What’s Up With the Ending?

Seymour, Seymour, Seymour. The world is in your hands, literally. The last line of dialogue in the entire book occurs when Mr. Godfrey, the fascist-friendly editor of the New Frontiersman, tells his assistant to pick out some slush from the crank file. “I leave it entirely in your hands,” he says.

In that pile is Rorschach’s journal, which provides a nice bookend effect, since Watchmen begins with an excerpt of Splotchy-Face’s ramblings some four hundred pages earlier. Will Seymour grab the journal and bring it to publication? Will Veidt’s new world order topple thanks to the efforts of one shlubby, ketchup-stained intern? We’ll never know. This ending is classically ambiguous, but maybe Seymour will live up to his name and see more, exposing the truth. Tell us, smiley-face, tell us what happens.