You're viewing a single thread.
That's what machiavellian distills into - cold pragmatism and disregard of morality. So his turn from okay guy that wanted his family to stop with illegal shit into someone much worse than his father was portrays it perfectly.
Exactly. Machiavellian doesn't mean galaxy brain.
Unscrupulous is only one of the definitions.
Cunning and scheming are the other two. The Prince detailed how to gain and hold power.
It wasn't a book that said immediately shoot everyone to solve all your problems.
So the original author was expecting violence in Godfather 2 but with more planning.
You gain and hold power by killing people you don't like, look at any dictator that ever dictatored. 🙃
Again, yes you kill people. You don't just kill everyone immediately without a plan. Even Pol Pot had a plan.