Like, he had a hard childhood, things got better when he was removed from his mother's custody, then he got a job, then he got a purpose.
I don't think him dressing up as Rorschach was dark at all, that was part of the recovery. He doesn't like the bad things around him, he's going to do something about it, because it can be done, and he made friends along the way.
Then the Roche thing shattered all the recovery he made from life under his mother. If he wasn't already fragile from his childhood, he might not have broke, but the cracks were already there. He got away from his mother, and he promised the parents of Blair Roche that he'll get her away from her kidnapper, but then he couldn't, and Roche just, disappeared, the way he might have feared when he was little, the way weak Walter still could.
...and in the book, what Ozy did was the final nail.
I've always read Roche thing as someone that sends him back to drinking
I don't think him dressing up as Rorschach was dark at all, that was part of the recovery. He doesn't like the bad things around him, he's going to do something about it, because it can be done, and he made friends along the way.
Then the Roche thing shattered all the recovery he made from life under his mother. If he wasn't already fragile from his childhood, he might not have broke, but the cracks were already there. He got away from his mother, and he promised the parents of Blair Roche that he'll get her away from her kidnapper, but then he couldn't, and Roche just, disappeared, the way he might have feared when he was little, the way weak Walter still could.
...and in the book, what Ozy did was the final nail.