November 5, 2024 • 60 mins
Today, we're discussing one of the most famous graphic novels out there--V for Vendetta. Not for the faint of heart, and one piece that remains as timeless as 1984. My guests today are Varsha (from Reading by the Rainy Mountain), Jarrod (from The Fantasy Thinker), and Britton (aka SomeOkieDude).
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
There is no flesh or blood within this cloak to kill, only an idea.
(00:04):
And ideas are bulletproof.
This is one of the most iconic phrases in a controversial visual
novel that remains relevant even 40 years after its publication.
I'm talking of V for Vendetta by Alan Moore and David Lloyd.
Let's get this book undone.
(00:29):
Hello everyone, and welcome to Books Undone.
I'm your host, Livia J.
Elliot, and today we are back with a guest talk to discuss one of the
most famous visual novels ever created, V for Vendetta by Alan Moore and David Lloyd.
We have several guests, so let me introduce you to them.
(00:51):
Hi, how you doing?
I'm Jared.
I run the Fantasy Thinker YouTube channel and I'm on other
podcasts like speculative speculations.
Hi, I'm Varsha.
I run the YouTube channel reading by Drainy Mountain and I'm on the
podcast speculative speculations.
I was gearing up to be mad at Jared if you didn't mention other podcasts like.
Yeah.
Well, thank you for having me, Livia.
(01:12):
It's always a pleasure to be here.
Hi, my name is Britton, also known as Sum of Vendetta.
I'm a Moki dude on YouTube, a long time Alan Moore fan and aficionado.
Glad to be here.
Thank you everyone.
Before we get started, let me tackle some disclaimers.
First, since we are discussing the themes and plotline for these visual
novel, there will be spoilers in this podcast.
(01:35):
Second, V for Vendetta discusses some heavy themes and has a lot of
scenes that are not for the faint of heart.
We will try to be gentle, but listen with caution.
Third and finally, what you will hear is our subjective opinion about this
topic and at this particular moment in our lives, you may disagree and that's fine.
(01:59):
Now, I think there are many themes within this visual novel, but something that is
quite implicitly mentioned is a balance between individual freedom and societal control.
When V is monologuing before the study of justice, he says that justice
is meaningless without freedom.
I think this scene is critical to understanding V and his motivations.
(02:23):
It reveals the corruption of society and his belief that justice as enacted
in by the book leadership is not actually justice, but I would like to hear
your thoughts on this very early scene.
I should note, I think this comic is really interesting because kind of,
because he was writing this concurrently with a superhero comic he was doing
called Marvel Man or Miracle Man out here in the States.
(02:46):
So it's kind of, we see more grow through this story because this is kind of earlier
in his career before he really took off.
But for the scene in particular, I think it kind of illustrates V's mission
because he's not really looking for justice.
He just wants to tear down the Norse fire government.
(03:06):
And I don't know if it's necessarily, he doesn't care that people are going to get
hurt, but he knows people are going to get hurt and it's just, how do I put it?
I guess I am saying he doesn't care, but I don't know if I would, I would go that far.
It's more like it's going to happen anyways.
It rather happens this way so that there, there is an acceptable ending, perhaps.
(03:27):
You gotta remember that V stands for villain as well.
He is actually the villain towards the current lawful government that's in power.
So he is an anarchist.
He is a revolutionary and this is early in the book.
So it's setting the stage with a bang in order to announce his presence for change.
And he talks about anarchy in front of the statue and he says once he blows it up, he's
(03:54):
like the flames of freedom, how lovely an anarchy.
And so he's in an argument with this symbol of justice.
He wants to win that argument.
He wants to put his stamp on what's going to happen for the next upcoming year.
Cause this takes place over a year, I believe he has his argument.
He has his place.
It's very staged.
(04:14):
It's very theatrical going with his outfit and the lovely angles that David
Lloyd gives to all the panels on the page.
He makes it's a very like very stage friendly points of view when with all
the, his drawings on those two pages.
And so this is, this is his ultimate opening act towards his mission, pulls
(04:36):
it off with a bang and he's starting his anarchy and he's showing his
villainy at that point to the people in charge, which of course, you know, some
people will be like, yay, but it's a very authoritarian government.
So, you know, that's, but this starts it right here.
I think for me, what was most interesting about that scene was, I guess, the
(04:56):
tension between the three concepts that are sort of discussed in that chapter.
Start with that love note that what's his name?
The head has for fate, which later I think it turns out it's the computer
that's followed by a very similar, but pretty different conversation
that we has with justice.
(05:18):
And I think there's, I'm trying to remember how the conversation with
the head has with fate goes, he talks about how he gives her so much affection,
but he doesn't really get much in response.
And there's a very similar conversation that we has that, you know, like you,
you've been sleeping around with other men.
So I get to go pick my new person to love, which happens to be anarchy.
(05:41):
I think the tension between those three concepts and like fate as something
that you typically leave things to control your life for you, which is
what I guess this government is trying to do, leave things to fate.
And every minute thing gets controlled versus anarchy is about sort of letting
go, right, and losing that control and therefore finding freedom that way.
(06:03):
And the role of justice in all of this, I think what is interesting to me is
that justice is relevant in both cases, except in one case, it's basically
useless in the case where everything is controlled for you.
Justice is also a means of control, quote unquote, justice is a means of control.
But when you're free, justice can then mean something.
(06:24):
I think it's these I like to call it his super villain monologue where he
basically is explaining what he's going to do.
He's basically saying, if I can't attain justice in your way, justice,
then I'll do it my way.
And that's what he means when he blows it up because he's basically blowing up
the law idea of justice and he's basically, he's a necessary extreme, if
(06:48):
you will, to get rid of Norse fire, because it's clear in the story that
like Norse fire are really evil and corrupt and a lot of them deserve
to die very painfully.
So yeah, it's kind of, it's kind of his super villain monologue, really
going back to villain as what Jared was saying earlier.
Oh, you both gave me two points to discuss in there, Brito picking up
(07:09):
in what you were saying, there is a historian, political philosopher,
Franky Tsukuyama, and he often says that there is a point in the
stagnation of society in which it can only change and advance due to an
extreme change or through violence and conflict.
And that reminded me of what you said that being here is a necessary evil
(07:33):
because the society is letting that happen.
And that ties up with the whole speech when V takes on TV a mission.
And he speaks in a way that says that the society or the country were a
company that they actually weren't contributing to it.
He's actually pointing out to the stagnation and how society let or
(07:54):
allowed all of that to happen.
It's kind of a funny scene because it's basically him like chewing him out.
Like there is workers and they're not doing a good enough job.
In the movie, I don't want to bring up the movie too much, which it's a bit
more poignant in the movie, I'll say.
He's more trying to inspire people in the action more than just saying
you threw this away, shame on you.
(08:16):
Yeah.
But that's the same point.
How many times society is to blame for the type of government it puts on itself?
Yeah, that's a good point.
No, I think you guys got it down right there as far as those points about that scene.
I mean, if I can go back to actually like the very first page in the whole book,
because I love how Moore and Lloyd just set things up for us.
(08:40):
They really set up the whole story right in the first two pages of the whole thing.
You open up with that Jordan tower.
It is obviously some sort of an important building that's
going to come into play later.
And it is announcing all these things to the populace about what's happening
in the world or in Britain right now.
And then you immediately see a surveillance camera and the next panel,
(09:03):
it moves to a closer up, you know, it's in says for your protection on the
sale surveillance camera.
And so you're immediately given that clue that this is something under
surveillance and it's something that's supposedly for people's protection.
And then you use the next panel, you see armed guards and that you see them
pointing and stuff like that.
And then you cut this young girl in a room.
(09:25):
Looks like a normal room, but she's listening all the time.
So to this announcement and this announcements aren't nice.
They're they're telling you what's going on in the country and there's
going to be meat rationing in this.
You see the girl, it switches to her putting on makeup lipstick and she
has a worried expression and that's just the beginning of her transformation.
(09:45):
As we know, she goes through a lot of transformation in this whole story.
And then it moves to the scene with that shows all the, um, the plays in the
theater, in the background, and we see that little, that figure heading
towards the dressing table.
And then the next page, we see a transformation of Evie.
She's, she's no longer in the simple jeans of a young girl.
(10:07):
She's, she's in this slinky little dress.
She's transformed into some other character.
And of course, then we see the other unknown character putting on the gloves,
the mask with the smile and the red rouge and the cheeks and the white thing,
all of it indicating theater.
And then you see Evie with the same kind of similar makeup on her.
She's transformed into something else.
(10:29):
She's putting on an act.
She's getting ready for her performance, so to speak.
And then of course we see V in the mirror as well.
So this is all a reflection of our two main characters in this story and what
they're setting up for a big theatrical performance throughout the whole story.
And of course the words right next to V are the villain, it's chapter one, the
(10:53):
villain, and so that right there, it sets the tone for the whole story and basically
sets up that these characters are going to go through transformations and they're
going to be dealing with a surveillance state of some sort.
And so the conflict is set up, the characters are set up, just a beautiful
piece of work by, by those two creators.
(11:13):
I was saying it also sets up the ending brilliantly, but it also sets up the
ending brilliantly because Evie is looking at the mirror and we almost think
that she's seeing herself like when what we see is V and the ending, she's the
new V, so to speak, and there's a very similar scene where she's actually
looking at herself in the mirror and she's the one wearing the mask.
(11:36):
I thought that was brilliant too when the call back to that first scene that we open with.
Also the continuation because the book starts with current V rescuing her and
the beginning of her towards becoming a new V and at the end of the book, Evie
V rescues a guy and it's very clear that he's setting him up to become the next one.
(11:58):
It's kind of, he does a similar thing later where he's standing on a roof and
he's talking about away with our bombers, away with our, you know, we don't need
that for this new world, which is there's very few moments where V just kind of
reflects on what's going on.
Kind of like a Shakespearean soliloquy in that way and I think it's once again, I
think it's foreshadowing because in the other monologue that he has on the roof
(12:22):
where he's talking about away with our bombers, away with our bastards, he's
basically acknowledging, I can't be here when this is over and it kind of leads me
to a theory.
I think when he began this, I don't think he was going to get out of there alive.
Even if he succeeded, if he survived and succeeded, I don't think he was going to
get out of there alive.
I think he was definitely planning on either taking himself out in a blaze of
(12:45):
glory or pretty much what happened in the books.
Just, you know, someone gets to jump on him and kills him.
But yeah, I think it's kind of, I don't know if I'd say it's foreshadowing, but it
kind of rhymes with that later sequence in the book.
There is a lot of implied references, like the one we were discussing with the
beginning and the end on cycles.
And that also makes sense because at a political level, society is always a
(13:09):
cycle.
We can see the governments going from one side of the spectrum towards the other.
And then something happens and we have the same cycle going over and over.
Given that this book is so political in nature and discusses totalitarianism in
that way, it also makes sense to try to point out why those cycles happen.
Where is the crisis where everything begins again?
(13:31):
Yeah, that's a good point.
He's a, but like the thing is, I think just, you know, considering what we learn
later about V, it's just V is so far removed from regular people by the time we
meet him in the story, which is a theme that Alan Moore plays with in a lot of
his work that he can't live in that world that he wants to make.
(13:52):
You know, there's a line in, I haven't seen Firefly or Serenity, but there's a
scene that I like that I've watched where the main villain, the operative and the
main character, Malcolm are talking and he's basically like, so me and mine have
to go die so you can live in your perfect world and he goes, oh, I'm not
going to live there because you know, I've done these monstrous things.
(14:12):
I'm a monster.
I can't live in that world either.
He will sacrifice everything to get what he wants, even his life, even
though he's not going to see it.
That's a great point.
But at the same time, V is exactly as you mentioned, he's conscious of everything
that he's done, of everything that he's going to do to take the society there.
And if he criticizes justice, he applies a version of justice to himself to judge
(14:38):
his actions and say like, no, this goes out of the line of what should be
permitted here within the society he wants to make.
I think it also kind of illustrates the theme, which is anarchy versus, you
know, how much control should the government have and how much, you know,
freedom should we have, which is the oldest conversation in political theory.
I mean, you know, Thomas Hobbes had his view on it and John Locke had his view
(15:01):
on it and out in America, we have democracy and well, whatever you want to
say about our political atmosphere.
Um, we're still going 200, almost 250 years later.
Again, I don't want to get ahead of myself though, cause more loves extremes.
So, you know, he's going like, here's the extreme of this evil fascist government.
And then he's like, Oh wait, now they're basically anarchy.
(15:24):
It's crazy.
People are like beating each other up and looting and stuff and murdering each other.
I want to go back to my original question.
Varsha, you made a great point when you compared the leader's speech towards
his beliefs of faith and views towards justice.
And something that I thought when you were speaking is how have
(15:47):
both idealized their beliefs.
And I think it also ties up to what Britton was saying that they are both
a leader and V they are so detached from reality that what they believe
on it's an abstract concept.
It's not something that can be applied to society.
So it's the abstract idea of faith and how everything is predefined.
(16:10):
And if the abstract idea of justice without a legal system to actually
control it, to actually define what justice means for a particular country.
I think it goes back to that idea of both of them are similar in the sense
that they are both attached from society.
That's an interesting point about justice without having a legal system defined.
(16:32):
I think you can have justice outside the scope of a legal system, right?
Like justice as a concept exists outside of that.
And it goes back to what V says in his later, when they've like set things in
motion, he says for a few days, things will be chaotic and out of control,
but then there will be self-imposed voluntary order, which will always,
in his opinion, work better than involuntary and forced order.
(16:56):
Right.
And that means you sort of society would hopefully coalesce to a point where
you have self-imposed justice, justice that's not outsourced to a legal
system, but what feels morally right.
And this goes back to like maybe questions about morality tied to
religious beliefs, like do you have to be a religious person to be a moral person?
(17:19):
Or do you have to have a legal system to have justice?
And there's a lot of questions there, but I think the justice needing a legal
system, maybe I'll push back on, but in terms of just what that means to what
he's trying to do, I think anarchy finds a steady state in order.
Eventually after the chaos is done, there will hopefully be a system of justice
(17:42):
that most people like, if not everybody.
What do you think of the transmission that he sent, the speech that he gives
in the middle of the book somewhere, where he talks to humanity as if they're
employees and the planet is the employer.
It's like, we've given you lots of chances.
Now I'm firing you if you don't get your act together.
(18:04):
And one of the pictures that stood out to me there is like when he said, we've
been giving you a lot of chances, it was the picture of the Buddha and you've
been given all these leaders and like good systems to consider and try to
become better, but you know, you failed at it.
So I'm passing judgment now.
What did you think of that?
(18:24):
The Buddha picture stood out to me alongside, we've given you chances.
I think you showed like pictures of Hitler and Stalin as well.
It's like, yeah, I think there was some other pictures too, wasn't it?
Of some other people besides the Buddha.
Yeah.
That's kind of like the old joke where the guy's drowning in the sea, in
the sea, and a boat comes by and he says, and they're going to pick him up.
(18:46):
And he says, no, God's going to save me.
Then, you know, somebody else comes by and he says, nope, I'm waiting for God to
save me.
And then finally he, he, he drowns and he's, and he goes, God, why did I die?
He's like, well, I sent you a boat and I sent you a, I sent you a guy to pick you
up and nothing, you didn't take it.
So he's kind of saying that in this situation, you know, you had your examples
(19:08):
on how to act better.
You had your, your chances on what to do and how to, how to conduct yourselves in
society and you failed.
I guess now's another chance, you know, basically I'm blowing up the system.
I'm trying to bring it down and here's your chance to once again, make a better
society.
I think he's angry.
(19:29):
He's like, you guys let this happen.
Except he does it in a very passive aggressive condescending way that like a
boss would tell you.
He's not like just yelling at them.
He's trying to plant an idea in their head, if you will.
So the illustrations that I'm seeing, first we have the moon landing when he's
talking about, don't think I have forgotten about your outstanding service record or
(19:51):
about all the invaluable contributions that you have made to this company.
So that's the advancement on science and technology.
The part of knowledge that we have here, everything people do think Jarrod is
right, because then we have a new way of thinking when we have the Buddha there.
We have the next image is actually people running against a tank.
So like they are trying to stop the tank and make a stance.
(20:15):
And then we have the last one, which is a woman trying to stop someone from going
there.
So again, it seems that he's dressed in a very formal or army way and she's trying
to stop it.
So it could also imply that she's trying to stop the continuation of something
that's happening there.
So it very well means that they are all examples that he thinks.
(20:35):
So he's trying to imply that people have to rebel against the status quo to bring
that change that we were mentioning before.
And then when we have the picture of Hitler and Stalin at the end, he's saying
we have had a string of investors, frauds, liars and lunatics making a string of
catastrophic decisions.
But then again, in this whole speech, he's blaming society and he's saying that
(21:00):
society didn't work and there is a part in which he says it's your basic unwillingness
to get on within the company.
You don't seem to want to face up to any real responsibility or to be your own boss.
And that's near this picture that we have there of Stalin and Hitler.
To me, I think it goes back to the idea of you had all these opportunities and examples
(21:21):
to change a status quo, but you don't want to take responsibility.
Therefore, what's happening, the control of the government is a fault of the citizens.
He also says something to the effect that you're just letting them tell you what to
You're happy to sit there and not think for yourself and let other people tell you what
to do and how to think.
Right.
Yeah, I like that.
(21:41):
He is blaming people in power, but people who follow the people in power, I think.
This comic is very much inspired by noir, very dark kind of atmospheric storytelling
and artwork.
And I mean, I often talk about what I think is inherent in the noir genre.
And one of those is compromise.
I'm not saying that V for Vendetta is a crime story.
(22:04):
I think noir isn't necessarily just the crime genre.
It's like a style.
It's a theme, if you will.
But anyway, I'm getting off topic.
V for Vendetta kind of falls into that noir trapping where he's asking, okay, what are
you willing to compromise in order to create a safer world?
Is V the compromise you're willing to make in order to get rid of Norse fire?
And then on the other hand, is Norse fire the compromise you're willing to make for
(22:27):
creating a safer world, whatever the hell that means?
He's kind of just throw, he's asking them that, but he's also kind of throwing in their
faces the consequences of that compromise.
Something else that stood out to me in that scene is that V speaks like if he were a blanket
presence over society.
He's the one making the speech.
(22:47):
He's not quite the boss.
He's not the government, certainly, but he's passing judgment on people.
He doesn't seem to be justice because we have already the scene of justice.
So he's like an ever-present truth, like the idea that cannot be killed, right?
I mean, I hate to state the obvious, but I would say he is vengeance.
It's in the title V for Vendetta.
(23:09):
Vendetta means revenge.
But whose vengeance?
His own or society's in that scene in particular?
Well, that is the question.
I kind of view it like this.
I don't really view V as like a person.
He's a symbol.
He's an idea.
It's kind of like Judge Dredd from 2000 AD, except it's the opposite.
V is all about anarchy and blowing up the system.
(23:31):
And Judge Dredd is about the law, as he likes to say.
He says, I am the law.
It's just V is kind of a different hero.
He's basically like anarchist Batman in a lot of ways.
I wonder if his rescue of Evie, if his mission evolved as time went on, because he was
originally about the Vendetta, to start with, the vengeance, because he was specifically
(23:54):
targeting and taking out all the people involved with his incarceration in the internment camp.
And so his initial mode of vengeance, and it tied into a greater plan as the time went on,
because those particular individuals were all tied into the current governing body as it stood.
(24:15):
And so once he took out those people, he had accomplished something by putting a quite
the kink into their plans and into their mode of operation.
And so I think maybe rescuing Evie gave him that greater scope and that idea that he can
do this also for a change in society as well.
(24:37):
He's still a villain in some ways, because what he actually did to Evie was quite horrific.
He's not pulling any punches at all when it comes to his vengeance, his Vendetta.
He's going to extreme measures in order to accomplish it, whether or not that justifies
his ends, justify his means.
(24:59):
I think more leaves that up for the reader to decide.
Also, I think one of these things is like he likes to plan things out again, but I don't
know if it was just he just saw Evie and he took the opportunity or if he was like watching her
for a while and he's like, huh, that's the person who will succeed me in this weird plan
to change society.
I don't know.
(25:19):
But I do think there is a little bit of that kind of again, I don't think V was thinking
he was going to make it out alive.
I think he definitely thought he was going to die in the attempt.
But yeah, but he wanted someone else to lead the world to something else.
And that's kind of where Evie comes in.
Or it could have been someone else.
I have no idea.
Again, kind of like Jared said, it's kind of left up to interpretation.
(25:40):
Well, he was definitely prepared.
He was prepared.
Okay.
I have a wild idea based on what you two were saying.
This behavior, and again, if we take into consideration that monologue with the justice
study on how it presents these views of freedom, moving from there, his relationship to Evie
(26:00):
or what he does to her, I think is in a different way, but it's more of the same of what he tries
to do to society, which is to give them freedom.
But then we have what's freedom and how it applies on both cases.
We have the freedom to and the freedom from.
So freedom to will be to act as one pleases, perhaps within those frameworks of self-imposed
(26:26):
behavior that V tends to mention a lot of times.
And that also references, I think it was the second part of the book, the land of do as
you please.
So that's the freedom to do as you please, basically.
And we see what happens in there in that part.
However, freedom from, it's not necessarily freedom from the government, which we can
(26:48):
understand it that so if we consider that he is discussing anarchy or favoring anarchy,
but freedom from, it's also freedom from ignorance, from biases, but the control of
our mind.
We are controlled by the prejudices as society imposed on us, which is a bit more intangible
than a particular government.
At the end of the day, what he tries to do to Evie is to free her from her biases.
(27:13):
He's applying or doing a lot of things to free her first so that she can then free society
from the other quote unquote, villain, which is a government.
I think he says it himself.
He says, I wanted to free you from the fear of Norse fire.
I don't think he says that specifically, but you can shoot holes into that.
You're like, oh, he's basically just telling her.
(27:35):
He basically just, you know, mind screwed her into doing what he wanted to do.
I think you're right.
The idea is not just freedom from the government.
It's freedom from that fear of what this abstract concept that we call government can do to you.
And I think it's also beyond government.
It's also society itself because we then again, that discussion on whether we need a legal
(27:58):
system to apply justice.
We have a society that without having laws will also tell us how to behave because we
end up judging each other.
We end up having those moral parameters and what V does to Evie, it's basically free her
from those as well.
Because after all that training, quote unquote, he does, it's basically to give her her own
(28:19):
way of thinking that is outside the box of society.
Yeah, it sounds kind of niche in how you're explaining it a little bit.
Yeah, and that could be a horrible journey to break down everything you know and break
down everything you have and rid yourself of all sense of comfort and all sense of belonging
to be that free that you can actually think any way you want.
(28:43):
Because everybody's conditioned from birth to be brought up in a certain way and have
to go through the process of breaking all that down is a very, very painful process.
What he did to her, the only issue with it.
What makes him a villain in this case is he didn't ask her.
She didn't volunteer to go through this process.
He just did it and she may be free later.
(29:06):
She may even thank him later.
But there is a huge gray area there that is really makes you like sit back and wonder.
She's a victim that becomes the villain or the next villain.
The next villain, yeah.
So, I mean, I think she's more human than V because, you know, if I could compare V to
another more character Rorschach, who's in his comic Watchmen very similarly, those characters,
(29:32):
the only thing they know how to do is destroy and tear down.
They don't know how to build something, which is again why I think he kind of props her up
for the role of successor because she knows that she still has that kind of basic humanity
where she can guide them to a better world while he can't because the only thing he can do is
tear down and destroy.
(29:54):
Yeah, that's a great point, Britton.
She has the freedom to do that after what she went through.
And I think he's trying to do the same thing to society.
He's trying to also breaks down certain ideas and certain things in order to give society
the freedom to be able to rebuild.
That is a much bigger task than just one person.
But that's why he needs the help to continue on.
(30:15):
And then he kidnaps the cop at the end.
But it's also the task that he has.
I think it's also more difficult.
It's always easier to tear down than to build up.
And she has to build up a society that has lost its way, that let itself to be controlled.
Very, very true.
(30:37):
It's like Life of Brian where he tries to yell at the crowd,
You're all individuals.
And they just shout it back at him.
Yeah, that's very true.
And he's just like, oh, good Lord, this is not what I'm trying to.
Yeah.
And then we also got to remember that V also went through his own reconditioning
with what he went through in the concentration camp there.
(30:59):
It's not something he's unfamiliar with.
It kind of goes back to why I don't think the question of who is V,
it doesn't really matter because it's like who V is, it doesn't matter.
What matters is what he wants.
What matters is what he symbolizes.
And that's kind of what matters is
what idea does he represent to kind of use the language of the book.
That's a great point because it also ties up to
(31:21):
Evie, as Jarrod said, having some freedom to do different,
even if the principles are the same, because that also happens to ideas.
Ideas, once they appear in society, they don't endure endlessly unchanged.
Ideas keep evolving as a society evolves.
So if we look at what freedom was during, I don't know, the Roman Empire,
(31:44):
it's not the same as what freedom was during 1700s or something or now.
So we have also that idea of it's a mask, it's the outfit.
There is only idea under this cloak and it keeps evolving
because we have the next person in there.
Yeah, I like what you said about ideas evolving.
And he does say that the mask and the cloak are the idea.
(32:06):
It doesn't matter what the person is.
That idea in and of itself evolves, but also what ideas apply
to making society, that can also evolve.
So an idea that applies now may not apply at another time.
There's also scope for removing the necessity of a villain like that, eventually.
(32:26):
Also, the way Evie goes out is kind of mundane as well.
Like he just gets shot by the cop and then he says the iconic line,
ideas are bulletproof, is like a bizarre flex, I guess.
He's just like, ideas are bulletproof, see you later.
And he does like the whole hat tip.
And then the cop sees like blood on the in the water and he's like, yes, I've got him.
(32:50):
You know, it's just like.
He had time to make it all the way back home.
It's kind of silly, but I mean, that's not to take away from the book, of course.
He what a funeral he got though.
A Viking funeral.
A Viking funeral, haha.
A Viking funeral on a train.
(33:12):
That's pretty cool.
It was implied that there was a curfew and so there weren't any actual people in the
buildings that he blew up throughout the course of the book, right?
I don't think so.
I don't remember that.
It's been a while since I last read that.
Yeah, there definitely was a curfew.
That's how she got caught in the first place because she was going out after that curfew
(33:32):
in the beginning.
But I think that was part of his plan was that the buildings would be mostly evacuated
when he was blowing them up.
You know, I said earlier, he doesn't care about who gets hurt.
I don't think that's necessarily true.
Like he doesn't like meaningless chaos and violence.
Everything has a purpose in V's mind, even if it's pretty monstrous by our standards.
(33:54):
Yeah, he actually points out one time that there is a difference between chaos and anarchy
in his anarchical views have a point, whereas pure chaos doesn't.
Well, only its original principle, anarchy, it's not chaos.
It's the fact that a society doesn't need a government because they can self-organize
(34:16):
themselves, which could be doable in a small society.
But the larger the society, the more institutions that you begin to need and the anarchy becomes
inviolable.
Yeah, I mean, that's the thing about anarchy or anarchism is you do need a government or
some sort of governing set of rules or we'll just turn into animals.
(34:36):
I hate to sound Hobbesian, but, you know, it's like what happens in this book?
You know, they start like fighting.
They're like, what do we do?
And, you know, panic and fear starts taking over and they're like, OK, let's let's murder
each other.
And they're just like, oh, God.
No, but you have to remember the starting point where they ended up like that.
They have been oppressed and they are murdering or running chaotically because, I guess, as
(35:04):
a way to riot and potentially get rid of the oppression.
Well, their society has been blown up pretty much.
Their society has been blown up pretty much.
Yeah, that too.
But it's not quite because of that.
I think it's more of a bit of an uprising.
Right.
If they say the hope is we don't actually see it in the book, but I think the hope we
(35:27):
had was that it will settle into a place where you don't need that external governance,
where people can decide by themselves to be good and do good, idealistic as that may be.
And I don't think it's a given that without a government, we'll turn into animals.
Yeah.
And I mean, also, I think V also assassinated the government people because he wanted to,
(35:48):
I hate to state the obvious, but he was trying to discredit Norsefire in front of the people.
Because again, he is a very theatrical character.
He doesn't want to destroy it.
He wants to have fun while doing it.
Not really in like the Joker manner where he just like blowing things up and killing
people.
But it's just he's not only blowing things up, he's making a mockery of the government
(36:10):
at the same time.
He's basically like, this is the people who are supposed to protect you.
Like, really?
I think there are two points to follow up in there.
One is that humanity in general is quite theatrical because the quote unquote lessons we have
learned have always been the nuclear bombs or things like that.
Things that made an impression because the magnitude of the consequences was somewhat
(36:33):
aligned to the magnitude of what happened.
So V is relying on that perhaps to say, okay, let's impress these minds of these people
here with an event they cannot forget so that they don't forget the lesson attached to it,
which is the whole idea that he's presenting on who can control whether we can rule ourselves
or not.
(36:54):
So to me, it's, yeah, I don't think it's only for the looks of it or for the aesthetics
that he does it.
I think he tries to link both concepts.
That's a good point.
What's more theatrical than splitting the atom and blowing up could literally destroy
our world if we use these weapons irresponsibly.
(37:16):
And there's even when he's giving his, hey guys, you're being really stupid right now
speech.
He even shows a picture of the atomic bomb going off.
Yeah.
And then we have the other side of the equation, which is why he's trying to kill these people.
If these officials, public servants, whatever you want to call them, led us into this place,
(37:37):
what warranty do we have that they won't lead us through the same path again?
So he's trying to apply perhaps a cleansing to let's start anew because we already know
that we cannot trust this case that is already there.
And those are the same people who imprisoned him before.
Oh yeah, definitely.
Again, it's kind of the we're destroying the old and we're putting in this new system
(38:01):
over it.
Now there's caveats there, I'm sure.
Also, he goes after those people specifically because they wronged him in the past.
And also because you cut the head off the snake, basically.
He's kind of killing two birds with one stone, really.
Yeah, it's a multi-layered attack.
He's going through all that.
It's part of his grand plan.
I have another question.
(38:22):
So the other side of this story, there is another concept and that is fate, which is
not only the computer, but it's also the belief of the leader.
And what do you think is the role of the media in this story?
Because there is a lot going on between media and fate.
We have the quote unquote voice of fate, which is the name of a program that puts up the
(38:46):
news and it's always broadcasted at the same hour with the same voice.
The whole point of that, which is made explicit at the start of the book before V targets
the guy and kills him, is that they try to provide a fake sense of immutability and stability.
And at the same time, they try to embody fate into that voice in that time or place that
(39:08):
they always transmit, which in reality, it shows the leader's computer.
And it's collecting data from every phone, camera, TV, everything, and extrapolating
that to try to predict what people will do.
So it's taking the control of society to the nth degree.
But what commentary do you think it's been made about the power of information and how
(39:31):
that limits our quote unquote destiny, in this case, the actions that we are going to take?
I think it's Moore's riffing off of 1984 and what George Orwell, he's kind of deconstructing
that evil government overlord that's so prevalent in 1984.
And he's basically like, okay, what would those people be like who actually run Big
(39:51):
Brother and Ingsoc and that organization?
And the answer is someone who's kind of pathetic, actually.
I don't know if I should even admit this.
I kind of felt sorry for Adam Susan a couple of times in the story.
Well, he's just part of the machine as well.
I mean, it is no secret that Alan Moore wore his politics on his sleeve.
(40:13):
This was caricature of the government in here is a direct response to Margaret Thatcher
being the prime minister of England during the times.
He was worried that Britain was actually going towards a 1984 type state.
And so he was definitely riffing on that in this book.
I think he even listed it as an inspiration.
(40:35):
I would be shocked if he didn't.
Yeah, no, it definitely is.
Yeah.
But at the same time, I think that the focus of 1994 and we are different.
1994, because Wilson is working on the government, there is a lot of description
or world building around how the deception is made and how people are controlled,
(40:56):
how the principles go.
So we have a lot of scenes explaining us how the paperwork will come,
how Wilson will change it and so on.
So it's more to me the machinery supporting that government.
While in this case, it's the humans behind the power.
We get all of these smaller stories about the people who are in the government
(41:16):
or highly related to someone within the government.
And we see them for what they are.
We see them as people.
We see them as people with specific beliefs that are very petty in some cases.
And I think that quote unquote humanization of the government machinery
is made a bit more clear with regards to how the divisions within the government are named.
(41:37):
We have the nose, the eyes, the fingers.
So it's part of a human body.
It's like the government, it's an entity on its own
and it's just the sum of the people that is handling them.
I think it's kind of that idea of once you know who the monster is,
you don't fear it anymore.
I kind of took it as that because in 1984, the government's like this big boogie man
(42:02):
hiding under your bed even or just watching your bed.
I don't know because Big Brother's always watching in 1984.
Well, in this case, the leader is always watching because he has faith
and he's always looking at the screens of faith.
Like most of the pictures of the leader, he's always looking at the screen.
So always watching the people.
I think it's also that reversal that in the other one, we never see Big Brother
(42:27):
and in this one, we see the leader.
But the leader knows he's not being seen by the people because seen at the end,
when he's on the car, he actually starts believing,
oh, people want me, not the government.
Like he has this whole inner monologue in which he differentiates himself
from the government and starts thinking that quote unquote the people's love
(42:48):
is not towards the government but towards himself as a person.
Yeah.
And he also falls in love with the apparatus of his government.
He falls in love with the ideas that this fate is tied into the information
he's getting and that is what is controlling their lives.
And he loves that.
He wants that.
So that's a good point when he comes out and actually meets real people.
(43:11):
Of course, the crowd's being egged on by the soldiers and stuff like that.
It's not like that's not a real cheering for him, but he doesn't know that.
And he takes it as such.
So that's kind of an epiphany on his part.
Does even character growth within what we have so far seen as the lowest of villains in the story.
Yeah, though he then gets shot by a lady who got screwed over by Norse fire.
(43:35):
One of the many people who got screwed over by Norse fire.
And you're like, oh, it's over and people are going to die.
But again, I kind of felt sorry for Susan.
He's just kind of this insecure, pathetic little man, kind of going back to superhero
story. It's like that shy nerd kid who gets powers, except he doesn't do the Spider-Man
thing and uses it for good.
(43:55):
He just starts abusing people.
It's like that, except on a bigger scale, of course.
I think you have a point.
I just kept ruminating on my own idea of V, the comic showing the people behind the government.
And when you were speaking, Britain, what I thought is that the leader at the end of
the day is just a person.
He's just a person and he goes in a pathetic way, killed by another person because he's
(44:20):
not the super powerful being that he thought he was, hidden behind fate.
He's just another person and he's not immune to bullets.
And his ideas may live on because we have the other woman, the blonde one, which I forgot
her name.
She actually wants to keep that idea of the government going on.
She wants to keep the same ideas from the leader moving on.
(44:42):
So his, Susan's idea lives on, regardless of the bullet.
Yeah, and it's also kind of interesting, the cop Finch, who's like this pretty normal guy
who's just trying to make it.
He's not like, I don't know if I call him a good guy.
He's still like complicit in what's going on here, but he's a decent person who just
is going after V because that's his job.
(45:03):
He's more of the same.
It's always about the little people.
He's just a detective.
The woman that kills the leader, she's just a widow.
It's always the same thing.
It's just this small person and their actions ripple.
They are like a landslide and the whole society goes with it.
It's kind of like Susan was kind of the opposite of V where he used fate as the symbol.
(45:26):
And then when he, cause you know, V says ideas are bulletproof and then Susan comes out and
dies and the Norse fire dies because he's just a man.
And once they see that he's just a man, it falls apart.
Cause you know, a lot of the story is rooted in symbolism.
I think he says it in the beginning, he's these, she asks him like, okay, so you're
doing this by blowing up buildings.
And he's like, well, these buildings are symbols, you know, they're symbols of the power of
(45:50):
the, Susan says something similar.
He's pitching out the one dude whose widow later kills him.
And he's like, he's blowing up all these symbols of the government.
You can't be doing that, which, you know, I'll admit that's one of the weaker parts
of the story.
I love more a lot, but I'm not a huge fan of when the story goes, here's what the themes
are, you know.
Another important point and perhaps a theme within the story are the masks, especially
(46:13):
given that V says there is no flesh or blood within this cloak to kill.
There is only an idea.
And V may have been referring to himself as embodiment of the idea and the principles
without it, which is as Britton mentioned, a contradiction to what the leader does.
He doesn't have that mask.
He doesn't have, and the voice of fate was his mando.
(46:34):
However, the way he trains Evie is for that continuation of his idea so that the idea
could evolve as we mentioned before.
However, taking the characters away, the ones that were involved in the quote unquote chaos
within this story, for the people, there was only that mask.
And that mask was associated with the change of government, with all the crises that led
(46:58):
to the fall of the totalitarian government.
Do you think that the masks in here not taking into account the movie influence public perception
or resistance or that they perhaps have a more allegorical meaning?
Like we said about the very beginning, the mask there to put on a different persona,
to grow into a different persona, to show the world something that is not you.
(47:20):
So he's using the V mask as a symbol to the world to show that this is the face of change.
This is the face of Anarchy, just in the same way that Evie was originally putting on the
makeup to show her own change.
This is what I'm going to do now in order to get by.
I'm showing the world a different persona, to the persona that wasn't originally me.
(47:43):
I am morphing into this.
I'm changing into this.
And V is doing the same.
And there's a whole bunch of great symbolism throughout the whole book, through the artwork
that shows us a similar thing.
Every single character has that kind of transformation at one point or another, where they look a
little bit different by what they are trying to do or what they're going through.
(48:06):
Even when V starts his training of Evie, he starts it long before we even guess he does.
Like long before she goes to shoot the guy, he starts her training right at the beginning
when he makes the rabbit disappear.
And she says, bring her back.
And he asks the question, well, what if the rabbit doesn't want to come back?
What if the rabbit's happy there?
(48:27):
So he's changing her perception.
Don't just ask for what you want.
What do the other people want?
We know what the government wants.
What do the people want?
So that's tied into that symbolism.
And then he brings the rabbit back and says, okay, the rabbit's back, but now his home
is gone.
He has no home.
So what now?
So he bringing up these questions through that symbolism, through that magic trick of
theater.
(48:48):
And this theater is the main thing.
So there's all kinds of symbolism like that throughout the whole book.
I would probably go a step further.
What you were saying, Livia, I think about masks.
I think this story is also about how symbols influence people and how symbols are an extremely
powerful thing for people.
It's like if someone in America started blowing up the like Jefferson Memorial and the like
(49:13):
Liberty Bell right now, you know, it's kind of what this story is playing with.
And, you know, we also see that with V and also Adam, Susan kind of putting fate over
himself so he can feel powerful when really he's just just small man.
I agree with what both of you said.
But also, I think what the mask gave for people to rally around an idea, not a person, because
(49:35):
ideas would die.
Like whatever the person stood for could potentially die with the person.
Or there is the scope that they become this God figure with far too much power.
But you rally around an idea, then anybody can embody that idea like we see towards the
end of that story.
So I think that might have been the importance of the mask.
I don't know if it helped like going back to your question.
I don't know if it is what brought people together, but I think it would keep people
(49:58):
together for the right reasons when used correctly.
You gave me an idea before we were talking about 1984.
And they actually do this.
So when Winston is tortured, the policeman, he says that he's trying to destroy the person
because a person is a symbol.
So the whole torture in 1984 aims to destroy the person that was carrying that idea until
(50:24):
the person went to the public and said that everything was lies, that he never believed
in it, so on and so forth.
So the person destroys the idea, they are no longer the symbol, then they kill him.
So that's why in 1984, they don't just kill people, they want to destroy the symbol, not
to create martyrs, because a martyr is a person that was associated to an idea.
(50:48):
And in here, it's like we learned from that or that concept.
And as you said, Varsha, he put on the mask so that the mask will ensure that the idea
lived on, that the assassination of any person will never mean that the idea died because
the idea was a mask.
Yeah, how many times through the story did it look like V was killed and then it ended
(51:10):
up being like just this cloak over a coat hanger or something like that, you know?
But it was always that symbol, you struck it down, but the idea was still living on.
And V, the idea was still continuing to cause anarchy in the society.
And V as well, even before EV, V, the original V, he also changes whenever the mask is there
(51:34):
and the cloak and we have a fake death scene.
What happens after is a slight change within the idea of V.
I guess I should also go back to the ideas of justice.
You know, Finch is going after V and sure, V might be justified because this government
is awful, but Finch kind of believes that like, look, he's still breaking the law.
(51:57):
We got to stop him.
I don't want to say he doesn't stop him.
I mean, he kills him, but he already succeeded.
He doesn't stop the idea.
And V shows the one iteration of the idea.
Though again, he's just kind of like, yes, I got him.
You know, like that's going to, it's like, dude, it's too late.
Like it's, what did you guys think of the ending?
(52:19):
I like the ending on the comic far more than the one in the movie because I had seen the
movie first.
I think that the change in IV that we have in the comic is so much more powerful and
meaningful than what we get in the movie because in the movie she somehow retains her identity.
She never steps into the mask, but in here we have her putting on the mask, going and
(52:44):
rousing the people, then rescuing this guy and beginning the cycle again because the
society again is going to fall in the cycle.
To me, it was super powerful, that concept.
There's that sense of uncertainty at the end where it's like, okay, the evil government's
gone.
Now what?
You know, Evie's running around and she's like, rumors of my death were greatly exaggerated.
(53:06):
But you know, it's just kind of what now?
Which is an ending that more specializes in, if you read more of his work.
But I think it's an ending that says a struggle goes on, that things are one part of what
he was trying to accomplish was accomplished.
He incited change at a certain level.
It's not going to be a change that's permanent in any way, but that's going to require the
(53:30):
growth of society in order to make that change effective.
When he affected so many people in a certain way, there is a certain growth that he's hoping
to accomplish there within the collective cycle of the people.
That's kind of symbolized by Evie rescuing that guy and by the detective at the end denying,
(53:51):
I forget the woman's name, the one who was saying, wanted him to rescue her or whatever
so that they could take over or whatever.
And he denied her.
He denied that lure of power.
That was the growth that V was fighting for.
So that's, that's to me is a pretty satisfactory ending.
Yeah.
That's all good stories really should.
Oh, no, I'm not saying it's unsatisfactory.
(54:13):
It's just kind of, it leaves you pondering what's going to happen next.
Yeah.
I really enjoyed the ending.
I loved the fact that it mirrored the beginning.
I think we already talked about that and I like the uncertainty in the end.
It reminded me a little bit of rejoice.
It could go anywhere from here.
You've been given your chance and now the ball's in your court, you know, that, that
(54:34):
kind of feeling you can imagine where the society could go.
You can imagine it a few decades in the future.
I think they talk about turn of the century.
Oh, that's because it's 98, but I really liked the open-endedness of the ending that it could
go anywhere from here.
It could repeat itself in that endless cycle that we already talked about, or maybe there's
(54:55):
a chance for something better.
I liked your comparison with rejoice.
I think it goes to what Britton was asking, what now?
It's up to the society.
That's the ending up to a society.
It's kind of a staple in a lot of his work as you kind of go on because Watchmen kind
of ends on a what, what's going to happen next.
You know, he likes that ending, I guess.
(55:18):
I think it's a most powerful type of ending because it's up to the reader.
And in that case, kind of like the reader was a society that is presented within V.
I'd say for additional thoughts before the end, I really like the Valerie letter on the
toilet paper where she basically explains her life story.
(55:38):
And then she's like, oh man, that was great.
How'd you make that up?
And she's like, I didn't make that up.
That was the woman who was next to my cell.
It was the lady who was next door to me.
Just hit you like a brick.
You're like, oh man.
And it's also how impactful people can be in other people's lives even when they have
(55:58):
never met.
I think it also goes to that it's always about the small people because if that woman hadn't
been there, if she hadn't given her letter to V, none of V for Rendetta would have happened
because he wouldn't be the same person.
It's also like the power of humanity as well, which is another theme Alan Moore likes to
play with.
One, the loss of humanity, but also why we should retain it.
(56:21):
We see that in this as well.
Reason why V probably couldn't live in a society is again, because he's really far from that.
He's basically assembled by that point.
He's no longer human.
He's become so dedicated to that mission, if you will.
Which is perhaps ties up to what we discussed at the start.
(56:42):
Idealization of the beliefs, which is why V is so focused on that idea.
He's no longer a person.
He becomes the idea.
And we never actually see the person.
We always see, other than a blurry black outline in the distance when he was in the internment
camp or whatever, we never see the person.
We always see the mask.
(57:03):
We always see the masquerade, the theater.
And so that's how he completely embraces himself as an idea, as a means to an end, as an agent
for change.
And also the symbolism of when Evie is freed finally.
I used air quotes there.
She lets the rain hit her.
And it's also the other cut, or I call it cut for lack of a better word.
(57:27):
And you see V doing the same thing with the flames behind him.
I like that a lot.
That actually points out to what Jarrod said before, that she was the same idea, but different.
He was born from flames and chaos.
She was born from washed out and everything else that was left, cleaned up.
Yeah, which kind of goes to that idea of passing the torch.
(57:49):
But because it's an idea and it's always changing, it's different.
That's why we also have the fight and the water.
On the subject of him, we never get to see who V was that Jarrod was talking about earlier.
I love the back and forth that Evie imagines in her head about when she takes off his mask.
And that would somehow make him lesser, even if it's who she desperately wants him to be.
(58:14):
Even if it's my father, taking that mask off will reduce him.
So she wasn't going to do him that disservice.
I love that section and the back and forth she has and then how she comes to the conclusion.
I thought that was brilliant.
That scene is perfect.
It's not in the movie.
You are mentioning the scene that she goes in, tries to take the mask and imagines him
(58:39):
as her father, then as her lover, and then herself.
They had a piece of the idea as well.
I mean, again, if you take V's mask off, he's just a man.
You can destroy a man.
You can do whatever you want to a person.
But an idea, he says it himself.
Can't kill an idea.
Thank you, everyone, for joining me in the discussion.
(59:00):
It was amazing.
Before we call it a day, let's do a round of outro so that the listeners know where
to find you.
Yes, you can find me at the Fantasy Thinker YouTube channel.
You can find me on holoapagechewing.com on podcasts there, including speculative speculations
with my friend Vasha over here.
Thank you so much for having me, Olivia.
(59:21):
It was a great deal of fun, as always.
You can find me on the YouTube channel Reading By The Rainy Mountain on the podcast that
Jared mentioned, speculative speculations, where we are currently talking our way through
wind up girl.
Hi, Paolo, bachigalupi.
I guess I hang out on the Patreon forum and on some of the podcasts there like this one.
(59:42):
Thank you so much.
Yeah, I'm someokiedude on YouTube, Twitter or X, Instagram, Blue Sky, Goodreads, basically
everywhere.
Just someokiedude.
You'll probably find me.
I hope we can do this again at some point.
Same.
It was an honor having you.
That said, if you liked this episode, please like and subscribe.
(01:00:06):
If you want to get by size prose analysis, short thematic discussions and other bookish
musings, then subscribe to my newsletter at liviajaleo.com.
You will also get a free book for my novella, The Genesis of Change.
I will leave the link in the episode's description.
Thank you for listening and happy reading.
There is no flesh or blood within this cloak to kill, only an idea.
(00:04):
And ideas are bulletproof.
This is one of the most iconic phrases in a controversial visual
novel that remains relevant even 40 years after its publication.
I'm talking of V for Vendetta by Alan Moore and David Lloyd.
Let's get this book undone.
(00:29):
Hello everyone, and welcome to Books Undone.
I'm your host, Livia J.
Elliot, and today we are back with a guest talk to discuss one of the
most famous visual novels ever created, V for Vendetta by Alan Moore and David Lloyd.
We have several guests, so let me introduce you to them.
(00:51):
Hi, how you doing?
I'm Jared.
I run the Fantasy Thinker YouTube channel and I'm on other
podcasts like speculative speculations.
Hi, I'm Varsha.
I run the YouTube channel reading by Drainy Mountain and I'm on the
podcast speculative speculations.
I was gearing up to be mad at Jared if you didn't mention other podcasts like.
Yeah.
Well, thank you for having me, Livia.
(01:12):
It's always a pleasure to be here.
Hi, my name is Britton, also known as Sum of Vendetta.
I'm a Moki dude on YouTube, a long time Alan Moore fan and aficionado.
Glad to be here.
Thank you everyone.
Before we get started, let me tackle some disclaimers.
First, since we are discussing the themes and plotline for these visual
novel, there will be spoilers in this podcast.
(01:35):
Second, V for Vendetta discusses some heavy themes and has a lot of
scenes that are not for the faint of heart.
We will try to be gentle, but listen with caution.
Third and finally, what you will hear is our subjective opinion about this
topic and at this particular moment in our lives, you may disagree and that's fine.
(01:59):
Now, I think there are many themes within this visual novel, but something that is
quite implicitly mentioned is a balance between individual freedom and societal control.
When V is monologuing before the study of justice, he says that justice
is meaningless without freedom.
I think this scene is critical to understanding V and his motivations.
(02:23):
It reveals the corruption of society and his belief that justice as enacted
in by the book leadership is not actually justice, but I would like to hear
your thoughts on this very early scene.
I should note, I think this comic is really interesting because kind of,
because he was writing this concurrently with a superhero comic he was doing
called Marvel Man or Miracle Man out here in the States.
(02:46):
So it's kind of, we see more grow through this story because this is kind of earlier
in his career before he really took off.
But for the scene in particular, I think it kind of illustrates V's mission
because he's not really looking for justice.
He just wants to tear down the Norse fire government.
(03:06):
And I don't know if it's necessarily, he doesn't care that people are going to get
hurt, but he knows people are going to get hurt and it's just, how do I put it?
I guess I am saying he doesn't care, but I don't know if I would, I would go that far.
It's more like it's going to happen anyways.
It rather happens this way so that there, there is an acceptable ending, perhaps.
(03:27):
You gotta remember that V stands for villain as well.
He is actually the villain towards the current lawful government that's in power.
So he is an anarchist.
He is a revolutionary and this is early in the book.
So it's setting the stage with a bang in order to announce his presence for change.
And he talks about anarchy in front of the statue and he says once he blows it up, he's
(03:54):
like the flames of freedom, how lovely an anarchy.
And so he's in an argument with this symbol of justice.
He wants to win that argument.
He wants to put his stamp on what's going to happen for the next upcoming year.
Cause this takes place over a year, I believe he has his argument.
He has his place.
It's very staged.
(04:14):
It's very theatrical going with his outfit and the lovely angles that David
Lloyd gives to all the panels on the page.
He makes it's a very like very stage friendly points of view when with all
the, his drawings on those two pages.
And so this is, this is his ultimate opening act towards his mission, pulls
(04:36):
it off with a bang and he's starting his anarchy and he's showing his
villainy at that point to the people in charge, which of course, you know, some
people will be like, yay, but it's a very authoritarian government.
So, you know, that's, but this starts it right here.
I think for me, what was most interesting about that scene was, I guess, the
(04:56):
tension between the three concepts that are sort of discussed in that chapter.
Start with that love note that what's his name?
The head has for fate, which later I think it turns out it's the computer
that's followed by a very similar, but pretty different conversation
that we has with justice.
(05:18):
And I think there's, I'm trying to remember how the conversation with
the head has with fate goes, he talks about how he gives her so much affection,
but he doesn't really get much in response.
And there's a very similar conversation that we has that, you know, like you,
you've been sleeping around with other men.
So I get to go pick my new person to love, which happens to be anarchy.
(05:41):
I think the tension between those three concepts and like fate as something
that you typically leave things to control your life for you, which is
what I guess this government is trying to do, leave things to fate.
And every minute thing gets controlled versus anarchy is about sort of letting
go, right, and losing that control and therefore finding freedom that way.
(06:03):
And the role of justice in all of this, I think what is interesting to me is
that justice is relevant in both cases, except in one case, it's basically
useless in the case where everything is controlled for you.
Justice is also a means of control, quote unquote, justice is a means of control.
But when you're free, justice can then mean something.
(06:24):
I think it's these I like to call it his super villain monologue where he
basically is explaining what he's going to do.
He's basically saying, if I can't attain justice in your way, justice,
then I'll do it my way.
And that's what he means when he blows it up because he's basically blowing up
the law idea of justice and he's basically, he's a necessary extreme, if
(06:48):
you will, to get rid of Norse fire, because it's clear in the story that
like Norse fire are really evil and corrupt and a lot of them deserve
to die very painfully.
So yeah, it's kind of, it's kind of his super villain monologue, really
going back to villain as what Jared was saying earlier.
Oh, you both gave me two points to discuss in there, Brito picking up
(07:09):
in what you were saying, there is a historian, political philosopher,
Franky Tsukuyama, and he often says that there is a point in the
stagnation of society in which it can only change and advance due to an
extreme change or through violence and conflict.
And that reminded me of what you said that being here is a necessary evil
(07:33):
because the society is letting that happen.
And that ties up with the whole speech when V takes on TV a mission.
And he speaks in a way that says that the society or the country were a
company that they actually weren't contributing to it.
He's actually pointing out to the stagnation and how society let or
(07:54):
allowed all of that to happen.
It's kind of a funny scene because it's basically him like chewing him out.
Like there is workers and they're not doing a good enough job.
In the movie, I don't want to bring up the movie too much, which it's a bit
more poignant in the movie, I'll say.
He's more trying to inspire people in the action more than just saying
you threw this away, shame on you.
(08:16):
Yeah.
But that's the same point.
How many times society is to blame for the type of government it puts on itself?
Yeah, that's a good point.
No, I think you guys got it down right there as far as those points about that scene.
I mean, if I can go back to actually like the very first page in the whole book,
because I love how Moore and Lloyd just set things up for us.
(08:40):
They really set up the whole story right in the first two pages of the whole thing.
You open up with that Jordan tower.
It is obviously some sort of an important building that's
going to come into play later.
And it is announcing all these things to the populace about what's happening
in the world or in Britain right now.
And then you immediately see a surveillance camera and the next panel,
(09:03):
it moves to a closer up, you know, it's in says for your protection on the
sale surveillance camera.
And so you're immediately given that clue that this is something under
surveillance and it's something that's supposedly for people's protection.
And then you use the next panel, you see armed guards and that you see them
pointing and stuff like that.
And then you cut this young girl in a room.
(09:25):
Looks like a normal room, but she's listening all the time.
So to this announcement and this announcements aren't nice.
They're they're telling you what's going on in the country and there's
going to be meat rationing in this.
You see the girl, it switches to her putting on makeup lipstick and she
has a worried expression and that's just the beginning of her transformation.
(09:45):
As we know, she goes through a lot of transformation in this whole story.
And then it moves to the scene with that shows all the, um, the plays in the
theater, in the background, and we see that little, that figure heading
towards the dressing table.
And then the next page, we see a transformation of Evie.
She's, she's no longer in the simple jeans of a young girl.
(10:07):
She's, she's in this slinky little dress.
She's transformed into some other character.
And of course, then we see the other unknown character putting on the gloves,
the mask with the smile and the red rouge and the cheeks and the white thing,
all of it indicating theater.
And then you see Evie with the same kind of similar makeup on her.
She's transformed into something else.
(10:29):
She's putting on an act.
She's getting ready for her performance, so to speak.
And then of course we see V in the mirror as well.
So this is all a reflection of our two main characters in this story and what
they're setting up for a big theatrical performance throughout the whole story.
And of course the words right next to V are the villain, it's chapter one, the
(10:53):
villain, and so that right there, it sets the tone for the whole story and basically
sets up that these characters are going to go through transformations and they're
going to be dealing with a surveillance state of some sort.
And so the conflict is set up, the characters are set up, just a beautiful
piece of work by, by those two creators.
(11:13):
I was saying it also sets up the ending brilliantly, but it also sets up the
ending brilliantly because Evie is looking at the mirror and we almost think
that she's seeing herself like when what we see is V and the ending, she's the
new V, so to speak, and there's a very similar scene where she's actually
looking at herself in the mirror and she's the one wearing the mask.
(11:36):
I thought that was brilliant too when the call back to that first scene that we open with.
Also the continuation because the book starts with current V rescuing her and
the beginning of her towards becoming a new V and at the end of the book, Evie
V rescues a guy and it's very clear that he's setting him up to become the next one.
(11:58):
It's kind of, he does a similar thing later where he's standing on a roof and
he's talking about away with our bombers, away with our, you know, we don't need
that for this new world, which is there's very few moments where V just kind of
reflects on what's going on.
Kind of like a Shakespearean soliloquy in that way and I think it's once again, I
think it's foreshadowing because in the other monologue that he has on the roof
(12:22):
where he's talking about away with our bombers, away with our bastards, he's
basically acknowledging, I can't be here when this is over and it kind of leads me
to a theory.
I think when he began this, I don't think he was going to get out of there alive.
Even if he succeeded, if he survived and succeeded, I don't think he was going to
get out of there alive.
I think he was definitely planning on either taking himself out in a blaze of
(12:45):
glory or pretty much what happened in the books.
Just, you know, someone gets to jump on him and kills him.
But yeah, I think it's kind of, I don't know if I'd say it's foreshadowing, but it
kind of rhymes with that later sequence in the book.
There is a lot of implied references, like the one we were discussing with the
beginning and the end on cycles.
And that also makes sense because at a political level, society is always a
(13:09):
cycle.
We can see the governments going from one side of the spectrum towards the other.
And then something happens and we have the same cycle going over and over.
Given that this book is so political in nature and discusses totalitarianism in
that way, it also makes sense to try to point out why those cycles happen.
Where is the crisis where everything begins again?
(13:31):
Yeah, that's a good point.
He's a, but like the thing is, I think just, you know, considering what we learn
later about V, it's just V is so far removed from regular people by the time we
meet him in the story, which is a theme that Alan Moore plays with in a lot of
his work that he can't live in that world that he wants to make.
(13:52):
You know, there's a line in, I haven't seen Firefly or Serenity, but there's a
scene that I like that I've watched where the main villain, the operative and the
main character, Malcolm are talking and he's basically like, so me and mine have
to go die so you can live in your perfect world and he goes, oh, I'm not
going to live there because you know, I've done these monstrous things.
(14:12):
I'm a monster.
I can't live in that world either.
He will sacrifice everything to get what he wants, even his life, even
though he's not going to see it.
That's a great point.
But at the same time, V is exactly as you mentioned, he's conscious of everything
that he's done, of everything that he's going to do to take the society there.
And if he criticizes justice, he applies a version of justice to himself to judge
(14:38):
his actions and say like, no, this goes out of the line of what should be
permitted here within the society he wants to make.
I think it also kind of illustrates the theme, which is anarchy versus, you
know, how much control should the government have and how much, you know,
freedom should we have, which is the oldest conversation in political theory.
I mean, you know, Thomas Hobbes had his view on it and John Locke had his view
(15:01):
on it and out in America, we have democracy and well, whatever you want to
say about our political atmosphere.
Um, we're still going 200, almost 250 years later.
Again, I don't want to get ahead of myself though, cause more loves extremes.
So, you know, he's going like, here's the extreme of this evil fascist government.
And then he's like, Oh wait, now they're basically anarchy.
(15:24):
It's crazy.
People are like beating each other up and looting and stuff and murdering each other.
I want to go back to my original question.
Varsha, you made a great point when you compared the leader's speech towards
his beliefs of faith and views towards justice.
And something that I thought when you were speaking is how have
(15:47):
both idealized their beliefs.
And I think it also ties up to what Britton was saying that they are both
a leader and V they are so detached from reality that what they believe
on it's an abstract concept.
It's not something that can be applied to society.
So it's the abstract idea of faith and how everything is predefined.
(16:10):
And if the abstract idea of justice without a legal system to actually
control it, to actually define what justice means for a particular country.
I think it goes back to that idea of both of them are similar in the sense
that they are both attached from society.
That's an interesting point about justice without having a legal system defined.
(16:32):
I think you can have justice outside the scope of a legal system, right?
Like justice as a concept exists outside of that.
And it goes back to what V says in his later, when they've like set things in
motion, he says for a few days, things will be chaotic and out of control,
but then there will be self-imposed voluntary order, which will always,
in his opinion, work better than involuntary and forced order.
(16:56):
Right.
And that means you sort of society would hopefully coalesce to a point where
you have self-imposed justice, justice that's not outsourced to a legal
system, but what feels morally right.
And this goes back to like maybe questions about morality tied to
religious beliefs, like do you have to be a religious person to be a moral person?
(17:19):
Or do you have to have a legal system to have justice?
And there's a lot of questions there, but I think the justice needing a legal
system, maybe I'll push back on, but in terms of just what that means to what
he's trying to do, I think anarchy finds a steady state in order.
Eventually after the chaos is done, there will hopefully be a system of justice
(17:42):
that most people like, if not everybody.
What do you think of the transmission that he sent, the speech that he gives
in the middle of the book somewhere, where he talks to humanity as if they're
employees and the planet is the employer.
It's like, we've given you lots of chances.
Now I'm firing you if you don't get your act together.
(18:04):
And one of the pictures that stood out to me there is like when he said, we've
been giving you a lot of chances, it was the picture of the Buddha and you've
been given all these leaders and like good systems to consider and try to
become better, but you know, you failed at it.
So I'm passing judgment now.
What did you think of that?
(18:24):
The Buddha picture stood out to me alongside, we've given you chances.
I think you showed like pictures of Hitler and Stalin as well.
It's like, yeah, I think there was some other pictures too, wasn't it?
Of some other people besides the Buddha.
Yeah.
That's kind of like the old joke where the guy's drowning in the sea, in
the sea, and a boat comes by and he says, and they're going to pick him up.
(18:46):
And he says, no, God's going to save me.
Then, you know, somebody else comes by and he says, nope, I'm waiting for God to
save me.
And then finally he, he, he drowns and he's, and he goes, God, why did I die?
He's like, well, I sent you a boat and I sent you a, I sent you a guy to pick you
up and nothing, you didn't take it.
So he's kind of saying that in this situation, you know, you had your examples
(19:08):
on how to act better.
You had your, your chances on what to do and how to, how to conduct yourselves in
society and you failed.
I guess now's another chance, you know, basically I'm blowing up the system.
I'm trying to bring it down and here's your chance to once again, make a better
society.
I think he's angry.
(19:29):
He's like, you guys let this happen.
Except he does it in a very passive aggressive condescending way that like a
boss would tell you.
He's not like just yelling at them.
He's trying to plant an idea in their head, if you will.
So the illustrations that I'm seeing, first we have the moon landing when he's
talking about, don't think I have forgotten about your outstanding service record or
(19:51):
about all the invaluable contributions that you have made to this company.
So that's the advancement on science and technology.
The part of knowledge that we have here, everything people do think Jarrod is
right, because then we have a new way of thinking when we have the Buddha there.
We have the next image is actually people running against a tank.
So like they are trying to stop the tank and make a stance.
(20:15):
And then we have the last one, which is a woman trying to stop someone from going
there.
So again, it seems that he's dressed in a very formal or army way and she's trying
to stop it.
So it could also imply that she's trying to stop the continuation of something
that's happening there.
So it very well means that they are all examples that he thinks.
(20:35):
So he's trying to imply that people have to rebel against the status quo to bring
that change that we were mentioning before.
And then when we have the picture of Hitler and Stalin at the end, he's saying
we have had a string of investors, frauds, liars and lunatics making a string of
catastrophic decisions.
But then again, in this whole speech, he's blaming society and he's saying that
(21:00):
society didn't work and there is a part in which he says it's your basic unwillingness
to get on within the company.
You don't seem to want to face up to any real responsibility or to be your own boss.
And that's near this picture that we have there of Stalin and Hitler.
To me, I think it goes back to the idea of you had all these opportunities and examples
(21:21):
to change a status quo, but you don't want to take responsibility.
Therefore, what's happening, the control of the government is a fault of the citizens.
He also says something to the effect that you're just letting them tell you what to
You're happy to sit there and not think for yourself and let other people tell you what
to do and how to think.
Right.
Yeah, I like that.
(21:41):
He is blaming people in power, but people who follow the people in power, I think.
This comic is very much inspired by noir, very dark kind of atmospheric storytelling
and artwork.
And I mean, I often talk about what I think is inherent in the noir genre.
And one of those is compromise.
I'm not saying that V for Vendetta is a crime story.
(22:04):
I think noir isn't necessarily just the crime genre.
It's like a style.
It's a theme, if you will.
But anyway, I'm getting off topic.
V for Vendetta kind of falls into that noir trapping where he's asking, okay, what are
you willing to compromise in order to create a safer world?
Is V the compromise you're willing to make in order to get rid of Norse fire?
And then on the other hand, is Norse fire the compromise you're willing to make for
(22:27):
creating a safer world, whatever the hell that means?
He's kind of just throw, he's asking them that, but he's also kind of throwing in their
faces the consequences of that compromise.
Something else that stood out to me in that scene is that V speaks like if he were a blanket
presence over society.
He's the one making the speech.
(22:47):
He's not quite the boss.
He's not the government, certainly, but he's passing judgment on people.
He doesn't seem to be justice because we have already the scene of justice.
So he's like an ever-present truth, like the idea that cannot be killed, right?
I mean, I hate to state the obvious, but I would say he is vengeance.
It's in the title V for Vendetta.
(23:09):
Vendetta means revenge.
But whose vengeance?
His own or society's in that scene in particular?
Well, that is the question.
I kind of view it like this.
I don't really view V as like a person.
He's a symbol.
He's an idea.
It's kind of like Judge Dredd from 2000 AD, except it's the opposite.
V is all about anarchy and blowing up the system.
(23:31):
And Judge Dredd is about the law, as he likes to say.
He says, I am the law.
It's just V is kind of a different hero.
He's basically like anarchist Batman in a lot of ways.
I wonder if his rescue of Evie, if his mission evolved as time went on, because he was
originally about the Vendetta, to start with, the vengeance, because he was specifically
(23:54):
targeting and taking out all the people involved with his incarceration in the internment camp.
And so his initial mode of vengeance, and it tied into a greater plan as the time went on,
because those particular individuals were all tied into the current governing body as it stood.
(24:15):
And so once he took out those people, he had accomplished something by putting a quite
the kink into their plans and into their mode of operation.
And so I think maybe rescuing Evie gave him that greater scope and that idea that he can
do this also for a change in society as well.
(24:37):
He's still a villain in some ways, because what he actually did to Evie was quite horrific.
He's not pulling any punches at all when it comes to his vengeance, his Vendetta.
He's going to extreme measures in order to accomplish it, whether or not that justifies
his ends, justify his means.
(24:59):
I think more leaves that up for the reader to decide.
Also, I think one of these things is like he likes to plan things out again, but I don't
know if it was just he just saw Evie and he took the opportunity or if he was like watching her
for a while and he's like, huh, that's the person who will succeed me in this weird plan
to change society.
I don't know.
(25:19):
But I do think there is a little bit of that kind of again, I don't think V was thinking
he was going to make it out alive.
I think he definitely thought he was going to die in the attempt.
But yeah, but he wanted someone else to lead the world to something else.
And that's kind of where Evie comes in.
Or it could have been someone else.
I have no idea.
Again, kind of like Jared said, it's kind of left up to interpretation.
(25:40):
Well, he was definitely prepared.
He was prepared.
Okay.
I have a wild idea based on what you two were saying.
This behavior, and again, if we take into consideration that monologue with the justice
study on how it presents these views of freedom, moving from there, his relationship to Evie
(26:00):
or what he does to her, I think is in a different way, but it's more of the same of what he tries
to do to society, which is to give them freedom.
But then we have what's freedom and how it applies on both cases.
We have the freedom to and the freedom from.
So freedom to will be to act as one pleases, perhaps within those frameworks of self-imposed
(26:26):
behavior that V tends to mention a lot of times.
And that also references, I think it was the second part of the book, the land of do as
you please.
So that's the freedom to do as you please, basically.
And we see what happens in there in that part.
However, freedom from, it's not necessarily freedom from the government, which we can
(26:48):
understand it that so if we consider that he is discussing anarchy or favoring anarchy,
but freedom from, it's also freedom from ignorance, from biases, but the control of
our mind.
We are controlled by the prejudices as society imposed on us, which is a bit more intangible
than a particular government.
At the end of the day, what he tries to do to Evie is to free her from her biases.
(27:13):
He's applying or doing a lot of things to free her first so that she can then free society
from the other quote unquote, villain, which is a government.
I think he says it himself.
He says, I wanted to free you from the fear of Norse fire.
I don't think he says that specifically, but you can shoot holes into that.
You're like, oh, he's basically just telling her.
(27:35):
He basically just, you know, mind screwed her into doing what he wanted to do.
I think you're right.
The idea is not just freedom from the government.
It's freedom from that fear of what this abstract concept that we call government can do to you.
And I think it's also beyond government.
It's also society itself because we then again, that discussion on whether we need a legal
(27:58):
system to apply justice.
We have a society that without having laws will also tell us how to behave because we
end up judging each other.
We end up having those moral parameters and what V does to Evie, it's basically free her
from those as well.
Because after all that training, quote unquote, he does, it's basically to give her her own
(28:19):
way of thinking that is outside the box of society.
Yeah, it sounds kind of niche in how you're explaining it a little bit.
Yeah, and that could be a horrible journey to break down everything you know and break
down everything you have and rid yourself of all sense of comfort and all sense of belonging
to be that free that you can actually think any way you want.
(28:43):
Because everybody's conditioned from birth to be brought up in a certain way and have
to go through the process of breaking all that down is a very, very painful process.
What he did to her, the only issue with it.
What makes him a villain in this case is he didn't ask her.
She didn't volunteer to go through this process.
He just did it and she may be free later.
(29:06):
She may even thank him later.
But there is a huge gray area there that is really makes you like sit back and wonder.
She's a victim that becomes the villain or the next villain.
The next villain, yeah.
So, I mean, I think she's more human than V because, you know, if I could compare V to
another more character Rorschach, who's in his comic Watchmen very similarly, those characters,
(29:32):
the only thing they know how to do is destroy and tear down.
They don't know how to build something, which is again why I think he kind of props her up
for the role of successor because she knows that she still has that kind of basic humanity
where she can guide them to a better world while he can't because the only thing he can do is
tear down and destroy.
(29:54):
Yeah, that's a great point, Britton.
She has the freedom to do that after what she went through.
And I think he's trying to do the same thing to society.
He's trying to also breaks down certain ideas and certain things in order to give society
the freedom to be able to rebuild.
That is a much bigger task than just one person.
But that's why he needs the help to continue on.
(30:15):
And then he kidnaps the cop at the end.
But it's also the task that he has.
I think it's also more difficult.
It's always easier to tear down than to build up.
And she has to build up a society that has lost its way, that let itself to be controlled.
Very, very true.
(30:37):
It's like Life of Brian where he tries to yell at the crowd,
You're all individuals.
And they just shout it back at him.
Yeah, that's very true.
And he's just like, oh, good Lord, this is not what I'm trying to.
Yeah.
And then we also got to remember that V also went through his own reconditioning
with what he went through in the concentration camp there.
(30:59):
It's not something he's unfamiliar with.
It kind of goes back to why I don't think the question of who is V,
it doesn't really matter because it's like who V is, it doesn't matter.
What matters is what he wants.
What matters is what he symbolizes.
And that's kind of what matters is
what idea does he represent to kind of use the language of the book.
That's a great point because it also ties up to
(31:21):
Evie, as Jarrod said, having some freedom to do different,
even if the principles are the same, because that also happens to ideas.
Ideas, once they appear in society, they don't endure endlessly unchanged.
Ideas keep evolving as a society evolves.
So if we look at what freedom was during, I don't know, the Roman Empire,
(31:44):
it's not the same as what freedom was during 1700s or something or now.
So we have also that idea of it's a mask, it's the outfit.
There is only idea under this cloak and it keeps evolving
because we have the next person in there.
Yeah, I like what you said about ideas evolving.
And he does say that the mask and the cloak are the idea.
(32:06):
It doesn't matter what the person is.
That idea in and of itself evolves, but also what ideas apply
to making society, that can also evolve.
So an idea that applies now may not apply at another time.
There's also scope for removing the necessity of a villain like that, eventually.
(32:26):
Also, the way Evie goes out is kind of mundane as well.
Like he just gets shot by the cop and then he says the iconic line,
ideas are bulletproof, is like a bizarre flex, I guess.
He's just like, ideas are bulletproof, see you later.
And he does like the whole hat tip.
And then the cop sees like blood on the in the water and he's like, yes, I've got him.
(32:50):
You know, it's just like.
He had time to make it all the way back home.
It's kind of silly, but I mean, that's not to take away from the book, of course.
He what a funeral he got though.
A Viking funeral.
A Viking funeral, haha.
A Viking funeral on a train.
(33:12):
That's pretty cool.
It was implied that there was a curfew and so there weren't any actual people in the
buildings that he blew up throughout the course of the book, right?
I don't think so.
I don't remember that.
It's been a while since I last read that.
Yeah, there definitely was a curfew.
That's how she got caught in the first place because she was going out after that curfew
(33:32):
in the beginning.
But I think that was part of his plan was that the buildings would be mostly evacuated
when he was blowing them up.
You know, I said earlier, he doesn't care about who gets hurt.
I don't think that's necessarily true.
Like he doesn't like meaningless chaos and violence.
Everything has a purpose in V's mind, even if it's pretty monstrous by our standards.
(33:54):
Yeah, he actually points out one time that there is a difference between chaos and anarchy
in his anarchical views have a point, whereas pure chaos doesn't.
Well, only its original principle, anarchy, it's not chaos.
It's the fact that a society doesn't need a government because they can self-organize
(34:16):
themselves, which could be doable in a small society.
But the larger the society, the more institutions that you begin to need and the anarchy becomes
inviolable.
Yeah, I mean, that's the thing about anarchy or anarchism is you do need a government or
some sort of governing set of rules or we'll just turn into animals.
(34:36):
I hate to sound Hobbesian, but, you know, it's like what happens in this book?
You know, they start like fighting.
They're like, what do we do?
And, you know, panic and fear starts taking over and they're like, OK, let's let's murder
each other.
And they're just like, oh, God.
No, but you have to remember the starting point where they ended up like that.
They have been oppressed and they are murdering or running chaotically because, I guess, as
(35:04):
a way to riot and potentially get rid of the oppression.
Well, their society has been blown up pretty much.
Their society has been blown up pretty much.
Yeah, that too.
But it's not quite because of that.
I think it's more of a bit of an uprising.
Right.
If they say the hope is we don't actually see it in the book, but I think the hope we
(35:27):
had was that it will settle into a place where you don't need that external governance,
where people can decide by themselves to be good and do good, idealistic as that may be.
And I don't think it's a given that without a government, we'll turn into animals.
Yeah.
And I mean, also, I think V also assassinated the government people because he wanted to,
(35:48):
I hate to state the obvious, but he was trying to discredit Norsefire in front of the people.
Because again, he is a very theatrical character.
He doesn't want to destroy it.
He wants to have fun while doing it.
Not really in like the Joker manner where he just like blowing things up and killing
people.
But it's just he's not only blowing things up, he's making a mockery of the government
(36:10):
at the same time.
He's basically like, this is the people who are supposed to protect you.
Like, really?
I think there are two points to follow up in there.
One is that humanity in general is quite theatrical because the quote unquote lessons we have
learned have always been the nuclear bombs or things like that.
Things that made an impression because the magnitude of the consequences was somewhat
(36:33):
aligned to the magnitude of what happened.
So V is relying on that perhaps to say, okay, let's impress these minds of these people
here with an event they cannot forget so that they don't forget the lesson attached to it,
which is the whole idea that he's presenting on who can control whether we can rule ourselves
or not.
(36:54):
So to me, it's, yeah, I don't think it's only for the looks of it or for the aesthetics
that he does it.
I think he tries to link both concepts.
That's a good point.
What's more theatrical than splitting the atom and blowing up could literally destroy
our world if we use these weapons irresponsibly.
(37:16):
And there's even when he's giving his, hey guys, you're being really stupid right now
speech.
He even shows a picture of the atomic bomb going off.
Yeah.
And then we have the other side of the equation, which is why he's trying to kill these people.
If these officials, public servants, whatever you want to call them, led us into this place,
(37:37):
what warranty do we have that they won't lead us through the same path again?
So he's trying to apply perhaps a cleansing to let's start anew because we already know
that we cannot trust this case that is already there.
And those are the same people who imprisoned him before.
Oh yeah, definitely.
Again, it's kind of the we're destroying the old and we're putting in this new system
(38:01):
over it.
Now there's caveats there, I'm sure.
Also, he goes after those people specifically because they wronged him in the past.
And also because you cut the head off the snake, basically.
He's kind of killing two birds with one stone, really.
Yeah, it's a multi-layered attack.
He's going through all that.
It's part of his grand plan.
I have another question.
(38:22):
So the other side of this story, there is another concept and that is fate, which is
not only the computer, but it's also the belief of the leader.
And what do you think is the role of the media in this story?
Because there is a lot going on between media and fate.
We have the quote unquote voice of fate, which is the name of a program that puts up the
(38:46):
news and it's always broadcasted at the same hour with the same voice.
The whole point of that, which is made explicit at the start of the book before V targets
the guy and kills him, is that they try to provide a fake sense of immutability and stability.
And at the same time, they try to embody fate into that voice in that time or place that
(39:08):
they always transmit, which in reality, it shows the leader's computer.
And it's collecting data from every phone, camera, TV, everything, and extrapolating
that to try to predict what people will do.
So it's taking the control of society to the nth degree.
But what commentary do you think it's been made about the power of information and how
(39:31):
that limits our quote unquote destiny, in this case, the actions that we are going to take?
I think it's Moore's riffing off of 1984 and what George Orwell, he's kind of deconstructing
that evil government overlord that's so prevalent in 1984.
And he's basically like, okay, what would those people be like who actually run Big
(39:51):
Brother and Ingsoc and that organization?
And the answer is someone who's kind of pathetic, actually.
I don't know if I should even admit this.
I kind of felt sorry for Adam Susan a couple of times in the story.
Well, he's just part of the machine as well.
I mean, it is no secret that Alan Moore wore his politics on his sleeve.
(40:13):
This was caricature of the government in here is a direct response to Margaret Thatcher
being the prime minister of England during the times.
He was worried that Britain was actually going towards a 1984 type state.
And so he was definitely riffing on that in this book.
I think he even listed it as an inspiration.
(40:35):
I would be shocked if he didn't.
Yeah, no, it definitely is.
Yeah.
But at the same time, I think that the focus of 1994 and we are different.
1994, because Wilson is working on the government, there is a lot of description
or world building around how the deception is made and how people are controlled,
(40:56):
how the principles go.
So we have a lot of scenes explaining us how the paperwork will come,
how Wilson will change it and so on.
So it's more to me the machinery supporting that government.
While in this case, it's the humans behind the power.
We get all of these smaller stories about the people who are in the government
(41:16):
or highly related to someone within the government.
And we see them for what they are.
We see them as people.
We see them as people with specific beliefs that are very petty in some cases.
And I think that quote unquote humanization of the government machinery
is made a bit more clear with regards to how the divisions within the government are named.
(41:37):
We have the nose, the eyes, the fingers.
So it's part of a human body.
It's like the government, it's an entity on its own
and it's just the sum of the people that is handling them.
I think it's kind of that idea of once you know who the monster is,
you don't fear it anymore.
I kind of took it as that because in 1984, the government's like this big boogie man
(42:02):
hiding under your bed even or just watching your bed.
I don't know because Big Brother's always watching in 1984.
Well, in this case, the leader is always watching because he has faith
and he's always looking at the screens of faith.
Like most of the pictures of the leader, he's always looking at the screen.
So always watching the people.
I think it's also that reversal that in the other one, we never see Big Brother
(42:27):
and in this one, we see the leader.
But the leader knows he's not being seen by the people because seen at the end,
when he's on the car, he actually starts believing,
oh, people want me, not the government.
Like he has this whole inner monologue in which he differentiates himself
from the government and starts thinking that quote unquote the people's love
(42:48):
is not towards the government but towards himself as a person.
Yeah.
And he also falls in love with the apparatus of his government.
He falls in love with the ideas that this fate is tied into the information
he's getting and that is what is controlling their lives.
And he loves that.
He wants that.
So that's a good point when he comes out and actually meets real people.
(43:11):
Of course, the crowd's being egged on by the soldiers and stuff like that.
It's not like that's not a real cheering for him, but he doesn't know that.
And he takes it as such.
So that's kind of an epiphany on his part.
Does even character growth within what we have so far seen as the lowest of villains in the story.
Yeah, though he then gets shot by a lady who got screwed over by Norse fire.
(43:35):
One of the many people who got screwed over by Norse fire.
And you're like, oh, it's over and people are going to die.
But again, I kind of felt sorry for Susan.
He's just kind of this insecure, pathetic little man, kind of going back to superhero
story. It's like that shy nerd kid who gets powers, except he doesn't do the Spider-Man
thing and uses it for good.
(43:55):
He just starts abusing people.
It's like that, except on a bigger scale, of course.
I think you have a point.
I just kept ruminating on my own idea of V, the comic showing the people behind the government.
And when you were speaking, Britain, what I thought is that the leader at the end of
the day is just a person.
He's just a person and he goes in a pathetic way, killed by another person because he's
(44:20):
not the super powerful being that he thought he was, hidden behind fate.
He's just another person and he's not immune to bullets.
And his ideas may live on because we have the other woman, the blonde one, which I forgot
her name.
She actually wants to keep that idea of the government going on.
She wants to keep the same ideas from the leader moving on.
(44:42):
So his, Susan's idea lives on, regardless of the bullet.
Yeah, and it's also kind of interesting, the cop Finch, who's like this pretty normal guy
who's just trying to make it.
He's not like, I don't know if I call him a good guy.
He's still like complicit in what's going on here, but he's a decent person who just
is going after V because that's his job.
(45:03):
He's more of the same.
It's always about the little people.
He's just a detective.
The woman that kills the leader, she's just a widow.
It's always the same thing.
It's just this small person and their actions ripple.
They are like a landslide and the whole society goes with it.
It's kind of like Susan was kind of the opposite of V where he used fate as the symbol.
(45:26):
And then when he, cause you know, V says ideas are bulletproof and then Susan comes out and
dies and the Norse fire dies because he's just a man.
And once they see that he's just a man, it falls apart.
Cause you know, a lot of the story is rooted in symbolism.
I think he says it in the beginning, he's these, she asks him like, okay, so you're
doing this by blowing up buildings.
And he's like, well, these buildings are symbols, you know, they're symbols of the power of
(45:50):
the, Susan says something similar.
He's pitching out the one dude whose widow later kills him.
And he's like, he's blowing up all these symbols of the government.
You can't be doing that, which, you know, I'll admit that's one of the weaker parts
of the story.
I love more a lot, but I'm not a huge fan of when the story goes, here's what the themes
are, you know.
Another important point and perhaps a theme within the story are the masks, especially
(46:13):
given that V says there is no flesh or blood within this cloak to kill.
There is only an idea.
And V may have been referring to himself as embodiment of the idea and the principles
without it, which is as Britton mentioned, a contradiction to what the leader does.
He doesn't have that mask.
He doesn't have, and the voice of fate was his mando.
(46:34):
However, the way he trains Evie is for that continuation of his idea so that the idea
could evolve as we mentioned before.
However, taking the characters away, the ones that were involved in the quote unquote chaos
within this story, for the people, there was only that mask.
And that mask was associated with the change of government, with all the crises that led
(46:58):
to the fall of the totalitarian government.
Do you think that the masks in here not taking into account the movie influence public perception
or resistance or that they perhaps have a more allegorical meaning?
Like we said about the very beginning, the mask there to put on a different persona,
to grow into a different persona, to show the world something that is not you.
(47:20):
So he's using the V mask as a symbol to the world to show that this is the face of change.
This is the face of Anarchy, just in the same way that Evie was originally putting on the
makeup to show her own change.
This is what I'm going to do now in order to get by.
I'm showing the world a different persona, to the persona that wasn't originally me.
(47:43):
I am morphing into this.
I'm changing into this.
And V is doing the same.
And there's a whole bunch of great symbolism throughout the whole book, through the artwork
that shows us a similar thing.
Every single character has that kind of transformation at one point or another, where they look a
little bit different by what they are trying to do or what they're going through.
(48:06):
Even when V starts his training of Evie, he starts it long before we even guess he does.
Like long before she goes to shoot the guy, he starts her training right at the beginning
when he makes the rabbit disappear.
And she says, bring her back.
And he asks the question, well, what if the rabbit doesn't want to come back?
What if the rabbit's happy there?
(48:27):
So he's changing her perception.
Don't just ask for what you want.
What do the other people want?
We know what the government wants.
What do the people want?
So that's tied into that symbolism.
And then he brings the rabbit back and says, okay, the rabbit's back, but now his home
is gone.
He has no home.
So what now?
So he bringing up these questions through that symbolism, through that magic trick of
theater.
(48:48):
And this theater is the main thing.
So there's all kinds of symbolism like that throughout the whole book.
I would probably go a step further.
What you were saying, Livia, I think about masks.
I think this story is also about how symbols influence people and how symbols are an extremely
powerful thing for people.
It's like if someone in America started blowing up the like Jefferson Memorial and the like
(49:13):
Liberty Bell right now, you know, it's kind of what this story is playing with.
And, you know, we also see that with V and also Adam, Susan kind of putting fate over
himself so he can feel powerful when really he's just just small man.
I agree with what both of you said.
But also, I think what the mask gave for people to rally around an idea, not a person, because
(49:35):
ideas would die.
Like whatever the person stood for could potentially die with the person.
Or there is the scope that they become this God figure with far too much power.
But you rally around an idea, then anybody can embody that idea like we see towards the
end of that story.
So I think that might have been the importance of the mask.
I don't know if it helped like going back to your question.
I don't know if it is what brought people together, but I think it would keep people
(49:58):
together for the right reasons when used correctly.
You gave me an idea before we were talking about 1984.
And they actually do this.
So when Winston is tortured, the policeman, he says that he's trying to destroy the person
because a person is a symbol.
So the whole torture in 1984 aims to destroy the person that was carrying that idea until
(50:24):
the person went to the public and said that everything was lies, that he never believed
in it, so on and so forth.
So the person destroys the idea, they are no longer the symbol, then they kill him.
So that's why in 1984, they don't just kill people, they want to destroy the symbol, not
to create martyrs, because a martyr is a person that was associated to an idea.
(50:48):
And in here, it's like we learned from that or that concept.
And as you said, Varsha, he put on the mask so that the mask will ensure that the idea
lived on, that the assassination of any person will never mean that the idea died because
the idea was a mask.
Yeah, how many times through the story did it look like V was killed and then it ended
(51:10):
up being like just this cloak over a coat hanger or something like that, you know?
But it was always that symbol, you struck it down, but the idea was still living on.
And V, the idea was still continuing to cause anarchy in the society.
And V as well, even before EV, V, the original V, he also changes whenever the mask is there
(51:34):
and the cloak and we have a fake death scene.
What happens after is a slight change within the idea of V.
I guess I should also go back to the ideas of justice.
You know, Finch is going after V and sure, V might be justified because this government
is awful, but Finch kind of believes that like, look, he's still breaking the law.
(51:57):
We got to stop him.
I don't want to say he doesn't stop him.
I mean, he kills him, but he already succeeded.
He doesn't stop the idea.
And V shows the one iteration of the idea.
Though again, he's just kind of like, yes, I got him.
You know, like that's going to, it's like, dude, it's too late.
Like it's, what did you guys think of the ending?
(52:19):
I like the ending on the comic far more than the one in the movie because I had seen the
movie first.
I think that the change in IV that we have in the comic is so much more powerful and
meaningful than what we get in the movie because in the movie she somehow retains her identity.
She never steps into the mask, but in here we have her putting on the mask, going and
(52:44):
rousing the people, then rescuing this guy and beginning the cycle again because the
society again is going to fall in the cycle.
To me, it was super powerful, that concept.
There's that sense of uncertainty at the end where it's like, okay, the evil government's
gone.
Now what?
You know, Evie's running around and she's like, rumors of my death were greatly exaggerated.
(53:06):
But you know, it's just kind of what now?
Which is an ending that more specializes in, if you read more of his work.
But I think it's an ending that says a struggle goes on, that things are one part of what
he was trying to accomplish was accomplished.
He incited change at a certain level.
It's not going to be a change that's permanent in any way, but that's going to require the
(53:30):
growth of society in order to make that change effective.
When he affected so many people in a certain way, there is a certain growth that he's hoping
to accomplish there within the collective cycle of the people.
That's kind of symbolized by Evie rescuing that guy and by the detective at the end denying,
(53:51):
I forget the woman's name, the one who was saying, wanted him to rescue her or whatever
so that they could take over or whatever.
And he denied her.
He denied that lure of power.
That was the growth that V was fighting for.
So that's, that's to me is a pretty satisfactory ending.
Yeah.
That's all good stories really should.
Oh, no, I'm not saying it's unsatisfactory.
(54:13):
It's just kind of, it leaves you pondering what's going to happen next.
Yeah.
I really enjoyed the ending.
I loved the fact that it mirrored the beginning.
I think we already talked about that and I like the uncertainty in the end.
It reminded me a little bit of rejoice.
It could go anywhere from here.
You've been given your chance and now the ball's in your court, you know, that, that
(54:34):
kind of feeling you can imagine where the society could go.
You can imagine it a few decades in the future.
I think they talk about turn of the century.
Oh, that's because it's 98, but I really liked the open-endedness of the ending that it could
go anywhere from here.
It could repeat itself in that endless cycle that we already talked about, or maybe there's
(54:55):
a chance for something better.
I liked your comparison with rejoice.
I think it goes to what Britton was asking, what now?
It's up to the society.
That's the ending up to a society.
It's kind of a staple in a lot of his work as you kind of go on because Watchmen kind
of ends on a what, what's going to happen next.
You know, he likes that ending, I guess.
(55:18):
I think it's a most powerful type of ending because it's up to the reader.
And in that case, kind of like the reader was a society that is presented within V.
I'd say for additional thoughts before the end, I really like the Valerie letter on the
toilet paper where she basically explains her life story.
(55:38):
And then she's like, oh man, that was great.
How'd you make that up?
And she's like, I didn't make that up.
That was the woman who was next to my cell.
It was the lady who was next door to me.
Just hit you like a brick.
You're like, oh man.
And it's also how impactful people can be in other people's lives even when they have
(55:58):
never met.
I think it also goes to that it's always about the small people because if that woman hadn't
been there, if she hadn't given her letter to V, none of V for Rendetta would have happened
because he wouldn't be the same person.
It's also like the power of humanity as well, which is another theme Alan Moore likes to
play with.
One, the loss of humanity, but also why we should retain it.
(56:21):
We see that in this as well.
Reason why V probably couldn't live in a society is again, because he's really far from that.
He's basically assembled by that point.
He's no longer human.
He's become so dedicated to that mission, if you will.
Which is perhaps ties up to what we discussed at the start.
(56:42):
Idealization of the beliefs, which is why V is so focused on that idea.
He's no longer a person.
He becomes the idea.
And we never actually see the person.
We always see, other than a blurry black outline in the distance when he was in the internment
camp or whatever, we never see the person.
We always see the mask.
(57:03):
We always see the masquerade, the theater.
And so that's how he completely embraces himself as an idea, as a means to an end, as an agent
for change.
And also the symbolism of when Evie is freed finally.
I used air quotes there.
She lets the rain hit her.
And it's also the other cut, or I call it cut for lack of a better word.
(57:27):
And you see V doing the same thing with the flames behind him.
I like that a lot.
That actually points out to what Jarrod said before, that she was the same idea, but different.
He was born from flames and chaos.
She was born from washed out and everything else that was left, cleaned up.
Yeah, which kind of goes to that idea of passing the torch.
(57:49):
But because it's an idea and it's always changing, it's different.
That's why we also have the fight and the water.
On the subject of him, we never get to see who V was that Jarrod was talking about earlier.
I love the back and forth that Evie imagines in her head about when she takes off his mask.
And that would somehow make him lesser, even if it's who she desperately wants him to be.
(58:14):
Even if it's my father, taking that mask off will reduce him.
So she wasn't going to do him that disservice.
I love that section and the back and forth she has and then how she comes to the conclusion.
I thought that was brilliant.
That scene is perfect.
It's not in the movie.
You are mentioning the scene that she goes in, tries to take the mask and imagines him
(58:39):
as her father, then as her lover, and then herself.
They had a piece of the idea as well.
I mean, again, if you take V's mask off, he's just a man.
You can destroy a man.
You can do whatever you want to a person.
But an idea, he says it himself.
Can't kill an idea.
Thank you, everyone, for joining me in the discussion.
(59:00):
It was amazing.
Before we call it a day, let's do a round of outro so that the listeners know where
to find you.
Yes, you can find me at the Fantasy Thinker YouTube channel.
You can find me on holoapagechewing.com on podcasts there, including speculative speculations
with my friend Vasha over here.
Thank you so much for having me, Olivia.
(59:21):
It was a great deal of fun, as always.
You can find me on the YouTube channel Reading By The Rainy Mountain on the podcast that
Jared mentioned, speculative speculations, where we are currently talking our way through
wind up girl.
Hi, Paolo, bachigalupi.
I guess I hang out on the Patreon forum and on some of the podcasts there like this one.
(59:42):
Thank you so much.
Yeah, I'm someokiedude on YouTube, Twitter or X, Instagram, Blue Sky, Goodreads, basically
everywhere.
Just someokiedude.
You'll probably find me.
I hope we can do this again at some point.
Same.
It was an honor having you.
That said, if you liked this episode, please like and subscribe.
(01:00:06):
If you want to get by size prose analysis, short thematic discussions and other bookish
musings, then subscribe to my newsletter at liviajaleo.com.
You will also get a free book for my novella, The Genesis of Change.
I will leave the link in the episode's description.
Thank you for listening and happy reading.
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