Ennio Salieri - Tumblr Posts

So this may come out of nowhere but it’s something I’ve been thinking about. I’ve see a lot of different ideas about what made Salieri lean towards Tom and then change to Sam. Personally I’ve felt like it’s a mix of reasons, but thoughts come down to this: when did Salieri find out about Frank?

I know that’s a boring reason, but I think it feeds into the others. Tommy, let’s be fair, is hyper-competent for a cabbie. After 8 years of being with the group, he managed to get made very quickly and then raised to capo within five years. I’d probably say that we see the only three times Tommy has spared someone/hesitated in all of that time (Billy, Michelle, Frank). Tommy has skills, Tommy is (as far as Salieri knows) totally loyal, and Tommy has ambition. While I do think Frank’s conversation with Tommy was him projecting, I think some of those ideas came from talks with Salieri as well. After all, Frank goes out of his way to inform the bank that Tommy is the one coming for him. The Don had to have been speaking in such a ways that indicates he would send Tommy of all people, so this was probably a test for Tommy to move forward, and then later Tommy is the one that speaks for Salieri at the whiskey deal despite the fact that Sam, someone who is already a capo, is there.

So I think Salieri may have been considering Tommy for underboss and/or to be his successor. He has him do increasingly high risk/high reward jobs during the war with Morello and odds are that he continued to show some favoritism to Tommy after. So at some point, something had to have happened that caused Salieri to switch gears.

My interpretation of Sam’s line “Don Salieri really liked you” has always been equal parts Sam trying not to show regret and that he liked Tom, acknowledgement that for a while the Don favored Tommy over everyone including him, reflecting on the anger Salieri must have shown once he found out about all of this, and fear that Sam, now the favorite, could also end up on the other end of Salieri’s wrath should he make a similar mistake. He comments on Frank several times through the fight, showing that he clearly reflecting on it, and mentions Tommy being smart enough to disappear at the end. I don’t believe that Sam wanted to kill either of his friends, but the event happened recently enough that it would be something Salieri would be hung up on, maybe even rant about in front of Sam about the consequences of something like that.

I think that Salieri found out between Election Campaign and Just for Relaxation, because in the former he is still trying to manipulate Tommy. He has Tommy pulling a high risk/high reward job that he is trusting him with (note that he gives him the details privately, away from Paulie and Sam) and he still triea to separate Tommy and Paulie with the drowning story. Then, all of the sudden in Just for Relaxation, he’s communicating with one of his capos about the heist and not the other. I do believe that Sam didn’t know about the drugs bc I think he would have protested otherwise, but Salieri went out of his way to “give Sam information” the others wouldn’t have. had Tommy not been so suspicious, Salieri wouldn’t have said anything. (I know he didn’t in the original and that it was actually diamonds there but this felt more deliberate). He asked Sam to drive him home when his number one wheelman is RIGHT THERE. It’s such a stark change from just the previous chapter that means something had to have happened. Maybe other people knew this already, but it was never stated explicitly so there it is.

I think Salieri would have continued working with Tommy until either died and pushed for Tommy being his second (even not giving up on separating him from the member of the trio he could have seen as a threat to his business/weak link depending on the day). I also think that had there been other circumstances, it was very possible that he would have confronted Tommy after Moonlighting rather than sending Sam, as Salieri initially tried to do when he suspected Frank (maybe even sent Tommy after Paulie instead depending on how the conversation went). Instead, the bank job is just another show of disloyalty and unreliability from Tommy and it makes Salieri pissed. So, he sends Sam after them as a show of Sam’s loyalty. Sam has just seen what Salieri thinks of disloyalty and how Tommy’s act of sparing Frank made him act and he’s not about to ask the Don to send someone else. You don’t do that. So he goes and kills Paulie and tries to kill Tommy, scared that disobeying means all three of them die anyway when the next guy comes for them. I don’t think it even occurs to Sam that they could retaliate or take down Salieri (the “lack of vision” that Frank mentioned). Not to say that he’s dumb, but he’s been in the business for nearly two decades and has seen how Salieri has killed his way to the top; the man probably functioned as a father to him.

Anyways. All this to say that I think the tipping point was Salieri finding out about Frank and the bank job was just icing on the cake.

I’m not sorry (but I am; but I’m not). 

Tommy’s POV time

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.