‘Watchmen’: Could Adrian Veidt’s Ozymandias Be Lady Trieu’s Father?
Opinion
[Warning: This article contains MAJOR spoilers for Season 1 of Watchmen]
HBO’s Watchmen has offered plenty of mystery and intrigue in its first season, but as it nears the finish line, we can’t help but wonder about the remaining mysteries.
Lady Trieu (Hong Chau) has been one of the leading mysterious figures of the story as her background remains shrouded in uncertainty. One particular detail that has been revealed is that her “daughter” Bian (Jolie Hoang-Rappaport) is actually a clone of her mother.
As she told Angela (Regina King) about being on the brink of her greatest accomplishment she asks, “Is it wrong to want my parents here?”
“Your dad’s here, too?” Angela questions right back before Trieu simply replies, “He will be.” The fact that Trieu’s father hadn’t been mentioned until now makes us wonder — who exactly is he? We know her mother was from Vietnam and that’s essentially all we have.
The question leads us to one possible conclusion — could her father be Adrian Veidt (aka Ozymandias) [Jeremy Irons], the “smartest man in the world” and “costumed adventurer”? Theories about Trieu’s father being The Comedian have been popping up, considering the comic character impregnated a woman in Vietnam before shooting her, but that seems a little too obvious.
(Credit: HBO)
Perhaps, Ozymandias’ ties to Vietnamese refugees is better place to start. The titan-like figure employed them around his Karnak estate, which is eerily similar to Trieu’s facilities in Oklahoma. Refugees are also plagued with memories of wartime horror, which could be an explanation for the bad dreams Bian’s been experiencing as Trieu reintroduces memories to her mother’s clone.
If Ozymandias fathered a child with one of the refugees, it would explain where her obsession with the disappeared man may stem from. Like Veidt, Trieu is highly intelligent, she runs pharma brands, among other enterprises — she’s a woman of many trades not dissimilar to Ozymandias, who ran multiple projects under his company.
One of Trieu’s drugs — the same one consumed in full by Angela — was Nostalgia and if the name sounded familiar to those who have read the original graphic novel by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons, that’s for good reason. Ozymandias’ company also produced a perfume line by the name of Nostalgia. Whether it’s in homage to her role model or not, there’s a lot of overlap with Trieu’s endeavors and Ozymandias’ feats.
Trieu’s obsession with Veidt is repeatedly revisited. When she’s first mentioned by Petey (Dustin Ingram) during a conversation with Laurie (Jean Smart), he tells her Trieu dedicated a recitation of the poem “Ozymandias” to Veidt during the Millennium Clock groundbreaking. We also know she purchased his company after he went “missing.”
(Credit: HBO)
Another peculiar detail is the golden statue in Trieu’s vivarium, the one that spurred Laurie to ask why Trieu had them make Ozymandias “look so old.”
“That’s because he is old. In my culture, elders are revered,” the peculiar woman tells Laurie in response. How could Trieu respond with such certainty about a missing man unless she knows something more?
Then we also have the fact that Trieu repeatedly told Angela in the seventh episode, “An Almost Religious Awe,” that she’s working to save humanity. “I’m sorry, Angela,” she says. “I know you asked me not to say it, but I am saving f**king humanity.” For those who recall the comic, Veidt used similar words to explain the purpose behind his squid attack on New York City, which was depicted in Episode 5 of the series, “Little Fear of Lightning.”
(Credit: HBO)
And finally, when we first meet Trieu, something lands from space onto her new farmland. As it appears that Veidt is experiencing time differently than the other characters — he went through a 365-day trial in one episode — there’s a chance that it could be him… right?
No matter what, there are plenty of hints and clues that suggest a deeper connection between Trieu and Ozymandias, one that could very well be blood kinship. There are too many similarities between them for there not to be some relation, and for viewers who hadn’t noticed these clues, a parental reveal would make for the proper shock and awe associated with creator Damon Lindelof‘s titles.
(Credit: HBO)
Watchmen, Sundays, 9/8c, HBO
