What was Rorschach like before his life changing event?

Answer 1

I assume you're referring to Rorschach from Watchmen!

Before the Blair kidnapping incident, Rorschach was Walter Kovacs - that is to say, he thought of himself as Walter Kovacs rather than identifying with his 'hero' (if you can call it that) persona. He was much more 'human' before the incident in that he could form friendships and relate to other human beings much more easily, but he was still kind of a creep. He had always been extremely right-wing in political philosophy, borderline Nazi even, seeing the world with a black and white moral filter. Before the incident, though, he had more of a sense of personal identity instead of seeing himself as a vehicle of justice. He became even more uncompromising than he had been before. Rorschach post-Blair case thought that Walter Kovacs had been young, naiive, and too "soft on scum" because he "let them live".

Walter originally donned the mask of Rorschach because of an article he read about a woman who had been raped and left to die within easy hearing distance of most of her neighbors, and none of those neighbors had done anything - they had all just stood by. Some of them even watched. This was the final straw for him, piled on top of a life of traumatic experiences, and he could no longer stand to do nothing in the face of this type of injustice.

Walter Kovacs's mother was a prostitute, and he experienced trauma growing up that led to a complete aversion to/disgust for women. He was always extremely repressed sexually, disliking anything sexual, and was discomfited by his job working in the garment business (before he started being a costumed hero) because he had to work with women's clothing.

Perhaps the most immediately noticeable change in his behavior after the Blair case would be the fact that he apparently lost almost all his personal pronouns in the fire. More often than not, he will eliminate words like "I", "we", and "you" from his sentences.

If you want to learn more about Rorschach, you should look into the Watchmen fandom! There are a lot of people there who have thought about this more than me, and who have written very in-depth and well-written explorations of his character pre- and post-Blair case.