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A review by notwellread
V for Vendetta by Alan Moore
4.0
Once upon a time, there was a man. A Tory man. By the way, he was a member of the Conservative Party. And he created a terrifying dystopia the likes of which the world has never seen…
In all seriousness, V for Vendetta is perhaps more criticism of Thatcherism than it is promotion of anarchism, since although the latter theme is well-known it makes a fairly critical examination of this proposed alternative politics along the way. The theme of the oppression of minorities (gay people in particular) is apparently an explicit reference to Thatcher (and maybe Reagan too), and must have been added in or after 1988, after the five year hiatus that occurred when the British magazine Warrior, in which the first chapters of V for Vendetta were originally published, ceased publication. Moore makes this explicit in the author’s note that went before the DC Comics re-release of the story, and even suggests in it that he might leave the country, finding that the UK had become “mean-spirited”, though to my knowledge he has never actually left. (N.B.: I attribute the political perspectives of the work largely to Moore since I am unsure of Mr. Lloyd’s political views, though my edition had an article by Moore which stressed the significance of his exchanges with Lloyd and the relationship between writer and illustrator in the realisation of the work, so his views were presumably influential too to some extent.) They even say ‘Make Britain Great Again’, in the first part, which took me by surprise given it was published in 1981 — this must be inspired either by Reagan or the National Front (one of unfortunately several far-right parties in the UK). On the other hand, given the setting, the obfuscation of the monarch’s role is interesting. It is briefly mentioned that, in this timeline, Princess Anne’s daughter Zara Tindall (née Phillips) is now the Queen at the tender age of sixteen, the implication being that all the other royals have died during the war or the plague (I doubt they were taken out by the party Bolshevik-style if the monarch is still there). At the time of writing, Zara had only just been born and was then sixth in line. This could have done with further clarification, but I suppose in a fascist takeover the royals might retain a passive role similar to the one they currently have, and perhaps Queen Zara is easily manipulated being so young, particularly if she could be used to promote the party’s interests à la Victor Emmanuel III under Mussolini.
The book’s storyline is significantly different from the film, which has become both well-known and politically influential (albeit in quite a superficial way). Generally the film excludes the deeper themes of justice and fate, makes V’s character more of a conventional hero, and generally simplifies the narrative to be more about the unproblematic overthrowing of a corrupt government, though the means by which this is accomplished are still questioned, and the core themes and messages remain intact. The background of the dystopia is also somewhat simplified to be simply the result of a pandemic, where in the book it is the result of a nuclear war that spares Britain after our nukes have been decommissioned, but throws the weather off kilter to cause flooding, sickness, and food shortages. For these reasons, I think the film is a decent version, but could easily still be viewed as a ‘Hollywood-ification’ of the source material not so far from the “cheeky, cheery” entertainment condemned by David Lloyd in his illustrator’s note and repeatedly in the work itself, though for me if the core message of a work is intact then it is a worthy adaptation.
The repeated derision of frivolous mainstream entertainment are implied to be a deliberately rendered distraction from the horrors of the Zeitgeist, which has also strongly influenced the portrayal of media within it. However, other similarly lighthearted material (vaudeville, cabaret, puppet shows) is employed for another purpose: at first I was surprised by the dismissal of “cheeky, cheery” characters, given that V does have that aspect to him, but obviously this is a veneer for a more sinister persona and only really seems to be a more genuine part of his personality in the film (particularly the scene where the play-fights with the suit of armour comes to mind). It also parallels the way that the government use cheerful distractions as a veneer for their own sinister persona, particularly in the way their white nationalist politics is sold through the TV — in this they have their own means of disguise. Both also align with the 20s and 30s elements incorporated, which are a carry-over from the original setting of the story in this era, along with a surprising amount of archaic language (deuced, tuppenny rush, Brag) which doesn’t make it into the more futuristic setting of the film. In this setting, the culture war is still between the subversive boundary-pushing of the cabaret and the stiff authoritarianism of the far right.
V is eccentric, charming, and charismatic on the surface, but his sinister nature seems to have been lost in translation to the film. We are immediately alerted to the fact that there is more to V than meets the eye: we are introduced to him in the traditional heroic role of the knight in shining armour saving the damsel in distress, yet the chapter is titled “The Villain”. It reminds me of J. M. Barrie’s criticism of the Peter Pan statue in Kensington Gardens that it failed to show “the devil in Peter” — both figures represent wonderment and rebellion (and V is rather juvenile, or perhaps adolescent, in character) concealing a darker nature underneath. Part of how we interpret his morality lies in the foundations of Guy Fawkes as a model: obviously this is a rather loose interpretation of the Gunpowder Plot’s motives (which were more about sectarian conflict rather than a strictly political statement), but I think the point works on the level that we should interrogate the unexamined tradition of celebrating the survival of parliament year after year, especially if we are teaching the same assumptions of ‘good’ and ‘bad’ to the next generation. The same themes of disguises, costumes, and theatrics are also thoroughly explored in Moore’s other major work, Watchmen: like Rorschach (with whom there are several parallels), we are told that V is insane, that his mind has been ‘destroyed’, though the ultimate truth of the matter remains for ourselves to judge, in line with the philosophy of the text. Since his disguise is never fully removed, some ambiguity must remain.
The question of to whom judgement belongs is raised throughout. In the film he quotes Macbeth: “I dare do all that may become a man; who dares do more is none.” We have to ask ourselves what does become a man — where do we draw the line? The old symbols of justice, such as the statue of Lady Justice at the Old Bailey, are no longer meaningful under the new government, whose idea of justice is to imprison ‘undesirables’ and terrorise the populace with jackboot brutality. The message is that we cannot rely on government authorities to deliver justice, and individual liberty and voluntary group cooperation provides a favourable alternative — “justice is meaningless without freedom”, and anarchy “makes no promises and breaks none”. This is a key argument for anarchists, since the importance of law and order is regularly a knee-jerk justification for state power.
V’s grand speech emphasises his criticisms of the people for ceding control of and responsibility for their own lives to a higher power, be that the government or a religious entity. The element of ‘fate’ could potentially fall into either: the trust placed in a supercomputer they call fate is key to the fascist’s state preservation, but this can also represent the populace’s unwillingness to take control of their own destinies. Like the Party in [b:1984|40961427|1984|George Orwell|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1532714506l/40961427._SX50_.jpg|153313], the government has so much power already, but are always looking to assert even more control: “In a bureaucracy the file cards are reality. Punching new holes we recreate the world.” The ‘Voice of Fate’ speaks to the British people as the supposed expression of the omniscient supercomputer, but is really a loutish figure named Prothero who is incapacitated quite early on — there is no infallible entity in control, since the government cannot loosen their grip on power. The party leader, Adam Susan, becomes infatuated with the computer — he can only love the machine of government that grants him power. Despite their best efforts, was it not fate that brought V to Larkhill, that brought him into contact with the people that would experiment upon and torture him, and fate that allowed V’s survival to become the figure he is within the narrative and, in turn, to bring these figures to justice, to their own fate? V’s ‘vendetta’, however, is not purely based on personal reasons, but towards a higher purpose: again, much like Rorschach in Watchmen, he attempts to divorce himself from his individual human identity and become entirely a symbolic figure, and eliminating those who knew him in life and could identify him is a means to that end. Just as V cannot truly escape his humanity claiming that he is “not a man, but an idea, and ideas are bulletproof”, the government cannot assert as much control as they pretend, and are subject to the fallibility of human beings, with mysterious forces such as ‘fate’ forever lying beyond their control.
I therefore disagree with other reviewers’ assertions that the story is about V’s personal struggle — his views are already decided, and I suspect those who argue otherwise are influenced by the film. I think the true protagonist is Evey, who makes the journey from scared child towards discovering her own convictions and power to stand up to a seemingly all-powerful totalitarian state. She finds within herself the power of an individual making their own choices free from higher authority, the basis for anarchistic values, and tries to inspire the same self-determining will in others. It must be significant that Evey is rechristened as ‘Eve’ after her transformation: the fascist leader is named Adam, perhaps representing the first citizens of their respective new orders, and the rebellion of Eve against higher authority is mirrored in her ‘corruption’ by the devil (a role V explicitly assumes), who feeds her with knowledge. However, the principles of subversion and challenge to authority are not enough alone: Eve must find her own way to practise anarchism as well. There are times when V’s voice almost seems like the voice of the author, suggesting at least some overlap with Moore himself, but Eve may be the more Moore-ian anarchist because she rejects violence, a view consistent with what Moore expresses in his other works. Clearly he also fits the role of a ‘creative’ anarchist better than that of a ‘destructive’ one, but the text still envisions a useful role fro the latter — he may not be strictly opposed to them even if he doesn’t identify with them and/or finds them distasteful or objectionable. There always has to be some answering for the question of violence by anarchists, given the activities the group has been known for since its inception in the nineteenth century. He also makes clear the distinction between anarchy and chaos or Verwirrung as he calls it, presumably to keep up the whole ‘v’ theme but also for its dual meaning of ‘confusion’ and specifically ‘disorder’: V’s actions create the latter, but it has to be another temporary state, a means to an end.
Even if the reader is not convinced of anarchism after reading this, it is certainly a value we should take away: that we must take charge of our own destinies, and not be afraid of the responsibility. We cannot expect the government, or any other authority, to treat us like children, and this condition does not reflect that the power to effect change and to challenge the powers that be lies in every person. Even if, like Evey’s journey, this proves to be the path of struggle, suffering, fraught decisions, and “no promises”, it is still the path that best recognises the dignity of man and the importance of self-determination in carving a meaningful identity.
In all seriousness, V for Vendetta is perhaps more criticism of Thatcherism than it is promotion of anarchism, since although the latter theme is well-known it makes a fairly critical examination of this proposed alternative politics along the way. The theme of the oppression of minorities (gay people in particular) is apparently an explicit reference to Thatcher (and maybe Reagan too), and must have been added in or after 1988, after the five year hiatus that occurred when the British magazine Warrior, in which the first chapters of V for Vendetta were originally published, ceased publication. Moore makes this explicit in the author’s note that went before the DC Comics re-release of the story, and even suggests in it that he might leave the country, finding that the UK had become “mean-spirited”, though to my knowledge he has never actually left. (N.B.: I attribute the political perspectives of the work largely to Moore since I am unsure of Mr. Lloyd’s political views, though my edition had an article by Moore which stressed the significance of his exchanges with Lloyd and the relationship between writer and illustrator in the realisation of the work, so his views were presumably influential too to some extent.) They even say ‘Make Britain Great Again’, in the first part, which took me by surprise given it was published in 1981 — this must be inspired either by Reagan or the National Front (one of unfortunately several far-right parties in the UK). On the other hand, given the setting, the obfuscation of the monarch’s role is interesting. It is briefly mentioned that, in this timeline, Princess Anne’s daughter Zara Tindall (née Phillips) is now the Queen at the tender age of sixteen, the implication being that all the other royals have died during the war or the plague (I doubt they were taken out by the party Bolshevik-style if the monarch is still there). At the time of writing, Zara had only just been born and was then sixth in line. This could have done with further clarification, but I suppose in a fascist takeover the royals might retain a passive role similar to the one they currently have, and perhaps Queen Zara is easily manipulated being so young, particularly if she could be used to promote the party’s interests à la Victor Emmanuel III under Mussolini.
The book’s storyline is significantly different from the film, which has become both well-known and politically influential (albeit in quite a superficial way). Generally the film excludes the deeper themes of justice and fate, makes V’s character more of a conventional hero, and generally simplifies the narrative to be more about the unproblematic overthrowing of a corrupt government, though the means by which this is accomplished are still questioned, and the core themes and messages remain intact. The background of the dystopia is also somewhat simplified to be simply the result of a pandemic, where in the book it is the result of a nuclear war that spares Britain after our nukes have been decommissioned, but throws the weather off kilter to cause flooding, sickness, and food shortages. For these reasons, I think the film is a decent version, but could easily still be viewed as a ‘Hollywood-ification’ of the source material not so far from the “cheeky, cheery” entertainment condemned by David Lloyd in his illustrator’s note and repeatedly in the work itself, though for me if the core message of a work is intact then it is a worthy adaptation.
The repeated derision of frivolous mainstream entertainment are implied to be a deliberately rendered distraction from the horrors of the Zeitgeist, which has also strongly influenced the portrayal of media within it. However, other similarly lighthearted material (vaudeville, cabaret, puppet shows) is employed for another purpose: at first I was surprised by the dismissal of “cheeky, cheery” characters, given that V does have that aspect to him, but obviously this is a veneer for a more sinister persona and only really seems to be a more genuine part of his personality in the film (particularly the scene where the play-fights with the suit of armour comes to mind). It also parallels the way that the government use cheerful distractions as a veneer for their own sinister persona, particularly in the way their white nationalist politics is sold through the TV — in this they have their own means of disguise. Both also align with the 20s and 30s elements incorporated, which are a carry-over from the original setting of the story in this era, along with a surprising amount of archaic language (deuced, tuppenny rush, Brag) which doesn’t make it into the more futuristic setting of the film. In this setting, the culture war is still between the subversive boundary-pushing of the cabaret and the stiff authoritarianism of the far right.
V is eccentric, charming, and charismatic on the surface, but his sinister nature seems to have been lost in translation to the film. We are immediately alerted to the fact that there is more to V than meets the eye: we are introduced to him in the traditional heroic role of the knight in shining armour saving the damsel in distress, yet the chapter is titled “The Villain”. It reminds me of J. M. Barrie’s criticism of the Peter Pan statue in Kensington Gardens that it failed to show “the devil in Peter” — both figures represent wonderment and rebellion (and V is rather juvenile, or perhaps adolescent, in character) concealing a darker nature underneath. Part of how we interpret his morality lies in the foundations of Guy Fawkes as a model: obviously this is a rather loose interpretation of the Gunpowder Plot’s motives (which were more about sectarian conflict rather than a strictly political statement), but I think the point works on the level that we should interrogate the unexamined tradition of celebrating the survival of parliament year after year, especially if we are teaching the same assumptions of ‘good’ and ‘bad’ to the next generation. The same themes of disguises, costumes, and theatrics are also thoroughly explored in Moore’s other major work, Watchmen: like Rorschach (with whom there are several parallels), we are told that V is insane, that his mind has been ‘destroyed’, though the ultimate truth of the matter remains for ourselves to judge, in line with the philosophy of the text. Since his disguise is never fully removed, some ambiguity must remain.
The question of to whom judgement belongs is raised throughout. In the film he quotes Macbeth: “I dare do all that may become a man; who dares do more is none.” We have to ask ourselves what does become a man — where do we draw the line? The old symbols of justice, such as the statue of Lady Justice at the Old Bailey, are no longer meaningful under the new government, whose idea of justice is to imprison ‘undesirables’ and terrorise the populace with jackboot brutality. The message is that we cannot rely on government authorities to deliver justice, and individual liberty and voluntary group cooperation provides a favourable alternative — “justice is meaningless without freedom”, and anarchy “makes no promises and breaks none”. This is a key argument for anarchists, since the importance of law and order is regularly a knee-jerk justification for state power.
V’s grand speech emphasises his criticisms of the people for ceding control of and responsibility for their own lives to a higher power, be that the government or a religious entity. The element of ‘fate’ could potentially fall into either: the trust placed in a supercomputer they call fate is key to the fascist’s state preservation, but this can also represent the populace’s unwillingness to take control of their own destinies. Like the Party in [b:1984|40961427|1984|George Orwell|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1532714506l/40961427._SX50_.jpg|153313], the government has so much power already, but are always looking to assert even more control: “In a bureaucracy the file cards are reality. Punching new holes we recreate the world.” The ‘Voice of Fate’ speaks to the British people as the supposed expression of the omniscient supercomputer, but is really a loutish figure named Prothero who is incapacitated quite early on — there is no infallible entity in control, since the government cannot loosen their grip on power. The party leader, Adam Susan, becomes infatuated with the computer — he can only love the machine of government that grants him power. Despite their best efforts, was it not fate that brought V to Larkhill, that brought him into contact with the people that would experiment upon and torture him, and fate that allowed V’s survival to become the figure he is within the narrative and, in turn, to bring these figures to justice, to their own fate? V’s ‘vendetta’, however, is not purely based on personal reasons, but towards a higher purpose: again, much like Rorschach in Watchmen, he attempts to divorce himself from his individual human identity and become entirely a symbolic figure, and eliminating those who knew him in life and could identify him is a means to that end. Just as V cannot truly escape his humanity claiming that he is “not a man, but an idea, and ideas are bulletproof”
Spoiler
despite dying as a man immediately afterwardsI therefore disagree with other reviewers’ assertions that the story is about V’s personal struggle — his views are already decided, and I suspect those who argue otherwise are influenced by the film. I think the true protagonist is Evey, who makes the journey from scared child towards discovering her own convictions and power to stand up to a seemingly all-powerful totalitarian state. She finds within herself the power of an individual making their own choices free from higher authority, the basis for anarchistic values, and tries to inspire the same self-determining will in others. It must be significant that Evey is rechristened as ‘Eve’ after her transformation: the fascist leader is named Adam, perhaps representing the first citizens of their respective new orders, and the rebellion of Eve against higher authority is mirrored in her ‘corruption’ by the devil (a role V explicitly assumes), who feeds her with knowledge. However, the principles of subversion and challenge to authority are not enough alone: Eve must find her own way to practise anarchism as well. There are times when V’s voice almost seems like the voice of the author, suggesting at least some overlap with Moore himself, but Eve may be the more Moore-ian anarchist because she rejects violence, a view consistent with what Moore expresses in his other works. Clearly he also fits the role of a ‘creative’ anarchist better than that of a ‘destructive’ one, but the text still envisions a useful role fro the latter — he may not be strictly opposed to them even if he doesn’t identify with them and/or finds them distasteful or objectionable. There always has to be some answering for the question of violence by anarchists, given the activities the group has been known for since its inception in the nineteenth century. He also makes clear the distinction between anarchy and chaos or Verwirrung as he calls it, presumably to keep up the whole ‘v’ theme but also for its dual meaning of ‘confusion’ and specifically ‘disorder’: V’s actions create the latter, but it has to be another temporary state, a means to an end.
Even if the reader is not convinced of anarchism after reading this, it is certainly a value we should take away: that we must take charge of our own destinies, and not be afraid of the responsibility. We cannot expect the government, or any other authority, to treat us like children, and this condition does not reflect that the power to effect change and to challenge the powers that be lies in every person. Even if, like Evey’s journey, this proves to be the path of struggle, suffering, fraught decisions, and “no promises”, it is still the path that best recognises the dignity of man and the importance of self-determination in carving a meaningful identity.