Lots of interesting responses.

Not that it would have helped much in escaping but I always thought that Carlo's delusions of grandeur were only matched by his utter stupidity in not getting out of town shortly after Sonny met his end. Certainly living next door to murderous people who never forgive or forget doesn't seem too wise...

But on the ruthless thing I go back and forth. I've been rereading a lot of the Silmarillion lately and Vito and Michael still seem to me to have slightly different fatal flaws-just like Melkor and Sauron.

Vito and Michael were both evil, no doubt about that and who would claim otherwise?

But in Vito's case at least his Pride and Wrath were also tempered by loyalty to friends and family, honestly caring about people within his circle of trust, and living by a certain code of personal conduct , which although harsh and self-serving still had a twisted sort of fairness to it.

Do we ever see any hint that Michael cares about anyone outside of himself? He uses Tom like toilet paper and doesn't care about being more obvious about this as the film progresses. If Michael had been less self-absorbed, perhaps he would have picked up on Fredo's discontent or Kay's issues.

Does Michael have any friends, people that either aren't afraid of him or that are outside of the criminal realm? Vito honestly likes Nazorine and does a favor for him that probably ends up saving his life. Michael has no people like that and doesn't seem to want them either. Michael appears to be much more "What can you do for me right now".

I think Michael was also envious of the straight life he could have had so in a way this made him less forgiving and more ruthless than Vito was. Vito was more at peace with who he was and what he did than Michael was I think.

It's certainly true that Vito never had to deal with betrayal by blood but I can imagine him saying "I would not live my life so that that would have been possible".

Good discussion.