I almost didn’t buyRed Dead Redemption 2, one of my favourite games of all time, because I couldn’t stand the idea of the ‘big bad cowboy’Rockstarshowed us in the trailers. I loved the first game and enjoyed John Marston well enough, butGTA 5’s characters and story never impressed me. So I was fully prepared for a crime-glazed, shallow narrative, and the trailers’ restraint - something I actually appreciate nowadays - didn’t do much to sell me.
Still, I bought it, and I couldn’t have been more wrong. The game is one of the most impressive things I’ve ever experienced, and that ‘big bad cowboy’ is the most well-written character in the history of the medium - and I’m convinced he will remain untouched atop that pedestal.
Arthur Morgan Is Human, With All That Comes With It
There’s no shortage of characters who change their ways to become better people - it’s a classic trope that has proven to work well many times over, and while that’s the core for Arthur Morgan in RDR2, it’s not the thing that makes him brilliant; it’s the complexity of it, even in the face of player choice and different playstyles.
In Red Dead Redemption 2, you may choose to play High Honor or Low Honor. It’s not a set path of one or the other, either, as it’s constantly fluctuating with every action you take. However, elements of the story and Arthur’s situation will change depending on where on the scale you fall, and there are four different endings to the game, with Honor playing a partial factor in what you end up with.
But regardless of how you play, how good or bad your Arthur is, and even what ending you get, you’ll be assured to have a persistently incredible character throughout it all. Arthur’s writing, and the performance of Roger Clarke, makes him feel like a real person through everything. Not a good man, not necessarily a bad man, but he is human, and that can be felt.
A Whole New Meaning Of Redemption
Redemption is a core part of the game, as the namesake would have you believe, and the brilliance comes from Arthur’s redemption. Regardless of how far you actually take that redemption, it can be felt, whether through attempts or regrets - there’s no victory to it, and there’s no assurance that you’ll get to have any hero moments.
We get glimpses of Arthur’s past with Mary, and as she returns, we’re given choices on whether or not to help her, and each time, not only does Arthur’s complexity come through, but so does the complexity of the whole relationship. Then we have Arthur wanting to help others, namely John and Abigail, get out of the gang safely before everything falls apart. He does everything he can to help them, not because he’s a hero, but because they’re his family beyond his own frustrations and dealings. We see him watch Dutch, the man who took him in as a kid, descend into a selfish, toxic place, and yet Arthur never turns against him, nor does he blindly side with him. He continues to find himself stuck, trying to find the best way to deal with everything, and continuing to try to get through to Dutch all the way to the end.
But outside of the overarching plot, Arthur’s writing carries through in the complexities of every moment. Camp interactions with the other characters, how you deal with NPC encounters out in the world, or just the mannerisms you exhibit while existing in the world.
Everything plays a part in the kind of character Arthur is, and despite the fact that he is fundamentally a pre-written character, he’s also vastly pre-written to a point that you will experience your own version of him each time, and that’s something we rarely ever see.
We’re often playing a pre-written character with the illusion of choice, with effects that are echoed in the moments following certain actions, before we’re back on rails, or we’re given complete freedom at the cost of character elements being quite so meticulously crafted to make way for that freedom. Arthur Morgan, in every sense, is the most well-crafted character I’ve seen, and I don’t believe we’ll get another quite like him.
