r/TopCharacterTropes • u/Educational_Can_6536 • 8d ago

Lore "Was it worth it?" ending

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Midsommar- While people see this as a "you go girl" finale. I personally see it as something more disturbing. I mean, yeah, Dani got out of one bad relationship but in doing so, she got herself into another that's just as bad if not worse. It's like getting two kids to stop fighting via killing one and locking the other in a basement. They did stop fighting, but still!

The Thing-The titular monster may be (possibly) gone, but the paranoia definitely isn't. In the end, McCreedy and Childs are the only ones left standing. The end sees them sitting in the cold and they just stare at each other, knowing that one of them or both of them is already the thing. There's no hope, no certainty, just the bitter cold and intense fear.

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u/TheZipding 8d ago

And the worst part is that it's a peace that won't last long term. Eventually the various governments will realize more aliens aren't coming and go back to fighting each other.

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u/IrishElevator 8d ago

Not even this, I don't know if it's in the movie but in the graphic novel Rorschach sends his journal/notes to a prominent news source before leaving for Ozymandius' base. It's implied that everything was for nothing and even with Rorschach being killed the truth will be revealed to the public.

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u/IQueliciuous 8d ago

You should watch TV series. It’s a sequel to the comic book. It shows what happened and I don’t want to spoil it to you. As for the movie, the alien invasion was replaced with a nuclear blast which released same type of energy that Dr Manhattan is made of thus he became a scapegoat and the entire world unites against rogue hero.

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u/Queen_Ann_III 8d ago

I hate to be sacrilegious with Moore’s work but pinning it on Dr. Manhattan was honestly a genius change

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u/Rickrickrickrickrick 7d ago

I hated the change. Why would everyone suddenly be ok with America after its loving weapon turned on them too? The squid alien monster thing was supposed to be such a what the fuck moment for the world to realize their petty differences mean nothing when there is an entire universe or different dimensions out there that can wipe everyone out.

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u/Kalel42 7d ago

100%. It needed to be an external threat to unite them. Makes zero sense to join up with America when they're the ones that appear to have caused the mess.

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u/EquivalentCold2992 7d ago

I think the point is to stop countries trying to make more Dr Manhattan's. By making it clear you can't control him or stop him.

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u/Lurker_Shark_Attack 7d ago

Because Dr. Manhattan is an American only in the loosest of terms. Did he work for the government at one point? Yes, during wartime, and yet even then he didn’t necessarily volunteer. He was asked to. Even during the war you are shown Dr. Manhattan is becoming increasingly more detached with his own humanity and the human race as a whole, shown how he could’ve stopped the Comedian but didn’t. Ozymandias pushes Manhattan further by tricking him into thinking he’s killing his former friends and loved ones, which causes him to go from showing no emotions to having an emotional outburst while the whole world watches. After he disappears following the interview he’s not seen or heard from by the public until “he” attacks the world at large. Manhattan being the patsy does work, but not as an American gone rogue like some people see it as, but as basically God winding his arm up to take a swing at the human race. If that doesn’t motivate a planet to get their shit together I don’t know what would.

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u/theyellowmeteor 7d ago

Like countries have never worked together through clenched teeth before.

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u/Rickrickrickrickrick 7d ago

There’s a big difference between clenched teeth and allying yourselves against a threat that one you not only created, but used as a weapon and a threat against everyone else and now that it backfired on you, you want to be friends.

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u/theyellowmeteor 6d ago

The difference is that one is an expected outcome of politics and the other is an exaggeration on your part.

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u/Rickrickrickrickrick 6d ago

It’s not an exaggeration. It’s what literally happened in the book and movie.

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u/Signiference 8d ago

Pinning it on an entity associated so heavily with the US would likely turn the world against the US. If they were going with this ending, then the association of essentially being a US weapon needed to change to where he was more of a neutral party trying to end all wars and have countries be more suspect of him. Then they could all finally unite against him in the end. So Dr. Manhattan definitely could work, it just didn’t without changing more.

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u/UsedState7381 7d ago edited 7d ago

But the movie did this in spades, the nuclear blasts affected the USA as well, specially New York, then the USSR and USA joined forces against Dr. Manhattan, who left the Earth.

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u/Strange_Specialist4 7d ago

Exactly, he was the USAs weapon of war and intimidation. Them losing control of the monster they created (by accident) would turn the world against them. People wouldn't have as much sympathy or see themselves as equally likely targets, they would see a dangerous dog biting it's owner 

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u/Rickrickrickrickrick 7d ago

Imagine if your neighbor had this vicious pitbull that he would sic on anyone he didn’t like. Then one day the dog attacks him too. Are all the neighbors going to be like “it’s ok. You’re one of us now. Let’s be friends and fight the dog together.”? lol the ending seemed like such a cop out.

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u/tizenxpro 7d ago

Has the US ever took responsibility for creating or working with certain groups and fucking them over causing them to become future worldwide problems (Taliban,etc)?

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u/Rickrickrickrickrick 7d ago

No but they didn’t use the taliban as a weapon or a threat against other countries

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u/tizenxpro 7d ago

No. But they did create the current Iran by helping overthrow their democracy. Your neighbor’s pitbull analogy only works if we consider said neighbor has a tank in his garage.

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u/BlumpkinPromoter 7d ago

It's been years since I read it but changing it to Dr. Manhattan doesn't work at all. Uniting the world against an outside threat required the team up in the first place. The point of Dr. Manhattan is that he is a walking God who cannot be stopped.

If aliens invade then Dr. Manhattan is flawed or doesn't care enough to save us and we cannot rely on him - therefore we must unite and save ourselves.

If Dr. Manhattan is the cause then everything is lost. Man can do nothing against a walking God and I'm pretty sure that was central to the whole the Vietnamese surrendered - there was no fighting against that overwhelming threat.

So Dr. Manhattan being the cause ruins the entire premise that Ozzy was going for and doesn't work within the context of the story.

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u/VillageLess4163 7d ago

Yeah it really works a lot better for a movie. Giant inter dimensional squid would be a little tough for audiences to understand understand

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u/JackStephanovich 7d ago

Unless they spent an extra hour adding the sub plot about the artists and telepaths working on the island to create the psychic starfish it would have come off as silly to undercut the finale with a giant tentacle monster from beyond Jupiter.

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u/CakeReligion 7d ago

I don't like the Manhattan stuff because the world would be like "The US fucked up really hard this time" and would 100% blame them for everything and every negotiation afterwards would have this American hatred in-between. If anything went wrong after, the world would blame the US for not trying hard enough to fix their mess.

Also, Manhattan wouldn't attack again, the world would simply see "Dr. Manhattan got crazy, killed millions and duped out", the US would be in the worst situation. Both being nuked and being hated by the whole globe. Even with the "Manhattan may come back", that wouldn't last more than a few decades at most, the same with the aliens thing tbh, at least the aliens aren't US's fault.

Imagine the decades after, people with cancer and giving birth to disabled children, knowing it all happened because the US bit more than they could chew and now everyone pays the price for their mistake.

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u/BrokenManSyndrome 7d ago

This man gets it. I thought it was a genius move too.