And Dutch’s decision to help John and save Sadie doesn’t seem to have much of an impact when Dutch and John meet again in Red Dead Redemption. Maybe there’s a story about how Dutch was eventually disillusioned with Micah, but we don’t get to hear it. John is somehow able to reason with Dutch, even though Dutch has fallen for Micah’s flattery at every step, and Dutch shoots Micah in the chest. When you reach the final mission of the game and confront Micah and Dutch, you see that the two outlaws have reunited and Micah is holding Sadie as a hostage at gunpoint.
But John’s story is really just there to let you pursue various side quests and provide a little closure to the story of Micah Bell, which doesn’t even make a lot of sense. Perhaps if there had been some kind of connective tissue where John is immediately picking up Arthur’s story or we get some subtext about morality or redemption (John’s redemption doesn’t come until his own story in Red Dead Redemption unless you think building a house and getting furniture counts as “redemption”). That works the other way around because Red Dead Redemption 2 starts with John in a supporting role, but by elevating him to the lead, I’m being told that the story is over and now the work begins of completing the challenges, finding all the collectibles, etc. The protagonist is now just a supporting character in John’s story. When you tack on two chapters worth of epilogue, then Arthur’s story becomes smaller and less important.
I don’t have an issue with Red Dead Redemption 2 killing off Arthur Morgan, but if that’s the end of the game, that should be the end of it. But we already knew that because we presumably played Red Dead Redemption and also, it doesn’t work out too well for John Marston in the end-his family is abducted by the government, he’s forced to hunt down his former compatriots, and when the job is finished, the government betrays him and guns him down at his home. I suppose you could make the argument that John is Arthur’s success story as John went on to build a life for his family and that’s what Arthur gave his life for. If you’re just telling the story of Arthur Morgan, then an epilogue about John Marston makes no sense because nothing ties these two characters together beyond both being in the Van Der Linde gang.
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