Questioning the quoted ... Frank Colletti
Ok, it’s offical. I’m making this a series. This time I’m going to pick someone whose name might not sound familiar at the first glance but he’s quite important and his quote is very relevant; Frank Colletti, the consigliere (chief advisor) of Don Ennio Salieri from the Mafia game series.
Frank is a relatively quiet character in the game and you get to interact with him a bit more later, closer to the end of the first half of the game. He’s rather cold to your character, not showing much enthusiasm and keeping very strictly professional. However, after one of the story missions, he asks your character to drive him home and starts a conversation during the drive. He points out that the life is starting to weigh heavily on you which leads to picking up some bad habits. As his life lesson progresses, he mentions the following words:
In the end, your best friend will kill you without as much as a blink of an eye.
I’m directly translating the quote from the original version of the first game here instead of the remake where this quote isn’t present. What does it mean? What is Frank pointing out with these words and why have I chosen them? The meaning will become clearer later in the game in which he in fact becomes your target for breaking one of the sacred laws of mafia, the “Omerta” law aka the vow of silence. Once you track him down and you’re about to do the deed after letting him say his goodbyes to the his family, you instead let him go. Upon leaving, he reminds you of the quote, upon which your character reacts:
“In the end, your best friend will kill you.” And this time it was to be me to kill a friend. But I haven’t done so. “Do not do to others that which you don’t wish to be done to you,” or however the saying goes.
…
How the game ends, I’ll leave out for you to find out (small spoiler, I’ll be looking at that part later too for the main character says something quite poignant too).
Back to Frank’s quote however. What he says points to the really ugly way how the relationships work in that environment. The “friendships” in mafia aren’t really friendships when you think about them but more like business partnerships. The cooperation of all the member for “our cause” manages to uphold the status quo of the “benevolent” leader treating their subjects well on the outside while using them as tools for henious crimes. You fail? You’re cast aside and removed. And who will remove you? You guessed it, your best friend. Why? So you feel the pain of betrayal. You betrayed the “family” so now you’ll feel the hurt being betrayed by someone you trusted the most. At the same time, this works as a test of loyalty for the “executioner” because they can either “play by the rules” and do the act or show mercy, which however puts them at the same position as the “renegade”. Because you let a threat run free, putting the family in danger which makes you a liability.
Now, how does this apply to our world in general? Luckily it’s not in the cut-throat manner, unless you’re dealing in this kind of business in which case you already have far bigger problems. But look around you and tell me, do you feel that you can trust people? Or does it feel like your best friend will “kill you” for personal benefit? That every relationship is nothing more than a convenience than a genuine connection? Wouldn’t it better to change it if it’s so? In the end, Frank’s quote stands far too well than we’d like to in today’s world. And world would be a far better place if it wasn’t.
R.R.A.