When Avon was in jail Stringer was by himself, but that's not the point, as I alluded to with Fredo in "The Godfather", his family was always around and he STILL got disrespected, remember even his own family NEVER put him in charge of anything important, meanwhile as I said earlier in Season 1 EVERYTHING had to go thru Stringer, on top of that most decisions were made jointly by Stringer and Avon, NO OTHER CREW HAD THIS TYPE OF DYNAMIC, Prop Joe made his own decisions and Marlo mainly used Chris as a sounding board to cosign his ideas.
But you're still not getting it a little bit. You're comparing it to the godfather and stuff but this wasn't the godfather this wasn't fredo this was stringer, but more importantly this was Avon. Avon was not letting/ allowing ANY of that towards stringer. NONE of it. He was never by himself, Avon was in jail but still ran everything as far as everyone on the outside was concerned. Avon was not allowing anyone to disrespect Stringer, and they knew avon could reach them.
Even when Avon was in jail Prop Joe and the others in the Co-op and members of the Barksdale crew still showed respect and in some cases fear (the meetings in the funeral parlor) of Stringer, people in the streets know who the real deal is, did you see ANYONE give respect to Ziggy, even though they knew his cousin had his back, that same cousin that was NEVER disrespected not once?!?
You're still not seeing how this is related to Avon lol.
Who did Ziggy have behind him that people on the streets should actually fear? His uncle and cousin weren't heavy, shit they couldn't even get Ziggy car back by themselves they had to get their greek connects to make the brothers respect them in the street remember? So who had Ziggy back in the streets that pumped fear? NOBODY
Ask yourself this question. How many times did Stringer tell someone to do something or ask someone to do something or suggest someone to do something be it someone in the crew, or someone outside the crew.. and they ask " Did you run it by Avon?"
When stringer used the d.c. connect to setup d'angelo killing what did dude ask him? "Did you run this by Avon?"
Now ask yourself, how many times when Avon made a decision, told someone do to something or anything of the sort did anyone ever even attempt to utter "Did you run that by String?"
We are also shown how Avon deals with screw-ups, from demoting D'Angelo to the low-rises for catching a case to murking the kid who actually shot Griggs, if Avon felt that Stringer was soft or a screw-up he wouldn't have been a #2 as he was, Avon understood that image was everything, if the guy that reps him is soft/stupid, then, as Avon would say, "How that look?!?"
Not entirely, Looking soft/stupid is something never did because he had no reason to, his best friend is the man, and when that's the case its easy to act like the man cause you know you have the ultimate to have your back.. why is it when shit got real Avon came right out and said He was soft and wasn't built for this game... and Stringer had to tell him about Dangelo cause Avon called him a punk..which is basically how he really felt about him all this time. He was a punk, BUT that's his brother and nobody fucks with his brother right?
and I quote
Avon
You know the difference between me and you? I bleed red and you bleed green..... I look at you these days, String, you know what I see? I see a man without a country. Not hard enough for this right here and maybe, just maybe, not smart enough for them out there......No offense but I don't ever really think you were
Soft people, regardless of who's got their back, are still soft and are treated and spoken of as such, outside of Marlo, who didn't give a fuck about anyone, can you name one person that mentioned or acted as if Stringer were soft?
String was never in a position to prove whether he was soft or not on the street level PERIOD. he was never in harms way. So who knows how he handles himself in those situations. Avon was a leader and a soldier and that's why his people loved him, because they know he loved them too. and who would dare say anything about stringer when Avon is always lurking about?