Tonyblack said:
I agree - Moist is not a particularly sympathetic character to start with, but he grows during the book and discovers a side of himself that he didn't realise he had. He realises that he can use his 'talents' for good purposes instead of just taking advantage of people.
In Going Postal, Moist NEVER stops taking advantage of people. Instead of simply grifting their money and leaving them with nothing of value, he simply grifts their money and leaves them with something of dubious value. After all, do people really need to pay a hard-earned dollar to send a letter to Genua? Not really, but he convinces them that if they don't do it, they'll be left out of something 'big.'
By the end of the story, he may have become a respectable businessesman, but, from a moral point of view, his only major change is that instead of grifting on a small scale for petty self-satisfaction, he grifts on a large scale not because he really cares about the Grand Trunk, but because he wants to pull the ultimate gift on the penultimate grifter, Reacher Gilt. Moist's grift is a personal vendetta, not a righteous crusade, and he's the first to admit it.
J-I-B