Originally posted by Sicilian Babe:
What was he supposed to do?? He was supposed to [b]Act like a man! Can you imagine Moe Greene slapping Michael around? I can't. And why not? Was he bigger or tougher than Fredo? No. And yet I would imagine that Moe would be afraid to touch Michael. Of course, I could also never imagine Michael distracting the help in that manner. Which just goes to show that Fredo should have been taking care of business, instead of taking care of business if you know what I mean, and that's why he was a big ol' boat anchor around Michael's neck and Michael was right to kill him. [/b]
Let's not forget, that according to the novel, Fredo used to kick the shit out of Michael when they were kids.
Boy SB, you're really tough on poor, weak Fredo!
I don't think that it's fair to comare him to Michael. They are two different people. Even Sonny was a different person.
Michael would have never let himself be put into that kind of a situation with Moe Green. Because as you correcxtly point out, Michael would never distracxt the help in the manner that Fredo did. Michael was really all business, especially when he was conducting business. He was most like his father.
Now I could see Sonny distracting the help in the same way that Fredo did. The only diffference would have been that if Moe Green even attempted to "straighten" Sonny out, he would have acted like a man and beat the hell out of Moe Green. And that may have caused a different problem for The Corleones.
But Fredo was just not that kind of person. He did not have the personality that either Michael or Sonny had. And being that he did not have that kind of personality. Plaw is right. There really was nothing that Fredo could do in that situation, except to tell Michael how Moe was treating him.
And not for nothing, but it is obvious that someone was reporting to Michael that Moe was mistreating Fredo. So why didn't Michael do something about it?
You know something? The more we discuss Fredo and Michael, I realize more and more what a cold hearted selfish bastard Michael really had become. And I realize even more why Fredo resented Michael the way that he did. When you think about it, Michael really did treat Fredo like shit.
Don Cardi
