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1998 England:
Totalitarian regime.
Police state.
True Desperation.
Death of culture.
V.
V is not your usual masked hero with superpowers fighting against Super villains, or rather: "V" wears a mask, that of Guy Fawkes, is a superhero created in the lab by the "supervillain" totalitarianism that in Moore's mind would conquer England following an unspecified "Great War" (presumably given the year of initial publication, 1982, this GG could very well correspond to a degeneration of the Cold War), his superpowers are an innate sense of love towards anarchy and the good for the people. The "villains" he faces are precisely the totalitarian regime that "rules" England and the sense of surrender flowing in the veins of the British people.
V alone will do nothing. He will attack the enemy at its heart, true, but he will do it with the awareness that his gesture can only be the beginning, that it's the people who must fight, not the individual. The individual can guide an idea, but for an idea to be strong, it must be shared by a multitude of minds and bodies. He knows these bodies can die, but not the idea they carry and represent. He knows that for the people to be strong, they just need an idea, and knows that for the idea to be right, knowledge must be granted to the people, education "Knowledge, like air, is vital for life. Like air, it should never be denied to anyone." He knows it transitions from imposed order to chaos. He knows that it is up to the people to create from chaos. It's the people, the true makers of their own country, never the opposite.
Lloyd's drawings with a retro flavor give life to an eerily realistic reality, they leave no room for intuition, they are raw, ruthless, without a hint of charity, just like the Totalitarian State they depict, like V, like Eve will be.
No discounts, no mercy.
"Knowledge, like air, is vital for life. Like air, it should never be denied to anyone." V says to Eve...
"Knowledge, like air, is vital for life. Like air, it should never be denied to anyone."
Take a look at our TV, our news broadcasts, repeat this phrase to yourself and reflect...
Then?
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