VLVL2(3): Hector's fall

[Tim Strzechowski]

>
> So, backtracking just a bit, Hector asks, rhetorically I think, 'Who was
> saved?' No-one, seems to be the implicit response, or that Zoyd was so
busy
> looking out for number one so how would he even know. But Zoyd turns it
> around and says that Hector was "saved". And I guess that inspires
Hector's
> retort, and then his coming close to feeling sorry for himself and his
> conscious affectation of having "fallen", bringing up the point that over
> the years he had willingly betrayed his federal commission.
>
> So, is the point here that Hector is "saved" (as well as "fallen") by
virtue
> of his show of "defiance" against the DEA and the fact that he has spent
> most of his time and energy working on scams which are outside the system?
>

Good stuff, Rob.  Let's look at this for a bit.

In the "Who was saved?" passage, Hector is establishing a contrast between
"you sixties people" who he describes as "children" waiting for that "magic
payoff" through revolution and Iron Butterfly, and what Zoyd terms the
"fascist regimes" of which Hector is a part.  Hector's suggestion in this
passage is that, for all the freedom and love and equality and spirituality
that was promoted by the sixties counterculture, it ultimately came to
naught.

Returning to the question of Tragedy, one who is a tragic figure in the
classical sense must possess an unswerving belief that his perception of
reality is correct despite all the signals or prophecies or whatever.  In
essence, Tragic Man feels he is beyond the hands of fate, and will
nonetheless succeed in his actions.  Based on the aforementioned section
(28) and the "feeling sorry for himself" passage (29), Hector's conviction
that how he has led his life may have led to numerous detriments (e.g.
diminished skills, lost professionalism, self-hatred, etc.), but has in fact
*not* lessened his belief that what he is doing is correct (morally?), adds
to his tragic circumstances and the sense that he is "fallen" as well as
"saved."

In fact, when we think about it, don't *most* tragic figures think of
themselves as both, in a way?  Lear says that he's "more sinn'd against than
sinning."  Don't most tragic figures view themselves as acknowledging their
sinfulness, but somehow above retribution and worthy of being "saved"?  Does
this combination of viewing himself as "fallen," yet permitting Zoyd to call
him "saved," push him closer to the realm of tragic?