Dr Manhattan Bootstrap Paradox

Published December 9, 2019 · Updated July 6, 2022

Hi guys,

I hope that you discuss the bootstrap paradoxes (retrocausality) that the show explored with Angela Abar and Dr Manhattan especially the Judd Crawford bootstrap involving Will Reeves.

I would like to further propose that the entirety of Dr Manhattan life might be a bootstrap paradox in this show’s ending. My previous hope that Dr M is killed off in this series is looking probable but I where I thought that this was a desire of death is looking shaky. This is due to the outstanding storytelling of how Dr M experiences time. Everything is immediate experienced and referenced together.

Given how insistent the notion of legacy runs through this season, I remain drawn to the idea that the ultimate legacy of Dr Manhattan is a post-religious human future. To kill God as Laurie Blake’s joke goes. The referencing of Jon Osterman’s refugee status as someone of Jewish heritage escaping intolerance also plays into this. To create something beautiful might be this post-religious future. That means killing his own Dr Manhattan legacy which superceded traditional religions as referenced in newspaper headlines.

There’s something jarring about how Dr M operates because he obviously could tell someone who could affect the present from the past but he seems to understand that his death is predestined in human concept while he is experiencing it at the same moment as everything else. He would experience his death at the same moment as when he became Doctor Manhattan. I hadn’t thought about that before – kudos to the writers room. If you experience everything together, how can you wish for a future event? My Thanatos notion is dead (albeit there might have been some kind of death wish fulfillment in Jon Osterman running into the intrinsic field generator).

So the question is – what meaning does Dr Manhattan bring to serve the story? An end to Deus ex machina? Because that’s what Dr M is to America winning the Vietnam War. A hopeful if uncertain future for humanity would be the assertion of choice and responsibility for themselves rather than one chosen by those that choose to play god (Dr M, Adrian Veidt and Joe Keene all fit this description even if they don’t like each others’ choices).

There’s also a potential Deus ex machina in how technology is controlled by our trillionaire Lady Trieu and the Millennium Clock. I can’t envision this as being a good thing despite the Dr M/Will Reeves/Lady Trieu connection. It smacks too much of Veidt and his squid. I don’t know what to think of it still which is good.

Overall I was really impressed with the storytelling, pacing and the logic of this episode. I am still a bit worried about how all the major threads come together in the final hour but am really grateful that there are mysteries to be answered through storytelling. It’s a fantastic show because I can think about these metaphysical ideas, listen and read different ideas yet still be surprised by how the story is told. I could write a thesis on these nine episodes. That’s how extraordinary this storytelling that Lindelof and his writing room has been. Just wonderful work.

Regards
John “D” Lish

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