Watchmen Chapters 7 and 8

In Chapter 7, our focus is shifted towards the Dan and Laurie, the last two masked avengers who have yet to be removed from the picture, so to speak. While examining the budding relationship between Dan and Laurie, we begin to see that Dan is utterly powerless, afraid and impotent. His lack of self-realization has led to Dan being totally powerless in every aspect of his life: He lives in fear of nuclear war, of Rorschach's mysterious costume-killer, he can't even engage Laurie in sexual activities of which he has longed to do.  This is best summed up for us when he describes his apocalyptic dream to Laurie, "W-we were kissing, and this nuclear bomb, it's just... We burned up. We were gone. Everything was gone... It's this war, the feeling that it's unavoidable. It makes me feel so powerless. So impotent."

 

When Dan is faced with the possibility that the world just may soon end, he goes to the one thing that grants him power enough to face the impossible: his Nite Owl suit. Daniel is empowered through his costumed identity. It gives him a sense of purpose, of meaning. When speaking of the Nite Owl goggles, he says, "As I remember, they work pretty good. No matter how black it got, when I looked through these goggles... Everything was clear as day." Symbolically, Dan is referencing that no matter how bad things got in the world, he could face it, so long as he was in his costume. 

After agreeing with Laurie to go out and "do something stupid" the two go out and save a burning building. Nite Owl is exhilarated, by the act and by seeing Laurie in her Silk Spectre costume; so much so that he is finally able to engage Laurie in some sexual activity above the city skyline. Being a hero is what makes Dan feel alive. It's not so much that he feels obliged to it, like Rorschach or Dr. Manhattan, he is addicted to it, like a drug. Similar, and perhaps metaphorically, Laurie relapses back to smoking at the same time Dan relapses back to vigilantism. One could even argue that costumed vigilantism sexual arouses Dan. It is this self-realization that springs Dan into action. He has come to terms with the fact that he IS a costumed hero and he has to act. Right after his renewed heroic drive Dan is able to confidently face the world, “I feel so confident it’s like I’m on fire. And all the mask killers, all the wars in the world, they’re just cases—just problems to solve.”

Moore added a sense of depth to the personality of characters as relatively simple as Dan. On the surface he seems to be the most well adjusted hero presented to us; but like the rest of our heroes Dan is flawed, in the most human way possible. He is reliant on vigilantism, it gives him emotional drive, it gives him a sexual desire. He needs to be a hero to feel alive. Without it, Dan is shown to emotional wreck, with no will and no drive.