I'm not into the whole "what if" scenarios because, quite simply, they didn't happen, so what's the point of discussing it?

But something just dawned on me.

Mike clearly wanted the WASPy wife in Kay to be by his side in order to look more American and less Italian, AKA, mobbed up.

But what if Appolonia lived?

Would he have brought her back to the states with him and kept him as a wife as he took over the family business?

How would that have hurt/helped his image? You have to think that if she lived, and came to the states with him, she wouldn't have been as naive as Kay. She knew what the mafia was all about, having lived in Sicily. Her father was a part of it!

I think Appolonia would have become a little Lady Macbeth (Lady Corleone) had she lived and would have had Michael's ear a little more than he would have liked.

I also would have loved to see how Kay would have reacted to see Mike back home with a wife. You also have to think that Mike would still have feelings for Kay too, since he left so abruptly after murdering Sollozzo and McClusky.

Who knows, maybe Apple would have ended up ordering a hit on Kay!

There is also the possibility that Mike and Appolonia would have stayed in Sicily, where Mike could have either lived out the rest of his life there in peace (which I doubt, he was "in" after the killings) or become a representative of the Corleone family in Sicily and rose to power there.

After all, power was his destiny.

Basically, where was Mike mentally when he married Apple? Did he know he would come back and take over the family business when he married her? Was he just struck by the thunderbolt and not thinking about that stuff?

What does everyone think?