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To: Albion Wilde
it finished the story of a man’s utter failure and search for redemption.

Not just Michael, but Vito, too. Vito started this whole thing because he was made unable to provide well for his family. In searching for control, he had to control his children, and unintentionally put Michael in a position where he HAD to take over. Vito's oath on his grandchildren, even if Michael was the one who executed the plan that broke the peace, set in motion the chain of events that led to Mary's death, and also the unnamed Corleone son #2. Vito died before it all played out, but wherever he wound up, perhaps he saw the consequences of wanting to be the puppetmaster.
80 posted on 06/07/2024 9:38:21 PM PDT by Dr. Sivana (Stormy Daniels is a McGuffin)
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To: Dr. Sivana; sphinx
“it finished the story of a man’s utter failure and search for redemption.”

Not just Michael, but Vito, too.

I was only referring to Part III, in which Michael's struggle reached a culmination. Vito did not figure into the plot of III in any direct way. I never got the impression that Vito searched for redemption with God, as Michael did in confessing to the future pope in the garden of the Vatican. We are shown nothing about any of Vito's fear of God. He remained a localized strongman whose sense of self-justification was as a family and community boss and protector.

Michael, however, took on building up a national entertainment mecca, assumed national coordination with the east and west coasts and Cuban outposts of the mafia, and manipulating the global finances of the Vatican. Vito was never shown killing his own blood nor having searing regret over what he regarded as necessary evils; even when Sonny was killed, he regarded him as a reckless hothead (to Tom Hagen: “I never thought you were a bad consiglieri—I thought Santino was a bad don”), and his concern was mainly to shield his wife from excessive grief (“I want you to use all your powers and all your skills. I don't want his mother to see him this way...”).

Michael, on the other hand, suffered enormously from feeling trapped in the life he originally was not intended for, and the death of his daughter and resulting permanent estrangement from Kay because of his rage- and ego-driven life choices. He lied to his blood constantly, repudiated his ultra-loyal consigliere Tom Hagen, and killed his own brother. His moral conflict and guilt were profound. He could not be what his father had been because of his overblown ambitions and the mafia's unexpectedly massive expansion, which pushed him in over his head and his tortured heart. As he had said to his mother, “Tempi cambi’.” Times change.

83 posted on 06/08/2024 9:54:51 AM PDT by Albion Wilde (Either ‘the Deep State destroys America, or we destroy the Deep State.’ --Donald Trump)
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