad when he softly says “Because I’m already there.” And so, a mere piston in the inevitable of time and space God does what he did and will do. He snaps his fingers and the hero goes to hell.

And now, we’ve got Jon. Dr. Manhattan. It's a neat moment of insight into his actions, motives, and how those are perceived by others (namely Laurie), and it's a nice thread of introduction to his previous actions to drop for audiences who haven't read the comics (actually, I can make this point about Adrien’s part of the joke too). Especially because most of what we get of Jon in-show is his relationship with Angela, his entire character arc really revolves around her and we don't see him portrayed as the contentious, unfeeling figure the world sees him as. So this sort of contrast between him as a figure and him as a person is very telling, doubly so coming from someone who it's clear knew him. And I really appreciate that there’s just as much stiffness as there is warmth to the Jon we the audience see - he’s kind, he’s loving, but he’s also very matter-of-fact and deterministic, and that bit of characterization really spans the gap between these two versions of him.

And so it’s been a long day at the pearly gates. All the heroes have gone to hell. His work done, God’s packing up to go home and then he notices someone waiting. But it’s not a hero, it’s just a woman. “Where did you come from?” asks God. “Oh I was just standing behind those other guys the whole time, you just didn’t see me.” “Did I give you a talent,” God asks. “No, none to speak of,” says the woman.  God gives her a good long look. “I’m so sorry. I’m embarrassed. Seriously, this almost never happens but I don’t know who you are.” And the woman looks at God and she quietly says “I’m the little girl who threw the brick in the air.” And a sound from above, something falling: the brick. God looks up but it’s too late. He never saw it coming. It hits him so hard, his brains shoot out his nose. Game over. He’s dead. And where does God go when he dies? He goes to hell. 

Into some Thoughts^TM that I haven’t seen anyone theorize yet(?): I think God is meant to be Lady Trieu, and even if Laurie wouldn’t know this yet that’s some brilliant fucking foreshadowing. It's not as exact, but enough parallels are there that I think they're purposeful. It makes Trieu out as the ultimate judge of everyone - and in a way, she is. She sees herself as the most deserving of power of everyone, and it's her who kills Dr. Manhattan - sends him to hell, you could say, and he knows she's going to do it. It also hints at how she's going to die too, crushed by her machine falling from the sky like the brick, because she didn't expect anyone would be capable of stopping her. And where does God go when he dies? He goes to hell. Trieu isn't ultimately above the others, and she's subject to their justice as they are to hers. 

Fitting too that Laurie is involved with the plan to stop Trieu, since, as I said I’d come back to, the girl who threw the brick is Laurie herself. Her depiction of herself in this way is representative, perhaps, of Laure's own feelings on vigilantism and what justice is, and that she's the force that's going to bring down these overblown personalities and their many incorrect uses of their abilities. Given this, it's interesting to think how the "failed" joke at the beginning connects, given that Laurie's dad is the bricklayer, and he's definitely... not a good person, or at least not in this continuity. But I wonder if it's indicative of what Laurie mentions about her parents training her up to do vigilante stuff (especially since she’s based in part(?) on a member of the Minutemen from the comic), and how she feels about her father and his work. If the brick is symbolic of his work as a vigilante, is Laurie throwing the brick in the air, and ultimately taking down the threat at the top, meant to indicate how she sees herself using what she learned from him, or - maybe and - a disrespect for his work based on her justified hatred of him?

Roll on snare drum. Curtains. Good joke.