March 25, 2020
I have always been the loser. Therapy gave me sight. I could no longer identify with cinematic heroes. I now saw myself as one of the peripheral characters like Fredo Corleone.
They perform many functions. Perfect vessels for irony, because they usually act from a deep inadequacy fueled by jealousy for those men capable of realizing their anger with violence.
I associate these characters with credulity, cowardice, kindness, and effeminacy. They are lost. They know what they want and they are wrong. Fredo wants to be Michael; except, Fredo is incapable of violent acts. He cannot even return fire when his father is assassinated. He falls to the curb and cries. As cast-iron is weak, so is Fredo – it depends on the type of force applied.
Fredo is a coward. He could not face himself. The expectations his personality had grown round poisoned him. He hated himself. Conscious of himself and conscious of the self his culture told him he should aspire to that could not be reconciled. When he tried to kill his brother, he tried to kill himself.
He could only have lived if he had escaped. As Michael went to war, Fredo needed to leave for some corner of Scandinavia to keep shop and have a family.
Fate is cowardice.
