V and his Acts against Susan’s Regime
28/05/2012 in Brno
Introduction
In
this essays I would like to
make some comments on Alan Moore’s graphic novel V for Vendetta. Primarily I
want to analyze V’s act against totalitarian regime and react to them from the
moral aspect. Is V hero or criminal? Is he brave fighter for justice or just
murderer? Let’s see.
Before
I start to analyze V’s acts, I would like to make a comment on Susan’s government. After we read
the graphic novel we can say that it’s evil totalitarian government which is
using fear to control people. But let’s look on the situation before it came to
power. There used to be a nuclear war and Britain was in total chaos and
anarchy. As Evey said, there was no government. There was no food, no cures,
lot of gangs fought each other. No one was safe! It seemed to me like typical example
of Locke’s natural state. And in this situation the Norsefire came to power. Yes,
it eliminated everyone who was somehow different and limited almost every civil
liberty but it also guaranteed safety. I don’t want to justify them, I am just
saying that the situation could have been worse without them. But it’s hard to
tell because we, readers, don’t know what have exactly happened in Moore’s
world. Given these circumstances, I am just wondering why V wants to
reestablish anarchy...
We
can divide V’s violent acts into two categories. In the first one he is leading
his own vendetta against employees of Larkhill, where he was imprisoned. It’s hard to justify these murders because
it’s just revenge. Yeah, he also wants to eliminate everyone who can know his
real identity but that’s no excuse. V wants justice for them and because the system
is unable to convict them he acts on his own. It’s understandable, but he overreacted
when he had killed absolutely everyone. If he murdered for example just the
officers we could argue about the moral plane but it is unjustifiable. In
the second category are acts which he leads against the Susan’s regime in order to
bring it down – he is usually killing people or blowing up buildings. Some
murders fall into both categories (like when drove Prothero insane – he worked
as the Voice of Faith and also had been an officer in Larkhill) but in this essay
we will categorize them as the acts of the first category because I think that
revenge was a main motive. In this essay I would like judge all the acts from
the second category. Are they morally justifiable or not? I will try to answer
this question with my subjective opinion.
Let’s
start with the opening scene where Evey tries to act like a prostitute and is
stopped by the fingermen. According to the Law H they can do whatever they want
with her and they decided to rape her and kill her. From our point of view the
law is absurd – if prostitution is prohibited, they should just arrest her, so
V’s attack seems legitimate. But there
is also the first problem – he kills some fingermen. Why? Yeah, they act like animals but they act
according the law (no matter how stupid the law is). So in my point of view the
murder was unnecessary, he could have just hurt them or beat them. Afterward he
rescues Evey he blows up the House of Parliament. I see this attack as a
symbolic gesture – V wants to point out that the laws are bad (and we as
readers are in favor of this action because we just saw the Law H) and it is
first step to awake public from lethargy. That’s why I think that he used
fireworks after the explosion. Because he blew up the building at night, I
assume that it was empty and no one was purposely killed. The destruction of
the Old Bailey is exactly the same case – again he tells the public that
according to him justice no longer serves its purpose and is corrupted. I
classify these two explosions as morally justifiable – if he needed to get
attention both from the people and Susan, there was not better opportunity.
The
third act is the murder of Derek Almond in the doctor Surridge’s house. Like in
the previous case when he killed fingermen V acts just like a common killer.
Almond is pointing a gun on V but when he wants to fire, we can see that he has
forgotten to load it when he was cleaning his pistol, so he is practically
defenseless. I think that V could just stun him or beat him – he was not in
grave danger. We can just speculate if Almond deserved it but this act seemed
to me absolutely pointless. It’s naive to think that his replacement would be
someone more righteous because under Susan’s reign it’s impossible. For me this
act is foul murder, nothing more.
First
act in second chapter of the graphic novel is scene where V breaks into a TV
station to deliver his message to the British nation. Since there is no freedom
of speech and television is (except bars and clubs) the only form of entertainment,
this action is logical. He could not do this before he blew up the two
buildings because no one would believe him (thanks to the propaganda). The
performance is also good – he wraps the bomb around himself so people will obey
him (it’s more elegant then pointing a gun on them). However there are also
unnecessary victims. When he leaves an elevator, he stabs and probably kills
some employees (probably guards). “Why?” I ask again. Why not just knock them
unconscious? Before he leaves, he dresses Dascomb like him. It’s really cruel
because he sentenced him to death. After he killed Almond, it’s obvious that
police will immediately fire. And it seems that Dascomb is not a killer, he is
just running propaganda. To sum it up – the purpose of the act is good and
justifiable but the deaths are making him look like the murderer. V’s next action is a hack of the Destiny
computer to mess with Susan. He is using his weakness to weak him and the whole
system. Susan lost ability to think rationally and it also paralyzed the whole regime.
It’s nice parallel that the leader who does not tolerate weak people is pathetically
in love with machine. I think this is one of the V’s best moves. His attack is
surprising, for long time it remains undetected and also has fatal consequences
for the system. And he did this without harming anyone!
In
the third chapter of the book is V preparing himself for a final act. Firstly he destroys The Eye and The
Ear. This act is totally necessary in order to let the people know that they
are no longer watched. If he just sent the message that he had hacked it,
people would have no certainty to believe him. But when they see both
monitoring building crumbling down, they realize that they are finally free.
It’s nicely seen in the scene where a girl sprays V on the wall. However this
act, unlike two other destructions, had several victims because both The Eye
and The Ear worked 24/7. In my opinion in this case the victims were inevitable
– this act was for greater good and absolutely necessary for awakening the
crowd. When people start rioting it’s interesting that there is no army or
police force and that Creedy is required to hire gangsters. It seems like the
regime stands and falls just with the Adam Susan. In the final act is V ready to
die. He said his message to mister Finch and accomplished his goal. Maybe he was
old, maybe he wanted to atone for his murders, and maybe he thought that there
is no place for him in the new society. In the final explosion he destroys
the Downing Street, the last political symbol remaining (if there is no
monarch). All the three branches of government (the legislative – House of
Parliament, the executive – Downing Street and the judicial – Old Bailey) are
down and the stage for an anarchy is ready.
It
seems to me that the story is kind of in the loop. Susan came to power thanks
to the anarchy and chaos and it also ends with the anarchy. As we can see at the crowd
scenes, there is just looting and rioting – no protests for democracy or
freedom, just chaos where no one can be sure what will happen. As we can see at
the ending scene a lot of people are now homeless and live in constant fear
from the future. In this case I am assuming that there were no homeless before
otherwise Susan would kill them. In the old regime they had certainty but no
freedom, now it is the exact opposite situation. It is once again the Locke’s
state of nature. Do people have learned something or the new and even worse
dictator will arise? We can just speculate.
Conclusion
As
we just saw from several examples V is not 100% positive hero. He is a man who
seeks revenge and anarchy and is capable of everything to achieve his goals. In
basics, his acts are morally justifiable but there are unnecessary murders of the
innocent which could have been avoided if he wanted to. Maybe he felt it too
and after he had achieved his goal he wanted to die because he was also a
sinner and thanks to Larkhill a monster of the Susan’s regime. He managed to replace
fascism with anarchy but I am not sure that he actually helped people because
it led to a form of natural state.
Used sources
Moore, Alan and Lloy, David. 2005. V jako Vendeta. Brno: BBart.
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