Character Analysis
Squeaky
The boss of the local Enforcers security guards, Squeaky is "a small, stout black guy, a pint-sized weightlifter type" (15.8), sporting multiple communications devices as well as weapons. He brings Hiro along on the Raven chase, but only once Hiro agrees not to mess around with Raven (19.36). Turns out that Squeaky has a good reason for needing this confirmation: Dude knows that Raven carries a nuke with him. Squeaky seems to have a good head on his shoulders, and we hope it stays there.
Sushi K
A self-styled Japanese rapper, Sushi K comes to L.A. to play his music for the masses. He wears a "sunburst hairdo" that throws off "brilliant orange rays" when he plays shows (16.61). His lyrics leave something to be desired, though. Examples include "I like to rap about sweetened romance/My fond ambition is of your pants" (16.59), and "My hair is as big as a galaxy/Cause I attain greater technology" (16.56). Good luck, buddy.
T-Bone (Murphy)
The head of the local Crips, T-Bone is "a tall man in his late thirties, distinguished goatee, wearing a very nice charcoal suit. Hiro can see the diamonds in his tie pin flashing from a hundred feet away" (15.9). Turns out T-Bone is at the Vitaly Chernobyl concert to make a deal with Raven to get some Snow Crash, but when the deal goes south, T-Bone tries to hunt down Raven to extract revenge.
This, of course, is a terrible plan. Raven lures them into a hops field (limited visibility) near Chinatown, and proceeds to saw off bamboo stalks to use as spears to kill or seriously maim everyone involved. T-Bone's gun is useless once Raven amputates the gun-holding hand with one of his glass knives. Shortly after, Raven kills T-Bone, using his knife to slash "a long ellipse between T-Bone's thighs" (19.101), which, of course, opens a major vein so that he almost instantly bleeds to death. Not a fun way to go.
Roadkill
Y.T.'s boyfriend Roadkill doesn't get much screen time in this book, which is indicative of one of the problems with him: He's never there when Y.T. needs him. She tries calling him from the Clink, but he can't swing by and help her escape since he's on a high-priority delivery in another part of L.A. According to Y.T., "'Next date, he's really going to have to grovel'" (10.26).
Still, it seems like he's a sweet guy. When confronted with the bizarrely happy Falabalas, Y.T. notes that she "hasn't seen such childlike glee on anyone's face since the first time she let Roadkill take her clothes off" (23.12).
Unfortunately, Roadkill doesn't stand a chance next to Raven, in terms of either raw sex appeal or power. Roadkill gets dumped when Y.T. is languishing on the Raft and Raven swoops in and picks her up. We almost feel kind of badly for him—but then again, if he'd been more involved in Y.T.'s life, he might've known she'd been kidnapped by fanatics and needed help.
Brainwashed Raft Passengers
These people are packed into a van with Y.T. and her smiley abductors for a trip out to the Raft. Everyone seems pretty chipper about it, singing and playing wacky games, and they babble like the Falabalas, too. We never see these people as individuals, largely because Y.T. doesn't: "In the van, she could hear nothing but singing and chanting, see nothing but the jammed-together faces of her companions" (43.14). Yup, they're just one burbling mass to her.
On their way to catch up with the Raft, the people in the van are kept separate from anyone they might come into contact with. They only stop at large gas stations where no one will bother them, and they sleep in empty houses.
Since Y.T.'s also being subjected to the same treatment, none of this strikes her as that weird until they make it onto the Raft and she sees some of her fellow passengers: "From time to time, she actually recognizes one of the people who were in her van. But they don't seem to recognize her; they just look right through her. Glassy-eyed. Like they've been brain-washed" (43.32). Yep, brain-washed about sums it up. Any identities these people had before the van trip to the Raft seem to have been wiped clean.
Bruce Lee
We don't know if it's the real Bruce Lee, but if this pirate wants to call himself Bruce Lee, no one's going to argue with him. He's a "fortyish guy in a Kevlar vest, an ammo vest stretched over that, a diagonal bandolier, samurai sword—Hiro would love to take him on—nunchuks, and his colors, the patchwork of human scalps" (49.45). All his bravado doesn't protect him from an angry Mafia guy with a bigger gun, though.
Chuck Wrightson
The former president of the Temporary Republic of Kenai and Kodiak (TROKK) is a rumpled and terrified man. You would be, too, if Raven had shown up with a nuclear sub and overthrown your government. When Hiro goes to interview him, he "is wearing many layers of clothing that used to be different colors. Now they are the same color of his skin, which is khaki" (39.20). Seems like he's had a crummy time of things, since he's now homeless and one of the first things he says to Hiro is "'I need a f***ing drink'" (39.18).
The Clink Manager
An immigrant from Tadzhikistan, this is one shady dude. After locking up Y.T. in The Clink, he "glares at her, glares at her for rather a long time. The manager, clearly, is tempted" (10.40). Ew. Y.T.'s sass is too much for him, however, so he leaves her unmolested.
The Falabalas
Y.T. encounters these weirdos hanging out in their own encampment at Griffith Park:
A couple of dozen people are here. None of them have been taking care of themselves at all. They are all wearing the ragged remains of what used to be pretty decent clothing. Half a dozen of them are kneeling on the pavement with their hands clenched tightly together, mumbling to unseen entities. (23.10)
Nothing strange about that, right? Oh wait. Never mind.
The Feds
The employees of the United States of America are loyal and single-minded, and they embrace bureaucracy like it's a new religion. And they seem to lack basic fashion sense, at least from Y.T.'s perspective:
Every creepy guy in sunglasses and slippery hair you've ever seen, they're all here, with little fleshtone helices of wire trailing down from their ears. There's even some female Feds. They look even scarier than the guys. The things that a woman can do to her hair to make herself look professional—Jeezus! Why not just wear a motorcycle helmet? At least then you can take it off. (41.44)
Sunglasses usually complete the outfits. That, and a creepy anonymity: it's like they're all interchangeable parts. They all know this, and even stranger, they seem not to mind.
The Former Programmer
Y.T. meets this chick at the Falabala camp in Griffith Park: "a young woman with a shaved head, dressed in the dirty and haggard remains of a Chanel knockoff" (23.25). She seems friendly enough, but babbles a lot.
When Y.T. returns to the camp to try to get some intel, the woman is able to put together whole sentences for brief periods of time, such as "'I was a systems programmer for 3verse Systems in Mountain View, California'" (34.24). But then she reverts to toddler-level sentences when explaining that her system crashed, she got sick and went to the hospital, she went to the Raft where they sucked her blood out, and then she ended up in Griffith Park. And yet she also says, "'I've never been so happy'" (34.48). Her story is so creepy, but also inspires pity.
Frank Frost
This guy is Rife's tech director, because clearly, Rife is too busy being a big mucky-muck to oversee all the details of his operation. Frost is "about fifty, sort of gaunt, big pores, wire-rimmed bifocals, carrying a laptop" (60.40). He seems largely bored with the proceedings of the chopper, despite the fact that the Raft is under attack and Y.T. is, quite obviously, there against her will.
Gino
One of Uncle Enzo's Mafia goons. He takes the delivery from Y.T. the first time she meets Uncle Enzo.
Greg Ritchie
This man is the President of the United States of America. Unfortunately, the U.S. has become smaller and less important, so no one recognizes him at first (probably all white-haired sixty-year-olds begin to look the same after a while anyway).
Gurov
This former KGB general—now available in religious fanatic flavor—was part of the plot to get Raven a nuclear missile. Because that's a good idea. He's in tight with Rife, too, which we know since he's being evacuated from his fancy-shmancy hotel to the Raft. When the Mafia catches him (to use as leverage to get Y.T. out), Raven is sent to get Gurov into a sub. So that's how we know Gurov is Hot Stuff, even though we don't see much of him in action.
High Priest
This is Y.T.'s nickname for the head honcho of the Falabala encampment in Griffith Park. Compared to the rest of the cultists, he looks like a healthy and normal crazy person: "He's wearing a formerly white lab coat, bearing the logo of some company in the Bay Area" (23.13).
He insists that Y.T. hang out and learn about their peace-loving religion, which she, exhibiting good sense, does not do. When Y.T. returns for interrogate a former programmer, the High Priest continues to be all friendly and stuff—until Y.T. sees that his buddy is about to inject her with human blood, so she knocks them both out with Liquid Knuckles, and then makes a run for it.
The Hiring Hacker
When Hiro sets foot in the Metaverse, he's besieged by ads, but also this employment offer from a hacker he knows from back in the day: "He is a classic bearded, pale, skinny hacker, trying to beef himself up by wearing a bulky silk windbreaker blazoned with the logo of one of the big Metaverse amusement parks" (15.4). But slaving away in a software factory isn't Hiro's idea of a good job, so he ignores the dude's hiring pitch.
The Jeeks
Jeek is short for Tadzhikistan, meaning an immigrant from there. When Y.T. escapes from The Clink, she makes it into a parking lot that is full of jeeks. Seeing as the prison manager was a jeek too, this does not bode well: "Every jeek in Southern Cal is here, it seems, driving their giant, wrecked taxicabs with alien livestock in the back seat […] They have set up a giant eight-tubed hookah on the trunk of one of the cabs and are slurping up great mountain-man lungfuls of choking smoke" (10.50). Doesn't seem quite like Y.T.'s scene.
Enraged at Y.T.'s jail break—plus the fact that she yanks one of their taxis—they chase Y.T. and Hiro into a Mr. Lee's Hong Kong franchise. This does not go well for them, since they're bringing in guns and guns are illegal inside its borders. The Rat Things disarm the jeeks and they high-tail it out of there, leaving a grenade as a parting gift. Luckily for Y.T. and Hiro, though, a Rat Thing takes care of that, too. Clearly it wasn't a good day for jeeks to try to maul people.
The Japanese Businessman
This guy is "a neo-traditional, wearing a dark kimono. And, like Hiro, he's wearing two swords—the long katana on his left hip and the one-handed wakizashi stuck diagonally in his waistband" (9.87). As he sees Hiro (and Hiro's antique Japanese weapons), he freezes, "Except for the corners of his mouth, which are curling downward" (9.87). This guy is really good at being disapproving.
When he and Hiro finally talk, he is as rude to Hiro as the super-polite Japanese way of interacting allows him to be. By inquiring about where Hiro got his swords, he conveys his disdainful subtext, saying, "What do you use these swords for, boy, slicing watermelon?" (11.14). Finally he challenges Hiro to a swordfight, though, and Hiro, of course, kicks his butt. The dude deserves it.
The Kouriers
Y.T. isn't the only Kourier we see in action. Her comrades share her anti-authoritarian attitude and her surfing skills. When Rife is taking Y.T. to LAX as a hostage, Y.T. manages to flag down a Kourier and shout that she needs help. The Kourier notices that "those dudes inside of the chopper were harshing that chick major" (65.26), so he calls in a Code.
A Code is a signal that gets sent to every active Kourier. This means that over a hundred Kouriers came to Y.T.'s rescue, pooning Rife's chopper so that it dips low enough to the ground for Y.T. to jump out safely (more or less). Pretty groovy.
Ky
This is Ng's security guy who accompanies Uncle Enzo to LAX in order to try to stop Rife from making his evil villain get-away. He's got a pretty awesome van with all kinds of surveillance equipment; unfortunately, it doesn't detect Raven coming in with his glass knives.
The Lieutenant
He's in the Mafia, so he's not really a lieutenant, but that's how Uncle Enzo thinks of him. Uncle Enzo characterizes him as "a blazer person, adept at running the small-time bureaucracy of a Nova Sicilia franculate, but lacking in the kind of flexibility that, for example, Y.T. has" (69.9). No wonder Raven offs him so easily.
Livio
One of the Mafia goons who's on the Kowloon to help entrap Gurov and the other Russians. We don't think Livio makes it off the boat when Raven blows it to shreds.
Major Clem
Juanita hires this guy to bring Hiro to see Da5id in the hospital. He is "A pale-faced white man with a very high forehead-cum-bald […] looking a lot more athletic than his face and general demeanor would lead you to expect" (24.13). Seems to have his act together.
Marietta (Y.T.'s Mom's Supervisor)
We don't know much about Marietta, but we can only assume that she's about as tightly wound as the rest of the Feds since she's advanced so high in their hierarchy. We're told: "She has connections. Marietta knows people who know people" (37.2). She is probably just as boring as the rest of them, too.
Marla and Bonnie
These two ladies are with Y.T. when she's kidnapped and brought to the Raft. At first they seem kind of sweet and concerned for her—there're "Lots of hugs, squeezes, hand-holding, and tousled hair" (43.7)—and it's nice at first, until Y.T. realizes that they've brain-washed her into a false sense of security, which isn't so nice after all. We have to wonder whether these ladies haven't also been brain-washed themselves, too, or at least dosed with enough Snow Crash to make them mindlessly follow orders.
The Proconsul of Mr. Lee's Greater Hong Kong at Port Sherman
This guy is extremely rude to Hiro until he finds out that Hiro is bound for the Raft. When Hiro remarks on the lack of polite service that is normally found at a Mr. Lee's franchise, the proconsul says, "'I can always go out and tell people […] that a n***** with swords is out raping Chinese refugees'" (44.39). Blunt, to the point, and super racist. We get it.
The Raven-Chasing Crip
After Raven sells head Crip T-Bone some Snow Crash, which self-destructs once T-Bone leaves the suitcase out in a car, all the Crips go after Raven. In the words of this particular Crip who'd been chasing Raven, and got his neck broken for his trouble: "'He ripped us off. Nobody does that and lives'" (19.115). Clearly, the Crips didn't know who they were messing with.
Racist White Dude
On his road trip to the Oregon, Hiro encounters "a big porky white man with wavy, slicked-back red hair and a beard" (40.1); this flannel-wearing hick also has "Mood Swings" and "Racially Insensitive" tattooed on his forehead. He and his buddies decide that it would be fun to briefly step outside of New South Africa because in an apartheid franchise, '"There's no n*****s, g***s, or kikes there to beat the s*** out of'" (40.17). Ugh.
Because he so thoughtfully announces his intentions to Hiro, Hiro feels justified in decapitating the dude in order to prevent bodily harm to himself. Seems about right, considering what racist white dude and his friends would probably have done to Hiro.
The Receptionist at Reverend Wayne's Pearly Gates
When Y.T. makes a delivery, she has to wait while the receptionist helps another customer. The receptionist is "a pudgy high school babe, dishwater blonde hair that has been worked over pretty good with a curling iron, blue metal-flake eyeshadow, an even coat of red makeup covering her broad-gelatinous cheeks, a flimsy sort of choir robe thrown over her T-shirt" (25.14). This pitiful picture only grows worse when she pleads with the Reverend for a hit of the Snow Crash Y.T. has just delivered.
Reverend Dale T. Thorpe
Maybe this dude looks ministerial—"His hair is black and well greased, with individual strands of gray, and he wears wire-rimmed bifocals with a subtle brownish tint" (25.32) as well as a clerical outfit—but his behavior is anything but. He snatches the delivery of Snow Crash from Y.T. without signing for it (rude) and proceeds to get high. Weirdly, when he gets close enough to Y.T., she can smell "Old Spice, plus a strong whiff of vomit on his breath. But it's not boozy vomit" (25.33), which is basically the grossest description of someone ever.
We're going to go out on a limb and say we wouldn't trust this guy to utter a proper "Bless you" after someone sneezes.
The Russian Raft Ladies
When Y.T. gets stuck on the Raft, she encounters "big stout Russian chicks—stomping, slab-faced babushkas" (43.29). They give Y.T. a hard time for not being as adept at gutting fish as they are, until finally they just stick her in the cafeteria to ladle out food, because seriously, who could mess that up? Well, Y.T. does, by getting Raven's attention.
When Raven hauls Y.T. over the lunch counter to take her on a date, "the head babushka bitch" (47.24) comes after her, yelling in Russian. But she must have a good deal of common sense, since once she sees that it's Raven, "she averts her eyes, turns away, and goes to replace Y.T. at vat position number nine" (47.24). Good thinking, lady.
Sasha the Helicopter Pilot
Most likely Russian—he knows his way around a bulletproof Soviet helicopter pretty well—this guy is calm in the face of adversity. Rife yells at him, and Y.T. escapes and then ruins the helicopter with a harpoon cable jammed in the blades. He reacts by "flipping switches frantically, pulling levers, his mouth making a long string of Russian curses" (67.31), which seems reasonably close to keeping one's cool given the circumstances.
Scott Lagerquist
This employee of Mark Norman's 24/7 Motorcycle Mall is taken in by Hiro's con to waltz off with a top-of-the-line bike. We wonder what's going to happen when his boss gets back from vacation.
The Skinny Drug Dealer
When Y.T. goes on a mission to obtain a sample of Snow Crash, she meets "a tall rangy dude in his forties, much too skinny to be forty years old" (32.6), and when Y.T. throws the sample up for Ng's helicopter to snag, the skinny dude calls Y.T. a "f***ing bitch" (32.29). He was not a nice dude at all, so it's not big deal when Ng's Rat Things kill him.
Spanish-Speaking Supplicant
When Y.T. is delivering Snow Crash to a Reverend Wayne's Pearly Gates, she observes a "stocky Spanish-speaking woman in an orange dress" (25.22), who pays the receptionist and is then admitted to the church's interior. As Y.T. watches before the door closes, "The worshipper is not half a dozen steps into the place before she thuds down on her knees in the middle of the aisle and begins to speak in tongues" (25.26). This church gets an A+ for PR and outreach.
Swimmers from the Raft
When Hiro's boat is approaching the Raft, the citizens of the Raft naturally want to defend their territory. While gunmen fire on the boat, swimmers try to clamber on board and kill its inhabitants. Eliot kills one of them, and "He's naked except for a thick coating of black grease and a belt with a gun and a knife in it" (51.41). We've got to think these guys are pretty desperate if they're swimming naked in the Pacific while trying to kill people.
Tony Michaels
This guy, "a bulky African-American with a gun" (60.40), is Rife's security chief. He is also not a nice man. When Y.T. tries to escape Rife's helicopter, Tony grabs her by the collar and reels her back inside, then he "shoves her down on her belly and puts one knee in the small of her back to hold her there" (60.69). Nothing like pinning an underage girl to the floor of a helicopter, eh?
Transubstanciacion (Tranny)
This Filipino Raft kid is Hiro's guide through the seedier parts of the Raft. When he takes Hiro to his home, "Tranny gets the full Prodigal Son welcoming: crying, hysterical fat ladies, a swarm of little kids piling out of their hammocks […] Older men beaming, showing great gaps and black splotches in their smiles, watching and nodding and diving in to give him the occasional hug" (53.41). Seeing Tranny reunited with his family really helps to humanize the Raft-dwellers.
The Two MetaCops
These dudes are waiting to arrest Y.T. as she nears the exit of White Columns after dropping off Hiro's doomed pizza. They don't even play Good Cop/Bad Copy with Y.T.—they're both just giant jerks. One speaks official legalese and the other translates, which looks something like: Cop 1: "'A treaty between The Mews at Windsor Heights and White Columns authorizes us to place you in temporary custody until your status as an Investigatory Focus has been resolved'" (6.24). Compare that with Cop 2: "'Your ass is busted'" (6.25).
They're not exactly shining paradigms of lawfulness, either. Y.T. bribes them to take her to a Hoosegow (a more luxurious prison) rather than The Clink, and then, when the Hoosegow turns out to be full up, they don't refund her bribe. The second cop even suggests: "'Better take her uniform—all that gear'" (6.85). We wouldn't trust these guys to safeguard our community for a second.
The Undisputed King of the Ozone Destroyers (Emilio)
This drug dealer is a "fat bad old guy" (32.16) who sells Y.T. some Snow Crash from an abandoned warehouse that is packed with gunmen. He is a jerk, telling Y.T. that they'll give her a discount for being so spunky if she turns around for them (so they can look at her butt). Needless to say, we don't feel too badly when Ng's Rat Things kill him and all his cronies after the sample of Snow Crash is obtained.
The Waiter on the Raft
Nobody wants to deliver bad news to Raven, but this guy gets stuck with just this job: "His eyes are big, his movements tentative. He's not coming to take an order; he's coming to deliver bad news" (50.28). Maybe Raven's in a decent mood because he's on a date with Y.T., because he doesn't vent his irritation at being called out on a mission on the waiter. Lucky guy.
The Waitress at the Kowloon
This "short Chinese waitress" (44.51) gets Hiro's attention at the pier in Port Sherman when he's trying to get on board the Kowloon, and she brings him up the gangplank. Right into the welcoming hands of the Mafia. We never find out what happens to her after Raven's sub blows up their boat.
The Wireheads
These guys are generally jerk-faces. The instruction Eliot gives Hiro and the lifeboat gang when it comes to these guys is: "'If you see Raft people with antennas coming out o their heads, try to kill them first, because they can talk to each other'" (51.9). So this is bad news.
Even creepier, Hiro finds out that when you blow half of one's brain out, he keeps talking and twitching. This is because the antennas are wired into their brains: "L. Bob Rife has figured out a way to make electrical contact with the part of the brain where Asherah lives" (53.20). Putting a wire in someone's head to bypass their ability to consciously control their brain seems a titch invasive if you ask us.
Regular old pain doesn't seem to register with these guys, either. When they come for Y.T. on the Raft, "She manages to give one of them a good stomp to the bridge of the nose, and both feels and hears the bone break, but the man doesn't react in any way, other than snapping his head back on impact" (60.15). More creepy points go to them.
It's not like the rest of the Raft citizens are all that fond of the wireheads, either. Hiro asks one of Tranny's family members whether the guy with the antenna standing nearby and observing everything is a friend of theirs. The guy answers: "'Naw…he's an asshole'" (53.48). Well, there you go.