Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="The Serge" data-source="post: 505789" data-attributes="member: 4049">I think the problem some people are having here is reconciling a clearly LE character (based upon D&D definitions) who happens to love his family (not to mention that many people have built The Godfather and its characters into romanticized anti-heroes in the same way Englightenment period artists did to Milton's Satan).As some people have already illustrated, the Mafia and The Corleone family as depicted in The Godfather are clearly evil.  They murder, extort, cheat, and engage in all kinds of evil acts for their own benefit within an organized, hierarchical, and traditional framework.  There's the leader, his aide (a legal aid), his successor, his lieutenants, an enforcer, and the lowlies.  There are clearly expected norms and mores and a great deal of attention is paid to the manipulation of laws and culture to promote their own ends.  Vito Corleone not only endorses this behavior, he's the reason it exists in the first place. However, being evil does not mean that a person cannot love... particularly if you're Lawful Evil.  Certainly, there are variations of LE.  Vito loves his children, particularly Michael.  He loves them so much that, after one's killed, he's willing to allow The Corleone Family to acquiesce to the demands of rivals.  Sure, he's mellowed out, but he did not stop the war because he was worried about the deaths of his enemies children, the impact his business had on the nation, or any of that.  He stopped it because he loved his children and didn't want any more harm to come to them.  Michael Corleone is als LE.  However, he is far more Lawful about his behavior.  Corleone stopped his behavior for a self act... the love for his natural family (not all that selfish, but it was not for a greater good).  Michael killed his own brother because it was a business move.  Anyone who cross The Corleone Family was dealt with in the appropriate manner, and betrayal of the Family meant execution and this extended to his brother.  Still, he's consumed with guilt and loss because he loved his brother.The silent scream Corleone issues near the end of The Godfather indicates that even a terribly evil and selfish person can love.  Michael loved his daughter immensely... so much that he was trying to pull out of the Family Business (actually, she was only one part of the equation).  Her death really hurt him... but he was still LE.I do think that LE will likely have more room for love, than NE and especially more than CE, but only a few mortal beings are capable of so profound an evil as to be oblivious to a degree of love.</blockquote>

Verification