#not sam

Okay, so. I'm not an expert on the game or just the genuine mafia either. HOWEVER, I watched my favorite youtuber play the first one because I'm not playing it anytime soon. I feel as though the plot went entirely over his head. This isn't meant to attack him AT all because this stuff happens. There's people who didn't understand these games or just complex games in general. It happens with every game. However, the way he went about switching up on the characters was pissing me off badly. He mainly consisted of entirely glazing Don Salieri at a constant while wondering how Tommy could ever betray the family. Asking this question in the beginning whilst they show you nothing but the "good" things so far makes sense, but he really wasn't getting it. Tommy gives you his story because you need to listen to him. You are the cop and you are Tommy. You play as him, but you are entirely unable to change his story. You can't change something that's already happened. You are a listener. You're being asked to carefully listen to his story because he needs someone to know what's happened.

Tommy tells us at the beginning of the game that he is an immigrant to this country. He depicts how America is. Immigration was fully open, but the opportunities were entirely poor for immigrants. Tommy takes time to learn the language and has to live poorly as his father suffers through hard labor that barely pays anything. This is how America is. Tommy cannot put in an application to an Ivy league, get a degree, and be some banker. These positions are not open to him. They are closed to a lot of different types of immigrants. What irks me is if we know the history of America. The slave labor that black people had to go through way before this, you'd know the absolute cruelity of America. The racism, oppression, and unwillingness to help marginalized people. The want for "cheap" labor.

What does he do? Become a taxi driver. It's all he really can do, and it's not going to pay the bills enough. Then he meets Sam and Paulie. The funny thing is, this didn't even start with them. Not really. It started with Don Salieri and Don Morello. It will not end with them. You help Sam and Paulie get away, which later causes Tommy to be attacked. Under pure coincidence, he ends up at Don Salieri's door. He starts to work for the Don, like many do for better money, better living standards. HOWEVER, you see through the closest partners you have - through SAM AND PAULIE that this life takes a toll. You are told by the Don's closest friend, Frank Colletti, that he doesn't care who he has to hurt to get what he wants. To do what he wants. And you legitimately wonder why he's in front of a cop, disheveled after the number of times he's zoned out?? After he has blatantly hesitated at the act of having to kill someone. After all the people he's killed?

That's where you get wrapped in just like him, all the shooting, sitting there feeling powerful. You get distracted because you don't consider the innate trauma of the situation. Even when you have a wife to go home to, do you recall seeing her much? The family is their life. They don't go home to anyone. Not nearly enough as they should. Sam doesn't have a girlfriend or a wife. Paulie actively tells you he has no one at the age of 40 something. They got the nice suits and the money, but their lives are NOT normal. And you can't leave.

Paulie tried, and he was murdered. You had to kill your friend Sam for it. You don't see a pattern in this? In the evidence of other games? This doesn't end. Not after you've gotten involved. The fatal flaw is the want for a better future. A better life in a system that wants you gone. This goes deeper than even the Mafia itself. This is a system that's been set up. Many communities have something similar. Something that ropes you in because you don't have better opportunities. He does this because he has a family he loves. So no, he's not a hero to some. But at least in the end, he could be to his family. They're safe now.

It's someone else's time, Tommy isn't here anymore. It doesn't end with him. It never was supposed to. It's a cycle. It'll keep happening because there are no corrections in place. Not even prison can stop it. Everything stays, no one leaves. No one really can.