Red Dead Redemption 2 was one of the most critically acclaimed games of the last generation, and with it seeming increasingly likely that fans of Grand Theft Auto may be in for a wait for GTA 6, many will be looking to Red Dead Redemption as the studio’s new flagship franchise.
Red Dead Redemption 2 introduced Arthur Morgan, a character not seen or mentioned in the original Red Dead Redemption, with the original game taking place twelve years after the character’s death. With its themes of haunted pasts, revenge, and the gradual disintegration of the American frontier, it is unlikely that Rockstar would take players further back in time for Red Dead Redemption 3. However, the perfect protagonist for the a sequel game has already been set up.
The Red Dead games aren’t just set in the past: they’re about their main characters John Marston and Arthur Morgan‘s relationships with their pasts. They feel themselves gradually approaching a turning point in history that comes to represent a kind of judgement day for both them and the Wild West itself. The question is whether or not the character’s can achieve redemption before that judgement day comes.
In the original Red Dead Redemption, John Marston appears to genuinely believe he has a shot at salvation. He hunts down the members of the Van Der Linde gang in the belief that, if he does, his wife and child will have a shot at a new life. This ends with him ultimately choosing to sacrifice himself, hoping through sacrifice he can free his family from his past, a belief that proves to be ultimately false when his son Jack takes up his gun in search of revenge.
In Red Dead Redemption 2, Arthur Morgan – at least, Arthur Morgan played with high honor – struggles with the belief that a person with his past can ever be redeemed at all. He doesn’t get the satisfaction of a moment of heroic sacrifice, and his death is ultimately caused by one of his own pointless and random acts of violence, dying from the tuberculosis he contracts from a minor character named Thomas Downes. Arthur Morgan writes in his journal that after “all them bullets shot at me, all them horses threw me, all them fights and it was the beating of that pathetic little fella Downes that killed me, I reckon.”
With both Red Dead Redemption games focusing on different ways that the protagonist deals with their pasts, Sadie Adler is the perfect protagonist for a future Red Dead Redemption game. Thrown into the outlaw lifestyle by the murder of her husband Jake by the O’Driscoll gang, she gets her revenge in Red Dead 2 by stopping an attempt to save Colm O’Driscoll’s life. However, it is clear that her moment of revenge is far from a moment of redemption, as she immediately starts a firefight by cutting the throat of a gang member she’s holding hostage.
Sadie goes on to become a formidable bounty hunter with something of a death wish and becomes increasingly brutal in the hunt for Micah Bell. If the player spares Cleet at the gallows while interrogating him for Micah’s location, Sadie will shoot him dead instead. Because she is closest to Arthur of all the members of Dutch’s gang, players can see Sadie veering away from this throughout the game but maintaining a hard, “try me” attitude.
Sadie should be the protagonist of a Red Dead sequel for a few key reasons. First, because she was never actually considered a part of the Van Der Linde gang by the authorities, she actually has no record, which is why she was able to become a successful bounty hunter. It’s practically a clean slate for her. Second, unlike Arthur and John, she is a character who actually seems to move further and further from personal redemption over the course of her story, despite remaining likeable and sympathetic.
Unlike Arthur, she has no dark past to deal with–in fact, her life with her husband is relatively happy, which is why his murder changes her so deeply. Unlike John, the death of her husband as the initial event in her character arc also means that she has no clear future, which though it failed to come true, John imagined he would have with Abigail and their son Jack Marston.
Sadie Adler is a character in search of redemption just like the protagonists of the other two games, yet her story provides Rockstar with the chance to ask what exactly redemption can mean when it does not end with death. Can Sadie build a new life, and can that new life replace the one she lost? Is there only redemption in death? A sequel could see players choosing whether or not Sadie becomes more like Dutch or more like Arthur over time through the games’ honor system.
Sadie’s character begs the question of what happens to someone after their revenge has been achieved, and with both John and Arthur dying before they could answer the question, what a post-redemption life might look like, if it can exist at all. While that remains to be seen, many fans of Red Dead will likely be hoping to see more of Alex McKenna’s fantastic performance as Sadie Adler in the franchise’s future.
Red Dead Redemption 2 is out now for PC, PS4, Stadia, and Xbox One.
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