Marlo Stanfield: The Great Khan of Baltimore
Spoiler Alert for ‘The Wire’
One of the most fitting character introductions in television, in my opinion, is Marlo Stanfield from David Simon’s seminal work The Wire. While one of his underlings is threatening the harmless drug addict Bubbles with a gun, he quips:
Well, either do it or don’t, I got someplace to be. — Marlo Stanfield
This seems to sum up Marlo’s character arc in a series full of amazing characters: he has places to be and he does not have the patience of old. At odds with the existing grandmasters of the drug trade, namely the Barksdales, he does not prefer their methodical ways of eliminating opposition and capturing territory. Although the Barksdales could hardly be characterised as anywhere near soft, they still appear positively honourable and almost likeable compared to Marlo’s crew. This is among the recurring themes in Simon’s writing where violence is not only cyclical, it gets worse as crowns are passed on.
Little is known of Marlo’s background and what motivates him, but his actions make his line of reasoning explicitly clear with each passing episode. To borrow a description from another great show (no prizes for guessing which), he is not in the drug business, rather in the empire building business. So the reference character for Marlo is not the Pablo Escobar type, rather someone like Genghis Khan.
While there has been no dearth of cruel rulers and conquerors in history, Genghis Khan was perhaps a distance apart in the way he utilised absolutely brutal violence as a strategic advantage over his rivals. It sent a clear message: if you engage and lose, your entire cities and villages will be wiped out of existence. This made the other sides very reluctant to actively resist the Mongols and ultimately, the Mongol casualties were limited. Marlo employs a similar line of reasoning, in the sense that he intuitively understands that half measures and compromises will invite future challenge as rivals will always think they have a chance. By crushing his opponents into absolute submission, he ensures that no one apart from very serious challengers (such as Omar Little, for example) come in his way. The pinnacle of this approach turns out to be the moment when even the go-to compromise guy in the show, the one most interested in maintaining peace, Proposition Joe falls victim to Marlo’s direct action.
Wars (Don’t) End
This reputation for brutality is absolutely essential to Marlo’s business, as it was with the Mongols. This is very unlike someone like Stringer Bell who wants to separate out the violence from the drug business very efficiently, and use the violence perhaps in a surgical manner even if he ultimately fails in a spectacular way. Marlo, on the other hand, is very clear that violence is business and business is violence in the drug trade. There is no transitioning to a less violent empire once stability has been achieved, there is no peace. His craving for this level of control is evident in his final scene, where despite having been acquitted and being in possession of a lot of money, he is still drawn towards street level conflict.
The Man with the Code
A man must have a code. — Bunk Moreland
So what would be David Simon’s motivations in creating such an absolute monster of a character in the series? To look at it one way, it could be argued that the way the Baltimore drug system is set up, the most efficient way to be successful is Marlo’s way. He seems to have been the most effective conqueror among all introduced throughout the show. In a twisted evil system like that of Baltimore, which includes the rotting institutions like schools, police and the judiciary, it seems like Marlo had cracked the code to the game. Of course, with Simon’s writing, the conclusion has to be layered and complex. Marlo, despite doing everything in his power to attain the throne still does not get the street cred he feels he deserves, outshined posthumously by Omar Little. So what we have is an allegory of life itself, a parable full of contradictions. As everyone in the show keeps reminding us: All in the game, yo!
