Hiiii I remember u sawtooth posting a bit ago and I got so excited <- Sawtooth canyon fan number 1

You saying Brick was a bad bandit leader and asking why the Sawtooths dont just overthrow the Slabs is so fucking real honestly. I've been thinking abt that ever since I first beat this game a year or two back, and thought "Why doesn't Brick care about the bandits he's leading, that's basically his workforce..... Is he stupid", but it does make sense in a way ? Cuz Brick isn't a bandit from Pandora specifically, he's (a vault hunter) from Menoetius, so he doesn't actually know shit Bout crap when it comes to actual bandit hierarchy or grouping. Say what you will abt the moralities of Flanksteak,or the Flynts or any other bandit loed, but they at least care enough about their groups to know they need to keep their numbers up. But I think the other slabs just stick around to him and tolerate his inability to lead because they know the Sawtooths would completely crush them if they didn't. And there's a really important reason for that also:

Brick is not only built like if a muscle came to life and started talking, but he's also (or used to be) a vault hunter. A vault hunter that, Very Specifically, is allied with the crimson raiders, which is built from a bunch of members from the Lance + other vault hunters. They're not trying to start a fight with the maniacs who massacre entire towns worth of bandit camps for one reason or another. They have acquired enough territory to be considered a super-power in comparison to say, Nine toes' group from the first game, whose group was very small and contained to being near Fyrestone. My theory is they're willing to put up with whatever the Slabs do on their side of the territory so long as it's contained There, because they know if they did anything their leader would get a whole other array of problems involved. Which is literally what happens in-game because Brick calls the vault hunter group the second they even remind him of their existence, and they in turn kill a whole bunch of people about it.

Im rambling atp but Bandit politics is interesting and I love how you go about ittttttt

BRICK IS JUST….hes a very frustrating character to me. he’s written as this big dumb himbo character who loves his friends but a lot of the choices he makes in 2 paint him as just being reckless with the lives of his men.

hes stationed the slabs directly in the middle of hyperion territory. their entire point of being is to put a wall of bodies between handsome jack and the rest of pandora, and its been that way for years. and it is not a fight they are winning, the best they’ve managed is a stalemate, which could be quickly overturned if jack used more than 3% of his brain power and razed the place like he did lynchwood and new haven.

but that for some reason isn’t enough to occupy him. he also instigates fights with the sawteeth and lynchwood as well. lynchwood is on the defensive, its not going to go out of its way to start shit with the slabs because its primary purpose is being a source of eridium, not a military base.

the whole deal with the sawtooth clan is even worse, because Brick is still the one picking a fight, with the excuse that the sawtooth have been selling out VHs to jack for money. which 1) WOMP WOMP and 2) further proof he still considers himself a VH and not a bandit. he sends you to cut through sawtooth cauldron and kill dozens of people for explosives. to uh. clear a bridge, if i recall. that can be crossed by buzzard. which the slabs have in abundance. whatever.

all of this to say: yeah, you’re right. he SUCKS as a bandit leader and I think a lot of the slabs are with him out of necessity. because even after being ousted by the rest of the crimson raiders and mostly cutting contact with the BL1 VHs, he still values them as people above the slabs. hell he values the BL2 VHs, total strangers, above the slabs and that was before he even knew they were with the raiders.

the biggest sell for me is his dialogue after you kill mortar. he questions why the sawteeth are still fighting, and calls them stupid for doing so. like he doesnt understand at all.