A Lesson in Anarchy

V Wears the Face of A Clown

The protagonist of Alan Moore's seminal "V for Vendetta" incarnates the quintessential anarchist. V aims to press the big reset button of his totalitarian society. Not only revolving its political and cultural paradigms, but also those of every one of its citizens.

V makes it clear that it is everyone who is responsible for the stasis in which they are mired. He wishes to wake the trickster in all of them.

Through this beautifully crafted narrative Alan Moore reminds us of an uncomfortable truth. That the vast evils perpetrated by our institutions go on because they do not impinge in more than an abstract way on our day to day lives. As soon as they effect us more directly, change happens.

Don't agree? Wait until the gasoline runs out. Then we'll see the tricksters awaken. Then we will see the archetype, of which V is a reflection, take up its staff.

There but for the grace of the jester goes the king.