General Hospital's Sonny on the other hand had a purpose. He was not brought on for the love of the mob, in fact, one could argue, the whole mob boss as a permanent character idea stems from his success. Sonny was a complex character who was a high-class thug. He had business, he dodged the law, he had few morals, and he had a trigger finger. Sonny's creation was not about the mob hitting Port Charles; so much as it was about introducing a new and unique character in Sonny. He was without question a villain because he broke the law, but he was not without heart, humanity, weaknesses, and friendship. Sonny was a character so thoroughly drawn that he could have remained a rigid and vengeful criminal or he could slowly change and fight his demons ... unfortunately neither happened.
As soaps became lazier in creating mob-related stories, GH led the way by basically repeating the same Sonny stories over and over. Instead making any definitive changes to his character, Sonny managed to stay pretty much exactly the same or a little bit worse with others giving him credit for changing and fighting demons, which he actually hasn't done. Worse still, while Sonny was the main figure of that mob instead of the mob taking over the town, in the last few years nearly every member of the town has joined it or fallen in love with someone related to it.
Now the mob and all of its' stories dominate the town. I suppose if Sonny had remained an annoying bully that would have been problematic regardless, but it's worse that he's dragged down several characters with him.
Mob stories are the same as every other storyline, they live and die based on how and why the story was conceived. When there is a motive, a method to the writers' madness, a story to tell, despite the fact that audiences are overdosing on Mafia driven stories, another one could survive.
When ATWT's Craig was knee deep in money troubles with the syndicate no one moaned about another mob story. Why? Because the story was about Craig, the depths he would sink to pay the money back, the danger he put himself and his children in, and his moral downward spiral back to the guy that tried to have his romantic rival killed. It was about the character.
In the old days all stories involving the criminal element had a time limit to it. Either the victim was the focus of the story or the boss if a long-term character is going to slowly change and become important to the canvas. These days, however, try as they might; most attempts can't manage that. Every attempt at these stories is now looking like Passions' campy Puff Daddy knock off story. No soap trying these type of stories have figured out when, how, and why to bring these villains in.
