The Negative Arc Of Ennio Salieri

The Negative Arc of Ennio Salieri

After this past chapter of Eating Alone, I’ve thought a lot about Don Salieri and how I’m interpreting and writing him. Just a warning but this is going to be a loooong post. I actually rewrote it because I thought it was too long, and it still is lol.

I’ll start with a quick explanation of the negative arc for those not into lit analysis. Feel free to ignore this paragraph if you’re already familiar. The negative arc tells the story of a character that ends the story in a worse place than where they started. I would argue that many Mafia stories have these (Vito Scaletta being the foremost one that comes to mind). There are three kinds of basic negative character arcs: the Disillusionment arc (I’d argue this one for Vito), the Fall arc, and the Corruption arc. I feel the Salieri goes through the fall arc, which goes as follows: character believes lie, character clings to lie, rejects new truth, believes stronger or worse lie.

Let’s talk about the truth and the lie of this tale. The lie that Salieri believes is that he is better than Morello, which he has three reasons for. Those qualifiers that he sets up for being ‘better than Morello’ are being a competent business man, a father to his men, and a pillar of the community. We, of course, know he is exactly like Morello when the chips come down to it, but this is the lie Ennio convinces himself with (and does so for others as well). There is a slow decline over the chapters where his humanity hinges on two touchstones: Frank Coletti and Marcu Morello. These events are what challenge the lie.

Let’s look at how the lie is established and how he is presented in the first part (referring to the five groups of four chapters between the diner book ends). He wants to help out Tommy by giving him a loan and tell Morello that he can’t hurt the regular people in Little Italy, projecting a certain ideology to Tommy and the rest of the trio gathered. After Tommy and Paulie burn down the parking lot, Salieri talks about how Morello’s anger will burn out his brain (words implying that he’s like a child). Then, Salieri gives his rules for the neighborhood: no swearing (a very parent like guideline), no drugs (pillar of the community), and be careful with the police (trying to show caution instead of aggression; also gives the impression of ‘local, mom and pop’ compared to big shot Morello).  Next chapter he has Paulie and Sam show Tommy the ropes and gives explicit instructions not to be rough with anybody, although he probably was well aware that would happen anyway. Plausible deniability and showing how he “cares” for his community. Because we, the player, have very little evidence to contradict this notion, we are not aware of the lie that Salieri believes, but we do get to see the conviction with which he believes it.

The lie gets fleshed out with fair play. He is still concerned with his lie considering his conundrum with how to treat the other driver (Morello didn’t have the same concern and faced no consequences so either he has friends at the track too or that was never actually a problem), and he mentions how a lot of people in the neighborhood come to him for financial advice. The fact that he does this is meant to illustrate both his competency as a business man and the fact that the community trusts him. We skip ahead at to Better Get Used To It, and he is full of apparently righteous fury at the treatment of Sarah. He talks about how she is a daughter to him (father) and how people won’t protected by them and they’ll lose business, but if you stick around a minute you hear his rant about the hotel and how he feels like certain things are falling apart. Here and when they find out about Ghilotti in the next chapter, Salieri is furious, but it comes from his business sense. He is still concerned about the health of his organization, but it does foreshadow Salieri’s temper and ruthlessness when things don’t go his way. His behavior, especially when it comes to the hotel, indicates that he can be vengeful when the chips are down. Ultimately, this is still reinforcing the lie, but it allows us to see the cracks in it.

Here is when things start to get juicy and where Salieri chooses to cling to the truth. At the very beginning of part three, we get a long conversation with Frank. This is a meaty conversation, especially for the insight it gives into Salieri. Up until now, this kind of behavior has only been hinted at, never confirmed. We start off the next chapter with Frank mentioning that Salieri has been going over the books with him AGAIN. It’s a throwaway but becomes important later as it hints that Frank isn’t the person that botched that chapter’s job. His calm demeanor during the conversation is him still staying calm and business like but reflective. It is the opposite of the way someone would be expected to behave when they find out they’ve been betrayed. His contemplative nature and reflection on the dog, then calling his child self stupid, is him clinging to the truth. He’s saying, “I’m not that person anymore. I’ve grown.” Considering how Salieri (and even Tommy during the conversation with Norman) portray Morello as childish during conversations, establishing his maturity is important to Salieri. Tommy’s conversation with Frank has him talking about he is tired of waiting for Salieri to kill him, telling the player that if Salieri’s most trusted feels this way. The rest of part 3 is largely him continuing businesslike behavior (introducing Tommy to the safe cracker and the whole thing with Paulie and the whiskey deal), which is him trying to return to normal, like the whole thing with Frank never happened.

Then, the third intermezzo happens. So, a huge aspect of negative arcs is the fact that the character will have the opportunity to see the truth on multiple occasions and cling to their lie until the turning point occurs (which is different depending on the type of arc). Intermezzo 3 actually shows hints of it when we hear a very important line from Tommy: “And Salieri, he finally start talkin’ about gettin’ outta Morello’s shadow. Maybe buyin’ our own cops, our own politicians.” Salieri at this point, is continuing to act on the idea that he is better than Morello, but he’s moving himself to the point where he’ll be forced to see the truth. I won’t go further with this too much, but part four is just riddled with Salieri clinging to this idea that he’s better than Morello as time and time again things go wrong or they go right. His opportunities to see the truth come in the form of the violence he or his men inflict (in particular the occasion with Carlo) and the sheer amount of destruction that he orders. Note that the sheer violence of the war is staggering, and it starts because Salieri makes arguably a reckless move by putting a judge on the take without checking (at least checking well) if this person is on Morello’s take. Whether or not this would have happened with Frank, we wouldn’t know, but Salieri’s ambition starts one thing. Salieri might still not see the truth, but, if they couldn’t before, the player can. The biggest piece of foreshadowing in this part is the last line. “See you on the other side Marcu.”

The seeing the truth and rejecting it happens off screen. I’ve talked about what I think the turning point for Salieri and Tommy’s relationship is, and I feel like the rejection of the truth comes when Salieri finds out about Frank. In great contrast to all conceived previous behavior, Salieri has Frank and his entire family killed. During the first conversation with Frank, Salieri only specifies something should happen to Frank (and this is in contrast to the original game where he wanted to provide for the Collettis after Frank’s death). He has a moment where he could show mercy, leave Frank alone or just leave his family alone, and this is a direct hit to his lie, that he is better than Morello. At this point... Who does he have to be better than with Morello gone? He doesn’t have a person to compare himself to that makes him question his anger and he directs his wrath from there. Frank is a traitor, Morello is dead, Tommy is a traitor, Paulie is useless, and Sam is a soldier. He has no equal and no protégé. His lie is no longer that he is better than Morello. His new, worse like is that he is better than everyone, and this time it is not morally. He is in charge. Tommy talks about how Salieri acted like they “owned the whole damn town”, but it was really that he owned it. He didn’t have to bother with putting on airs after this. This is why the three stipulations dissolve. After election campaign, he loses some of the father to his men by deliberately leaving out information about the job and not worrying about the health of “his boys”. He’s bringing dope into the community, not worrying about his position as a pillar of it. The business sense stays only because it is his business that makes him better than other people. Even then, that goes a little bit out of the window when vengeance (because Sam never got information that Tommy and Paulie weren’t planning on cutting them in after the fact, either Sam or Salieri assumed) became more important and he decided to get rid of some of his most successful soldiers. We still see the truth in the end, that Ennio Salieri is exactly like Morello, but he was ultimately blind to it.

Finally updating this. Life has been rough so sorry for the delay you guys.

At work doodles, aka the things I need to put in my empty sketchbook.

I hate hate HATE drawing in pen. I don’t know why I do it.

I don’t know why several people I have seen playing Mafia DE make comments about Tommy being a bad liar. He isn’t.

Remember that he lied to people on multiple occasions, including Don Salieri, and no one called him on it. Are you going to tell me that Tommy telling the Don that the Collettis are dead wasn’t one of the riskiest lies he could have told (considering that Salieri had to be looking for the rat at the point).

Tommy is only a bad liar to Sarah (one would hope so; she’s his wife). She’s seen him at his most vulnerable times, so he knows she’ll see through him. Thus, he increases compensating behavior to appear casual. It doesn’t help that he’s convinced they are in danger now and is anxious/scared for the lives of those he cares for. I’m pointing out the beginning of the Death of Art because that’s the scene where most people start declaring it.

Tommy seems pretty capable the occasional times he manipulates/threatens people (even Det. Norman), but is also utterly useless at flirting with Sarah. She exposes his squishy inner bits that are still convinced he’s just a normal guy and a cabbie and I love it.

Ever get a weird AU idea that makes no sense.

Old man Tommy and Sarah have the ghosts of Paulie and Sam living in their house (both haunting Tommy) and get to navigate weird domestic life with two dead friends living under their roof.

Then Vito and Joe come to kill Tommy and get smacked around with Joe’s  floating shotgun. Conversation happens and the Angelos run away with Joe and Vito since clearly protective custody apparently mean nothing if these two got close and now weird domestic life (with their own children might I add) also includes two adoptive sons (and their ghost friend Henry).

I got Winter!

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