Critical Analysis of V for Vendetta “Remember, remember, the Fifth of November, the gunpowder, treason and plot…” So begins the tale of the mysterious figure V, who attempts to follow up with Guy Fawkes’ 400-­‐year-­‐old plot to destroy Parliament and liberate the people from its government. V lays this as the groundwork of his plan to destroy England’s corrupt new-­‐world government, as well as plot revenge against a specific group of people who made V into the monster, or perhaps the hero, that he becomes in the movie. In this essay, I will argue that V’s crimes and terrorization of dystopian England were indeed evil acts, but did serve a greater purpose in protecting people from a monstrous government. The best way to define any character is to look at his or her characteristics; do they help the general public? Do they hinder someone from accomplishing a goal? The character known as V could be analyzed from different points of view as either a hero or a villain, judging by some of his more major actions, namely his terrorist attack on the BTN Building, his methodical murder of government officials, and his torture of Evey, the only person to truly see V as a human, not a murderous monster terrorizing a country. Upon looking deeper at V’s actions, we see that, while the crimes V commits are indeed evil, they can be seen as heroic, necessary evils done for the greater good. Not much is learned about V’s identity throughout the movie, yet he serves as a martyr for an important cause. A mysterious man dressed in all black, V’s only distinguishing feature is the white Guy Fawkes mask, which stands out like a beacon of hope in the dark world that has under the control of Chancellor Adam Sutler, which can be analyzed by looking at Derrida’s “deconstruction” theory (Lawler). However, we do learn bits and pieces about V’s past and why he holds such a strong grudge against the government, and learn that, while his murder of government officials is cruel and evil, there is a bit of justification, as well as vengeance, underlying his crimes. Various flashbacks show that, leading up to Chancellor Sutler’s takeover of dystopian England, V was tortured and experimented on (in a room marked with the Roman numeral V) by many of the political leaders currently in power, including Creedy, Heyer, Bishop Lilliman, and Ethridge. V’s specific targets rose to power with Sutler, and experimented on prisoners in order to manipulate a gene. The manipulated gene was the cure for a disease that Sutler would then unleash onto England, and then miraculously find the cure that would give him control over England. Coincidentally, on the Fifth of November, V escaped from the torture camp, bent on taking his vengeance on the government that caused him his abuse. Years later, he saves Evey from an attack by Sutler’s corrupt Finger Police, and gets her involved with his plot to take down Sutler. He attacks the television broadcasting network where Evey works, broadcasting a previously recorded message launching his anarchistic campaign to give the government back to its people. He rescues Evey from the building, and she tries to help V commit another murder. She tries to warn his target, the Bishop, and escapes to a friend’s house upon her failure to save the Bishop. Her friend, Gordon, soon gets arrested for having “illegal” possessions, including a Quran, homoerotic pictures, and real butter. V rescues Evey from the Fingermen, but still tortures her, in order for her to see V’s point of view and for her to know what he had to go through when he was tortured. Evey returns to the city to find the streets in anarchy, V’s plan coming to fruitarian, with the citizens of England running around wearing V’s signature mask. V then attacks his last target, Peter Creedy, who strikes a deal with V in order to kidnap and kill Chancellor Sutler. Creedy leads an attack on V, which ultimately kills him. V kills Creedy and his men, and then dies in Evey’s arms. Evey puts V’s body on a train rigged with explosives leading to Parliament, completing his anarchistic goal and freeing England from its corrupt government. V’s character obviously lies on a very thin moral line, where one point of view (the government and the police) view him as an evil, mysterious vigilante, bent on bringing nothing but anarchy and destruction, while the other point of view (Evey and, ultimately, the viewers) see him for what he truly was; a man trying to get revenge on those who did him wrong, as well as rescuing the people from their tyrannical villain. In order to truly analyze him from either side, one must analyze not only the differences between a hero and a villain, but from the similarities between the two as well. According to the Merriam-­‐Webster Dictionary, a hero is “a man admired for his achievements and noble qualities,” or “one who shows great courage.” A villain is defined as “a character in a story or play who opposes the hero” or “one blamed for a particular evil of difficulty.” By definition, V seems to show more qualities of hero rather than villain, due to how the citizens of England tended to, by the end of the film, admire, respect, and even idolize V. However, looking at him from a standpoint of morality, or even from the point of view of the corrupt government officials, V is a villain. The society in which V for Vendetta takes place seems to be Christian, and one of the major Commandments of the Christian faith states that “Thou shalt not kill.” To the government and anyone favoring their point of view, V is not only destroying the country, but also committing one of the most heinous crimes in all of history by killing off certain government officials and political speakers. And upon looking back a bit further to the torture camps that V was subjugated to, his actions could be moralized by the fact that he was getting revenge on those who did worse than killing him. But what do V’s actions say about V as a person? Evey wonders this about Guy Fawkes with her beginning narration as she wonders what he was like as a person and what drove him to attempt to blow up Parliament. Such comparisons can be made to other morality-­‐questioning figures in pop culture, such as Batman from the Dark Knight, or Rick Grimes from The Walking Dead (both of which are based off of graphic novels). Bruce Wayne, after the death of his parents, decided to rise up against the crime in the city and became the crime-­‐fighting vigilante known famously as the Batman. A good example of the decisions that Bruce, as Batman, has to make, are whether or not he needs to leave certain crimes to the police, or to the citizens themselves, and whether or not it is right for him to take the life of any of his enemies. The Joker, Batman’s arch nemesis, was created solely from Batman’s existence, and constantly forces Batman to question his own moral choices. Should he kill the Joker in order to stop the crime lord’s reign over Gotham? Has Bruce’s decision to create the Batman also created many of his worst enemies? Would quitting as Batman cause many of the criminals he constantly fights to cease their crime-­‐causing ways? The morality of a masked vigilante is reflected in both the Batman universe and the Universe of V for Vendetta. Another comparison could be with the moral decisions made by Rick Grimes, the leader of a team of survivors in a zombie apocalypse in The Walking Dead, a comic series that focuses on the psychological complications that arise in a world where morality has died. Rick, as the leader of his group, has to make decisions not only for the common good of his people, but also the other survivors. He’s had to rationalize killing the walking corpses of friends, family, and strangers. He had to kill other human survivors as well, rationalizing that his murders have been justified to save his friends, his son, and himself. Some of his moral choices have been to leave a farm that they stumbled across, go back to save the people on the farm after finding a better home, killing prisoners who threatened to kick them out of safety, and stealing from other, more violent colonies of human survivors. Rick’s decisions are for the good of the masses, as V portrays with his crimes against the government to free the citizens from tyranny. How can one define a hero? By their daily actions that affect other people? By moral choices that others can judge? And what choices of a hero can be twisted to become choices made by a villain? V clearly shows traits of heroes and villains, but by in the eyes of Evey, in the eyes of the common English man, he died a hero of the country, saving the country from dystopia, and giving the people power over their government, the way V truly believed in. He may have lived as a villain, but for the people, he died a hero. Works Cited “hero.” Merriam-­‐Webster.com. 2011. http://www.merriam-­‐webster.com (18 April 2013). Lawler, Leonard. "Jacques Derrida." (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy). Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, 2011. Web. 18 Apr. 2013. “villain.” Merriam-­‐Webster.com. 2011. http://www.merriam-­‐webster.com (18 April 2013).