Patrick, you are clearly missing the culture of the docks. Remember that Zig is the only son of Frank, who is a big deal when it comes to what is left of the dockworkers. Zig knows that he can't live up to his father's expectations of him, his entire life he's been asked why he can't be more like his cousin Nick, and Zig has decided to just go for it, to embrace his Black Sheep status. We are shown this almost immediately, when Frank "fires" Zig, and we're immediately told that Zig isn't really fired, that's his old man, who is in charge of this place.
I agree with you that Zig would never, for instance, walk into just any old bar with a duck whom he's put an actual diamond choker on. But THAT bar? Where those specific people who he's known most of his life gather to relax? That's Ziggy's stage, that's where he feels like he's fulfilling his purpose and contributing something to the culture that he is a part of, the larger family, the community of the dock workers.
Frank is slightly annoyed by the duck, but he is as upset as you about the burning of the $100 bill, but for different reasons. Frank knows that Zig must have gotten that money illegally, he suspects by boosting goods from the docks, and that is a step too far, going from class clown to class idiot who might get them all in trouble.
You have to look at the bigger picture of what's going on, though. Ziggy feels like he's being marginalized. Nick has now taken over the drug dealing, and damned if he isn't better than Zig at that, too. Nick is basically saying to Zig, I'm gonna take care of you, 'cause you're way too much of a *beep* up to take care of yourself, and we all know it.
The thing is, ZIGGY didn't know it. Not until that moment, when he winds up throwing hundreds of dollars out of Nick's truck window to blow away on the street.
And in real life, the true idiots almost never realize just how idiotic they actually are. If they did ever figure it out, as Zig eventually does, they might do something like pull off grand theft auto in order to earn their own money and get their own thing going, to be a success at something.
And when they then still get ripped off, still get insulted, still get laughed at? They might snap and start shooting people.
Is Ziggy a rare breed in the real world? Yes. He is a combination of a person who can't stop screwing themselves up and a privileged scion in a dying industry. The circumstances are unique, the character is unique, but his behavior, his arc through the course of the season, is completely believable and realistic to me.
But you have to understand the whole story of who he is, where he's from, and what motivates him both positively and negatively. Then you begin to see the human inside, however annoying and ridiculous he might at times be.
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