VLVL 3 Zoyd and Hector

[jbor]

on 9/8/03 12:27 PM, Don Corathers at gumbo at fuse.net wrote:

>> but Hector is sincere in looking out for Zoyd's best
>> interests too.
> 
> Please. Hector is a Tube-addled psychopath trying to run a con.

And that would make him different from Zoyd how, precisely?

> He has made
> a career out of using marginally legal means--or in Zoyd's case,
> spectacularly felonious means--to squeeze helpless and largely harmless
> dopers into ratting on their friends or otherwise bending to his will.
> Recently he has become a film producer, the only job title I can think of
> that's less honorable than the one he had before. Hector is incapable of
> sincerety.

Actually, in the scene in Chapter 3 Hector is the one giving Zoyd all the
information, not vice versa. And he isn't asking Zoyd to do *anything* at
all; he wants to give him money for doing *nothing*.

>> Hector's point is that dobbing in the occasional dope dealer for cash isn't
>> nearly as big a sell-out as Zoyd makes it out to be, especially in
>> comparison with the other deals and compromises Zoyd has made along the
> way.
>> Zoyd's priorities and sense of morality are askew; he doesn't realise or
>> want to accept what he has turned into.
> 
> You're not agreeing with Hector that he *has* a point, are you?

Sure. As I wrote yesterday:

Right up front we get Hector's baseline judgement of Zoyd's character:

    Not that he credited Zoyd with anything like moral integrity
    in resisting him. He put it down instead to stubbornness, plus
    drug abuse, ongoing mental problems, and a timidity, maybe only
    a lack of imagination, about the scale of any deal in life, drug
    or nondrug. (22.5)

It's not necessarily a reliable assessment, but it's not totally
discountable either, and that last observation seems especially insightful.

> Zoyd made
> one deal with the government, under extreme duress. That doesn't make him a
> moral defective. 

Not sure who you're arguing against here.

> To the contrary, I take his longterm rejection of Hector's
> blandishments as evidence that his moral compass is working fine.

Trouble with this is, Zoyd hasn't "rejected" Hector at all. He keeps comin'
back, has kept up his part of the "romance" (22.1) every single time. He
just hasn't taken any money from Hector -- which is Zoyd's idea of
"virginity" (12.32) in respect to their relationship, even if it's only
"technically" true (12.26, 12.32).

>> The
>> question begged here is whether there are any real distinctions between the
>> way the Mafia operates and the way Zoyd and his cronies operated.
> 
> I'm completely baffled by this assertion. The distinctions are vivid and
> polar.

The connection is made in the text (27.1-22), the Wayvone wedding is a Mafia
gig, and Zoyd's in thick with Ralph Jnr (10-11). Drug dealing and snitches;
the Witness Protection program; ODs, carpark arguments leading to murder,
contracts, and life "on the run" (29.4-7).

The other connection made in the chapter is between Hector and the DEA, and
Dennis Deeply and NEVER.

best