Sympathy for the Devil

I want to look at V and the law in relation to drive compulsions and their regulation by the pleasure principle.

Through-out Vendetta, V represents himself as demonic. In the above example, he quotes the Rolling Stones' 'Sympathy for the Devil' as an introduction. Previous scenes indicate a similar comparison of V to demons and devils. For instance, he tells Evey that he is 'the king of the twentieth century... the bogeyman... the villain... the black sheep of the family' (13.8) and when Evey wants to 'make a deal' with him, V quotes Faust and, putting himself in the position of Mephistopheles, observes, 'He made a deal, too' (44.1-3).

In one of the happy coincidences of academic life, Freud refers to drive compulsions, in their disregard for the pleasure principle (the agency that attempts to keep excitation in the psychic apparatus at a minimal level) as having a 'daemonic character'. Using this coincidence as a starting point, I want to bring together some of my previous ideas on V as both bio-political and violent excess of the state and suggest that he embodies what Freud called the 'death drive'. Contrary to popular usage, this does not mean he is 'suicidal' so much as it connects him to the notion of traumatic repetition and points to how his imperatives do not coincide with those of the state which, governed by the pleasure principle, does not acknowledge how its own drives motivate it. V represents the death drive disrupting the appearance of the smooth functioning of order, a functioning that is meant to keep excitation to a minimum.

Running parallel, the law of the state seems to function as a screen for its libidinal investments and the indulgence of its own impulses. The fact that the government is dominated by 'drives' is indicated nicely by the division of its various agencies into body parts (nose, finger, eye, ear etc.), each of which appears somewhat at odds with one another instead of in unified agreement. Nonetheless, as I have observed with the leader Adam Susan, the indulgence of drive impulses are actively disavowed as a necessity of maintaining order and the dominance of the 'pleasure principle' that V endeavors to destroy. Disrupting the passive jouissance of the populace, immobilized by the idiotic entertainments to which it has become accustomed, V attempts to reveal the hidden impulses indulged by state power and hidden beneath the semblance of homeostasis and take vengeance on its agents.

The fact that law is little more than the cover for the indulgence of sexual impulses is illustrated through the story of the pedophiliac priest. Although this priest represents the state, presenting its propaganda as if supported in biblical teaching, his nightly activities of seducing very young girls is not only the common knowledge of the state but is completely tolerated. The law serves as a cover for these 'impulses' rather than a protection against them.


V conspires to extend his vendetta to the priest -- who had been present at the Larkhill facility -- by sending Evey to him dressed as a little girl so that she may open the window and gain V entrance into the apartments. In order to do so, Evey must make up an excuse about her finding open windows 'exciting'. The priest then begins to explain the necessity of not ignoring 'primal impulses': 'A wild and primal impulse. We should never ignore our primal impulses...' (50.5)

What makes this sequence particularly interesting is how his speech is layered over images of V approaching the church. Over illustrations of V crossing the courtyard on his way to kill the priest his future victim speaks the following lines: 'Don't you agree? Those rich and mysterious forces that stir in the shadowy depths of the human soul... Those inexpressible longings... When their moment is come they shall not be denied' (50.6-8). The parallel between words and pictures in this sequence suggests a connection between the priest and V in terms of such 'impulses'.

Perhaps then it would not be going too far to suggest that the priest realizes his own drive compulsions, which are disavowed by the state, the law and society according to the pleasure principle, as to acknowledge them would bring displeasure; V represents the return of the drives in the sense of negating that principle. He is the repetition of the excess that the law denies in itself, its 'demonic' underside.