Violence ON Demand

[Michael Perez]

Jody had a few questions which I will attempt to address:

"- Is Fina The Goddess? If so, what is her relationship to the gators?
Are they her sacred creatures? Does she also embody a deathwish? What
is the relationship between "the code" (and how deep it runs) and "the
contract" and its potential reversibility? Should I go ask Nim Chimsky?
Watson & Crick? Richard Dawkins?"

By all indications, we are led to believe she represents an archetype
that manifests itself as a "spiritual mother" and as a virgin
represents a particularly special specimen of this archetype.  Grave's
"White Goddess" or Jung's "mother" archetype take your pick, though
there are many other candidates for similar status, like Rachel, who
provide a extraordinary motherly influence on those around her.  These
manifestations, of course, are contrasted with Stencil's assembled
image of V.  She inhabits the Street above, the cocos are from below
the street, I don't think she has anything to do with them.  As far as
the code is concerned, it's not clear what the "code" is exactly.  The
code is apparently unspoken but understood within their world, a
contract would be articulated as an agreement.

"-If Fina is The Goddess, is she really a Virgin prior to the gang
bang, or just in Benny's mind? Does she, in fact (historically, if you
wish), get banged by the gang, or is it all staged to make Benny think
so?"

The narration that seems to be focused through Benny reports that Fina
SAYS she's a virgin.  At the time she waits in Benny's tub/bed, he
doesn't care whether she is or not, but worries later about who might
have the privilege of being her first.  It isn't clear what happens
exactly, but from Benny's prediction and the chalk signs that led to
the room where she is found, what has happened was a gang bang from the
Playboys, her spiritual children.  It's akin to the apostles doing the
same to Mary, the alleged mother of Jesus.  Not a good omen.  Another
apocalypse within a closed system.  The peace is over and the locusts
overrun the Street.

"-Are The Playboys actually capable of banging anyone, or is this just
some sort of linguistic mating, the p-boys being merely a token gang?"

It seems they are.  However, she may have, as Benny contemplated, asked
for it, perhaps literally.  Benny felt she was ripe for some extreme
end to her virginity.

"-Should Benny feel guilty for not accepting job-aid from Fina,
rejecting her physically, and, presumably, pushing her into mating with
her 'children,' The Playboys? Does he feel guilty? Has it been Benny's
job all along to finish off Fina? Was that his destiny, to end the
reign of The Life Goddess and issue in the new masculine hierarchy?"

Benny seems to feel he was not up to any of the tasks mentioned. 
There's a hint of typical Benny indifference.  He was not willing to
accept the responsibility for being the first and whatever personal
plagues that might follow.  He doesn't seem to think too much about
destiny, but thinks he knows when it's time to leave.

"-If the myth of The Goddess is not a *genuine* myth, i.e., something
spun out of anthropological wishfulfilment and the 20-20 hindsight of
the nineteenth century, well after the end of irreversible Dreamtime,
does that make it a myth of a myth? a 'second order' myth in an attempt
to 'correct' certain psycho-social-cultural deficits perceived by a
self-aware, and rapidly becoming, self-defining, elite? If so, is
reading V. a third order embodiment?"

The myth within the myth, the story within the story, the world within
a world, all these subsumed images seem to be a recurrent motif in this
book.  I don't know about a correction, but I think it contrasts with
Stencil's idea of a master cabal, though I agree that many of them are
self-defined.  The closed systems are illusory and the myths very
localized.

"-Does Fina live, or is she just the image of a boxtop?"

I don't know what this could mean: "image of a boxtop?"  If you mean
was she real or imaginary, I suppose she was real.  However, if you
mean is she alive or did Angel kill her, I haven't decided that.  It
was the end of that particular world that Benny inhabited for a period
of time.

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