- Joined
- Feb 1, 2023
I don't get why people keep acting like the Blackwater Heist is some huge mystery. All the pieces are explicitly spelled out in dialog. Arthur and Hosea have some real estate scam going that is going to make the gang a lot of money but Dutch finds out about this payroll on a ferry. Someone, likely either Micah or Dutch himself, alerts the law and the job goes really bad. A girl gets killed by Dutch (foreshadowing the way he kills a girl in the Blackwater bank in RDR1), Mac and Davey and John and Jenny all catch a bullet, Sean is captured, Charles burns his hand, and the gang flees with the law nipping at their heels until they end up in Colter and they're on the run abandoning much of their baggage on the way out of town. That's all we need to really know, but given that Cornwell shows up in Valentine in Chapter 2 wanting Dutch's head after they took down the train in Colter, it is likely both the ferry and the train Arthur, John, Charles, and Sean take down are also Cornwall business interests. Dutch hides the money and at some point goes back to get it and moves it to Mt. Hagen or stashes it there initially. Either way Micah finds it and uses it to lure Dutch into the open to turn Dutch into the Pinkertons while Dutch shows up just to kill Micah. John throws both of their plans out the window, but he (and presumably Sadie and Charles) all end up with the heist money.
The reason I say either Micah or Dutch is Micah gets into Dutch's ear from very early on and when Arthur has to take down the stagecoach with Micah after rescuing him from Strawberry, if the player goes back to Micah's camp he can find a wanted poster of Dutch. And given how he's found to be a rat later and kept trying to get Dutch to go back to the caves to get the money from the last train job despite the caves being overrun by Pinkertons, it seems pretty clear that Micah was just trying to get Dutch caught to claim the bounty. Getting picked up by the Pinkertons after Guarma just gave Micah a second, more personal, motivation to get Dutch busted, with the idea that getting Dutch caught in the act would be a bonus.
Dutch has a motivation in that Dutch's real aim isn't the money to move or keeping the gang together, it's just chaos. He even says it point blank in RDR1 that fighting is all he ever knew how to do and in RDR2 he says when they are in Clemens Point that he just wants to fight the rich and powerful (maybe from his father being killed in the Civil War or maybe just because it's just Dutch). Letting the police know he's coming and that there will be a fight is just something Dutch wants. His whole act of caring about the gang is just an act. Uncle even calls him on it in Horseshoe Overlook. But it is inly Hosea and Arthur that can keep him tempered to the point that it looks like he's on an even keel. Hosea starts to see the truth, even going so far as to say they are nothing more than a pack of killer, John stops even pretending to believe Dutch (likely during the year he was going he go his head clear), and once Arthur gets sick he starts to see Dutch's demeanor change. In spite of that they all keep trying to reach Dutch, but since Dutch doesn't want reason and wants chaos for chaos' sake, there's no real point.
Dutch could have easily slipped in by himself or sent Arthur or Trelawny in to get the Blackwater money after the heist and gotten the lot of them out of there, but didn't want to. Maybe he just tired of the gang and saw it as too much baggage and figured getting most of them killed off in a shootout with police would be just fine with him, but the gang was just too good at shooting their way out of bad situations, which they did on more than one occasion.
The reason I say either Micah or Dutch is Micah gets into Dutch's ear from very early on and when Arthur has to take down the stagecoach with Micah after rescuing him from Strawberry, if the player goes back to Micah's camp he can find a wanted poster of Dutch. And given how he's found to be a rat later and kept trying to get Dutch to go back to the caves to get the money from the last train job despite the caves being overrun by Pinkertons, it seems pretty clear that Micah was just trying to get Dutch caught to claim the bounty. Getting picked up by the Pinkertons after Guarma just gave Micah a second, more personal, motivation to get Dutch busted, with the idea that getting Dutch caught in the act would be a bonus.
Dutch has a motivation in that Dutch's real aim isn't the money to move or keeping the gang together, it's just chaos. He even says it point blank in RDR1 that fighting is all he ever knew how to do and in RDR2 he says when they are in Clemens Point that he just wants to fight the rich and powerful (maybe from his father being killed in the Civil War or maybe just because it's just Dutch). Letting the police know he's coming and that there will be a fight is just something Dutch wants. His whole act of caring about the gang is just an act. Uncle even calls him on it in Horseshoe Overlook. But it is inly Hosea and Arthur that can keep him tempered to the point that it looks like he's on an even keel. Hosea starts to see the truth, even going so far as to say they are nothing more than a pack of killer, John stops even pretending to believe Dutch (likely during the year he was going he go his head clear), and once Arthur gets sick he starts to see Dutch's demeanor change. In spite of that they all keep trying to reach Dutch, but since Dutch doesn't want reason and wants chaos for chaos' sake, there's no real point.
Dutch could have easily slipped in by himself or sent Arthur or Trelawny in to get the Blackwater money after the heist and gotten the lot of them out of there, but didn't want to. Maybe he just tired of the gang and saw it as too much baggage and figured getting most of them killed off in a shootout with police would be just fine with him, but the gang was just too good at shooting their way out of bad situations, which they did on more than one occasion.
