The Wild West era in United States history often gets romanticized in a way that makes people forget what kind of a dirty and dangerous place it could be at times. The lack of civilization made it a treasure trove for bandits looking to fill their pockets from the wagons of naive travelers; not to mention, the various new and poisonous wildlife that those in the West constantly had to be on the lookout for. Red Dead Redemption 2 takes the true spirit of that time and puts players on a journey that painfully examines the melancholy, tragedy, and beauty that can be found therein. In the shoes of Arthur Morgan, players get up close and personal with many of the issues that plagued the end of The Wild West around 1899.
In Red Dead Redemption 2, Arthur Morgan is personally affected by the lack of modernization and the hazards of the western United States. When he is sent on his regular collections routine, he encounters a man who looks sickly. While Arthur is beating this man, something that can’t be avoided in the campaign, he catches the deadly disease afflicting the man at the end of his fist.
After a series of moments where the disease progressively gets worse and worse, Arthur is diagnosed with the incurable Tuberculosis. The rest of the campaign sees Arthur Morgan come to terms with his fatal diagnosis, as those around him deal with the end of an era. The parallels between Arthur’s story and that of the West in America during this time share more than a few similarities, and it can be shown in one cinematic scene.
This cutscene occurs if Arthur has high Honor just after he and Charles Smith put a former Army Captain on a train to escape falsified treason charges. Once the captain is safely on his way and Charles departs, Arthur is recognized by a nun, Mother Superior Calderon, who he had met while helping people earlier in the main campaign. Arthur is attacked by a coughing fit and Calderon quickly helps him to a bench at the train station so he can rest. Once Arthur catches his breath, the Mother Superior questions why he is coughing up a lung, to which he responds with the truth and how he got it.
Arthur laments that he’s lived a bad life with a pained look on his face, initially rebuking the support the nun offers. When he does come around, he asks Calderon what he’s supposed to do now that he knows his end is coming. Sister Calderon gives him hope about what he can do in his final moments, including telling Arthur not to be afraid of what comes next.
It is the lack of aforementioned modernization that let the gangs of bandits, like those Arthur Morgan travels with, run freely and take what they wanted from others. A cure for TB wouldn’t come about for quite some time, but it’s this lifestyle that led Arthur to the disease. He was not with the Van der Linde gang by choice; it was the loss of parents at a young age that ended him up with Dutch and his posse. Arthur gets used to the life he has, because he has no other choice but to fight until he is faced with the inescapable reality of his death.
When he encounters Mother Superior Calderón at the train station after a dangerous encounter, Arthur is finally honest with himself and confesses to the Mother Superior about the life he’s led. Calderón assures Arthur that there is bad everywhere, even she has sinned, but there is more love out in the world than evil. She tells him that he has time to do good yet, before departing on her way to a mission trip in Mexico. Listening to Arthur Morgan as he laments on his life up to that point, one could easily substitute him for the Wild West period in American history as a whole.
Growing up Arthur was like the beginning of the western USA, wild and feral in his ambitions. He was corralled and trained by skilled thieves and mercenaries, shaped into the subtle and calculated person Arthur Morgan was in Red Dead Redemption 2. As the west dies to rapid travel in trains and automobiles, so did Arthur to a disease that would be incurable without that same modernization. But as Mother Superior Calderon says to Arthur about his future, it also applies to the future of the West, “There is nothing to be afraid of.”
This scene is only accessible if Arthur lives the honorable way and complete the Sister’s sidequest earlier in the game. In its place on the dishonorable side is a meeting with Reverend Swanson, where Arthur catches him running away from Dutch van der Linde and his gang after Dutch’s character development took a turn for the worse.
As opposed to the Mother Superior, Reverend Swanson encourages Arthur to fight like Hell with the time he’s got left, and not to compromise because he’s a warrior. “You lived your way, you’ll die your way.” He pats Arthur on the leg, and hops onto his train. This is a stark and nihilistic contradiction to Arthur’s interaction with Mother Superior Calderón, which seems to provide Arthur with a sense of hope and purpose before he goes on his way.
Red Dead Redemption 2 is available now on PC, PS4, Stadia, and Xbox One.
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