Is Michael Corleone a Victim or a Villain?

The one thing that has always baffled me with the first Godfather film, is the journey of Michael's transformation as a character. He goes from a war veteran to a corrupt mob boss, a transformation that makes him a cold-blooded killer. 

The one thing that many fans have talked about on the Internet, was the theory with whether or not Michael is a victim of awful circumstances that he had no control over. 

In my opinion, Michael is not a victim. 

He had every right to choose a different path in his life, and avoid becoming the new Godfather. He easily could have run away, before he allowed himself to become a monster. He was already leading the perfect life, being known as a war hero, while dating a beautiful woman named Kay, who truly loved him. 

He only returns to the family when he hears about the attempted murder of his father, and he offers to kill two people that were responsible for trying to kill his father. Committing to this plan was the beginning of the change within Michael's character. He should never have offered to do such a rash thing, but he wanted to protect his siblings, and the rest of the Corleone family from further harm, willing to take the blame for two murders. 

He hides away in a different country after the murders, and he endures two heavy losses, within the family. His older brother is murdered by one of the mobster families, and his new wife that he marries in the country is blown up right in front of him. 

It's like Michael's decision to kill those two men led to this awful outcome, and I truly believe if Michael hadn't gone through with that plan, he would have prevented his transformation into a monster. It was a shame that Michael chose this route, and the worse part, was that he had pulled Kay into his life. 

While some people do find this romantic that he never got over Kay, I feel that he manipulated her into marrying him. She was sucked into his life, where she became a victim of his evil, and she learned the hard way of what her husband had become.

Another factor that also made Michael evil, is that he didn't have any of the goodness that his father had. 

The last Godfather was all about family values, despite being in a business that involved getting people killed. He truly loved his wife and children, and treated everyone around him with the same love that he had for his loved ones. Of course, he did become cold when he had to be, but unlike Michael, he kept his humanity. Perhaps Michael choosing Kay was a bad idea, because she didn't share the same viewpoints like his mother did when she married his father.

Kay saw him as a monster instead of a family man, and it was one of the few moments that I realized that Kay did not deserve to be in this lifestyle.

I feel that Michael was so desperate for anything that reminded him of his own humanity that he was slowly losing, and he was willing to bring Kay into the mobster life, including their future children. 

Even though it would have sucked for Michael to run away from his own family, at least he could have remained a good person, being with the woman that he loved.

Do you think Michael's fate was preventable? Do you think he could have abandoned this lifestyle, to be a normal guy with a woman that loved him? Or do you think Michael was already secretly a monster from the start?

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Thank you for reading!

Emy Quinn