Main Quote
[When Zits/Hank rests in the hospital talking to his wife]
"I suspect she sees Hank as her protector, as her children’s protector.
Hank makes the world safe. He is good and loving husband and father. He is one hundred different versions of himself, and only one of them is a killer." (13)
If one version (the killer version) of Hank is destroyed, then his entire self will be destroyed. Hank would not be who is is.
(All the versions make up Hank as a whole. If the killer version of Hank is gone, then he will be unable to take care of his family and therefore the family protector version of Hank will also be gone.)
(Hank also has a good version of himself. Everybody has good and bad versions in themselves. They are not completely (100%) one or the other.)
Photo Collage
The different versions of Hank (the FBI):
The protector, killer, compassionate, and helpful versions of Hank are all part of him. Despite the versions being completely different from one another, they are all connected and intertwined with each other. If one version of Hank was missing, the other versions would be affected. Also, as a result, Hank will not be the same person he is now.
"The Flight of Anger" Relations
Most of the time, when people look at others for the first time, they tend to judge them and put them into one certain, stereotypical group. In order to truly understand others’ virtues and who they really are, people need to take time to get to know each other. They will eventually find that every person is actually very complex and cannot be characterized with only one trait. People should not judge others by just one look or encounter.
Hank and Art have been best friends for 12 years. It took more than a decade for Art and Hank to become this close and comfortable with each other, and for Art to share his true thoughts on the morality of their job. Before their talk in the hospital, Zits (in Hank’s body) thought that both Hank and Art were pure killers. When Zits watched Elk and Art torture Junior, the Indian boy, he “realized [Elk and Art] aren’t freedom fighters or anything like that…[Art] isn’t a lawman. He doesn’t protect our country. He just likes to hurt people.” (8-9) But when Art talked to him in the hospital, he realized that Art does NOT like to hurt people--that their is much more to him than just a killer. He saw Art’s compassion and realized that Art actually knows that killing is inhumane.
“And some of the things we have to do, they hurt us, you know? They hurt us inside.”
Art’s eyes fill with tears. But he doesn’t even notice he’s crying. He just keeps talking.
“In order to fight evil, sometimes we have to do evil things,” he says.
“I believe that what we did the other night was necessary,” he says. “Horrible and necessary.” (12)
In the hospital, Zits began to understand that people are more complex than they appear. People are not completely 100% one version or another.
Outside Sources & Connections
Explanation:
People do not only possess of one trait: peaceful, selfless, intelligent, honest, or brave. Everyone is a mix of all those traits. All those traits are necessary to make up an individual.
People are very complex. Without one trait, they will not be who they are. Nobody can be put into just one group that classifies their entire self--they belong to a whole bunch of different groups.
