Protagonist's Journey to Villain: Difference between revisions

* ''[[The Godfather]]'' trilogy is all about Michael Corleone's transformation from [[White Sheep]] of a crime family to its ruthless leader, and subsequent doomed attempts to [[The Atoner|atone]]. Initially he's not supposed to be involved in the family business at all, as his father genuinely wants someone in the next generation to leave their criminal past behind, but Michael is drawn in in order to protect him from assassination and ends up being the only real candidate to succeed him. He starts out promising his wife that he too intends to make the family legitimate, and his justification for everything is that he's protecting his family. But it turns out he thinks the best way to do that is by consolidating his power and taking out all his enemies in one fell swoop, {{spoiler|who happen to include his brother-in-law}}. The second movie takes the paradox further -- nowfurther—now the enemies he's wiping out are {{spoiler|a terminally ill man who's no threat to him anyway and, famously, his own brother}}, and in the meantime his coldness and the violence that surrounds him have driven his wife and children away. The third film has him as a tragic figure realizing that he can't undo what he's done and that the future of the family is out of his hands, and eventually receiving the ultimate poetic punishment: {{spoiler|seeing his daughter killed by a bullet meant for him}}.