Adrian Veidt

Matthew Goode as Adrian Veidt, in a rare photograph of the character that's not awash in purple.

Adrian Werther Veidt III ('Veidt" is pronounced "vight" [rhymes with "fight"], not "veet". I don't know where anybody got that idea), also known as Ozymandias, is originally from Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons' graphic novel Watchmen (and the 2009 film version) but is currently played on the Sueniverse by Megan. His very presence on the 'Verse has lead to many, MANY arguments about the legitimacy of his moral system and the decisions he makes based on it, which has prompted Megan to coin the term "Veidtjacking" (announced with the cry "V-V-V-VEIDTJACK!") for when one of these discussions takes over a totally unrelated thread, but one fact remains unassailable: Adrian Veidt is fierceness incarnate.

Appearance and Personality

Veidt in his usual purple, floppy-haired glory, as rendered by his Suethor.

Tall, slender (but built enough that he can pick up a gigantic gold floor lamp and hit a man into a fountain with it with no more signs of exertion than gritting his teeth), and apparently eternally youthful in spite of debuting on the 'Verse at the age of 46 (which in Sueniverse years usually means old enough to have been retired to make way for one's offspring's plot taking over), Veidt is usually seen wearing obscene amounts of bright purple with gold accessories. What's even more obscene is the fact that he makes this look good. He also happens to have blond hair with the ability to go from gelled back to floppy in less than a second and hazel eyes that, in the right photograph, have been known to distract his Suethor for nearly thirty seconds at a time. As of recent events, Veidt's right hand is partially artificial.

Personality-wise, Veidt is something of an enigma. To most people, he comes across as warm and affable, and his public persona is almost saintly. However, he's an extremely difficult person to get to know on a level of any depth unless he wants you to; and it's pretty safe to say that he's not exactly one for the sitting down and the discussion of feelings. This may stem from his reputed status as "the smartest man in the world", or it may just be because he is one deep, secretive son of a bitch. He is often demanding and critical, even of those in what passes for his personal circle, which doesn't help that whole " difficulty making friends" issue of his. Most of the time, though, Veidt will deny any need for human closeness to begin with, no matter how deeply he actually rather aches for it. When taken at a disadvantage outside of a situation where he needs to maintain his public facade, he sometimes borders on childishly sulky and moody.

Artist's simulation of Veidt taken at a disadvantage.

While speaking in public or to strangers, Veidt affects an American accent, but he tends to slide into a German one (which, to people who don't recognize that it is in fact German, registers as an accent that MEANS HE IS FROM EVERYWHERE) when with old friends such as Dan Dreiberg or with others he doesn't feel he needs to hide his heritage from (including his ward Micaela Ruth Heekin). In fact, this is pretty symptomatic of any number of things Veidt hides from the world at large- the full truth of his upbringing, his homosexuality (or at least what he tells himself is his homosexuality- it's possible to read some very, um, interesting layers into his interest in Micaela), and another, far darker secret he doesn't share with anyone else at all but will eventually come to light.

Background

Early Childhood, or, A Goddamn Laundry List Of Circumstances That Makes It A Wonder He Turned Out As Well As He Did

When asked by an interviewer from a television show or a newspaper about his early life, Veidt will simply say that he was born to a pair of German immigrants, Friedrich Werner Veidt and his wife Ingrid Renata, who both died when he was still a teenager. This is basically true, but doesn't give the whole story.

Friedrich Weidt was an officer in the Allesheim death camp (near the Polish border) during the Second World War who had married a young, wealthy woman from the upper classes, Ingrid Kurtz, who only agreed to the marriage in order to protect her fortune. He was a devout supporter of the Third Reich, and something of a sociopath besides, prone to violent fits and abuse at the slightest provocation.

On February 12, Ingrid Weidt gave birth to a son in the officers' village on the outskirts of Allesheim, where the families of those supervising the death and horror of the camp lived in contrasting luxury. He was named Adrian, after his grandfather and great-grandfather. As an infant, he seemed quite normal- healthy, attentive, and crying and sleeping like any other child would. However, Adrian's intellect developed at an almost abnormally fast rate. He was speaking simple sentences at eight months, and had obtained the fluency of a three-year-old by the time he was a year and a half. He grew into a quiet, pensive child, rarely speaking unless spoken to and surprising- often outright unnerving- adults with his intelligence when he did. By the age of four, he amused himself by reading the newspaper with perfect comprehension of the words (if not yet of the ideas) and doing complex arithmetic for fun. His parents noticed the lack of interest he seemed to have in more childish activities and attempted to socialize him with other children, but he remained aloof and better suited to doing things alone.

Ingrid Weidt began to consider the idea that he may have inherited the streak of madness running through Friedrich's ancestry (a fact that lead several mentally defective members of the extended Weidt family to be secreted away to madhouses in order to keep them from staining the family name), but the doctor consulted on the matter came to the conclusion that Adrian was merely so preternaturally bright that it was difficult for him to relate at all to children of normal intelligence. Friedrich, on the other hand, took the dimmer view that his son was an effeminate show-off and began taking steps to try to make him both more obedient and more suited to Friedrich's own ideals. When Adrian disappointed his father, Friedrich beat him or concocted elaborate alternate punishments. Ingrid, also a frequent victim of Friedrich's violent temper, was too frightened of her husband to object, though she did try to make things better for her son whenever his father wasn't around.

When Adrian was four years old, his mother gave birth to a girl named Klara. She did not show any signs of her brother's extreme intellect, but neither was she a particularly robust child, which marked her as an equal disappointment to their father. Adrian was extremely protective of Klara from the time of her birth onward.

When Adrian entered the school run for the officers' children at age five, the problems surrounding his intelligence deepened. After several occasions of being punished for cheating when he'd in fact simply already learned and grown bored with the curriculum, Ingrid suggested to her son in private that he deliberately pretend to be no more advanced than any other child. After some initial resistance to the idea, he gave in and started following her wishes. He didn't relate to others any better than he had before, but at least now he could get by without undue attention.

Adrian and Klara lived, in spite of their unhappy home lives, in a kind of bubble, kept willfully unaware of what went on at Allesheim outside of the officers' village. This all changed when Adrian managed to jump the fence and witnessed the true nature of Allesheim for the first time. At only five years old, he was small enough (and given his abnormal level of intellect, intelligent enough) to avoid immediate detection by the guards and wandered through scenes of nearly unimaginable horror until his terrified mother arrived and carried him back home to tuck him into bed. She initially insisted that Adrian had had a nightmare, but Friedrich responded by deciding to take his son on a "little tour" of the camp, pointing out in detail what the inmates' badges meant and showing Adrian the gas chambers and crematorium. The boy was understandably traumatized for the rest of his life, which would later prove to have devastating consequences.

Two years later, Adrian fell victim to a fever, which Klara soon contracted as well. Both children suffered for some time, but ultimately Adrian survived. Klara, however, did not.

When the Third Reich fell, Friedrich Weidt took his family with him into hiding in Switzerland, where they stayed until he deemed the situation too dangerous there as well, and announced that they would be emigrating to the United States.

Teen Years

Adrian was twelve when the family arrived in New York. Friedrich had the family name changed to the more phonetic Veidt to distract suspicion. Adrian was enrolled in an unexceptional school for boys (though evaluation from the headmaster ensured that he skipped a grade). Several of his classmates were considerably poorer than he was, the sons of laborers in factories and meat-packing plants. He began to develop a passion for one day taking away the need for hard labor and squalor to support the upper classes, as well as of eliminating evil such as that which his father supported. He learned English very quickly, and as he grew older and into what his teachers and classmates saw as the perfect all-American boy, he simultaneously began to openly challenge and mock his father at home as well as in public. Friedrich's always-evident instability had by now soured into alcoholism and longing for the days when in his view he "was something", and Adrian took every opportunity to berate and humiliate his father. They frequently came to blows, and Ingrid could only stay out of the way.

What Adrian was still missing was someone to whom he could feel any kinship, any relation. He felt a certain degree of filial affection for his mother, but couldn't respect her silence in the face of her brutal husband, and while he had had a number of secret trysts with boys from school (kept dutifully secret from his family, and indeed the world at large), these connections were purely physical, engaging neither his emotions nor his intellect. It was only his chance discovery of a biography of Alexander the Great, left abandoned on a cab he took home one night, that awoke any sense of oneness within him.

Alexander became Adrian's obsession on nearly every level- as a rival to aspire to, as a historical precedent to follow, and even as a romantic ideal. As Friedrich Veidt lay dying of what was eventually diagnosed as cancer, his son was developing a grandiose plan to unite the world as Alexander had tried to do-not through conquest of foreign lands, but through the elimination of all that stood in the way of universal brotherhood and peace.

Costumed Adventuring, or, Important Life Decisions Based on the Consumption of Hashish

Ingrid Veidt passed away when Adrian was seventeen, leaving him with a substantial fortune. Not wanting to be associated with what he saw as his father's tainted money, he kept only what was needed to fund his own voyage to what were once Alexander's domains in the East and gave the rest to charity, doing odd jobs to support himself on his vision quest. During his trek, he purchased a ball of hashish out of curiosity and then nearly forgot about it until he consumed it one night in the desert. The resulting visions from his high convinced him that he needed to use an unorthodox means of changing the world- disguising himself and doing good anonymously. He took Ozymandias, the Greek name of the pharaoh Ramses II, as his alias, and returned to America to begin his work while simultaneously using his vast intellect to create over thirty basic patents and to improve countless more. He became a wealthy industrialist before he was thirty, but his memories of his classmates ensured that he became a tremendously fair and conscientious employer, loved and respected by those who worked for him. It was at around this time that he made the acquaintance of biotechnology magnate Rotti Largo, who became a mentor figure in his life before circumstances changed and left them bitter rivals.

Veidt in full costume as his vigilante alter ego Ozymandias

As Ozymandias, Veidt was recruited to join a new superteam called the Crimebusters, but the meeting came to naught. He was, however, made powerfully aware of the futility of fighting evil on a street-level scale, and ultimately revealed his identity and retired from costumed adventuring to become a full-time industrialist and philantropist at age 36.

On the 'Verse

Megan is still disappointed that this will never happen.

By now, Veidt was a self-made billionaire and a popular public figure in his own right, and was the only freelance vigilante to stay in the public's good graces after the passing of the Keene Act banning superheroes in America. He continued to garner strong public support even as he marketed his own name and image (and a lot of purple and gold products), thanks to contributing much of the money he made to charity. (More personal projects funded by Veidt's wealth included the genetic engineering of his pet lynx Bubastis and the construction of his Antarctic retreat Karnak.) He also aligned himself against his former mentor, Rotti Largo, of the biotechnology firm GeneCo After their falling-out, Rotti had insituted an organ repossession policy(having implanted organs carved out of their recipients and returned to GeneCo if they were not properly paid for, a usually fatal process for the recipients of the organs). This proved to be the final, irreparable rift between them.

However, Veidt was also funding a secret plan of his own, a plan which he felt necessitated his search for an heir, which he found in the form of an unusual young girl named Micaela Heekin. Micaela became a frequent presence at Veidt's board meetings and the like, and he played up their relationship to the press by taking spoiling her like a fond father. After a visit to the Genetic Opera to see Blind Mag perform, Veidt took Micaela backstage to meet the diva, and instead the pair found Pavi Largo attempting to rape her. Veidt saved Blind Mag, and when Pavi returned with his father, Veidt met privately with Rotti Largo, purchased Blind Mag's eyes and contract, and then destroyed the latter while allowing her to keep the former, thus ending her obligation to GeneCo.

Only a few days later, Veidt was nearly assassinated by a GeneCo operative, who arrived armed with a gun as Veidt, Micaela, and a number of toy executives were leaving a meeting. In the ensuing chaos, Veidt's secretary Melissa was killed, and Veidt's own hand was severely damaged by two successive bullets, which blasted off the first two fingers and his thumb. He was nevertheless still able to incapacitate his would-be killer and tried to question the gunman, but the assassin died from a cyanide pill as Veidt demanded answers.

Veidt's hand was rebuilt with an experimental biomechanical prosthetic implant at Karnak, where he began to intensify Micaela's training to be his heir at the same time the girl was beginning to feel doubts and distance from him. During a visit from Micaela's friend Megan Renée and Dan Dreiberg, Micaela's feelings came to a head, and she fled the dinner table after an angry outburst regarding Veidt's flippant lack of concern for her parents and family life. Later that night, while looking for her, Veidt instead overheard her speaking to her assistant and his rentboy Adrien Baillon, and saying that she really just wanted to go home again. By now Veidt was nearly obsessed with keeping her to succeed him, and this did a fair deal toward souring his affection toward her into jealous possessiveness.

Back in Paris, a great deal of his attention was turned to Baillon (see below) instead, and landed Veidt in a situation he hadn't bargained for: falling in love with the boy. However, Micaela's sudden disappearance served only to sully matters between them.

Personal Relationships

Dan Dreiberg

Like Veidt, Dan Dreiberg is a retired costume adventurer. Dan fought crime under the alias Nite Owl (a name he acquired from his idol Hollis Mason, the first Nite Owl) and was a friend of Veidt's both when he knew him only as Ozymandias and then later when they made their identities known to one another. This relationship continues to this day. The rather sweet and unassuming Dan manages to still come off as an adorably bewildered, innocent nerd, a quality which has aroused romantic interest in Veidt's ward Micaela Heekin.

Micaela Ruth Heekin

Gifted with extraordinary reality-warping powers, Micaela came to Veidt's attention when she saved him (and a whole crowd watching him) from a runaway car by teleporting the whole mass of people three blocks away from the car. Veidt immediately began offering to let her become his ward (in spite of already being almost eighteen years old) and heir to his fortune, but she did not accept his invitation until he threw in the bonus promise that he would pay for her tuition to any college she could get into.

Micaela as her fictitious alter ego Meritites, alongside Veidt as Ozymandias.

Micaela was viewed by the public as the daughter Adrian Veidt never had. She physically fit the role, with blonde hair, blue eyes, and pretty features. But the resemblances also ran more than skin deep, for she also had an extremely high IQ and a long-standing interest in the ancient world. Veidt tried to shape her into almost his small female doppelganger through providing her with clothes in his usual color scheme and giving her her own genetically enhanced pet, a cave lion cub she named Moo (short for Mufasa). However, the extreme pressures Veidt put on her took their toll on their relationship, causing her to seek distance from him, and her mysterious disappearence (still under investigation) ensured that they would never have a chance to heal the rift.

Bubastis

Bubastis.

Bubastis is Veidt's genetically enhanced pet lynx. Far larger than a wild lynx and much more intelligent, she is also purple (as though Veidt would have it any other way) and has extremely long, tufted ears. She is capable of reducing Veidt to nearly babytalking his affection for her, and enjoys privileged status within his organization. Veidt takes her with him on nearly all of his travels and doesn't shoo her from the room while he entertains rentboys, a fact that has provided endless amusement to Megan and Sarrin.

Bubastis is the main focus of the "Adrian Veidt's Pecadilloes" section of the Watchmen "It Just Bugs Me" page on TV Tropes. This is unimportant, except for the fact that Megan really, really likes that they apparently needed a section called "Adrian Veidt's Pecadilloes".

Adrien Baillon

A young rentboy and hooligan also known by the nom de drag Notre-Dame-des-Fleurs, Adrien Baillon became fascinated with Adrian Veidt after Baillon's roommate Divine jokingly implied that a photograph of Veidt in the newspaper was of the similarly named and loosely resembling Baillon. He managed to gatecrash a party Veidt was holding in honor of Micaela's birthday, and was astonished to be picked up for the night by Veidt himself.

Slash ensued, after which Veidt embarrassed Baillon by giving Baillon far more money than had been the requested payment, and then frightened the boy by growing irritated at his reluctance. Veidt relented, and then offered instead to hire Baillon as Micaela's personal assistant in order to not force the boy to return to a life of prostituting himself on the streets. Baillon accepted, and began spending his days doing tasks for Micaela and his nights in Veidt's bed.

Over the course of several months, Veidt and Baillon's relationship deepened considerably, to the point where neither one could quite take being without the other. Veidt eventually invited Baillon to his private penthouse for the weekend, and ended up becoming drunk and admitting that he had fallen in love with the boy. Baillon did not believe him at first, but over the course of the weekend it became clear that they were indeed a romantic couple and not merely a pair of casual sex partners. From then on, they began to spend most of their free time together, albeit with Veidt taking measures to not destroy his public image by being seen with a boy he was very obviously emotionally involved with.

The relationship between Adrian Veidt and Adrien Baillon is somewhat complex. The fact that it was only through a sexual encounter that Veidt thought to hire Baillon in the first place means that in many ways, Baillon has merely traded in the life of a lower-class rentboy for that of a comfortable, well-fed kept boy. However, Veidt genuinely feels that he is doing Baillon a favor (though a twinge of doubt was expressed when Veidt grimly and self-deprecatingly asked Baillon to think of him as "your guardian angel"; and similar moments that continue to occur with unnerving frequency). Baillon, meanwhile, is utterly fascinated by and infatuated with Veidt, and still stunned by his good luck. Veidt's obsessive need to monitor and control others has had a slightly damaging effect on even this relationship, though, and the stress is starting to show on Baillon, who has gone to such extreme lengths as offering to live as a girl to protect their love (a measure that was instead angrily rebuffed by Veidt, to say the least).

Rotti Largo

In spite of their current very obvious mutual hatred for one another, Rotti Largo and Adrian Veidt were once close friends and business partners who worked together for the betterment of humanity in the wake of a huge epidemic of severe organ failures. The much older Largo viewed Veidt as a refreshing change from his own disappointing son Luigi Largo (Pavi had not yet grown to be an equal failure in his father's eyes), while Veidt (who was at this point less than thirty years old and something of a youthful idealist) saw in Largo the approving, guiding father figure Friedrich had never been.

However, everything changed when Veidt introduced Nathan Wallace, a young doctor of strong promise, to Marni, Largo's fiancée. Nathan and Marni soon fell in love, and Marni left Largo for Nathan. When Marni was pregnant with Nathan's child, a revenge-crazed Largo had her murdered and Nathan framed for the crime. Nathan was soon blackmailed into becoming GeneCo's first Repo Man.

When Veidt offered his condolences over Marni's death to Largo (without knowing Largo was responsible), Largo instead accused Veidt of having intentionally planned Marni's betrayal, and a shaken Veidt broke off their partnership. The rift became permanent when Veidt found that Largo was pushing a bill authorizing organ repossessions from defaulted GeneCo clients through Congress. Veidt publicly denounced Largo as both a businessman and a human being, and made it clear that his ruination would be Veidt's pleasure.

Dr. Manhattan

Once a young, brilliant physicist, Jon Osterman- along with the course of human history itself- was irrevocably altered in a horrifying lab accident. Osterman's body was ripped apart into its most basic component atoms, but his consciousness survived and reformed into a humanoid energy being that the United States government dubbed Dr. Manhattan. Even in a world full of vampires, practitioners of magic, zombies, and other supernatural elements, Manhattan was something different- something almost like a god. Almost alien in appearance, he possesses the ability to be in multiple places at the same time, can shrink and grow indefinitely, can explode or completely destroy matter with a wave of his hand, and sees all moments in time simultaneously.

Since his transformation, Manhattan has needed company to keep him even remotely anchored to humanity. The first was Dr. Janey Slater, a fellow physicist who was Osterman's lover at the time of the accident and Manhattan's afterward. The second was Laurie Juspeczyk, a girl in her late teens who was part of the Crimebusters initiative as the second Silk Spectre, who became Manhattan's lover after he left Dr. Slater. Following Laurie's tragic death in the organ failure pandemic of the late 1960s, Manhattan became detached from humanity at an increasingly rapid pace, with only his work with the government (including conquering Vietnam in 1972) and his interest in Veidt to keep him from popping off to Mars all the time.

Veidt presents a fascinating challenge to Manhattan, who considers Veidt rather apart from humanity in his own right. This is something Veidt strongly agrees with in some ways and tries to ignore in others. Manhattan's constant placid reminders that the pharaohs of the past that Veidt so idolizes were as unlike Veidt as any modern men, along with offers to simply take Veidt away from a world that doesn't understand him, are powerful, frightening temptations.

Running Jokes

Veidt has been the subject of a few running jokes, many of which originated outside the Sueniverse.

Fierce

According to Urban Dictionary, fierce is "a word used by two fashion divas, Tyra Banks and Christian Siriano. It is used to describe someone or something that stands out from the crowd for all the right reasons. It gets noticed."

And from the very start of the film fandom for Watchmen, it was a word that became permanently associated with Adrian Veidt, particularly by female fans who enjoyed basking in the purple glow of movie!Veidt's Eighties-flavored awesomeness. Which brings us to the next running joke:

BOYS

In the graphic novel, Rorschach suggests that Veidt is "possibly homosexual", but no concrete evidence is given to suggest Veidt being interested in either men or women. In the movie, on the other hand, this little Easter egg was featured on the desktop of Veidt's computer:

No, really. Adrian Veidt apparently keeps gay porn on his computer.

This lead to much squeeing from fangirls, who (though often accused of homophobia) seemed to think that this made the character that much more, well, fierce, and has since fuelled all kinds of slash and jokes involving the word BOYS in simple, unpunctuated capital letters.

"Suck my dick, I don't give a fuck"

Megan the Suethor models her comic!Veidt mask. He, uh, was a lot beefier in the graphic novel.

Matthew Goode was the last addition to the Watchmen film cast, and this news did not sit well with many fans of the graphic novel. After all, there is very, very little physical resemblance between film!Veidt and comic!Veidt (and even less between Matthew Goode in out-of-character mode and comic!Veidt), and die-hard graphic novel purists are not as easily won over by eyes one can get lost in and fierce German accents, especially when these attributes come from an actor some twenty years younger than the character he's playing, as the average fangirl. But Goode grew tired of the nitpicking and complaining, and finally voiced his sentiments in a profanity-laden statement to The Sun in Britain:

"The negative feedback is relayed by my friends. I think the fanboys aren't particularly happy - there are a load of people they'd have rather had in before me. But if fanboys still hate the film after going and seeing it, they can all line up and suck my dick. I don't give a fuck. I'm having a child and that's more important to me - so I don't give a fuck. Grow a dick."

And thus, yet another running joke was born, along with a quote that Matthew Goode will probably never, ever be able to live down.

(However, it's unknown what those fanboys in question would have thought had they know that one of the main contenders ahead of Goode was Tom Cruise. No, really: Tom fucking Cruise. How weird would that have been?)

Incidentally, this article has more cursing per square inch than anything else on this wiki. Perhaps we are just making Matthew Goode proud.

Cheeky Antarctic Ice Palace

Matthew Goode's apparent pet name for Karnak. It's not a running joke yet, but fuckdammit, it should be.

The Rocky Horror Picture Show

Megan has a new hobby of trying to see how many of Dr. Frank N. Furter's lines from The Rocky Horror Picture Show she can force out of Veidt's mouth without making it obvious or being out of character. This may work easily for comments such as "Even smiling makes my face ache", but readers shouldn't count on him ever asking anyone to come up to the lab and see what's on the slab. Sometimes, even Megan has limits.

LINES USED SO FAR:

• "But since you're such an exceptional beauty, I'm prepared to forgive you."

Trivia

• He possesses an IQ of around 235.
• He is functionally ambidextrous.
• Veidt has surprisingly low alcohol tolerance, and by surprisingly low, I mean "scarcely any". He very, very rarely drinks; and when he does, he has to do so very slowly or else he falls headfirst into extreme drunkenness.
• He almost never shows his teeth when he smiles, even though he has good teeth. Smiling does not, in fact, come very naturally to him at all, and neither does laughing. When he laughs out of genuine amusement, it comes out both sharper and less composed than the laugh he affects to give the impression that he's amused.
• He has frankly rather bizarre and eclectic taste in music, with a particular fondness for experimental orchestral pieces, as well as electronic music (ranging from essentially atonal works to what might be considered "techno-pop") and a smattering of classical and opera.
• The Ozymandias costume he wore at the time of his retirement was actually the second iteration- in the first year of his career as a superhero, he wore a homemade purple-and-gold costume that offered little protection and forced him to perfect his defensive skills.
• He is an extremely proficient pianist, but his playing lacks any artistic warmth or virtuosity. The same can be said about any drawings he produces- they are often technically perfect but have a sterile, carbon-copy feel to them.

Links

• ontd_ozy, a LiveJournal community devoted to the, um, crackier sides of the Veidt fandom: http://community.livejournal.com/ontd_ozy
• veidt_fans, another, less cracktacular community: http://community.livejournal.com/veidt_fans
• A large collection of Veidt pictures ranging from the serious to the ridiculous: http://s177.photobucket.com/albums/w218/MeganPhntmGrl/Ozymandias/
• The Veidt article on Watchmen Wiki (warning: contains spoilers): http://watchmen.wikia.com/wiki/Adrian_Veidt