#vm book

It's there when Veronica asks him, "How can you call it a waste? We help people."

And it's there when Keith, as part of his response, tells her, "...that's just an excuse for giving up on a chance at something better. It's childish, Veronica."

And it stings, because it's so real. It's this bit of Veronica that she has let dominate her thought process for the past decade and before - the fact that "the biz" makes her feel alive and like she's doing good, and that her father constantly pushes her toward this nebulous something better.

And it is Keith who is being childish, who refuses to acknowledge that his definition of something better and Veronica's are not the same. How brave it is for Veronica to come home and stare failure in the face, like she is at the beginning of the novel, and how easy it would be for her to turn tail and go back to New York, to take the bar exam and interview for just another corporate job that would pay her well into the six figures.

Getting in the mud and doing the dirty work is where she feels fulfilled and happy and alive, and Keith's refusal to acknowledge that cuts her and cuts her deeply.

Which brings me to this:

One of the most interesting things about the novel, for me, was the parallels, the mirroring, between Tanner and Aurora Scott and Keith and Veronica Mars.

"I spent the first seven years of my life as a prop in his small-time games.. ..And then, just because prison scared the shit out of him, he decided to go straight. He just decided it for the both of us, like I didn't get a vote."

Tanner and Aurora were partners in crime, in the same sort of way Veronica and Keith were partners in not crime. Seven year old Aurora doing what was necessary to pull off the cons; Veronica taking taking "all the cases [Keith] hadn't had time for". They were both trained by these guys to see the world in a certain way, to respond to the world in a certain way - Aurora with the mindset that everyone was a rube, and Veronica with the understanding that everyone deserved justice. And both of their fathers seemed to ignore that fact. The sentiment in:

If she told him she'd be out late on a stakeout, or brought up something funny or strange she'd noticed in a case, he became quiet and looked away quickly. Like she'd just embarrassed herself and he was embarrassed too.

is strangely mirrored in:

"...it was nine years of 'Straighten up and fly right, Aurora,' nine years of, 'You're going down a dangerous path, little missy.'"

It isn't that Keith is a bad parent, because I think he is one of the best parents. It's not that I think Tanner is anywhere close to Keith, in terms of being a dad. He is much closer to being Lianne, and Veronica's imaginings of what life was like for the Scotts when Tanner and Aurora were still a twosome was like a combination of Keith and Veronica's relationship and Veronica and Lianne's relationship, and how the combination of those bits being "all the other had" and also being ignored when Tanner was "drunk between jobs" is the toxic combination that leads to Aurora being who she is.

Because Tanner didn't give Aurora the love she needed or the affection she deserved, and who seemingly became sanctimonious about the need to stay clean and stay straight without actually helping to guide his daughter on that path. Who brought in a new family without recognizing - or caring - how doing so would disrupt Aurora's life. How just ignoring what came before and how his parenting for Aurora's formative years informed who she was in her teenage years would harm her. How Aurora would see Tanner's desire for her to be straight as confining and hypocritical.

Which is entirely different from how Veronica sees Keith, and Keith's desire for Veronica to remain on a straighter and narrower path than he himself fell into. 

And I think that part is very much a necessity when it comes to understanding Keith's reaction to Veronica's choice. Keith fell into PI work after he was run out of office and turned into a town pariah. The ideals Veronica holds about PIdom are ideals Keith reflects through his work in the PI business - the ideals he expresses through being a private investigator are not ones he feels toward private investigating. He still believes in structure, in government, in a sheriff's department run by someone competent and just. Keith, ideally, would be working within a system. He wants to work within the system. It is something he has sacrificed twice. But for Veronica, the system is something that has continually let her down - the Lilly Kane case, her rape, Weevil Navarro's arrests for crimes he did not commit, Logan Echolls being the guy "America thinks is guilty, and that's good enough" for the sheriff. She believes in her dad, and she wants there to be an uncorrupt sheriff, but she doesn't believe in that as the end all be all. She believes in good people doing good works. She believes in Mac, and in herself. After all, "Let the idiots vote for [Lamb]. You get the government you deserve, right?"

Keith didn't want Veronica to follow his path because he wanted better for her in specific ways, because he didn't want to fear for her life, and because he understands the parts of Veronica that are more inclined to do the dangerous things he wouldn't do. Because he understands that she doesn't trust systems, and how a consequence of that is how she cannot let a quarry go. That her heart gets pulled into a lot these cases more than his does, and that puts her in danger in more intense ways because to come out empty handed and not the victor is something that wounds her on an emotional as well as intellectual level. That she is incapable of not becoming involved with her clients. That this work is hard and it can break a person who is a marshmallow. That this work is dirty and not respected, and all he wants for Veronica is to get the respect she deserves. But he is also someone who recognizes the fact that Veronica will not give up. And the part of Keith that makes him entirely different from Tanner is that his partnership with Veronica, even in her teen years, was built on a respect for Veronica's own skills - and a necessity in keeping a roof over their heads and food on their table. It wasn't to enrich his own life, but to keep his daughter warm and clothed and fed. And by the end of The Thousand Dollar Tan Line, he verbally affirms their partnership.