Lots of good reasons and points for Zeca's necessity already mentioned. I'd like to add a few (obviously, spoilers follow):
1) In both rapes, Zeca raping Vera and Vincent raping Norma, the men thought the women were willing. A) Zeca thought he was with a past lover, and Vera played the part and came mostly willingly, albeit of course out of fear and hope that she might escape, and B) Vincent thought Norma was high on ecstasy-like drugs, with her wanting to get naked, appearing to enjoy his advances at first, and initially showing no signs of struggle. When she did struggle, Vincent stopped, knocked her out to stop her screaming, but did not continue the rape while she was unconscious to "finish". Vincent also says later to Robert's explanation of why he's doing this, "I don't think I actually raped her". I am definitely not trying to excuse either guy's behavior here, just saying the director intentionally made both rapes not so clear cut, and parallel in more ways than one.
2) Zeca was needed to show how insanity, violence, and immorality was in Robert's blood. Indeed, he is a shadow of Robert, could even be Robert's internal beast personified. At the very least, Zeca is a version of Robert's beast much more physically imposing, but less methodical and intelligent; both men are equally evil and reprehensible. You could even say the comparison of the brothers displays a minor theme of what an upbringing of wealth and privilege does to a born monster: it doesn't lessen the monster, it just gives him more education and opportunity, along with more tools to both inflict pain and camouflage his crimes. Also, you see that both monsters are in disguise, Zeca in a simple disguise of a flimsy tiger costume, while Robert has an elaborate and impenetrable disguise of a wildly successful surgeon. And both men's monster eventually leads to their demise.
3) When Robert came upon Zeca and Vera, it was the closest Robert ever got to killing Vera. Remember the intense pause as he held the gun pointed at her? He tortured Vincent, castrated him for the rape, turned him into a woman and held him captive for 6 years, but never came close to killing him/her. In fact, he worked hard to save her from multiple suicide attempts. That was a pivotal moment for both Robert and Vera: Robert finally realized he couldn't kill her, even when it became obvious in his twisted world how dangerous it was to keep her alive, and he hugged her after he killed Zeca. Robert realized he loved her. Vera realized that Robert did care for her more than just to keep her around for torture. Remember also through this whole experience with Zeca, Vera found out she was made in Robert's wife's image, not just made into a random beautiful woman. And she then knew that she could both use it to escape, but also that she had to kill Robert to ensure her safety going forward. That's why she didn't escape when she went shopping with Mirilia, and instead came back to kill them both.
4) Many other parallels were shown between the brothers, like how Vera ran out of the door from both men after hitting them, she had sex with both unwillingly but acted like she wanted it so she could get away, she said to both of them "it hurts", both sons have a food relationship with Marilia, both eating her food shortly after being reunited after years of separation and saying to her "something smells good!". In fact, all the Zeca scenes are almost mirrored at some point by Robert: meeting Mirilia after a separation, seeing Vera on the TV and discussing her with Mirilia, having sex with Vera, and getting shot right afterward. All of Zeca's story happens in minutes, whereas Robert's takes years. These parallels are many and too close to be coincidence. They are supposed to be opposites and yet the same.
Opposites have many examples too: one brother is a plastic surgeon and the other has hideous facial scars, one has great hair while the other has none, one has a large house and the other is homeless, one loved by the mother while the other is hated, etc.
So Zeca was a foreshadow of things to come for Robert, and a depiction of the monster inside Robert. It definitely adds layers of dept and introspection. Zeca's story really sets up one of the crucial themes of the movie: which one is the greater monster? The base brute, or the mad scientist? And I think the movie does a great job of showing they are pretty much the same.
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