God doesn’t care if the End is near

Little Boy and Fat Man were the nicknames of the two bombs dropped during World War II, and they stopped time on clock later found. In Watchmen, a little boy is near Jon and Janey when a fat man steps on it and breaks it. Jon’s father warns him that watchmakers are no longer needed since time is relative and the future is in atomic and nuclear physics. This advice is packed with irony because atomic physics are precisely what can bring about the end, and time really will not matter anymore.

Dr. Manhattan is the most interesting character in Watchmen. He is a godly figure much like the Judeo-Christian god. He is responsible for many good things on Earth, he brings stability to the energy crisis. And for America, he is their most powerful weapon. Good for America, perhaps bad for the entire world. Yet, he is instrumental Adrian’s plan to summon an alien invasion in New York City to create an illuminated world. Jon’s energy is what makes this false attack possible. He doesn’t experience time chronologically; he experiences everything at the same time. So as he agrees to work with Adrian he already knows what the results of the partnership will be. He is so detached from humanity, in all senses of the word, that he does not try to change the future.

This depiction of god is frightening. God is an all knowing entity that plans everything. Everything happens for reason, or maybe the reason is that only humans can create destiny and all this god does is allow it to happen. When the End of the World comes, will he care enough to go through a judgment and safe us? This makes me thing of John the Revelator and how I have thought of his book as a type of cautionary tale, and after re-reading Watchmen I think of his book a type of comfort. It is painting a scenario in which a god that has created an entire universe full of wonders cares enough about 6 billion organisms inhabiting a tiny planet in a tiny system. Humans have this incredible ability to think so they must the center of the entire universe even though they are only a tiny spec of it.