Thinking about the scene where Legato eats a steak with no hands, like a dog. The unignorable, harrowing physicality of it. It's framed as dirty, unhinged, grotesque behavior; Legato's body becomes an object of fear and disgust. When the truth â known to both the reader and the other characters in the scene â is that he is severely disabled and nobody is helping him to eat.
Look at his facial expressions. Does it look like he's doing this because he wants to or enjoys it? Yes, Legato is an objectively monstrous character. An (intentionally) threatening presence, perpetuating acts of sadistic violence, torture and gore. But it is equally true that everything wrong with him can be traced back to the relentless abuse and dehumanisation he's faced his entire life. For as long as Legato can remember, his body has been commodified, punished for said commodification, and left at the mercy of others. And there has been no mercy, really. Knives would have killed Legato as he was actively being sexually assaulted if Legato didn't forcefully stop him and beg to become his servant instead. Nobody has ever been decent to Legato, let alone kind, without Legato serving them in return. Nobody helps him to eat. This basic human necessity is denied him like all control over his body was denied him. Both these deprivations are exploited for gross-out horror imagery. Just such an elegant synecdoche for Legato's entire character.
