Information AboutV For Vendetta |
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title = V for Vendetta
This article is about the comic book series. For the film, see V For Vendetta (film) . ''V for Vendetta'' is a ten-issue Comic Book series written by Alan Moore and Illustrated mostly by David Lloyd , set in a Dystopia n future United Kingdom imagined from the 1980s about the 1990s. A mysterious Anarchist named " V " works to destroy the Totalitarian government, profoundly affecting the people he encounters. The series is set in a near-future Britain after a limited nuclear war, which has left much of the world destroyed. In this future, an extreme fascist party called Norsefire has arisen and is now the ruling power. "V", an Anarchist Revolutionary dressed in a Guy Fawkes mask, begins an elaborate, violent, and theatrical campaign to bring down the government. BACKGROUND The first episodes of ''V for Vendetta'' were originally published in black-and-white between 1982 and 1985, in '' Warrior '', a British anthology comic published by Quality Comics . The strip was one of the most popular in the title and featured on several covers during the 26 issues of ''Warrior''. Internally, ''V for Vendetta'' is divided into three "Books". ''Warrior'' was cancelled at the end of the second Book. Three years later, DC Comics reunited Alan Moore and David Lloyd to finish the series, which was published in ten monthly issues, then collected in hardback and trade paperback. David Lloyd's artwork for ''V for Vendetta'' in ''Warrior'' was originally published in black-and-white, giving it a harsh Chiaroscuro effect that worked very well with the grim subject matter. In the DC Comics version, the artwork has been "colorized" in pastels, which some fans feel compromises its effectiveness. and Fascist Philosophies ]]In writing ''V for Vendetta,'' Moore drew upon an idea for a strip called "The Doll" he had submitted to DC Thomson when he was 22. In "Behind the Painted Smile,"1 Moore revealed that the idea was rejected as DC Thomson balked at the idea of a " Transsexual Terrorist ." Years later, ''Warrior'' editor Dez Skinn invited Moore to create a dark mystery strip with artist David Lloyd.2 Lloyd and Moore went through several proposals, including one in which the story was called 'Vendetta' and set in 1930s United States. The setting developed through their discussions, moving from 1930s United States to near-future Britain. As the setting progressed, so did the character; once conceived as a "realistic" gangster-age American, he became first a policeman rebelling against a totalitarian state before becoming an anarchist hero. Moore and Lloyd conceived the series as a dark adventure strip influenced by British Comic characters of the 1960s, as well as '' Night Raven '', a Marvel UK strip which Lloyd had previously worked on with writer Steve Parkhouse . Editors Dez Skinn and Graham Marsh came up with the name ''V for Vendetta.'' David Lloyd developed the idea of dressing V as Guy Fawkes after previous designs followed the conventional Superhero look. During the preparation of the story Moore made a list of what he wanted to bring into the plot, which he reproduced in "Behind the Painted Smile": "". Thomas Pynchon . The atmosphere of British Second World War films. '' The Prisoner ''. Robin Hood . Dick Turpin ..." The political climate of Britain in the early 1980s has also been cited as an influence on the work,3 with Moore positing that Margaret Thatcher 's Conservative government would "obviously lose the 1983 Elections ", and that the Michael Foot -led Labour government that replaced it, being committed to Complete Nuclear Disarmament , would allow the United Kingdom to escape relatively unscathed after a limited Nuclear War . However, Moore felt a post-holocaust Britain would be quickly subverted by fascists. Moore's predictions were perceived to be unlikely, and, addressing this when DC reissued the work, he noted: Naivete can also be detected in my supposition that it would take something as melodramatic as a near-miss nuclear conflict to nudge England towards fascism... The simple fact that much of the historical background of the story proceeds from a predicted Conservative defeat in the 1982 General Election should tell you how reliable we were in our roles as , 1990. When ''Warrior'' was canceled in 1985 (with one completed episode unpublished due to the cancellation), several companies attempted to convince Moore and Lloyd to let them publish and complete the story. In 1988 DC Comics published a ten-issue series that reprinted the ''Warrior'' stories in colour, then continued the series to completion. The first new material appeared in issue #7, which included the unpublished episode that would have appeared in ''Warrior'' #27. Tony Weare drew one chapter ("Vincent") and contributed additional art to two others ("Valerie", "The Vacation"); Steve Whitaker and Siobhan Dodds worked as Colourist s on the entire series. The series, including Moore's "Behind the Painted Smile" essay and two "interludes" outside the central continuity, was then collected as a Graphic Novel , published in the US by DC's Vertigo imprint (ISBN 0-930289-52-8) and in the UK by Titan Books (ISBN 1-85286-291-2). PLOT , and then the fascist Coup in which her father became a political prisoner. A new government under the name of the old has risen. Investigation of V's bombing is assigned to Eric Finch, head of "The Nose" (the name by which the regular police are commonly known) and an experienced investigator who serves the government out of a love of order rather than political conviction. Through him we meet other figures in the Party, including the Leader, Adam James Susan, a recluse who is fixated on the police state's computer system "Fate"; Commander Derek Almond, the leader of "The Finger", the secret police; Rose, Almond's emotionally and physically abused wife; Dominic Stone, Finch's partner; Conrad Heyer, head of "The Eye", the visual surveillance branch; Helen, Heyer's extremely ambitious and ruthless wife; Brian Etheridge, head of "The Ear", the audio surveillance branch; and Roger Dascombe, in charge of "The Mouth", the branch in charge of broadcasting Propaganda . V next blows up the broadcaster who serves as the "Voice of Fate"; Bishop Anthony Lilliman, a pedophile who represents the Party in the clergy; and Delia Surridge, a seemingly apolitical doctor who had a personal relationship with Finch. V attacks each of them in an ironic fashion, derived from previous encounters. Prothero is driven to insanity after V destroys his collection of priceless dolls in a reproduced death camp oven while having Prothero dressed up in a Commander uniform (Prothero was Commander of Larkhill); Lilliman is killed by being forced to consume a cyanide-laced communion wafer just as he is about to rape Evey dressed up in a little girl costume (Lilliman was a priest who was hired to give spiritual support to camp prisoners taking the Batch 5 drug); and Dr. Surridge dies from a lethal injection (she was the doctor in charge of criminal medical experiments at the camp and who had studied V) - however, as she was the only worker at Larkhill that expressed remorse for her actions, the injection and her death are painless. Upon leaving Delia's home, V is surprised by Derek Almond, who was warned by Finch that V was after Surridge and tries to capture him. Unfortunately for Almond, he forgets to reload his gun after having cleaned it earlier that same night, and he is quickly killed by V. Finch begins his research upon his discovery of Dr. Surridge's diary. It reveals that all three victims were officers at the Larkhill Resettlement Camp, and that over the previous years, every other staff member from the camp has died, apparently killed by V — the Vendetta of the title. Finch later discovers that this apparent "vendetta" served as a diversion from the true cause of action. V, the only prisoner to have survived the death camp, chose to eliminate its surviving officers to prevent the government from discovering his true identity. It could also be said that they were killed as retribution for the prisoners' pain and death due to the Larkhill officers' adherence to the fascist administration. With no records of his real name or personage existing, V can operate covertly. All that is known to the reader is that he was subjected to medical experiments involving hormonal injections of a substance called "Batch 5," which presumably triggered V's transformation into an obsessive and brilliant (though possibly psychotic) avenger. Though "codename V"'s past and former identity remain a mystery, in Delia Surridge's flashbacks (while Finch is reading her diary to the leader), one picture shows the back of his head and reveals that he is White (Book 1, Chapter 11, the picture in the upper-right corner of page 81). Naturally, Finch only reads the diary and cannot see that, but the reader, having access to imagery, can see that Codename V is white. Four months later ( February 3 , 1998 ), V breaks into Jordan Tower, the broadcast centre for the Party, to broadcast an anarchist speech that calls on the people to take charge of their own lives. He escapes by tying up Dascombe, placing a copy of V's own costume and mask on him, and standing him up in the control room where he is shot by police who storm the room. Eric Finch, in going over the crime scene, punches Peter Creedy, a petty criminal promoted to Head of the Finger after Almond's death, for a personal remark related to Delia Surridge (with whom he was romantically involved) and is sent by The Leader on a forced vacation. Evey has developed a strong attachment to V, but he has begun to challenge her morality. After a confrontation in the Shadow Gallery, she finds herself abandoned on a street, unable to find V. She is taken in by Gordon Deitrich, a petty criminal with whom she becomes romantically involved, and they cross paths unknowingly with Derek Almond's widow Rose; after the deaths of her husband and Dascombe (with whom she had been forced by circumstances into having a relationship with), Rose is forced to work as a burlesque dancer, and consequently develops a strong hatred for the Party. Creedy begins organizing a private militia, hoping to use V's destabilization of the Party to mount a coup against the Leader. V, maintaining surveillance on all of these various factions, appears to be manipulating them against each other. When Gordon is murdered by the Scottish gangster Alistair Harper, whom he was dealing with, Evey attempts to kill Harper in revenge but is seized, arrested, detained, and accused of attempting to murder Peter Creedy as he was meeting with Harper. In her cell, Evey finds a letter from a presumably dead former inmate named Valerie, an actress who was imprisoned for being a lesbian. Evey's interrogator tortures her multiple times and finally gives her a choice of collaboration or death; inspired by Valerie's courage and quiet defiance, she refuses to give in and is told that she is free. To her shock, Evey learns that her imprisonment was a hoax constructed by V, designed to put her through an ordeal similar to the one that shaped him. He reveals that Valerie was another Larkhill prisoner who died in the cell next to his; the letter that Evey read is the same one that Valerie had passed on to V to read. Evey's anger finally gives way to acceptance of her identity and freedom. November 1998. V destroys the Party's communication and surveillance centres (housed in Jordan Tower and the Post Office Tower ), causing the death of Etheridge, effectively shutting down both The Eye and The Ear and spurring a wave of wanton violence and hedonism which is violently suppressed by Creedy's street gangs. Meanwhile, V notes to Evey that this is not ''The Land of Do-As-You-Please'' end result he wants, but rather it's mere Chaos in ''The Land of Take What You Want'' — an interim period that he intends to follow up with the establishment of true Anarchy , a voluntarily orderly society. Finch's assistant Dominic realizes that V has had access to the Fate computer since the very beginning, explaining his foresight; this news accelerates the mental collapse of the Leader. Finch travels to the abandoned site of Larkhill, on the Wiltshire Downs, where he takes LSD . His Hallucination s lead him to an intuitive understanding of V, and returning to London, he deduces that V is hidden somewhere in Victoria Station , part of the abandoned London Underground , and goes to find him. V, who knows his time has come to an end, meets Finch and lets Finch shoot him. The bleeding V flees and dies in Evey's arms. Evey considers unmasking V, but decides not to learn his identity; instead, she assumes it, donning one of his spare costumes. Meanwhile, Rose Almond's private vendetta has led her to assassinate the Leader and she is last seen being taken by the Finger. In the ensuing chaos, Creedy's own men kill him, while Finch reports the news that V is dead. When Evey appears to the crowd as V, a general Insurrection begins. Evey completes V's final act of subversion. As requested by V, she performs the destruction of 10 Downing Street by giving her mentor a " Viking Funeral " with an explosive-laden Underground carriage containing his body sent to detonate at the desired location. She rescues Dominic from the mob and takes him back to the Shadow Gallery, implying that she intends to train him as her successor, having vowed to help the people to create the society the original V dreamed of creating. Having removed the totalitarian old regime, there is no longer a need for destruction. Finch observes the chaos raging in the city before heading to the countryside. All forms of authority in Britain are now gone; its future is left uncertain. Thus, V has created chaos, which will allow voluntary order to occur. It is to be assumed that Evey will do her best to prevent another imperialistic government from arising from this order. CHARACTERS Major characters
Minor characters
THEMES The series was Moore's first use of the densely detailed narrative and multiple plot lines that would feature heavily in '' Watchmen ''. Panel backgrounds are often crammed with clues and Red Herring s; literary allusions and wordplay are prominent in the chapter titles and in V's speech (which almost always takes the form of Iambic Pentameter , a poetic meter reliant on five pairs of syllables, the second syllable of each pair being more stressed than the first; its most famous usage has been in the majority of the works of Shakespeare ). The structure of the book has several direct parallels with 's. V reads Evey to sleep with '' The Magic Faraway Tree ''. This series is the source of "The Land of Do-As-You-Please" and "The Land of Take-What-You-Want" alluded to throughout the novel. Anarchism versus fascism The two conflicting political viewpoints of ). However, the regime was put in place by democratic means, just like the regime in Nazi Germany . As in most fascist regimes, there are several different types of Police and Military Police who engage in power struggles with each other yet obey the same leader. The fascist regime embraces total ) is ''The Nose'', the surveillance organizations are ''The Ears'' and ''The Eye'', the Secret Police is ''The Finger'' (and those who work for them are called ''Fingermen''), and the state-controlled media is known as ''The Mouth''. In creating this system of control, Moore provocatively evokes mainstream English political thought, namely Thomas Hobbes ' '' Leviathan '', which imagined the state as one vast corporate '' Gestalt '', with its legitimacy founded on the need to maintain order and prevent indiscriminate violence (as was hinted at in the Norsefire backstory). The sovereign formed the natural 'head' of the society, which perhaps explains the anatomical nomenclature of the various arms of state government. In order to keep this "body" healthy, fascist ideology generally prescribes that it be cleansed of "unhealthy elements" (as exemplified by the motto ''Strength Through Purity''), thus the Totalitarianism and Concentration Camp s. In issue #5 (see Below ), Delia Surridge recaps the Milgram Experiment as an explanation as to why ordinary people like herself can engage in such obedience. The connection to Anglican Christianity and ''Purity Through Faith'' is a typical feature of Clerical Fascism in Catholic countries (such as southern France under the Vichy regime 1940-4, Spain under Francisco Franco 1939-75, the Independent State of Croatia under Ante Pavelić 1941-45, and Austria under Dollfuss and Schuschnigg 1933-38); such a form has taken hold specifically in England where, in reality, the Church Of England (which is Anglican) is 'established' with the Queen being its head as well as the head of state. This may explain why, in story continuity, non- Anglican parts of the UK (such as Scotland ) are engulfed in violent uprisings against Norsefire's rule. The anarchism proposed by V is classic and built specifically around the ideas of Mikhail Bakunin , who is often associated with the idea that the old society has to be torn down before a new one can be built upon its ruins. In issue #2, V has a fictional dialogue with Madame Justice and concludes that anarchy has taught him that "justice is meaningless without freedom", a phrase which closely parallels similar statements by Bakunin. Several anarchist (or similar) traits encountered are related to 1960s counterculture. V's tactic to humiliate and make fun of the fascist regime to destabilize it is similar to the ideas of the Situationists . In issue #8, the phase between fascism and anarchy is called ''Verwirrung'', a German word meaning "confusion" but used here probably as a reference to The Illuminatus! Trilogy (Book One of the first part of the trilogy has this title). It also may be a direct reference to Discordian philosophy in general, as many other aspects of the series (chaos, the creative arts, anarchism, and the obsession with the number "5") draw similar parallels. An aspect of 1960s counterculture was the idea that Domestic Partnership and its legal forms can constitute a power imbalance between two people where one controls and dominates the other. This is exemplified by the relationships of Mr. and Mrs. Almond as well as Mr. and Mrs. Heyer, but this aspect is not developed theoretically. When Mr. Finch eventually uses LSD to clear his mind and uncover V's hideout, this is probably a reference to Timothy Leary who repeatedly claimed that this particular drug could be used for loosening stiff thinking in general. Identity V himself is something of an enigma whose history is only hinted at. The bulk of the story is told from the viewpoints of other characters: V's admirer and apprentice Evey , a sixteen-year-old factory worker; Eric Finch, a world-weary and pragmatic policeman who is hunting V; and several contenders for power within the fascist party. V's destructive acts are morally ambiguous, and a central theme of the series is the rationalisation of atrocities in the name of a higher goal, whether it is stability or freedom. The character is a mixture of an actual advocate of anarchism and the traditional stereotype of the anarchist as a terrorist. Moore stated in an interview: ...''the central question is, is this guy right? Or is he mad? What do you, the reader, think about this? Which struck me as a properly anarchist solution. I didn't want to tell people what to think, I just wanted to tell people to think, and consider some of these admittedly extreme little elements, which nevertheless do recur fairly regularly throughout human history.''4 Moore has never clarified who V supposedly was, beyond stating that V is not Evey's father; he does point out that V's identity is never revealed in the book. The ambiguity of the V character is a running theme through the work; it is left for the reader to determine for himself whether V is sane or psychotic, hero or villain. Before donning the Guy Fawkes mask herself, Evey comes to the conclusion that V's identity is unimportant compared to the role he plays. Number ''5'' and letter ''V'' There are numerous references throughout ''V for Vendetta'' (both potentially intentional or unintentional) to the Number 5 and letter V , which is itself "5" in Roman Numerals :
This all draws on The Law Of Fives , in particular how it was expressed in '' The Illuminatus! Trilogy '' specifically:
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