random question. how would you describe the differences in dynamics between the 3 mafia trios from de, 2 and toc?
(this is a bit vague sorry. i just love reading whatever little analysis you come up with 🫶🏻)
i think tbh the biggest difference is how much they like each other/how much they allow themselves to be liked by the others. going to ramble under the cut so lucky you anon 🫶🏾
obviously i’m very partial to the mde trio as they’re everything & more to me.
the mde trio, i think, in a sense is the most friendly with one another. tommy is an open book and paulie allows tommy in his life. happily. he finds comfort in tommy and is not afraid to voice this. paulie is sam’s oldest friend. sam allows paulie to see bits and pieces of his true self, but mostly stays guarded. he however, has no problem being someone that tommy and paulie can confide in, a listening ear, a solid and steady presence. this i think is the biggest difference, the way they are all always there for each other. well, of course, just not the one time that it mattered. haha. 🥲 i have talked so much about them and will continue to do so forever. they are my favorite trio because they’re the only ones that seem like actual and true friends. for better, worse, and everything in between.
the m2 trio is entirely different in the way that…. vito & joe are best friends, brothers, if you will, and henry is.. their coworker ? some guy ? joe is fully open and loves to rely on vito. vito is so guarded & closed off he doesn’t even know himself. the idea of someone else knowing him makes him feel fully nauseous. vito is joe’s best friend. joe is vito’s only friend. there is a very important distinction. and then henry is.. There.
i really don’t consider the mafia 2 trio to be a trio. like it really felt like henry was Some Guy. he’s nothing and nobody in the game. no backstory, no lore, a completely blank slate. which wouldn’t be a problem (paulie & sam were like this too!) except for how much backstory & history they gave joe and vito…. it makes the story flat in a way. sorry for the hot take but i just don’t like mafia 2 that much.. it’s always just felt half finished to me :(
but i do think that henry felt… some sort of fondness for vito and joe. he wouldn’t really allow himself to say that it’s a friendship, but it’s something more than nothing, than the yellow grey of his walls, of the every day monotonous life he had lived before.
the mtoc trio is……….. they are all so guarded in different ways. it’s like they’re all friends with an idea of each other and not the true person. i love it so bad. want to study it under a microscope & inspect them but i dont think tumblr is ready for my musings about them. also at first i thought the trio was isabella/enzo/cesare because i have spent so much time thinking about her & how important her character couldve been had hangar 13 known that women can be more than a b side love story. :).
i love that cesare is almost obsessed with enzo being his friend & seeing him as a friend in return. he is trying to prove to himself that he is worthy of friends, of attention, that people want to be around him, not for his name but because he’s him. cesare is trying so hard to make this true, but in the end.. that just doesn’t seem to be the case, does it? and now he seems like a try hard when really he IS trying hard. sorry, i am a cesare apologist first and foremost.
enzo has never had much of a friend by choice, only by circumstance. he is too aware of their power imbalance to ever see cesare the way cesare wants him to. <- hurt myself so bad with this thought but it needed to be said. needs to be discussed.
also idk if leo sees anyone as a real person and not a pawn, a cog in a bigger machine. but i do think it was fun to him. i do think he remembers those nights on the town with cesare & enzo. fondly? you be the judge.
“me, sam, and paulie, we’re still real tight. we been through some tough times together.”
lighthousekeeping - jeanette winterson, — , can we hang on? - cold war kids, sam, tom, & paulie (circa. 1930s) - mafia definitive edition (dev. hangar 13), tumblr user starpeace, letter to ann davidow (mar. 16, 1951) - sylvia plath, the snail and the rosebush (trans. jean hersholt) - hans christian andersen
sam drinking his coffee traditionally black with an egg in it vs tommy drinking his just black, maybe with some cream when it’s cold out, vs paulie dumping half a gallon of creamers & sugar in it
