Emmanuelle-la-rosa - Scent Of Freedom

My thoughts about Vito Scaletta.

Vito is my favorite character. Not much of a surprise, I know. Vito is possibly the most loved character from the series. Yet, from what I’ve seen, not everyone was pleased with Vito in Mafia III. After reading a lot of comments on the issue, I came up with my own conclusion about him, and I hope this text helps any mafia fan who’s not sure about playing the third game.

I remember having recently finished Mafia I and still being heartbroken about it (who wasn’t?), when deciding if I was going to play Mafia II. By the time I already knew Vito was Tommy’s killer and all, but at the same time I was too curious to back away.

It was love at first sight. I always found Vito extremely relatable, and the fact that we had the same age (19 - 20) in the beginning only add up to the feeling that we had a connection. This feeling is what allowed me to constantly observe Vito, especially after Mafia II ending.

Then Mafia III comes and I have to admit I wasn’t very keen on the idea of playing it after reading so many bad reviews, but one thing convinced me: Vito. I was one of the fans who would end up hooked by the opportunity of seeing my bff once again. I’d eventually fall in love with the game itself and everything, but I still feel like there’s something to be said about Vito in his forties.

Since I love him so much, I usually take my time analyzing him, and the outside perspective Mafia III offers makes things even better. So here’s what I saw:

Vito’s story is about a boy who daydreams about entering the Mafia. He keeps an idealized image of it, and the whole plot of Mafia II is about him doing everything he can to make this dream come true (and that’s why the second game is my favorite one). The rise of a poor but determined boy and the fall of a made man whose ideas were all wrong right from the start but he never saw any of it coming. His monologue, the sadness in his eyes while looking at his family album, his expressions while listening to Leo’s reprimands, his coldness when arriving at the observatory, the way he says “what the fuck is this?” and the look in his face when realizing he couldn’t save Joe – everything is there, proving that an old Vito was dying right there, right in that moment. Leaving his old self in the city that raised him.

Remember when he was all dressed up looking at the mirror right before meeting Eddie for the first time? His reaction when hearing about how Joe talked about him to Henry? His pride during the Omerta? That’s the old Vito. The innocent Vito. That Vito remained at Empire Bay.

Sounds familiar? Yeah, c'est la vie. We all grow up, sooner or later. I have a feeling that for Vito it was later. Anyway, he’s not the same when arriving at New Bourdeux. And here’s where we start our conversation.

He comes to a new town (the opposite of everything Empire Bay was), this guy Marcano (older than him) HATES him, Leo probably disappears leaving him all by himself and he’s given an ugly, poor district called River Row to run and make money out of it. Cool. Oh, and I didn’t even mentioned the fact that he was still carrying the weight of losing his best friend. Nice.

Mafia III takes place 17 YEARS LATER Mafia II. Imagine Vito going from a young and scared 26-year-old to the 43-year-old man who you found inside a freezer, cursing at the four winds. Can you imagine what hell he went through during all this time? Did the people who complain about “Vito not being the same anymore” EVER imagined what he had to endure in New Bourdeux that would eventually turn him into who he is now? How on earth would he still be the same? Come on, guys. It’s a no-brainer.

Even though I really miss my quiet Empire Bay boy, I really like who Vito has become. He’s clearly the smartest of the underbosses, took River Row out of its misery, kept his own business out of records, has a lot of experience in the mob, doesn’t allow himself to get carried away by other ideas but the job (drinking/race war) and his ending is absolutely the best – proving once again my thesis that Vito’s not a wonderstruck boy anymore, but a mature man who knows “how this shit works”.

Also, his italian accent mixed up with a bit of a southern accent is just really cute.

And you can still see something of the Old Vito. The way he spent 12 years and a lot of money to find Joe and how he works at a dock (AND HIS JACKET) definitely shows his Empire Bay ghosts still revolve around him. But it makes me happy to see that he grew out of his kid fantasies.

Even now, in his forties, while realizing how cruel reality is, I still can relate to him. He’s simply one of the best things from the Mafia franchise.

That’s all, folks. Thanks for the read.

(TL;DR: VITO GREW UP YOU COCKSUCKERS, GET OVER IT!)

Classy

The void

If you read a lot, nothing is as great as you’ve imagined. Venice is - Venice is better.

-– Fran Lebowitz

(Canaletto, Venice)