had an edible and am now explaining goncharov to the party guests
they've invented a minor character named ernesto who's only role is to follow goncharov around and say "nice one boss!" whenever he does anything. im so proud of them
I feel like boiling Ernesto Cagliari's role in the story down to "guy who follows Goncharov around and says nice one, boss!" Is really doing his character a disservice. Yes, he's a very on-the-nose parody of the sorts of nameless henchmen and "right hand men" that you see in other mafia media, but he's also a subversion of the trope who embodies the way that powerful men who surround themselves with yes-men eventually find themselves trapped in an echo chamber where they can't separate their own delusions of grandeur from the real world. The entire carnival chase sequence in Venice ends with Goncharov leading himself into a literal funhouse where he's trapped with an (actually nameless!) assassin and surrounded by distorted mirror Ernestos all equally unable to help him find the exit because all they can do at that point is encourage the boss's fruitless andmisguided efforts. It's only once Ernesto is killed by reality violently reasserting itself in the form of the assassin, and the funhouse mirrors are broken in the ensuing fight that Goncharov even begins to confront the immediate reality his actions have created and the broader reality of those people who live outside his self-important bubble.
