I always loved the movie, and my teacher let me borrow her copy of the comic. All I can say is wow.

First of all, the movie is still absolutely fantastic. It's probably one of the most accurate comic book films to date. Up until the very end, it's pretty much the exact same events with some extras and in a slightly different order.

There was one aspect in the book that wasn't in the movie, and I kind of wish it was, because that was what made me have that feeling of "oh holy shit I get it now":

SPOILERS AHEAD

At one point, V says to Evey, "Anarchy wears two faces, both Creator and Destroyer. The Destroyers topple empires; make a canvas of clean rubble where Creators can then build a better word."

Later, after V's death, Evey thinks as she's putting him in the subway car, "The choice is theirs, as ever it must be. I will not lead them, but I'll help them build, help them create where I'll not help them kill. The age of killers is no more."

Just that single line from V puts a whole new spin on it. Without it, V represents more the traditional view of anarchy: although it is liberating and can be very charming, it's also scary, dangerous, and destructive. There's no sense of the "voluntary order" V mentions where people operate without leaders, but not without structure or morals.

But here, V the person is different from V the idea. V the idea never wouldn't have had a single chance at success without Evey. V the person is the destructive half of anarchy, of V the idea. He completes his work and allows himself to be killed; he knows he is no longer needed.

In his dying moments he tells Evey that she needs to know who he is behind the mask, but she must not know his face. It confuses her at first but eventually she understands. She needs to understand who he is, not just his identity; she needs to understand his values, his thoughts, his intentions. Evey considers taking off his mask, but she realizes that if she does, V the idea will lose his power, because "whoever you are isn't as big as the idea of you", and "even if you're someone, you'll be smaller, 'cause of all the people that you could have been but weren't".

So Evey takes up the alias of V for herself, and continues his work, their work. When he asked for her help in killing the people from Larkhill, she refused, and she was reluctant to help with the priest as well. Now the killing is over, V the man is dead, and that part of anarchy is complete. V is the Destroyer, Evey is the Creator. Together they are anarchy.

Wow.

On another note, I kind of liked the movie ending better, to a degree. I wish Evey had become V in the film, but I wish the comic included the masses marching on Parliament in masks and capes. In the comic there are a bunch of disorganized riots (which, considering that whole destructive anarchy followed by beneficial creation thing, sort of makes sense, but whatever) rather than a purposeful rebellion. The riots stem not from V or his message (at least not that we can tell), but from the power outages and the police attempts to stop looting. It makes them seem like mindless children just wanting to get away with misbehaving or just going with the flow of the crowd (which can also be intentional....) rather than inspired by V to stand up for themselves. I guess I understand why it ended the way it did, but I liked the movie version better.

SPOILERS OVER

So yeah. I came to school 3 hours early today and that's how I chose to spend my time lol.

For artists and writers in need of confidence, some quotes from Alan Moore:

"It's only those exceptional and rare individuals who have brilliant ideas delivered to them by the muse, complete and gift wrapped. The rest of us have to work at it."

"On good days, everything goes right and I have the whole script executed from start to finish within four or five hours. On bad days I write the whole script in four or five hours, realize that it's useless, tear it up and start again. I repeat this process four or five times until I'm reduced to a blubbering wreck that just slumps in the armchair and whimpers about how it has no talent whatsoever and will never write again. Next day I'll get up, get the whole thing right the first time"