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The Watchmaker: Difference between revisions
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{{quote|''"The release of atom power has changed everything except our way of thinking...the solution to this problem lies in the heart of mankind. If only I had known, I should have become a watchmaker."''|'''[[Albert Einstein]]'''}}
{{quote|''"If you can understand the complexities of a watch you can understand anything. Everything. Cause, effect, action, reaction. How to change the future."''|'''[[Heroes (TV series)|Sylar]]'''}}
Perhaps because of the analogy used by Paley and others comparing God to a watchmaker, characters who fix watches and clocks for a living are often portrayed as somewhat special or even having a supernatural degree of knowledge about the universe. Perhaps because of the somewhat detached nature the metaphor implies, such characters are rarely unambiguously good.
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== Anime and Manga ==
* Miki from ''[[Revolutionary Girl Utena]]'' carries a pocket watch-like stopwatch and, during student council meetings, spontaneously clicks it. He seems to click it a lot before speaking himself, taking control of the conversation, and he also clicks it to note important narrative points about to be delivered (such as the first time Nemura Hall is explained). During the last episodes, while the whole of the student council sits around idly waiting for the revolution to occur, Miki is seen just gazing at the watch as it spins.
* The [[Enigmatic Empowering Entity|Enigmatic Empowering Entities]] of ''[[
== [[Comic Books]] ==
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== [[Literature]] ==
* In [[
* The [[Discworld]] book ''Thief of Time'' has Jeremy Clockson, {{spoiler|a son of the [[Anthropomorphic Personification]] of Time}}. He was a foundling at the guild involved in clock-making and is a completely rational and utterly socially inept genius. For much of the book he aids the Auditors, who are devoted to making the world more orderly (generally in an [[Omnicidal Maniac]] way).
** Although he isn't a watchmaker himself, Lord Vetinari quite often uses a watch metaphor for the city of Ankh Morpork, and the metaphor is very apt- and puts Vetinari right in the centre as the watchmaker: by careful organizing and attention to detail, he has made a ridiculously complex city run smoothly and almost automatically- the parts of the city, like the gears in a watch- are buoyed around by the force of each other. And, fitting with the trope, he's next to omniscient and is most definitely NOT unambiguously good.
** Nanny Ogg kind of makes a roundabout reference to this trope in [[Discworld
* In John Morressy's short story ''Timekeeper'', the mysterious clockmaker who moves to town seems to have time-related powers, but mostly he uses them to have exactly the right clock ready at exactly the right time for every customer who comes into his shop.
== [[Live Action TV]] ==
* This is very explicit with Sylar of ''[[Heroes (TV series)|Heroes]]'', who starts out fixing watches and have the power of complete understanding of how things work. He starts out using this ability to acquire more powers by <s>eating</s> dissecting his victims' [[Brain Food|brains]]. He later starts using it to analyze the other characters and hand out [["The Reason You Suck" Speech|The Reason You Suck speeches]] to them, before finally using it to put together a scheme to achieve [[Take Over the World|Total World Domination]].
* The mysterious omnipotent time-traveller Bilis Manger in ''[[
== [[Video Games]] ==
* In ''[[Deus Ex: Human Revolution
== [[Western Animation]] ==
* ''[[
* [[Big Bad|Nox]] was originally a very mundane and amiable watchmaker, but by the time ''[[
== [[Real Life]] ==
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