V for Vendetta: random thoughts

Here are some random thoughts I had about V for Vendetta, the premier anarchist comic book, written by Alan Moore, comic's best writer/avowed anarchist. I wrote this several years ago and when I found it again I wasn't too embarrassed by it.

The Man
V, is, in even the loosest definition of the word a terrorist. Is one man's terrorist another's freedom fighter? I would normally say no. The two are different. A terrorist targets civilian targets to create un-rest in support of an idelogical goal. A freedom fighter has a specific greivance and often seeks to gain land or territory, some tangible, usually feasible, goal. So which is V? V is, in fact, both a terrorist and a freedom fighter.

We never see V's face. Why? By all acounts he is a normal, even beautiful looking man. Delia seems awestruck by his beauty when she glimpses his face. It is stated that the drugs he was given did not affect him physically. All other targets were horribly mutated, but V was seemingly un-affected. Un-affected physically, that is. Mentally is a different question. He was thought to be quite insane. I do not believe he is insane, however. His actions are for a definite purpose, with definite goals and specific affects.

But back to his face. We never see V's face. This is very important, as Evey realizes at the end. She can remove his mask, if she chooses. Indeed, part of her wants. But she chooses not to. Why? She realizes that to remove his mask would be to humanize him. V is not a human. He is an idea. This is key. As he states, "Ideas are bullet-proof." An idea cannot be killed, it can only be replaced by a better idea.

What idea is V? What does he stand for? He values culture, the arts, the films and the music. When Evey says that she is nobody, he corrects her. Everyone is somebody. So he values human life. Yet, he takes it so callously. How is this possible? Because V values certain things more than even human life. Namely, Freedom and Truth. These are his ideas.

The Vendetta
V, at first, appears to be on a personal vendetta against those that wronged him. The suffering he endured in the concentration camp. Yet, we know of no atrocites committed upon V himself. He was seemingly un-affected by the drugs. He escaped. He seeks vengenance on the principle of the thing, the idea. So, he sets out to kill those that wronged him. Then, he proceeds to dismantle their governemt. Has he changed his goals? No. His vendetta is not against his personal villains, it is against them, their ideas, their symbols, and the institutions that supports them. It is a vendetta, a personal one, against an entire idea.

To complete his goals, he murders those that have wronged him. He blows up their buildings, their symbols. He destroys their institutions, and ultimately, he replaces their ideas with his. All of these must be completed, even after the leader is dead, he still destroys Downing Street, for example.

The Fascists
Our antagonists are un-abashed fascists. The are Nazis with a different symbol. The Nordic party, for god's sake. The Fascists value two things: Order and Survival. The Order of their society and the Survival of their society. They, unlike V, have no value of human life. They believe the ends justify the means. Thus, to ensure the survival of their society they wipe out all dissidents and all elements that might oppose them with concentration camps and secret police. Susan, the leader, has one love: Fate. We can assume then, that V might represent the opposite of Fate-Free Will.

The Death of an Idea
V must kill their idea with his own. How? This was perhaps the most startling part to re-discover upon a re-read. V captures Evey and tortures her and beats her and locks her up. Why? To set her free. Freedom has nothing to do with a physical body. She becomes free when she decides that she values her personal identity over her own life. When she refuses to betray V, she becomes free. The change happens only in her own head, to be free is entirely a state of mind. The people willingly put themselves in cages out of ignorance. The people are in charge, always. If the government can cow them into thinking that they are oppressed, then so shall they be. When V shuts down the cameras, when the people begin to riot and over-throw, V has simply shown them that they are free. Now, when the government tries to subdue them, it will likely fail. They are free now, or at least on the path to it.

Evey
Or as she is more commonly refered to as Eve, aka the first woman, the woman to give birth to the rest of society. The Mother of us all. When we first meet Eve, she is meek and childlike. She attempts prostitution, for the money. (her job in the factory doesn't pay much) This tells us something, in the beginning her main concern is on survival and money, but mainly survival, as money is simply a means to that end. Similiar to the fascists, she believes the most important part of a person's life is to stay alive at all costs. V takes her under his wing. To be honest, Eve is a confused young woman. At first, Eve expects V to want to have sex with her, and because he doesn't, part of her wants him to be her father. She is looking for a male figure in her life. After V leads her out and lets her go, as one would an animal or a small child, she becomes attached to a middle aged man. A nice man who lets her stay at his place. Here, she finds something closer to what she thinks she needs. He is at first a father figure, someone to replace her father she lost when she was young. They become lovers briefly, and then he is killed.
Eve plans on killing his murderers then. Why? She had previously stated that she would never help V kill. She is upset that she alone again in the world, and that someone cut his survival short. Before he dies, they two briefly ponder the police state they live in, if only life was better.... I do not personally think she would have killed her lover's murderer, she is simply at the end of her rope, raging against the fact that her life is bad and so (seemingly) out of her control. That he had to die. And then V captures her. And sets her free.
Now, Evey at the end of the novel is very different. When V dies, she is imagining the face under the mask. Her father? Her lover? No. Her face. She realizes she doesn't need the support or help of any male figures in her life. With V gone, she finally becomes a fully self-sufficient person, and assumes the creator portion of anarchy, as V intended all along. As this creator figure, she has no concerns for money or survival as she did at the beginning.

"By the power of Truth, I, while living, have conquered the universe"

As V has this quote engraved on his hide-out, it is apparently extremely important to him. This fits with his two ideas, Freedom and Truth. If one were to believe in this saying, it would follow that with nothing but Truth, one can conquer any obstacle. Remember V's destruction of the fascist's ideas with his own.
The second part of this section is to whom he attributes the quote to. A certain Dr. Faust. Dr. Faust, who sold his soul for knowledge. As V seems to support this quote, he apparently believes that Truth is more important than even one's own soul.
And finally, we consider the allusion to Faust V makes to the deal Evey wanted to make with him. Is V comparing himself to the devil, and Evey to Faust? This would fit with V's earlier description of himself as the villian of the story.