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Bunny Tracks said:
The KKK being in it makes no fucking sense since they were extinct during the time the game takes place, and the variant depicted wouldn't come around till almost twenty years later.

To be blunt, I don't give a fuck if that gang's super progressive, and that makes no sense. It's a videogame, and it has bigger anachronisms running around like that sentient robot, and the KKK like I mentioned above. The gang being nice to minorities, and women is a non-issue. If anything, they point to the game taking place in alternate timeline where things are just different, or whatever. Micah being a shithead is fine because it's well, Micah, but Bill at least has reason because was in a war with them, so him being racist makes a little sense.

No, what gets me is Rockstar's worry about racism in addition to making them retcon Javier, made them also cut out really cool shit like what happened at Fort Riggs, and possibly an entire gang of Native Americans. I get why they wanted to portray Natives better than how they did in the first game, but come on. Let them do something instead of just being stuck at Wapiti all day, and spying on you from the edges of the map.
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I think individually the various issues aren't big, I can get why the gang would likely wave some of it off. They're in essence the only people they have in the world that won't quickly try to turn them in or backstab them ..Well, some of them. It's just very evident that the way they wrote it someone went through and made sure anything even remotely unacceptable was scrubbed.

Even the openly racist characters or side-characters dance around which terms they use, only imply their disgust. Not even the caricature racists are allowed to say rude terms because the entire game's edge was carefully sanded off. I think the hardest thing someone says is calling Javier a greaser and Lenny saying Nigger once.

The natives and most of the tail end of the game very much got screwed. Hell they're even afraid to have the Skinner Brothers have really blatant indian members.
 
Agarathium1066 said:
Even the openly racist characters or side-characters dance around which terms they use, only imply their disgust. Not even the caricature racists are allowed to say rude terms because the entire game's edge was carefully sanded off. I think the hardest thing someone says is calling Javier a greaser and Lenny saying Nigger once.
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Charles got called a redskin a few times, and only a redskin even though he looks more black than Native. I think they forgot he was supposed to half-black most of the time.
Agarathium1066 said:
The natives and most of the tail end of the game very much got screwed. Hell they're even afraid to have the Skinner Brothers have really blatant indian members.
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There's this theory that the Skinner Brothers were supposed to be the remnants of the Natives held at Fort Riggs, and/or the ones that Dutch uses to make up his gang in the first game.

The evidence for this is that they're the only gang to use Native weapons, and tactics, are the only gang to have Natives in it, are in relatively close proximity to the fort, and have no specific gimmick outside of all the Native shit, and are basically just a more violent, less incest-y version of the Murfree Brood.

They also don't have any lore outside of being rejects who hate civilization. That makes a lot more sense if you combine all the shit at Fort Riggs with everything above together. They hate civilization because they were kept in a camp that tried to "civilize" them, and most of them died.

The explanation for it was scrapped was because it would've caused a giant tonal clash, they'd have to rewrite who helps you in the epilogue, and the fact it would have been perceived as racist.
 
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Bunny Tracks said:
Charles got called a redskin a few times, and only a redskin even though he looks more black than Native. I think they forgot he was supposed to half-black most of the time.

There's this theory that the Skinner Brothers were supposed to be the remnants of the Natives held at Fort Riggs, and/or the ones that Dutch uses to make up his gang in the first game.

The evidence for this is that they're the only gang to use Native weapons, and tactics, are the only gang to have Natives in it, are in relatively close proximity to the fort, and have no specific gimmick outside of their all the Native shit, and are basically just a more violent, less incest-y version of the Murfree Brood.

They also don't have any lore outside of being rejects who hate civilization. That makes a lot more sense if you combine all the shit at Fort Riggs with everything above together. They hate civilization because they were kept in a camp that tried to "civilize" them, and most of them died.

The explanation for it was scrapped was because it would've caused a giant tonal clash, they'd have to rewrite who helps you in the epilogue, and the fact it would have been perceived as racist.
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I've thought that before and it would play into RDR and how Dutch is leading them. It's just more of Dutch telling people what they want to hear and then using them to his own ends, in that case just causing chaos. He's good at saying the right things to people who want to hear someone tell them those things that validate their actions, but then he turns them into a tool to be used. You see it right from the aftermath of the Blacksburg Ferry job in RDR2.

I thought that maybe Dutch started going bad after he hit his head during the trolley station robbery, but when I played through the game a second and third time, I really started to notice Dutch's actions right from the beginning. The video I posted where Uncle calls him out shows it when at the end he says he wants to kill Uncle. He's seething over someone he considers a buffoon to be able to see that he's nothing more than a user of people and a petty tyrant. Uncle plays it off as a joke ("put me out of my majesty Your Misery") and the real context of the exchange seems to have missed by the rest of the gang, but Uncle knew. And that was way back at the Horseshoe Overlook camp.

And when he said "there goes the greatest man any of us know" as Dutch walked away, he wasn't saying "Dutch is a great man and we're lucky to know him." He was saying "we're all so low that it seems like he's got it together."

And it isn't Uncle's only time he says something that cuts right to the quick. After Abigail leaves John and he buys Beecher's Hope and the shack is still standing, he tells John "you're hopeless, John. I mean it literally; you have no hope." And it only then that John figures out he really needs to do more than just buy a shack and that will somehow get his wife to come home.

Uncle is a very underrated character in my opinion.
 
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William Murderface said:
I've thought that before and it would play into RDR and how Dutch is leading them. It's just more of Dutch telling people what they want to hear and then using them to his own ends, in that case just causing chaos. He's good at saying the right things to people who want to hear someone tell them those things that validate their actions, but then he turns them into a tool to be used. You see it right from the aftermath of the Blacksburg Ferry job in RDR2.

I thought that maybe Dutch started going bad after he hit his head during the trolley station robbery, but when I played through the game a second and third time, I really started to notice Dutch's actions right from the beginning. The video I posted where Uncle calls him out shows it when at the end he says he wants to kill Uncle. He's seething over someone he considers a buffoon to be able to see that he's nothing more than a user of people and a petty tyrant. Uncle plays it off as a joke ("put me out of my majesty Your Misery") and the real context of the exchange seems to have missed by the rest of the gang, but Uncle knew. And that was way back at the Horseshoe Overlook camp.

And when he said "there goes the greatest man any of us know" as Dutch walked away, he wasn't saying "Dutch is a great man and we're lucky to know him." He was saying "we're all so low that it seems like he's got it together."

And it isn't Uncle's only time he says something that cuts right to the quick. After Abigail leaves John and he buys Beecher's Hope and the shack is still standing, he tells John "you're hopeless, John. I mean it literally; you have no hope." And it only then that John figures out he really needs to do more than just buy a shack and that will somehow get his wife to come home.

Uncle is a very underrated character in my opinion.
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Uncle is such a cool character. He's proven to be a way better character than Dutch.
 
Bunny Tracks said:
He's totally Red Harlow. I don't care what anyone says, or if the timelines don't match up.

He's definitely him.
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Headshotmaster138 said:
Sucks Red Harlow's story never concluded. Would loved to have a stranger mission where you can meet him, hell they could've used him in that stranger mission where you meet legendary gunslingers for that guy's book.
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I wish we've gotten more Red Harlow stories.
 
The whole Micah-is-racist thing leads into one of my problems with Micah being an asshole just to make him obnoxious, he's the only bigoted Hwyte man in the gang, but he's also Dutch's golden boy. Fuck, just make Micah be the fed who doesn't believe his own shit but is deliberately stirring up Dutch with over-the-top revolutionary nonsense.
 
Ughubughughughughughghlug said:
The whole Micah-is-racist thing leads into one of my problems with Micah being an asshole just to make him obnoxious, he's the only bigoted Hwyte man in the gang, but he's also Dutch's golden boy. Fuck, just make Micah be the fed who doesn't believe his own shit but is deliberately stirring up Dutch with over-the-top revolutionary nonsense.
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I really wish Micah had just been a red herring, and the real rat had either been someone else, or just not have existed in the first place.
 
Psyduck said:
Some of the gameplay ones sound more plausible, some of them also sound great, but the guy lost me when got up to the Brood's more graphic and sadistic tendencies and said "I mightve been the reason this was cut off"

Its amusing to me how all of these random ex-company workers are always high enough on the ladder to be able to leak all of these im assuming top secret details right into any small timw forum they can find

Also reads like the sort of overambitious fanfiction stuff fans come up with after
the game's already out (6 different playable characters across two branched endings? A secret movie reward for 100% completion?)

Some of it also seems like it was just the dude fantasizing if you ask me:

"Arthur was supposed to be bisexual and he'd rawdog Charles! This was scrapped because gays are oppressed, obviously!"

"Sadie is being raped when you first meet her! I will proceed to graphically describe the entire scene frame by frame, BUT THANK GOD IT WAS REMOVED! Can you believe some playtesters thought it was hot!? Not me, of course...!"

Listen to me, i've had enough experiences with people like this to know that male feminist = predator in disguise

i'll give credit to some of the users in that forum, it wasn't long til someone called out most of the list as bs, but while some of the points *could* be real, the leaker seems unreliable to me
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Some of it is mildly plausible, but the idea that any development company or publishers would include a fucking full-on graphic gang rape scene in a game releasing in 2018 is the clearest indicator that at least some of this is bullshit. There's no way anyone in the room would have pitched that idea knowing the sort of shitstorm that would have proceeded if it had gone ahead. Even when rape is present in a game as a plot device or backstory it's almost always just implied and never shown. With the political climate back then [which still persists] I don't think any developer or publisher could get away with that. Even when Arthur gets sodomized by that guy living in a shack in the swamp it's just 'gently implied' and most won't even think it happened unless they stumble across a single line of dialogue with Bill Williamson. Also the implication that testers would just watch the scene play out because they got turned on by it is laughable, most of your time as a tester is spent repeatedly trying to break animations or fall through the world or go through solid objects because your job is to escalate such issues so they can be addressed.

It reads more like fanfic wish fulfilment to me, padded with plausible details the average person could probably imply after playing the game since some character elements or unused arcs are present but not played out to their full extent.
 
Ughubughughughughughghlug said:
The whole Micah-is-racist thing leads into one of my problems with Micah being an asshole just to make him obnoxious, he's the only bigoted Hwyte man in the gang, but he's also Dutch's golden boy. Fuck, just make Micah be the fed who doesn't believe his own shit but is deliberately stirring up Dutch with over-the-top revolutionary nonsense.
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I don't even know if Micah is a racist. About the most he says is "why do I have to bunk with the darkies" in Colter, calls Lenny "boy" and tells Charles to step and fetch (and gets thrown to the ground for it). He might call Javier a "beaner" or something along those lines, but it doesn't stick out in my mind. Even if he was, it wouldn't exactly be out of place for the time.

I think it's more that Micah just delights in getting under peoples' skin. He antagonizes just about everyone in camp at some point (with the exception of Dutch of course) and always comes away from the encounter laughing.
 
William Murderface said:
I don't even know if Micah is a racist. About the most he says is "why do I have to bunk with the darkies" in Colter, calls Lenny "boy" and tells Charles to step and fetch (and gets thrown to the ground for it). He might call Javier a "beaner" or something along those lines, but it doesn't stick out in my mind. Even if he was, it wouldn't exactly be out of place for the time.

I think it's more that Micah just delights in getting under peoples' skin. He antagonizes just about everyone in camp at some point (with the exception of Dutch of course) and always comes away from the encounter laughing.
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You're right, it's more about Micah being a douche, it's just that he's pretty much the only one that does stuff like that and Dutch is exactly the kind of guy who'd get triggered AF over it.
It could have been played for character development if someone called Dutch on that hypocrisy and it was made clear that Dutch is so vain he prefers having a toadie even if that toadie makes a mockery of his supposed values, but it just doesn't come up.


Edit: You want to see what I mean about getting triggered, see Dutch's douchey bullying of Bill after Bill dares to say something critical about Dutch's Inderinos.
 
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Ughubughughughughughghlug said:
You're right, it's more about Micah being a douche, it's just that he's pretty much the only one that does stuff like that and Dutch is exactly the kind of guy who'd get triggered AF over it.
It could have been played for character development if someone called Dutch on that hypocrisy and it was made clear that Dutch is so vain he prefers having a toadie even if that toadie makes a mockery of his supposed values, but it just doesn't come up.
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The few times someone actually questions or even ribs Dutch he gets extremely angry. He's thin skinned as hell and cannot stomach even slight backchat from anyone in the gang. Hell the entire reason he went after the proto-mobster in San Denis is because he insulted him. It wasn't because of what the man did or his ties but that he dared insult him.
 
Agarathium1066 said:
The few times someone actually questions or even ribs Dutch he gets extremely angry. He's thin skinned as hell and cannot stomach even slight backchat from anyone in the gang. Hell the entire reason he went after the proto-mobster in San Denis is because he insulted him. It wasn't because of what the man did or his ties but that he dared insult him.
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That, and he played Dutch for a fool with the trolley station, and deliberately so. Which is exactly what was going to happen after Dutch's grand entrance and threats of violence in his own parlor. You don't disrespect a man like Angelo Bronte like that and think there will be no repercussions.

Of course, you don't try and fail to kill a man like Dutch and think there will be no repercussions, either. Had Dutch been a little more respectful in that first meeting its entirely probable the gang's time in Saint Denis would have been far less eventful thanks to them working for him and giving them jobs... of course, they'd be dirty ones since nobody will care if ringers like them get killed, especially Bronte. Heck, you could even have the same ending for Bronte as the gang realizes they've been played by him into doing his dirty work in a neat reverse of the situation with the Greys and Braithwaites, which coincidentally pisses off everyone to the point they're more onboard with it, even Hosea and Lenny, since of course Bronte wouldn't let assets like the van der Linde gang and their talents at naked violence just walk away.
 
Bunny Tracks said:
I really wish Micah had just been a red herring, and the real rat had either been someone else, or just not have existed in the first place.
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I liked the theory that went around a few years ago that Abigail was the rat.

I don't think it was the intention, but that would have been far more interesting. Especially if Arthur ultimately understood and forgave her.
 
I like the idea that Dutch was a rat himself and was the one who let the cops know ahead of time about the Blackwater Ferry job and the train job Mary Beth finds out about in Valentine (the one with Arthur, John, Charles, and Sean) simply because he realizes the gang is too chummy and he doesn't know how to lead them any longer. They do say after that job that someone set the law on them. But there are two problems I have with that idea:

1) Dutch's ego. He thinks he can walk on water and lives in an echo chamber where no one dares tell him he's wrong (aside from Hosea and Arthur) when the game begins. It isn't until they get to Lemoyne that cracks start to show and even those aren't that large until Sean is killed and Jack is kidnapped.

2) Dutch isn't as smart as he thinks he is. He keeps making mistake after mistake but no one calls him on it until the bank job in Saint Denis goes bad. I don't think someone set them up as much as Milton realized Dutch was there (especially after shooting up the town after the trolley station) and would need money, and where else is the money kept but the bank?

Dutch bought into his own press and between getting sloppy (Milton knows exactly where they were in Valentine and Lemoyne the whole time) and not being as smart as everyone thinks, there's didn't even need to be a rat.
 
The theories I like is that either there wasn't a rat, and it was just the gang's constant shit-stirring that got them caught, or it was Jack, who accidentally spilled everything to the cops while he was being held by Bronte because he didn't know any better.
 
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Bunny Tracks said:
it was just the gang's constant shit-stirring that got them caught
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I mean, they didn't keep a low profile at all after Blackwater. They rob a train belonging to Leviticus Cornwall, shoot their way out of Valentine, and then you have them burning down half of Rhodes and killing off the entire Braithwaite family. If I was the Pinkertons that would be throwing up all the red flags in the world because who the hell else would be so arrogant as to think they could involve themselves in a decades-old dispute between two old money families and come out on top but Dutch van der Linde?
 
Another story complaint that American Krogan also makes:
It genuinely bothers me how many people played RDR2 and walked away thinking there was any redemption (which clearly was the intention) or that Arthur became a good man. He dies in a shootout with lawmen going about their rightful business trying to stop a band of murderers and thieves from continuing their murdering and thieving, so he can help his fellow murderer and thief get off scot free. But Arthur is a good man because he's learned to be friends with that particular murderer and thief (over some other murderers and thieves). Similarly, Arthur directly caused the death of a man and the ruin of his family through his thuggery, but because he feels really sorry about it (facing imminent Hell) and makes a half-assed attempt at fixing it (that never can), he gets the approval of the man's widow-turned-prostitute.

I don't mind playing as a criminal, but I like it when the story is aware that the criminal is a bad guy. GTA: San Andreas has things in it to make the Grove Street Families (to borrow some faggy TV Tropes talk) "neighborhood friendly gangsters" like going up against corrupt cops and not selling hard drugs, but I don't feel like the game actually makes them out to be good people as such. Mafia 3 similarly has you on the "right side" of evil vs evil but is explicit about the fact that you're still wrong, as evidenced by, say, the Catholic priest character acting as the conscience and the final conversation between the don and the gangbanger fighting him.

Redemption in Red Dead Redemption's world is cheap, it doesn't require mending the wounds you caused or making sacrifices, doesn't require a change of life. And as an amoral story about one man's troubles - pure adventure - that's fine. But when I see people talking up Arthur Morgan like a great hero, it makes me question how strong of a sense of morality those people have in real life.

I'm reminded of a book I read, The Shootist. I can't actually remember if the main character was an outlaw in that or just a gunslinger, but either way the man lead a dissolute and violent life and ends up facing a slow and painful death by prostate cancer. He holes himself up in a hotel to wait out his end, and along the way is hounded by people trying to turn a buck off his death, ghosts of his past just there to remind him how unwanted he is by the world, opportunists looking to shoot a sick man to claim some glory, and lawmen who want to pressure him out of town just to get rid of the headache. It's a bleak, depressing story, and is painful in how you see him degenerate physically until just living is a pain, and finally he goes out one day, knowing he can't carry on anymore, and shoots three of the bad hombres in a duel - a good deed to the town - and leaves his money to the respectable lady who's been taking care of him. The gunslinger lead a life not worth living and he, in the end, gets a little bit of redemption by sacrificing his life in a way that helps a few people, normal people.
 
That's one of the reasons why I feel a low honor playthrough works better than a high honor one. Charles and Sadie don't really acts like Arthur was some honorable dude who redeemed himself. He's just their friend that they kind of respect for sticking to his code to the end. (not even getting into how his entire background is described as being a mean, angry brute, and it makes more sense for Micah to shoot him in the head instead of just leaving him)

Like, a lot of RDR2 fans are kind of retarded. Or maybe it's just the ones who talk on reddit. They're not only obsessed with the idea that Arthur was some good and honorable guy in the end, but also that Dutch wasn't a bad guy until he hit his head or Hosea died. You can't have both. Either Dutch was always a bad man manipulating everyone and Arthur redeemed himself by seeing through it and saving John and his family, or there was nothing to actually redeem.
 
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