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The Negative Character Arc of Vito Scaletta Part 1: Introduction
Alright. So I said I’d do this in the tags of the last character essay and apparently right now, even though I’m not mentally in a place to write fiction I am to write various character analyses. Probably because I can do this during my five seconds of peace at work and easily put it down. On with the show.
In my last character essay, I described the negative character arc of Ennio Salieri in Mafia: Definitive Edition. This time, for no real reason other than I want to, I will do the same for Vito Scaletta. For this one, I’m going to structure it a bit differently. Instead of listing out the events of the story and putting them in each section, I will talk in broad strokes (acts, turning points, etc) because, unlike Salieri, Vito is the main character. There’s just too much to look at for the former approach.
Quick recap or refresher for those that didn’t read the last essay and don’t know anything about negative character arcs in writing. A negative arc is one where the character ends the story in a worse place than where they started. This does not mean the character turns evil or dies, etc. (even though that is what often happens), simply that the place the story ends on for them leaves them unhappy/worse off in some way, etc. I think some of the most famous examples are Nick from the Great Gatsby and Anakin Skywalker/Darth Vader from Star Wars, and Javert from Les Miserable. A negative character arc is based on two central ideas: the lie and the truth. Now, another way to put this is the character’s belief which limits them in some fashion vs the reality of the situation that they do not comprehend (oftentimes this can be put into wants vs. needs, but that does not neatly line up). There are three basic negative character arcs: the Disillusionment (Nick and Javert), the Fall (Salieri), and the Corruption (Anakin/Vader).
Vito Scaletta is a beautiful example of the Disillusionment arc, which is made up of three parts: Character Believes Lie, Overcomes Lie, New Truth is Tragic. It helps his character follows three act structure of this particular type of arc very well (which, by the way, does not neatly line up with the three parts listed above, most of that actually occurs in the third act). Part of what makes his story so interesting is that his disillusionment arc starts off as disillusionment with the Lie of another character: his father. This particular paragraph is a bit of side step, but it is important to what happens before I go into the three act structure proper. Vito Scaletta’s father, from what we know, was a man that came to the U.S. with a dream and the idea that his family could find something better there. He was a working man that turned to alcohol for comfort and drank what little money he could make away and then borrowed plenty before dying. We can see what kind of Lie that Mr. Scaletta believed in the way that Vito’s mother (and to a much smaller extent Frankie) both encourage Vito to work hard just like his father and that, if he does, everything will be alright. That’s the lie that creates Vito’s own: that if you work hard, everything will be alright.
This is important due to an idea that I didn’t address in the Salieri essay: The Normal World. The Normal World in a negative character arc is the way the world (for the character) is supposed to work outside of the story (the Adventure World being the world of the story). The distinction between the two is not necessarily relevant here, but The Normal World is a huge part of Vito’s Lie, which can be summed up in a beautiful simple quote from Joe: “The working man’s a sucker, that’s for damn sure.” This is Vito’s normal world: the working man is a sucker. They fail, they don’t make money, they don’t have power, they aren’t anybody. This is further pushed by Don Carlo when Vito sees him stop a battle in Italy. Don Carlo has power, influence, he is someone, which is exactly what Vito wants to be. This attraction to influence and rejection of... not hard work but staying within the system is what eventually leads him to take on Leo Galante as a father figure, but I digress. The Normal World for Vito is one where those within the system only end up at the whims of those with power over them and influence, power, and money are the only ways to achieve any sort of worth and/or success. Vito’s Lie is that, because these things are required for success, he needs to have them to be happy... and he won’t get them by abiding the law.
As I mentioned previously, I will be discussing the rest of this story following the traditional three act structure of a Disillusionment negative character arc, so buckle up. This is going to be a stupid long ‘essay’, so I’m going to break it up into four parts: this introduction and each of the three acts. This is purely so a person can come back to a part later if they want to. I’m going to post each of the three acts over the course of the next few days (one per day), so I do hope you enjoy.