#The Godfather novel

[untamellama]

Just a Disclaimer: I have only seen the first 2 Godfather movies and read the book a long time ago (I don't clearly remember the details in the book). So whatever I have written is based on that.

Kay Adams aborting the baby was a brilliant creative choice. In the movie, there aren't many women who are important to the story. Even Kay is just a mafia wife for most of it. She essentially is a tool to show Michael how crazy he's gotten. How he's lived long enough to be the villain.

He does all that he does in the name of protecting his family. A family that is broken and dying - Carmela is dying, Michael intends to kill Fredo, Sonny is killed, Vito is dead, Connie lives a rather unsatisfying life (but then again idk, is moving from lover to lover satisfying or a coping mechanism) and that remained, a meaningful home for Michael was Kay and the children.

So once his family that remains (Kay and the children) is broken, all the violence he does is pointless. It's business for business' sake, a seeking out of power itself.

Michael can be made to realize this in any way - Kay can kill herself after writing a note on how meaningless all this is, Kay and the children die as collateral damage, maybe one of the children can ask some question and bam! Michael gets realization, etc etc - it could be some act of self-destruction and victimization or something very passive like the chance question.

But no, Kay does not stand by and turn a blind eye. She doesn't lie down and let shit happen to her. She says enough is enough! She plays an active role, she makes a conscious decision. She exercises her liberty in whatever way she can against The Godfather. She decides she is no longer going to be complicit in his madness and won't let another human being into this terrible fate. She'd seen the man she loved, who tried to renounce his family's *heritage* and live differently, inevitably pulled back and forced into the violence, which he finally embraced. Kay doesn't wish this upon her children or any more she could bring into earth. Sure, it's an ugly choice, but it also shows that the violence Michael takes upon himself - the silent look and scary demeanor, doesn't stay only with him. It seeps into those around him, who he so dearly loves, and causes them to carry out horrific acts of violence themselves.

It's all so beautiful (not the violence, but the underlying themes, ig).

[angevinyaoiz]

reading through the og Godfather novel and it's SO fun to do so as a Medievalhead because it's of course very modern And pulpy but also a lot of passages end up feeling to me like medieval style or mediev inspired epic poetry inspired fantasy kinda. Puzo writes about Sicilians like fantasy authors do about an Cool Fantasy Race. Also ofc like Coppola pointed out it's an archetypical "Once there was a King with Three Sons" story but amusingly medieval to me in that it has that structure, especially in ch 14 where it goes into Vito's history, of like "the great emperor conquered and subdued the neighboring dissenting clans," and then lists the different groups in detail with tangential references to their Great Deeds and notable characteristics. It even mixes a little with Real History by incorporating the Capones, tho in a derisive way. (Also amusing that it follows that kind of story structure of "our great kingdom expands and flourishes.......until the TURKS pulled some BULLSHIT" )

When Vito calls the 5 families it does more of that kind of epic poem style where it sits down and lists everyone and names everyone super specifically and their loyalties and (racial) epithets, and then after the debate he makes his Cool Poetic Speech about protecting Michael which feels like to me welling out of some ancient space. This feels like it should be in some kind of verse:

This and the way Sonny is described in the Vito chapters and leading up to his death has a very epic epithets quality to it as well like ah yes, he of the Big Penis, named for devotion, witness of the First Death, wielder of the Anglo-Saxon Gun, taker of the mantle, in cold honorable rage went forth and was slain

[randomgodfatherthoughts]

"Some mornings when he woke, the face of Don Corleone would be imprinted on his brain in that first conscious moment and he would feel safe."

Tom Hagen in The Godfather novel by Mario Puzo.

[xxrrisxx]

Behind every successful fortune, there is a crime.

Mario Puzo

[purelypacino]

[thesmokinpossum]

Also I just realized that when they're at the morgue, Tom pointedly looks at anything but Sonny's body like he cannot get himself to look at him and now I am unwell

[cto10121]

It’s the same name. Hamnet is just an alternative spelling because the Elizabethans did not have standardized spelling.

Shakespeare’s son was literally named Hamlet.

[joespinell]

don corleone: it’s a no on the deal

sonny: wh-

[testure-1988]

All of this recent love for Little Nemo & Winsor McCay is unreal. I’m so very happy.

[books-apples-socks]

me on my quest not to rag on francis ford coppola and get pelted in the face/put in the stocks for it part 8348329239: captain's log it's not going well

[graphicpolicy]

My Fairy Godfather is a solid read about fighting bigotry and finding family

My Fairy Godfather is a solid read about fighting bigotry and finding family #comics #comicbooks #graphicnovel

Reeling from the death of her parents in a car crash, teenage Billie travels over the rainbow and under tangled concrete overpasses, from her native Austin, Texas to the improbably named Liberal, Kansas. Her plan is to live with her godfather, Adam, “a lonely, gay, film geek stuck inside a jock’s body – a jock’s world.” His partner Steven run the Starlite, a movie theater and safe haven for their…

[untamellama]

Have been feeling for the godfather since morning.

[angevinyaoiz]

“Make yourself the only person in the world that he truly desires not to kill him. He has only that one fear, not of death, but that you may be the one to kill him. He is yours then”

Some first pass at a Richard/Mercadier concept….

[randomgodfatherthoughts]

The Don got up from his leather armchair. The other men rose with him and Clemenza and Tessio embraced him again. Hagen held the Door open for The Don, who paused to look at him for a moment. Then the Don put his hand on Hagen's cheek, embraced him quickly and said in Italian, "You've been a good son. You comfort me."

From The Godfather Novel by Mario Puzo

[xxrrisxx]

Revenge is a dish that tastes best when served cold.

Mario Puzo

[emperorsfoot]

I was today years old when I realized that Jor-El is The Godfather

(both rolls are played by Marlon Brando)