As someone who is rapidly finding out that I have a lot of childhood trauma, when you mentioned that Jack should be able to remember Arthur at 12, I thought about how I forgot pretty much everything that happened when I was 4 or 5 by the time I was 7. And then I realized that was a trauma response. It was one of the most real “Oh… *Oh…”* moments I’ve had in a while
I really wish Bill and Javier got more focus after returning from Guarma like John did. I wanted to see Arthur try to convince them to leave as well and go more in-depth about how the gang was essentially split in half since we didn't get a whole lot of time with either of them in the first game, considering they played such a big role.
I’ve always wanted a DLC where you play as Jack tracking down all of the living gang members to interview them and it ends with him sitting down to write his book about the outlaw life.
5:01, 22:05 Same. It's just such a gut punch to compare how bright he used to be to how depressive and self-loathing he became. AND WHAT SUCKS IS THAT LITERALLY *NONE OF IT* IS HIS FAULT LIKE, AT ALL. 26:00 Aww, I didn't even think of that.
also its really interesting how arthur (and john) are so accepting of different people, like that one ride he takes with lenny where lenny talks about how people in lemoyne are racist and arthur can barely understand why and how people would be racist.
I feel so so sorry for Jack, later in the story, when Abigail wants to play happy family after Arthur’s death, I thought to myself: ,,NOW? NOW U ACTUALLY RUN AND LIVE A NORMAL LIFE???”, her love for John dragged everyone to hell. She should’ve been brave, leave John (even after ,,some years later”, they still constantly have to run bc of John acting like John), look for a normal husband, a safe place and raise Jack on her own. Many will argue with this, but u cannot ever be save with someone like John, not as a father, nor as a husband, as we saw. John is the reason that Jack was around drunks, morphine addicts, killers, violence, degeneracy, gangs and absolute horror. I love John too, but he’s a deranged, crazy, violent killer. There are many people after him for good reason and just because of his own actions. I understand for example, that John loved Dutch, but he should’ve left long before the showdown on that mountain. John was jailed, Jack thought John died, Jack got kidnapped, Jack went hungry a lot, Jack hears his parents fight constantly…and all he has, are his books. Wonderfully written character.
Thank you for this deep dive - the way you talk about the rdr2 characters is really insightful and interesting, and the way you break down his behavior is. chefs kiss. Thank you for your hard work and for sharing this <3
Another thing worth mentioning is that during the barfight mission in Valentine, Arthur goes "Is he about to kiss that guy or punch him" when Bill gets into a confrontation with one of the patrons. Which is interesting because I don't recall him ever saying something similar again for any other character besides Bill
There is an interaction between Bill and Javier where Bill asks Javier to have a drink with him and Javier says something like "OK, but again, I won't sit on your lap" That confirmed for me. More than all of the other details. With excepction of the interaction with Kieran.
my favorite thing about arthur is that the other outlaws aren’t racist or homophobic (other than micah) because they don’t live by societal norms anyways, but arthur and for what it’s worth john genuinely can’t fathom why people would be hated because of the color of their skin or who they wanna smash
Hey could you do a video about Micah Bell? I know the answer is probably a no bc he's a very one-sided character and everything in the game is meant to make you hate him... BUT there's a dialogue where he talks about hell which show how much of a nihilistic and defeatist of a person he is. He is aware of what he does and tries to justify it and accepts that he may be wrong about it. Every last one of us has evil in out hearts, who can say arthur or john couldn't have become like micah, considering they were both found and raised by heavily moralistic criminals with a "Robin Hood complex"? At least micah faced what he was doing, everyone else were dangerous criminals who didn't accept what they really were, or that what they were doing was justified by greater good.
I've wondered about this actually, especially because of my interest in the queer history of cowboys, if there were any queer characters in the game. Then I saw Margaret and got a bit confused but also hopeful. Does anyone else in the game spring out to you? Perhaps overhearing something between Npcs in towns?
Unsolicited advice in regards to the video; Please PLEASE GET A POP FILTER! Every word sounds like you are slapping your mic, it is incredibly distracting.
I feel like Margaret was very non-queer coded, and that they were a subversion of the “man dressing up as a woman is inherently comical” trope. There’s a lot of (rightful) criticism around the trope of having a man- by force or by choice- dress in drag and be a punchline in and of itself, usually with a bunch of jokes made at said crossdresser’s expense. Margaret mostly falls into this trope, being mostly portrayed as pathetic, but the key difference is that what makes Margaret pathetic isn’t the fact that they’re dressing up as a woman as “part of the act”, but rather that they’re such a poor show(wo)man with their animal act that they feel the need to tack on another gimmic to draw a crowd. Margaret marches around in their dress like “What’s this? A WOMAN lion-tamer? Have you ever seen anything so preposterous?” To which Authur (and seemingly most others) respond with “eh.” Arthur’s comment about the world most famous female lion-tamer being “an actual woman” one day reads as him not being particularly shocked with Margaret’s ‘shock value’ tactic. TLDR, Margaret reads as non queer coded and a criticism of the trope of cross dressing being inherently absurd/comical.
I used to wear a pompadour and used pomade frequently. The idea of using it as lube sounds like torture. It’s a sticky waxy substance, atleast now and as far back as the 50s, you would genuinely be better off raw. I have no idea how people got this lube idea from. If he wanted lube wouldn’t he just use tallow, axel grease for wagons, or even snake oil.
I absolutely love these videos you make, they’re so in depth! I saw that you’ve played the last of us, a video on those games would be so freaking cool. I’m a bit obsessed with both of these video games lol
I'd be really interested in your thoughts and opinions on the pinkerton detective agency!! If you do decide to give it another go and film it again I'd love to hear what you have to say. I just got into red dead 2 on the reccomendation of a close friend and its taken over my life (currently just started chapter 6). Watching your videos on the characters and world of red dead is also really giving me something to chew on mentally when im not playing the game and i really love them!!
I hate that in RDR 1 Bill became ugly. I also get tired of the evil gay troupe a lot of anime has. De Santa and Bill were gay and evil. But in RDR 2 they made Charles (French guy) bi and chaotic neutral. LOL
See the thing that's so genius about it is that all of it could be interpreted either way, the charges could be seen as general misconduct, the name rhyme could be explained as a feminine nickname, and yes the hair pomade could be strange but also important to take into consideration this doesn't take place until chapter 4 which could be related to the up scale society party they go to either possibly wanting it beforehand in preparation, or wanting it after being exposed to it in high society. That being said Bill is def riding rainbow road
No? It's a very well made analysis on a character from a piece of media, just because it isn't a book it doesn't mean that disscussing in depth about a character is "fan fiction".
its 1899-1911 ffs come on, theres so many ''queer representation'' especially for that time. Yes bill is gay, yes it matters just like any fact about any other big character does, it's lore and people like to know the story
Another sly reference to Bill's procilvites might be that he rides a big, hairy horse named "Brown Jack" The gang's personal horses are representations of their character, and supposedly the etymological root of the word *bear* is... "the brown one"
