Headscratchers / Grand Theft Auto: Vice City

• If Sonny Forelli set up Tommy 15 years prior to the events of Vice City, what did Tommy do to deserve it?
  • Tommy's the "Harwood Butcher". In the intro Sonny comments that people will remember the incident when he's released from prison. Whatever it was, it led to the deaths of some fifteen people, the sort of incident that would start a gang war. It's a safe bet Sonny got Tommy arrested and out of the way to patch things over.
  • I got this from the GTA Wikia to better understand my "headscratcher": "Tommy Vercetti was sent to assassinate a rival gang member on the orders of his boss, Sonny Forelli. However, Forelli had set up an ambush in an attempt to assassinate Vercetti, and when Vercetti arrived in Harwood he found that eleven hitmen had been sent to kill him." What I was asking was what did Tommy do to have Sonny wanting to walk into an ambush and therefore earned the nickname "The Harwood Butcher".
  • As soon as Tommy's let out of jail, he gets sent to Vice City to establish another branch of the Forelli empire. The initial deal goes badly wrong, leaving Tommy with no drugs or money. Despite this terrible start, he succeeds in taking over all of Vice City, becoming the biggest drug lord/gangster in town, keeping all the profits for himself, and eventually killing Sonny Forelli and ending the Forelli empire in Liberty City. It's possible that Sonny was always nervous about Tommy's ambition/capability, and hatched the initial plan to kill Tommy in Harwood to have him removed as a threat to Sonny's power.
• In "Demolition Man", which is considered by many as one of the hardest (if not annoying) missions in the series' history, what's the logic behind Tommy having to use the RC Goblin to plant 4 bombs around the Construction Site in order to destroy it. Couldn't he just shoot his way through the construction site, killing both guards and the workers or maybe because the mission's boss, Avery Carrington, wanted to keep it discreet.
  • Perhaps Avery needed Tommy to Make It Look Like an Accident so that when he swooped in and took over the now vacant lot, people wouldn't find it suspicious and start asking questions. If Tommy went on a gun-toting killing spree, people might have been able to put two and two together, or at least grow suspicious enough to start digging. Sure, all of the fuel barrels (assuming that that's what they are) at the construction site exploding at once is suspicious, but it's enough to provide Avery with plausible deniability.
  • Also, by default a drone is going to leave the operator very safe, as opposed to Tommy having to go in himself and risk his life against construction workers. Avery likes Tommy, and also views him as an asset.
• In "Love Juice", Tommy is enlisted by Kent Paul to find some "company" for Love Fist before they perform, and Tommy's first thought was Mercedes. My question is why didn't Tommy picked up a few prostitutes from nearby corners as an alternative? Not that I personally condone that but it would've been a more logical approach because keep in mind that Mercedes' father, Colonel Cortez (before he fled), told Tommy to look after his daughter and I'm pretty sure pimping his daughter and getting her involved in the porn business is not what he meant.
  • Tommy observes Mercedes offering him a massage (which will also include sex because that's what it's code for), starring in low-budget porn and also that she's rumoured to both dance at Pole Position and work the streets of Little Havana. He knows from this that she's down, and Cortez need not know. This comes up in a post-endgame phone call, but while Cortez is concerned about her behaviour, he instead worries she might be training to become a lawyer.
• Why do passengers in the speedboats driven by Tommy stand up? And how do they stay perfectly still?
  • Probably just limitations of the game engine.
• While planning to photograph Alex Shrub crossdressing to blackmail him, why didn't Tommy Vercetti or Steve Scott tell Candy Suxx about their plans to prevent Congressman Shrub from banning pornography in Vice City if Candy was close to Alex? She could have very well collaborated with them in their plot, given that Alex was going to put her out of a job! By the way, why does Candy tell Alex that someone is spying on them if she had heard Tommy and Steve discussing how to blackmail him? She caused the deaths of many FBI officers by doing so!