After Kay revealed her abortion, Michael decked her and shouted, “You won’t take my children away from me!” And, the last we see of Kay in GFII, she’s being rushed by Connie to finish her visitation with the kids—and she runs into Michael and the Dreaded Corleone Stare. Their divorce may already have been final by that scene: Nevada, and Idaho were the only states at that time that permitted relatively quick and easy divorces. Judges routinely gave custody of children to the mother, except if the mother was mentally or morally “incompetent.” But Michael, with his money, influence and fear factor, would have had no problem convincing a judge that Kay’s abortion (illegal at that time) would make her “morally incompetent.” No doubt about it: He had the kids at the end of GFII.

But, at the very beginning of GFIII, Michael’s letter to the kids reveals that he gave up custody to Kay: “…although I entrusted your education to your mother for your own best interests, you know how I look forward to seeing you [emphasis added], and to a new period of harmony in our lives…” Since Mary and Anthony were of school age at the end of GFII, Kay must have gotten the kids not very long after the Dreaded Corleone Stare scene. And the phrase, “…I look forward to seeing you…” implies that Michael hadn’t seen them, perhaps for a long while.

This puzzles me because it seems inconsistent with Michael’s character. How did Kay get the kids, given his obsession with controlling everyone and everything, and his long-demonstrated unwillingness to give a traitor a pass (and Kay’s abortion, and her decision to leave him, certainly made her a “traitor” in his eyes)? I want to offer several possibilities; perhaps you’ll offer others:
1. Kay, her assertiveness hormones surging following her decision to have the abortion and leave Michael, decided to contest the child custody issue. She threatened Michael: if they went to court, she’d tell the judge all about “this Sicilian thing,” and everything else, that made her decide to have the abortion. Yes, I know what you’re thinking: “Kay Adams Corleone is a dead woman.” But Michael, fresh from his narrow escape from the Senate committee, could ill afford another attack on his “legitimacy.” And he’d have to explain Kay’s disappearance or death to his kids—and probably to the authorities, if divorce proceedings had been initiated or concluded. And maybe—just maybe—Kay was the one person Michael couldn’t kill.
2. The kids, especially Anthony, demanded to be with their mother. The phrase in Michael’s letter, “…a new period of harmony in our lives,” implies disharmony. And, as we saw, Anthony was estranged from his father at the beginning of GFIII.
3. Michael may have voluntarily agreed to give Kay custody shortly after the Great Corleone Stare scene as a way of leaving the door open to an eventual reconciliation with Kay. We saw him wooing Kay almost desperately in GFIII.
4. It’s simply another of those myriad plot gaps and inconsistencies in GFIII that plague and diminish the film.

What do you think?

Any of the above is certainly a possibility.

And, another one:

Given that one of the intentions of GF III, obviously, was to portray Michael as a "changed" man, what better way to show that than by starting off the film by planting the idea in our minds that Michael had, indeed, changed, and perhaps realized that it was best for the children to be with their mother?

Option #3, with Tom and/or Connie playing the mediator role. Since Tom was not the closest of people to michael at the end of GF2, connie was the likely candidate.

I know how she did it. She established an endowment that was meant to be administered by Coppola.
Honestly, GF3 is a violation of sense anyway, but this example, for me, is the most outrageous. If something is absolutely impossible, that is. He would never wish to have something in common with this woman, and definitely he is no fool to send his children to the only person in the world who will most surely employ any means to make them hate him for life. Of course, he would never let her come close. I really don't think Michael would like have a son looking, thinking and singing as a sacrifice of low quality castration.

No, I guess it couldn't be as simple as Michael mellowed as he got older.

Or that he had won the war, had gotten his way and then after getting control decided to let the kids go to Kay, where they should have been in the first place.


No, it couldn't be that simple.

What a great topic. I've read a lot about how illogical it was in GF3 for Michael to have given up the children; but until now I don't think I've come across a discussion about how and why that would have come about.

Here's my theory: At the beginning of GF3, when everyone is at Michael's home after the church ceremony, Michael says hello to Kay and tells her, "It's been a long time, hasn't it? Eight years." So, in the film's time period, he's referring to 1971. In 1971, Anthony was 20 years old and Mary was 18 years old. Since Mary is now legally an adult (I assume), Michael and Kay would have had no further cause to see each other, since collaboration on the children's welfare (visitation, schooling, etc.) is now over.

So this sounds like, after GF2, Michael gradually became more generous with Kay. If he didn't give her shared custody, he at least re-admitted her into the children's lives. Judging by the way he interacts with her in GF3, I'd say that at some point after GF2, he welcomed any excuse to see her, and what better reason than the children?

Maybe 1971 was also the year that the children began to distance themselves from Michael. Since they were now adults, they left Michael's house to go on their own or to live with Kay. This was probably the last time Michael saw Anthony, who, as we see in GF3, has bitter memories of childhood. Michael probably saw Mary off and on, since she seemed to be closer to him. But I believe they both wanted to form a closer relationship with their mother because they didn't see as much of her during their childhood. Michael was likely ignored for a while as his children's focus was on rebuilding the maternal bond.

When Michael writes in his current (1979) letter, "I entrusted your education to your mother for your own best interests," I believe he is speaking of their higher education and is referring to 1971 (or thereabouts), when both Mary and Anthony were of college age. But I also believe he is being disingenuous, as though he gallantly "gave" the children to Kay. In 1971, the children were adults; there was no custody to "give." Also, as adults, the children's education was now a matter of their own choice. In 1971, Michael's children simply left him, of their own free will, and Michael does not want to look that reality in the eye.

On a side note: I do believe Michael enlisted Kay's help when it came to Anthony's education; and it also served as another excuse (reason) to see both Kay and his estranged son again. In GF3, we see how Michael had his heart set on Anthony becoming a lawyer. But I can also imagine Anthony in 1969 as an 18-year-old, or in 1971 as a 20-year-old, rebelling against his father by refusing to even enrol in college.

As a result, I can see Michael, eight years later and in desperation, turning to Kay to get Anthony on the road to higher learning. Kay was an educated woman; she would encourage and convince Anthony that college was the right path. In Michael's current letter, education is used as an excuse to imply that it was haggles over college that separated him from Anthony in the first place, when in fact it was Michael and his mob life that did it.

I don't know JustMe, I disagree. Resepctively of course.

I think that when we see Michael at the end of GFII, where he is supposed to be older, we are shown a lonely Michael, a Michael that reflects back on his life and is probably asking himself if it was all worth it. Was all the power in the world worth the loneliness that he had aquired with that power?

We see him thinking back to the good old days, Pop's birthday, his brothers and sister, being with family. He no longer had that at the end of GFII.

So why is so out of the realm that by the time GFIII rolls around, he is a repentive man, looking for forgiveness from those he hurt, along with forgiveness from himself and God?

At the end of GFII he knew that he had wronged his wife and his children. That he betrayed his wife, his mother and father, and his own honor.

I don't see why you feel that Michael would never look to have anything in common with Kay. What he had in common were the children that he loved, and he was looking to build on that.

It is not uncommon for people who've been hard or cold in their early life to mellow out with age and realize that they have done some things that were wrong in their life. It is very common for some people, as the grow older, to spend more time with their loved ones and to want their family around them more often.

Of course Michael would have rather his son been a Lawyer instead of a singer. But in his remorsefulness Michael had to realize that through his life he had made the decisions and that he always had things done his way. Between GFII and GFIII he must have realized that he could no longer pull the strings like he used to because his controlling the strings all those years had cost him the relationship that he now desired with his children.


Don Cardi

As always. Feel welcome to disagree with me again. I've been missing it lately.
Of course he didn't have that family. And not only because of his actions, they were not sacrifices to his power. He lost his parents - it's the worst of tragedies, that no love of ours can make them live forever! And of course this inevitable loss is a thing that makes people feel pain always, even many years later. He lost Sonny - It's the business they've chosen. But of course he must have loved him more than any of his siblings. There was Carlo - what a tragedy it is that he ever got there, and met Connie! But he deserved what he got, and the only regret Michael could feel about him - is that this f--king traitor ever came to their home to destroy the happy family, ruin his sister's happiness and his beloved brother's life. Same goes to Tessio. He is a part of good old days, of many remembrances, but who could tell then that he will betray Michael and set him up?
Connie finally understood something in this life, she is with him, as must be her children.
And Fredo. Sure Michael never enjoyed the fact that he killed his father's son. But we know that he had to, it was a law - traitor can't be forgiven. He could not really repent that he did it - and even in GF3 he says that he doesn't repent anything he's done in his life. It was his duty, he was protecting his family.
What he regrets remembering old times is not his own actions, but the whole course of destiny, and really, when people have lost and suffered much, it's only natural to return to early remembrances of youth as a time of purer happiness, which they, usually, represent in almost every life. But noone can return their youth, as well as the bright ideals and maximalism they had then, and that's not the worst thing about it.
Years and dears are gone, but it's not a cause to be desperate, because it's inevitable.

But I hope you really don't think that Michael, the most powerful crime lord, who had to govern his empire and handle thousands of knotty problems every day for benefit of hundreds of people depending on him one way or another, could have much time for loneliness? You don't really suppose that if we are shown a moment when he sits musing on the fresh air, it is nearly possible that he spent hours after hours sitting there in useless reflection? He simply could not afford it!
I believe that he would be quite as lonely as any other person in the world, and we are all lonely, you know. No family can replace the one we grew in, and when you've lost even that, sure you would feel lonely. But that's exactly why he would never give his children away. Because they are his true family.
Beg to disagree.
1. Even GF3 states that he doesn't repent, so there's no chance for repentive man.
2. Whom did he hurt? Why does he have to seek forgiveness from Kay? It's he who must be forgiven, because it's he who betrayed.
3. He doesn't seek forgiveness from God, in fact even in GF3 the confession is forced on him. As to himself - by that time he must have actually come to terms with himself, one way or another. I don't see how he wronged his children, unless by sending them to Kay, who made them weak, stupid and shallow degenerates (what else could be expected from such person's breeding?)instead of leaving them at home and giving them normal education.
Of course there was Fredo, but as I wrote, Michael could regret having killed him, could regret that it had to be Fredo to betray him, but such feelings pass with time, and even if he still could sigh in darkness at night, he would never allow such sentiments interfere in other things he had to do, and of course it would not make him so desperately remorseful as it might make me, and you, and other good law-abiding people who never killed anyone at all.
I'll explain.
Here's a quote from my post in another debate, with you or not with you, I don't remember.
***
"After all that we see and read, especially after the stare he gives her when he catches her visiting children, we must be convinced that he would never let her even approach them. That by killing his child she made him feel such pain, disappointment an even hatred, that it killed all his love and respect for her, whatever it could be, and killed forever. She could have no illusions about that, she wished to do it, she said “there would be no way Michael, no way you could ever forgive me.” And there is no way. Even if he didn’t kill her, that never means that he could forgive. And certainly, he is not an idiot to send his children to the only person in the world who would most surely teach them to hate him.
And of course, he would never say "I love you…Forgive me everything..." And he was not the man to dream every night about losing her, and children he is supposed to have given up himself.
***

To that I have to add the following. He is a Sicilian. He can never forgive such a thing as killing his child. And the way it was done, intentionally, just to give him pain, to make him suffer - leaves no chance for Kay. This betrayal is the worst and meanest one compared to most ones in the trilogy. Look at his stare, look how he closes the door on her, how can you suppose that he will ever wish to see her??? And that he will not do everything in his power not to let her have any slightest influence with HIS children?
To be guided by SUCH a woman - what a benefit indeed!

As to children themselves, I'll share a thought with you. It makes the GF3 impossible, but I always had such impression. When Michael and Kay are having things out, we are shown the hotel corridor. Mary, who is too small to understand what was going on, is running around. Anthony, who must be at this time old enough to understand what they were saying, stands opposite the door, looking in front of himself, and listening intently. Words of the ongoing quarrell, shouted by Kay, are perfectly clear. If so, he heard everything. And of course, Kay's words "I killed your child, I didn't want to bring him into the world" etc could make no slight impression on a child's mind. He knows that she initiated the divorce, and that she killed his unborn brother. That's why it's Kay, not Michael ought to have problems with Anthony. And that is the explanation to the visit scene, when Kay is hugging Mary, but her son sits apart, and then she cries, begs even, "Anthony, please, kiss me once!" - and he doesn't move. Only after Connie's order he gets up unwillingly.
He's only 60 by GF3. Too early age for marasmus...
I believe that family, even in earlier years, was of great importance to Michael. And that's why he would never send his children away, to stupid and selfish bitch that he hates and despises.

If he would really control the strings all those years he would have taken care of it. It's really difficult for me to imagine what had to happen between GF2 and GF3 to make him a weak-willed helpless moron, bleatingly apologizing all the time. That's why I, personally, find GF3 quite as credible as GFR.

I think it may have been something more practical. It was obvious by the end of GFII that Michael was not through with crime. He would still have to face the repurscussions of the deaths of Pentangeli, Fredo and Roth. He was by then a very public figure, and I would imagine that the safety of his children, let alone their ability to grow up "normally" on that compound in Nevada would be compromised. By turning them over to Kay he knew they would get properly educated, be out of the limelight and out of danger (they would be reduced to the status of "civilians").

Also, Mike himself being a Dartmouth grad probably figured an education for his kids back east would be a good thing. He probably was thrilled that Anthony would finish a law degree, because then he obviously planned to work both of them back into his web by putting them on the Corleone foundation.

Remember that one of the main reasons that Michael was attracted to Kay was that she represented everything he hoped to attain: that WASPy legitimacy that he craved. She was everything that the Corleones were not.

If Michael, in his endless quest for that legitimacy and societal acceptance, wanted that for his children, what better place to get it than to grow up under their mother's influence? She would provide them with contacts within the legitimate world, either through their education or her friends.

That truly is what Michael wanted for his children, and I think that he finally recognized that it was not something he could provide, but that which was only accessible for them through Kay.

Didn't he say in the beginning of GF III that he thought it was better for them to be with their mother I think he used their education as an excuse correct me if I'm wrong.

Very well put SB! Very well put.


Don Cardi

At first, when he tried to estrange himself from his father and family, that might be the reason why he was interested in her.
But later, when he got into the family business, words about legitimacy seemed more a convenient excuse, weapon or surface to hide something else. Even at the end of GF1 he seemed much more into his Sicilian roots and values than any dreams of waspiness. And he would certainly rather bring up his kids in those values, if he wished to see them in family business after all.

You raise some strong points about Michael and his Sicilian roots, JustMe:
IMO, Michael reaches an apex of sorts during his Sicilian exile. His formalized, chaperoned courtship of Appolonia, and the old-fashioned Sicilian wedding, exemplify this. And you can make a good argument that his reconciliation with Vito, the Sicilian cunning he shows in seeming weak, the Great Massacre of 1955, all point to his "Sicilian nature" coming out in full bloom. That hand-kissing scene at the very end is the capper.
But: Near the very end of the novel, Kay prepares to go to daily Mass with Mama to pray for Michael's soul. The narrative notes that Kay had taken instruction in the Catholic Church. Michael was "disappointed...he had wanted his children to be raised as Protestants...it was more American..." [emphasis added].
I don't doubt that Michael loved Kay, in his own way. But I also think he used her to prop up his own obsession with "legitimacy."

That's pretty much the one...although I wouldn't agree that it was for the benefit of eventual reconcilliation, nor even having much to do with Kay herself.

Kay Adams Corleone had once been a teacher. It can be assumed that once the children were teenagers, nearing college age and a good 8 years had passed since the 'abortion' horror...business going well and emotions being healed through the course of time...Michael would come to the realization that the higher education of Anthony and Mary would best be determined by their mother.
And he'd be right.

And of course...this was yet another way to have the exhiled Kay logically written back into Michael's life for the purpose of having Diane Keaton play a major role in GFIII.

Apple

Turnbull, did you read my "last chapter analysis"? I explaned there how I understand this phrase.
In short, it was no obsession of Michael's, it was another example of his endless manipulativeness. What ever career his children would choose, they must be on top, and he calculated that a more American religion will help them, clearing their way to success. Not that he wished them to be less Sicilian inside at the same time. It was to be the most convenient surface to get there . He was manipulating the whole American society at once .

Indeed! Obsessed with controlling everyone and everything...

Yes, I believe it is a very close definition of Michael.

Then again, as Mike might put it, the way Kay got the kids was:

"she asked, I said all right, put them on a plane, and she met them."

"She asked me if she can come and take them. I said yeah, sure, why not? My father taught me: "keep your friends close, but your enemies closer, and never say what you think." Then she called me to say what plane she was on, it was a plane going to Miami... And I said: "That's where I want it met."

Yes, Michael gave in to "reason" on MANY levels.

Interesting BUT... while reflecting back at the end of GF2... is he thinking "was it worth it"?... I dont know if that question really could have been answered.




What could Michael have done differently and ensured the "survival" of the family?

He could have come back and not become Don - he would have been killed = game over.

He could have killed only a few of the heads of the families - he would have been killed by remaining heads = game over.

He could have let Fredo live - like it or not Fredo was a FOREVER threat - let him live then its always looking over your shoulder = game over.

If he doesnt become Don and save family - then and only then did he have any chance of Kay staying around. She wasnt his long lost soulmate.. he married a sicilian so he could do it right. Kay was a one first NOW second option.

All scenario's above result losing family legacy, name, power. "THAT WAS NOT WHAT I WANTED"!!

I don't see what the mystery is. Michael went through an epiphany. Part of that was his attempt to make amends. We don't know when the epiphiny started. We don't know when the kids' "education" that Michael referred to began. Again, as part of the epiphany, Michael wanted to make amends and gave up at least some of his custody to Kay. Sure, as the kids got older they became assertive wanting to see their mother freely and expressing a desire to live with her perhaps. Tony comes to know that his father murdered his uncle. When? We don't know. That may have influenced Tony. Mary, as a female, naturallly wanted her mother.

OK, well it's definatly in my opinion that 2 things are evident between GF2 and GF3. #1, Michael is definatly alone at the end of GF2, meaning no kids from the way it's taken. #2 he has shipped them away by GF3. IMO he starts his quest for redemption by the last shot of him a little older at the every end of GF2. He looks sad, alone, forelorn, it's a powerful imagine that's engrained in my head.

Michael's capacity to take over for Vito was one of Genetic and Environment ("Education"). At the beginning of GF1, from what he told Kay and his knowledge, he might as well have been in Sonny's shoes. So him assuming the reigns was a function of this.

Additional to this, Fredo's death olbviously was his remarkable sin. He slew Fredo, who is probibly the most innocent and sweetest character in the series for a weakness of character, that made him, who he was.

Therefore, it's my speculation, that he realized his mistake and allowed Kay to take away the kids, by doing this their "education" would be a decent one, not emersed in a Mob world. Not one like the one he showed at the wedding (knowing the doings of his Dad, bandleader, and knowing all about Luca).

Innocent?? - "he KNEW it was gonna be a HIT"

No one wants to kill their brother but if you brother is trying to kill you - what do you do?

Ditto.

While I do realize that it was a hit. Fredo, IMO, didn't think it was, although it's pretty olbvious, he admitted he didn't know and didnt' want to have anything to do with it in the 3am phone call from Ola. Essentually it's Fredo's weak and niave nature, IMO that got the best of him, it's evidenced when Fredo said "You guys lied to me -- I don't want you to call me anymore" to Ola over the phone. It's my take that he was blinded by niavity, jealousy and greed and this combined with his good and trusting nature didn't really tihnk it was going to be a hit. He then distanced himself from it and finally realized how stupid he was in Mike's house after Cuba, although he could have deluded himself or even has a concious inclination of the possibility, I think he was blinded.

"A piece for me" line (quote correct?) was the ability for him to be a man and earn and this in a niave child-like way was an attempt for him to grow some bigger balls.

I hear what you are saying.... as we anallyze it.... bottom line for Michael... Fredo was too dangerous to keep around.

Yup, I totally agree, a liability, in Mike's eyes.

I doubt there would have been any divorce/child custody hearing [Kay didn't seem to have any visitation rights even] in Godfather 2 as Michael would “use all his power to keep something like that from happening”

I concede the children “did end up with Kay eventually” as we found out in Godfather 3

However...
We are none the wiser when Kay got the children....“We don't know when the epiphany started”

Sure thing “Kay [mother of his children] was the one person Michael couldn't [wouldn't] kill”

In my view,

As soon as Kay revealed she had an abortion, irrespective of this Sicilian thing, unholy and evil everything must all end, Kay had already lost the case!

If the Senate committee “what the hell happened here!” couldn't pin anything on Michael when they had -
1. incredibly clever and resourceful Roth
2. Senate lawyer Questadt who belongs to Roth
3. Turncoat Senator Geary
4. Willie Cicci
5. Frankie Pentangeli

chances of 'vindictive' 'lying' 'murderous' ex-wife, out to destroy, Navy Cross war hero 'law abiding' patriot, in bitter divorce process, is buckley's and none!