Red Dead Redemption 2 is packed full of Easter eggs and mysteries that keen-eyed players are still deciphering, even two years after the release of the game. There’s one Easter egg that, when explained, even makes reference to the world of Red Dead and the player’s role exploring it.
John the Baptizing Madman is an NPC that can be found in multiple locations across Red Dead Redemption 2’s game world. Though he might appear to be just another of Red Dead’s colorful NPCs, John is one of the only NPCs in the game to be on the verge of a major breakthrough about the nature of his, and Arthur’s, reality.
John the Baptizing Madman – as he’s called in the Red Dead game files – is on the surface a reference to John the Baptist. In Abrahamic faiths, John the Baptist is the pre-messianic prophet who paves the way for the arrival of Jesus Christ and announces His coming. Like John the Baptist in those religions, John the Baptizing Madman appears to be on the verge of a major breakthrough about the very nature of his life and the world around him.
In Red Dead Redemption 2, John the Baptizing Madman can be found at four separate locations. In every location, he is standing in a river, a reference to immersion baptism, though John never performs any baptisms in the river himself in-game. John can be found in the Kamassa River to the North-West of Beaver Hollow, in Hawks Eye Creek to the North-West of the town of Strawberry, in the river just to the North-West of the V in “Valentine” as it appears on the map, and in the San Luis River by the bank to the east of the Sea of Coronado.
John’s dialog hints at his goal. If the player approaches, the preacher will say things like “he won’t send me the message, he won’t,” and despairs about receiving no information about his creator or his creation despite having been searching for years. John the Baptizing Madman may seem like a preacher struggling with his faith, but there is another strongly supported interpretation that makes him among the strangest NPCs in Red Dead Redemption 2.
John does not know that the true nature of his reality is a video game, but he’s closer to figuring it out than any other NPC is hinted to be in all of Red Dead Redemption. A lot of his dialog can be interpreted to be about Rockstar and its developers, with John referring as much to “they” as he does to “him” when talking about the creators of the universe. Not only that, but John the Baptizing Madman will ask Arthur “are you the signal?” – a reference to his long wait for answers.
Arthur responds with “uh, I don’t think so,” to which the preacher responds “how do you know?” Unbeknownst to John and even Arthur himself, Arthur is in fact that signal that answers his biggest question. What is the purpose of the universe? The purpose of this universe is this player character. The purpose of John’s world is for it to be experienced by the Red Dead Redemption 2 player.
What’s interesting as well is the fact that this interaction draws attention to Arthur’s own position as an unknowing conduit—he doesn’t know that the world was created for him, and in some ways it wasn’t. Arthur Morgan—or John Marston depending on when in the game the player visits one of the preacher’s locations—is a distinct entity from the player character, despite the player character only being able to exist in the world as Arthur or John. As lofty as it may sound, if John the Baptizing Madman is John the Baptist, then the player, with one foot in John’s world and one foot in the world that led to its creation, could very well be the messiah the preacher has been waiting for.
John acknowledges that Arthur Morgan could be the signal but has no way to tell. “I asked for a message and he gave me the whole world,” he laments, a reference to the fact that the large fictionalized American landscape that the game takes place in is in fact the biggest hint of its purpose. The world of Red Dead as it exists in-game, if properly observed, would quickly be revealed to be full of inconsistencies, from its size to elements of its alternate history.
The game world is the product of intelligent design, but there’s no way for John to figure out why without the player character as the other piece of the puzzle, the observer to observe to the world. John even appears to recognize the other characters in the game as NPCs, saying “all these people, and none of them quite right.” This is probably a reference to the limited scripts of the Red Dead NPCs, and the fact that theses scripts are limited because the characters only exist to create the illusion of life when observed by the player.
It appears that, like his namesake, John won’t be around to see the full truth of his reality unveiled to him, though if killed he will mysteriously respawn at another one of his locations. It’s possible that John the Baptizing Preacher respawning is in some way a reference to his burgeoning self-awareness that he is an NPC and that his reality was created for the benefit of a player, but it’s also possible this is simply another Red Dead Redemption bug or oversight.
With Rockstar games full of strange religions like GTA’s Epislon Cult, fans should keep an eye out for similar characters in future games. Perhaps John the Baptizing Madman is only the precursor to an NPC who will figure out exactly why his universe was created, or maybe the figure he unknowingly awaits is simply the player themself.
Red Dead Redemption 2 is available now on PC, PS4, Stadia, and Xbox One.
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