The fact that Agents Ross and Fordham knew where Micah’s body was so quickly may suggest that Micah was planning on turning Dutch over to them in order to continue.
Micah at that point was running rampant and his gang was a small army. Its logical that they found the camp due to all the criminal activities that a gang that big brings. Maybe Dutch being there was just coincidence.
Micah isn't working with the pinkertons at this point after Milton's death. If you read the blackwater newspaper after Micah's death it tells that bounty hunters and Pinkertons had been trying to track him down for a while
When Arthur comes back to camp to tell the gang about Micah, he said to Micah, "You talked(to Pinkertons)." Micah looks at Dutch and said, "Dutch, think of the future." To me, it's saying that it doesn't matter whether he talked or not, only the future is important. It just sounds like he's admitting without saying it explicitly. He's just trying to wash it off with the future.
It could also explain why he is pushing so hard for them to get the Blackwater money, because he knows the gang doesn’t have long, and he wants Dutch (the last man alive who knows where it is) to get the blackwater money. Before he turns him in.
Cat, I think one flaw is that Milton thought Arthur was done and that's why he divulged Micah's involvement. I don't think he was lying, just gloating. To him, there was no way out for Arthur.
That's my view. It might be as far as Milton perceives, but he has to have at least 'some' leverage to be confident in that perception ... although Milton is something of a one-dimension character and antagonist in comparison to Bell, so it's ambiguous.
exactly, I said the same thing. I played through the story like 5 times back to back and never once got the idea that milton is full of shit. The way rockstar tells the story, just makes zero sense to lie and expect you to catch on that milton is lying. Why would milton lie to dead men/women on the final mission that micah is a rat? In that moment, milton had the upper hand and didn't intend on at least arthur and sadie leaving alive, john was suspected to be dead too, so obviously Abigail wouldn't go back to camp and separate them or confront dutch that micah is a rat. Everyone saying milton is lying is overthinking this way too much
@@toma5289 not to mention, Arthur is the protagonist of the game and in red dead/ most games, what the main character says or is told, especially when playing the story is the full truth, it's gospel. The game usually always gives the correct information to the main character throughout the story by the other leading characters. I've found that in games what the main character is told or says out loud is usually facts and obviously serves to tell the story and give you the correct information. It only makes sense for the game to conclude and tell you the truth so you understand the story, you finally learn at the end that micah is the traitor, I can't see the game lying just to leave it semi-unresolved. It just makes confronting dutch and micah at the end a little pointless besides the fact that he's responsible for arthurs death. Even john and the other protagonists say too micah is the "rat". Rockstar is clearly establishing this to the "player". Another comment on here by agentsmith811 said that in the final mission: "When John is about to confront Micah in American Venom, an actual literal rat can be seen scurrying out near Micah’s cabin." I went and checked and it's true, a rat can be seen running across the front of the cabin where micah is hiding, as to signal the player "this is where micah is hiding" then micah kicks open the door and comes out seconds later. Like I said, it only makes sense for it to be true based on the subtle hints and not so subtle, obvious ones that we're told through the game. you an see it starting at 18:27 _here:_ ruclips.net/video/VIhfB_0AOo8/видео.html
There is literally a rat crossing the cutscene before Micah emerges from his cabin in the epilogue. Rats don't live on iced over glaciers. Not to mention the fact that there are various clues in the game that Micah had been sabotaging the gang since long before he made a deal with the Pinkertons. Every job Micah is brought on, goes wrong. Every one. The one's he doesn't know about go smoothly. Micah goes out of his way to make the gang easy to follow. You could just chalk that up to his bad temper and bloodlust but that doesn't jive with the fact that outside of the gang (before and after) he successfully kept a low profile for years. His own brother also describes him as "evil" which is an interesting choice of word; if it was just about his blood crazed murder sprees the words you'd use would be "crazy", "unhinged" or "psycho" but "evil" implies deliberate action. Rockstar is way too pedantic about details like this for this to be an accident. It was ALWAYS his intent to have the Blackwater money for himself, and to possibly collect on Dutch's bounty once he had it (if you search Micah's camp in strawberry you will find Dutch's wanted poster). Note the Pinkertons show up at Mt. Hagen where Dutch was holed up with Micah and they express disappointment at the fact that Micah is dead. There IS a lie that people believe about Micah and that's that he is stupid. Micah had EVERYONE wrapped around his little finger. He had Dutch convinced he was a good man at heart and everyone else at camp convinced he was a dumb, aggressive moron. The guy is deliberately as obnoxious as he can be to everyone BUT Dutch to drive a wedge between them. The more people leave the gang or doubt Dutch, the fewer he'll need to share the Blackwater loot with. Whenever there's a chance to ditch or kill someone from the gang, he takes it. The thing people don't get about Micah is that he is, in fact, very very cunning. And that is a trait befitting someone who is truly evil.
I thought John Marston was/is the rat. When he asks you to join him in a train robbery in the early game, the mission goes badly, and the authorities show up relatively quickly from somewhere nearby. Almost as if they knew the train would stop where it did. After you eliminate them all, John is the first to ask if they were tipped off and then he inquires about a possible rat among them. This is smart when you think about it, if you are the rat, and it's obvious the gang has been set up but survived the encounter, you would want to point out the possibility of a rat in the group because with it being your idea that a rat exists, it can take off some of the pressure and suspicion falling on you. It would also make a bit of sense that John was informing on the gang. Arthur doesn't fully trust him because John ran off for a year and then shows back up randomly. When things go bad in Blackwater, John is all of a sudden missing again and then Rockstar has your character go find him in the mountains. It's worth noting that John does ultimately end up working for the government to eliminate his former gang. Now, i will consent that it's possible that Rockstar might have been trying to make it seem like John the entire time because we know he ultimately ends up killing off the gang, and there was always speculation during the first Red Dead Redemption that we were playing as a backstabber and snitch. So it's possible, maybe even probable, that Micah was created in order to take off some of the suspicions around John doing all of his old friends dirty. I think you're probably right about Micah, but there are plenty of holes in John's whereabouts and he's the only member of the gang that has a family to think about. He's often portrayed as a useless deadbeat dad but we know that whenever John is off missing, he is actually doing everything he does for his family. I'm still suspicious of John, I think it's possible that Dutch's gang had two informants.
@@panspermiapancakes i havent played the first red dead but that theory is interesting. but if john was the rat, why did micah never deny that he himself was the rat? micah always tried to distract everyone from the fact that they were suspicious of him and he would say to think of the future and stuff like that. and also another thing that i saw somewhere else is that micah has never worn white but when the gang goes to rob the saint denis bank, he wore a full white suit. many people speculate that he did that so the pinkertons would know it was him and not shoot him.
@@bxoomi The white suit theory has always been interesting for Micah but there isn't really any evidence that Micah was informing before Guarma and most evidence points towards him not informing until after they return. I don't think he informed anyone about the bank robbery. The white suit was symbolizing his distancing from the gang, perhaps a bit of foreshadowing of what was to come from him. I am fairly certain that the Pinkertons had a planted informant within Bronte's gang which is why the Pinkertons knew about Dutch and the heist. Then in Guarma while everyone is trying to escape and Dutch is doing all the math in his head and comes to the conclusion that the possible rat is John and Abigale, it actually does seem like the most logical conclusion, and while I do think its possible that John was informing, that heist in St Denis was more than likely a result of a planted informant because it is worth noting that John is sent to a prison camp after he is captured. The most suspicious thing about it all where the Marstons are concerned is that Abigale somehow manages to dodge authorities. Either way, if you're Dutch and trying to see things from his perspective, the most obvious conclusion would be John, even if he's not guilty at all.
**dang this thread got insane.. Just for everyone on here.. i admit i am conflicted.. micah could have been the rat or he could not have been the rat.. i see both sides for sure.. I still think he was the rat for a number of reasons but rockstar definitely left it open which is cool..If we were dealing with "old school rockstar" they would have made a single player DLC and maybe we would have gotten a definitive answer on Micah but since they are chasing the Shark Card and Gold cheddar more than anything these days, it looks like we are left to speculate.. I disagree.. Micah basically admitted guilt but justified his ratting as "i'm a survivor".. the issues and "missed opportunities" you found are interesting but are more likely plot holes and mistakes by rockstar.. The agents did find Lakay without Micah tho, there is a scene where they find the letter @ shady belle if you do the encounter correctly.. Interesting stuff tho, great vid.. i love that you finally played the story mode.. can't believe it took you so long, the story mode is leaps and bounds better than online in my opinion .. dasvidaniya
That's more like it boah, big thumbs up. He lacks viewing the game as a literal playable cenimatic story. It's not some half ass thought out story game.
And Also there is a part when the gang is found at lakay were Micah yells asked everyone you could find so even if they didnt find the letter someone Bill asked could have told
If you haven’t played Story mode. You haven’t played Red Dead Redemption 2. Online is described with one word. Redundancy. It’s fun in the beginning, having to buy and upgrade everything. But once you have everything it’s the Same thing over and over. There’s nothing left to buy. No properties. Nothing.
Dutch is the real antagonist of the story. Micah is an outlaw who loves being an outlaw. In the 6th chapter, they set up Micah to be the person you have to fight in the big emotional confrontation but I feel like it was a red herring. It was a masterful move because it makes the Mexican standoff with Dutch at the end of the epilogue work so well. In reality the main theme of the game is about Dutch losing his grip on sanity while coming to terms with the fact that the world has changed and he can't lead a gang of outlaws in in it any more.
yeah thats what makes it a good prequel, it shows us the descent of dutch and how he became the villain in rdr1. its great storytelling really, they decided to show his descent with his narcissism and how unhinged he becomes and it sets up his villain origin story for the events of rdr1. i love when game developers put serious thought and attention to the small stuff, makes it worth while.
@Storm Mist I think the rat angle is a misdirect. The real reason why the storytelling was so well done is that Dutch went on and on all game about being Loyal and how he would die in the place of anyone of the gang, but when Arthur is dying he drops him like a bad habit in favor of Micah and surviving. While it is true that Arthur and John were second guessing him a lot, he also gave them a lot of reasons to do so. Dutch wasn't exactly pulling his own weight.
@Storm Mist But even Hosea (RIP old Man) said that something was off with Dutch already in Blackwater. He and Arthur had the Real Estate-Scam going on but Dutch insisted to rob the Ferry that transported Money from Saint Denis to Blackwater. And that´s where he shot this innocent Girl in the Head. If getting asked about it by Arthur he talks it down and said that it´s not important.
@@AbdoAbdo-ix1bo He changed. I knew a man who changed his values for the opposite after he failed. He made a fatal mistake under a lot of pressure and wasn´t able to figure it out anymore. He couldn't make things good again nor better so lost hope and enjoyed being awful, sort of... He was calm and care for everyone before, but became violent, greedy, and selfish. He started drinking heavily and later committed suicide.
You won’t get a dislike from me - you put a lot of thought into this video! There’s no question in my mind though that Micah was the rat. I believe the Pinkertons threatened and used Micah, the same way they use John in RDR1, for help and information about the gang’s activities. I think Micah was so obsessed with finding the Blackwater money because he believed that getting his hands on that much money would enable him to disappear where the Pinkertons couldn’t find him and he’d be free. I think agent Milton told Arthur the truth about Micah because he didn’t think Arthur would be leaving that room with Abigail, he was planning to shoot Arthur, and he told him the truth to antagonize him a bit - to let him know that the rat was one of Arthur’s own gang. I also think that during Arthur and Micah’s fight, when Arthur calls Micah a rat and Micah says I’m a survivor is actually an admission of guilt - he’s telling Arthur he had to do what he did to survive. Great video though Cat!
@@the_regular_dinosaurus_rex it’s not bad writing it’s about perspective you’re playing from Arthur’s perspective and Arthur despises Micah so it enhances his flaws and clouds his judgment
There’s one thing confuses me on whether Micah’s a rat or not. If Micah didn’t tell Milton that they were at Guarma then how the hell would Milton have known where they where unless “someobody” talked?🧐
@@shapoorrad700 This, Hercule even said that Fussar was aware of they are and in few days wants to hand them to US, considering Pinkertons controlled both in game and real life all prisoner exchanges to US (atleast the northen one) then they were already aware they are at Guarma and Milton knew Dutch will return sooner or later.
You didn't cover the part when a Pinkerton shouts "There's Micah Bell" at the final camp when Arthur and John are forced to retreat into the cave. That would suggest he is recognizable to them as they don't shout "There's Dutch" or "There's Arthur" etc.
Also in that Mission, Micah aims but doesn't shoot at the Pinkertons which I believe is a very intentional detail by Rockstar showing that he was, in some way or another, allied with them.
Could Micah have worn a white suit to distinguish himself from the other gang members who were wearing black suits so the Pinkerton's would see him stick out and not shoot him. Whooo knows
Traditionally in western movies, the good guys always wore white hats while that bad guys wore black hats. I think it was just an artistic decision by Rockstar to turn this around by having Arthur wearing black & Micah white.
The reason why Micah didn't sell them out immediately is because, as he says, he's a survivor. Knowing what we know about the Pinkertons and Edgar Ross, if Micah went and told during the Cornwall assasination mission he might have been killed by Milton as he wasn't needed or he would have been let go, but he wouldn't have found the Blackwater stash. If he knew where either the current stash or the Blackwater one was, or if he had a gaurantee for his safety, then he probably would have told. As for Lakay, he might have told, but the Pinkertons were waiting for the gang to get together so they could surround and ambush them with men and a gatling gun. So he could have told, but they were waiting to get the bigger members of the gang like Dutch and Arthur, therefore they didn't strike the moment Micah got back.
How would Micah have known they were camped at Lakay anyway? If they picked him up as soon as he got back, it’s likely he hadn’t received word of the camp and so was let go to figure it out. Then, the Pinkertons followed Bill.
@Mask Godz no they didn’t. That’s why Arthur went to search shady bell for clues of the Gang’s whereabouts. Some of them found a letter sent to the post office by Sadie to “Tacitus Kilgore”. They had no idea what Lakay even was until after they arrived.
@Mask Godz They didn’t pick Micah up when he first got back. They found him after the Lakay attack. Micah isn’t dumb, he would’ve hauled ass if he knew the Pinkertons were coming to the camp.
The issue, Edgar Ross wanted Cornwall dead. He knew they were there because of Milton and Micah. This is why Micah claims to go find something during this. Edgar Ross was also against Milton, you'll notice this if you look close. I felt that Micah was using Milton to get Arthur, but made a deal to save himself. Even Micah knew dealing with Ross was dangerous as Ross wanted everyone dead, we learn some of this in Red Dead Redemption 1. What happens to Milton (A huge mistake by Sadie and Arthur) changes Micah's ideas and plans and he understands that he himself was now in danger.
I always interrupted “blessed are the peacemakers” as Micah told Colm where Arthur would be stationed so his men could kidnap him and Micah could get closer to Dutch. I suppose it’s because Micah sets up the meeting with Colm, another great vid though cat!
@@ACLA23 Yeah, as you start ascending the hill after crossing Dewberry creek and see 4 O'Driscoll's above, yet when Colm meets Dutch by the oil derrick he only has 2 guards with him, so they saw Arthur split off and had the 1 other guy sneak up on him. Also it's established that the O'Driscolls set the whole thing up by talking to Pearson when he was on a supply run to Rhodes, it wasn't Micah who spoke with them.
I think the reason Micah didn’t take the opportunities to kill Dutch was because he wanted the gang to fall apart and he wanted the gang to stop trusting Arthur and John so the blame would fall on them. Before chapter 6, nobody trusted Micah and he would be the first person to get blamed which is why he tried to gain Arthur’s trust in chapter 2 but when he realized he couldn’t gain their trust, he started turning the gang against each other to be less suspicious so he didn’t want to kill Dutch when everyone would immediately blame him
I also think it´s off that Javier and Bill were still loyal to Dutch in the End. I mean Javier mentioned that he couldn´t go anywhere else as the Price on his Head is too big and he would always be loyal to Dutch because he took him in but Bill and Arthur went better along each other than Micah and Bill. Micah even punched Bill for no Reason very early in the Game.
2:39 there is a easter egg that if you stay in shady belle you’ll see the pinkertons reading the same letter that you read in there and the agent says : they’re in lakay
I think that Micah may have been picked up almost immediately after Guarma, the reason he got back so fast was BECAUSE he talked and was let go. He probably saw the gang falling apart and chose to use it for what it was worth. I think the Pinkertons followed Bill even though they knew where they were as a red herring so the gang doesn't suspect Micah.
He did wear white in the Saint Denis robbery. Someone pointed that out in a comment section I dove into. It’s a simple admissible detail but it’s something to take note of. Though there is a possibility Micah isn’t a traitor, I don’t think we can say he didn’t destroy the gang and Dutch let him do it. Whether or not he’s a traitor, Dutch let him get in his head.
You arent seeing the bigger picture, micha would never give up that easy on 150 thousand dollars, thats like 50 billion in those days Also as cat said theres no reason for them to wait for everyone to regroup instead of ambushing the main few and then hunting down everyone else
I like the Micha character he’s a fun addition to the cast I actually would’ve liked a feature that you could be dishonorable and get along with micha and do more jobs together
When John is about to confront Micah in American Venom, an actual literal rat can be seen scurrying out near Micah’s cabin. I think it’s pretty obvious that Rockstar intended for Micah to be the rat.
yea, this video makes no sense, the claims and conspiracy is just overthinking that rockstar must be trying to trick us because the writing is complex so "naturally there must be this big secret". It's nonsense
btw I went and checked and you're right. It can be seen starting at 18:27 here: ruclips.net/video/VIhfB_0AOo8/видео.html Game developers are known to do this to signal the player where to go or hint who is there. I mean I think it's obviously signaling the player "hey the rat is in here".
I agree with Molly being traitor A which caused most of the chaos but Micah, his whole character caused a lot of infighting within the group but it’s quite clear that he also talked cause why would Milton lie during a fight against a man who is dying but also in the epilogue Micah mentions that a lot of social calls probably means he’s been trying to make deals
I don’t believe Molly was a traitor - she knew her relationship with Dutch was finished and she was upset and trying to get his attention in the camp right before Susan shot her
I think a lot of people miss out that Milton was not going to kill Abigail so him telling Arthur that Micah was a rat would be told to the rest of the gang by her either throwing off suspicion of a real rat or further isolating Dutch making him easier to capture.
Capturing Abigail was part of his plan to lure out either John, Arthur, or even both. Micah was extremely cunning throughout the game. He would know that if Milton caught Abigail, Arthur or John would go to save her. Milton's job all along was end the Van der Linde gang, he just took the approach of trying to get the gang to turn on Dutch. If would be able to take out Dutch's most lethal and loyal enforcer it would put the Pinkertons at a major advantage.
I’ve always asked myself what if he wasn’t a traitor and realized he never said he was the traitor. BUT even if he wasn’t a traitor he was a coward and was in dutches ear and making him a coward as well like not saving John from jail and leaving Arthur to die.
Rockstar definitely overdid it when it came to building Micah as an Antagonist with so many negative qualities to make him easy to hate. Genuinely surprised he actually donated a share of money to the box. Regardless of being a rat or not Micah was a terrible man.
I don’t think it’s rockstar’s lazy writing that shows Micah as completely unredeemable I think it’s Arthur and john’s bias towards him and they’re obviously not going to see themselves as, as bad as him. It’s all about perspective and you’re playing from Arthur’s perspective.
Maybe Micah had old wanted posters of Dutch because he wanted to join his gang at the time. Highest profile has the highest rewards. If things didn't turn out well, he could betray him and collect the bounty.
An interesting potential, but I still stand by the perception he sought out Dutch to get in close so he could eventually bank the bounty. That may have changed later, but that was his initial motivation in my opinion.
That doesn;t actually explain why he had the posters unless you feel that the only way for Micah to claim the reward was to produce a wanted poster of Dutch Van der Linde, which is a silly notion.
@Technicolor Vision So you think Micah needed it after he actually met Dutch and was in the gang. Interesting. Maybe Micah is REALLY bad remebering faces. Super duper bad even.
@Technicolor Vision andn then he'd keep it, because he's super bad at remembering who is in his gang. Like I already said. Look, you can be obstinate all you like but don't pretend you don't know what I say, I'm not going to beleive you're dumb.
Honestly I thought Micah was working with them from the beginning, which is why police always show up unexpectedly and they always fail their missions, even the Blackwater ferry. I dunno, I feel like Rockstar started out with one story and wound up with another.
My take on Micah is always summarized in that one term : a survivor. The Pinkertons indeed caught Micah after Guarma but Micah pretend to agree to cooperate with them in order for them to let him go. Once he's back at that camp, he's not giving any info on the gang to the Pinkertons cause it might endanger his own live.
@@chokonnit7337 I mean what kind of crucial info that he will share to the Pinkertons during his capture? He just arrived from Guarma and did not know Dutch's location or the gang's hideout in Lakay at that time. The only info that he might tell to them is the abandoned hideout Shady Belle, which explains the arrival of the Pinkertons when Arthur is in there. But with Micah willingly to spit the Shady Belle hideout (which he knew that it was abandoned), he might already earned Milton's trust to be their rat.
Micah though is known to be extremely reckless and puts himself and others constantly in situations where he or others might die (like the shootout in strawberry, he had no reason to but he chose to get violent, endangering himself and Arthur when he could've come back later to just take out that one guy in silence.) Micah is not 100% stupid but he isn't very careful either. He would get his money one way or another. And by getting the pinkertons after them and him killing pinkertons would only make him seem like a more trustworthy character to Dutch. I think that Micah bell deffo talked, how much information he gave I don't know, probably not a lot.
@@REassassiNATION It is obvious that the pinkertons made him a deal to not go after him in exchange for information on what the gang was going to do and where they were staying. They literally allowed micah to continue for years running his own gang in the epilogue. Micah even admits to betraying the gang by telling arthur that he’s a survivor when confronted. come on bruh
@@chokonnit7337 Then why Micah didn't share the info to the Pinkertons when Dutch was going to assassinate Cornwall? That was the most easiest opportunity for Pinkertons to catch Dutch and even Arthur. Like PvPcat said, Micah has million of chances to rat out Dutch without needing the involvement of the gang but he choose not to.
I still think Micha was a "traitor" before the riverboat robbery. Using the stashed loot as bait. That's why he brings it up so often seeing it as a win-win. Either they retrieve the money and fell to Tahiti or the gang gets caught and he takes home some bounty money. There is enough grey area and possible offscreen shenanigans to justify both options. Rat or not IMO I think Micha played both sides. Giving just enough to both sides to be considered useful and indispensable. I don't think Micha is pro-Pinkerton anti-Dutch traitor. Just setting up an optimal win-win situation for himself. Which explains the missed opportunities. He gives the Pinkertons enough for them to believe he's an asset but doesn't give enough to destroy the gang.
Micha wasn’t made as pure evil. He’s a terrible person, but you can hear him in camp basically talking to himself, working out the flaws in his philosophy and the futility of his struggles. My second play through gave me a different perspective on him. He’s quite depth-full and dynamic.
I think the fact that there are so many contradictory theories about the rat proves that this part of the story is not well-written... Micah being the rat is just weird. His main goal was to retreive the blackwater money, and for that he needs Dutch because only Dutch knows where the stash is. So it would make no sense to betray Dutch if you desperately need him. This is why he kept agreeing with Dutch and slipped more ideas into his head to become his new favorite. Betraying the gang only ruins his reputation in Dutch's eyes, we see that Dutch leaves him after the fight with Arthur, so what was the point of all this? Also, he doesn't seem like the type who would ever work with the law, we see in the epilogue that he's still a gangster and that he likes it. And I don't see any reason for Pinkertons to get the most notorious gang member and be like "hey that guy can work for us, the one who kills and robs the most"... I think that the rat stuff was thrown in the game just to make a simple excuse for Micah being the final boss, as if you couldn't have done that better... I would be fine with Micah betraying Dutch AFTER they get the money from blackwater, that way he gets all the money and has guaranteed freedom, but betraying Dutch before that is just stupid and out of character.
I bet its either cut content since there was somewhere i dont remember where a writing that said some girl found a meteorite while fishing or you have to use that as a clue to go and fish for the damned thing
This theory kind of missed the entire point of Micah's character: he wants the Blackwater money. He was a rat from the start, he used the gang because he needed help. Remember, it was him that turned Dutch onto the ferry carrying the money. Before the Pinkerton's got him, his plan was to corrupt Dutch, get him to split away from the rest of the gang, and take the money. He didn't know where it was hidden, so he had to go along with the gang's plan. When the Pinkerton's caught him, he wasn't just trying to help them and then go about his business, giving up on a life of crime: he told them everything he knew and agreed to be an informant. However, he still planned to get the money. If Bill were able to ask around and find the location of the gang, the Pinkerton's surely could, they're professional investigators. They likely found their location and that's how Micah rejoined. They wouldn't have just followed Bill because they would've needed more time to organize. They got ready to roll in as soon as Micah got there, and knowing the Pinkertons, they likely considered Micah just as disposable as the rest of them. Anyway, it was Micah that eventually led them to Beaver Hollow, it's also why Micah was willing to fight Arthur on the mountain. It's after the confrontation that Micah split away with everyone, still wanting the Blackwater money, but unable to get it. That's why he started his own gang and searched for Dutch.
Indeed. The clues are all there. Micah has been a Pinkerton Agent from the start. Hes a criminal informant. He is allowed to continue being an outlaw, so long as he provides much greater information the agency are after over time.
He wasn't ratting on them from be beginning, but you're right about him joining the gang just to pull of the ferry heist. You're also right that he had to follow Dutch since he didn't know where the money was. From the start, he was trying to get other members killed or captured just so he wouldn't have to split the money with them. I don't think he actually ratted until after Guarma, but he wasn't stupid, he likely only gave them enough info to help him whittle down the gangs membership without getting himself or Dutch captured or killed. For this reason, I don't think he had anything to do with the Pinkertons finding them at Lakay, I think it was Molly that told them where the gang went, and I think she told them about the St. Denis bank robbery too. Any ratting that Micah did would have been to get Arthur, John or other members caught or killed in exchange for keeping himself and Dutch protected, but he probably had to promise to get them Dutch eventually to get the Pinkertons help. I think that's why the Pinkertons showed up on Mt. Hagen, they were expecting to finally capture Dutch, but Dutch was wise enough to realize that Micah was going to turn him in and keep the Blackwater money, which is why he told John that he was there for the same reason, to kill Micah for revenge.
@@smartassdroid5149 He was never an agent, he was just out for himself. He used Dutch's gang to pull off the ferry heist, but found himself in a pickle afterword since only Dutch knew where the money was stashed. He had to stick with the gang and get in good with Dutch so he could get the money in the end. Any ratting he did was for the sole purpose of protecting himself and Dutch while destroying the gang so he could get the money and not have to share any of it.
Micah is a talker. If he were picked up by pinkertons at some point, I'm sure he would have said anything to them to get out. But he wouldn't keep on talking to them once they let him go. Makes much more sense that it's just sloppynes and generall infighting that led to all the bad things that happend. I do still think the real reason for Micah killing all of Strawberry was because he had tried to sell out the gang for his own freedom, and wanted to make sure there was no one left who knew about it. But I really like the idea about Micah just keeping that old wanted poster due to vanity, "a goal to aspire to". That makes a lot of sense. He basically wanted to become Ducht, and it seems Dutch and Micah were a lot more alike than they might first seem.
@@teratoma. Not "confirmed" as far as I know. We only got what Micah was saying about "wanting to bring in a treat before returning". I kind of think that was true though. After a failure the size of the black water incident, Micah figured he would have lost all of Butch's trust and wanted a way to somewhat redeem that (so he could continue weazling his way to the top). I figure if Micah had been in charge, and one of his screwed up to that extent, Micah would have shot them or kicked them out of the gang and assumed Butch would do the same. This is ju alot of theorizing from me, though.
This video deserved a like. You got good and valid points there. But in Saint Denise Pinkertons showed up out of nowhere, that couldn‘t be a coincidence. Hosea, Dutch and Micah were the only ones who knew the plan. Hosea got killed and Milton cared about Dutch. This means that Micah was the only one who could set the trap at the Bank of Saint Denise
I don’t really see any valid points because he just talks about why didn’t Micah just kill dutch or why he didn’t he do something else in the end he had an end goal, not only to survive but to get rid of dead weight and share the Blackwater money he wanted dutch to tell him where the money was stashed, he used the gang
Very thorough examination of the situation. However, I think you missed one thing. Agent Milton said they picked him up after he got off the boat from Guarma. At that time, none of them knew where the new camp was, to include Micah.
Currently doing another play-through to find support for my theory, which I suspect gives evidence in camp interactions and minor details. I agree that Micah represents the easiest target, and so I would call him a " red dead herring." I had always suspected that the betrayals were from multiple people, acting independently- and were not part of an overarching scheme by any one person in any one chapter. For example: In the beginning, I recall that Mary-Beth is the one who found out about the train while in Valentine, with the wealthy passengers- that the gang mentions the law responded awfully quickly to. Arthur will routinely mention around camp that a number of the women seem like "you're up to something," even if he makes it sound more like a mischievous thing- and the women are always cagey when he does this, responding seriously, or nervously. I think that each of the young women, ( so excluding Grimshaw) had, independently, made efforts to get the gang broken up. They would not face consequences as the men would, and Abigail's per-emptive theft of the key is too co-incidental to be overlooked. The Red Dead Redemption series is about choice, and about those decisions coming home to roost, not just for the player- but all characters involved. In the case of Abigail, I think her personal destiny is overshadowed by Johns, but she also suffers as a result of her actions. It is also possible that Pearson is responsible for one of the informing episodes. I recall from the Godfather an important line from Don Corleone- "the man who brings you an offering of peace between the families, he is the traitor" and sure enough, Pearson presented the meet up with the O'Driscols. I realize that I might be looking like a lunatic here, but the consequence of side characters who have clear agency- especially when we do not interact with them overmuch, is that it is conspicuous when they appear to escape consequence free, as a number of those mentioned did. Hell, the end game wrap up/epilogue could be a culmination of John leading the Pinkertons right to him by telling every traitor and rat in the old gang where he is and what name he is using. The shootout at Micah's camp is just the most obvious, but they were already on the move - and did not come with a plenitude of men- the assumption Rock Star intending for us to think is that they must be welcome guests, and not already hot on the heels of Marston, knowing they would find a massacre. thank you for coming to my TED talk.
He trusted Micah, a Johnny come lately who never showed concern for anyone but himself, over Arthur, who he had rode with for 20+years and had raised as a son. That alone was utterly foolish on Dutch's part.
You know after replaying through the game knowing everything that happens and what Micha does. I couldn’t help but genuinely enjoy his personality and the interactions he has with Arthur. At least till the end when the shit begins to hit the fan
I've always been suspicious about Micah being a traitor. If you detach yourself from the story and Arthur Morgan's spurs and look at like a detective. We need means, motive, and opportunity. What motive does Micah have to betray the gang? If you look at his characterization the only thing that motivates Micah is money. Turning in Dutch, or even the entire gang would never net him anywhere near the 150,000 dollars Dutch has hidden. So we don't have a proper motive. So onto means, does Micah have the ability to communicate with the Pinkertons and relay information to them? Not really the only way for long distant communications back then were letters and telegraphs. Both of which we never see Micah doing, plus he rarely ever leaves the camp unless he's in a mission. Otherwise he's just chillin around the camp antagonizing everyone. If Micah were secretly leaving the camp every little bit to go meet up with the Pinkertons don't you think somebody would've followed him or noticed the meetings? I think Cat already went over opportunity perfectly in the video. Micah had dozens of opportunities during the story the betray Dutch and turn him in yet he never does. Personally I've always been suspicious of Abigale being the actual traitor, think about it. She wants John to get out of the gang to be a father to Jack and a husband to herself. That's motive, also all the Pinkertons would have to do is threaten Jack and she'd roll quicker than a tumbleweed. Abigale was also captured and detained by the Pinkertons not once but twice! Once in the Saint Denis bank robbery and once after the train robbery. That gives her means and opportunity to sale out the gang during an interrogation. I mean was nobody else suspicious that Abigale magically escaped custody all on her own after that massive bank robbery? She was caught helping Hosea plant explosives for a distraction. She's just as much of a criminal but they just let her go. Then like Cat pointed out when the Pinkertons come to camp during that final train robbery they don't take anyone except for Abigale. Maybe the plan was to look like she was kidnapped so the entire gang would rush to her rescue only for Dutch to run into Milton in that shop, but instead Dutch abandoned her which was completely out of character for him up until that point. Micah is a much easier person to blame because he's so unlikable but the truth is betrayal doesn't come from an enemy or antagonist. It comes from the place we least expect it. Which is what makes it so devastating.
She was taken just outside of camp. Also Hosea in chapter 2, trys to talk John into leaving with his family, because the life was no place to raise a boy.
And honestly I believe she set John up in Rdr1 to save her own life but I think the agreement was that John had to atleast kill off the remaining gang members. and at the end The government would kill John in order to grant Abigail immunity. And another thing no one bats an eye at is the fact that trelawny is not even apart of the gang but however he always seems to know where they are at any given time. And he always seems to leave camp and disappear days before the pinkertons show up and manages to show up as soon as the gang finds a new location Which if you ask me he’s literally the snitch the entire time. And another thing that proves that point is that why was he able to hang around the gang for as long as he wanted and was the only one of them that could go back to black water
True. Her and jack are spared in red dead redemption one further adding to this speculation but I've always believed the story is all about John he's the one whom the entire story is centred around judging by the events that take place in the first game that's why the pinkertons chose him to get rid of Bill ,Javier and Dutch i believe he believed that was John's story of redemption from the events that take place in rd1 Dutch even hints at his suspicion of them to Arthur before you escape from guarma
United we stand, divided we fall. Milton needs to divide the gang & sow the seeds of distrust. Who better than the latest member to join the gang, than me? I also gave Arthur the offhand holster when he broke me out of Strawberry jail, as a thank you. I maybe an arsehole, but I have my own sense of justice & honour
Just my opinion on why Micah waited a long time to betray Dutch is most likely because he was waiting for the best time to steal the gang's money AND turn Dutch in.
there's a popular theory that says that Micah was the rat all along but never had face to face contact with Milton cus he told everything to Colm O'Driscoll, and then Colm told to Milton the information that Micah gave them, but after the guarma incident, Milton talked directly to Micah cus at the time you come back from guarma, Colm O'Driscoll had been captured, so agent Milton find out who was the person that gave the information to Colm, and that's how he found Micah, that's why Milton says Micah only gave them info after guarma, because before that, Colm was the one that told everything to Milton, and the info he gave to the agents, was given by Micah to Colm
Milton really had no reason to lie to Arthur, he thought that he was about to kill Arthur. To Milton, saying that to Arthur was just one of those moments where the villain reveals that he’s been in control the whole time
I do kind of agree with Arthur's point on not needing a rat; which conflicts with the message of "the time of outlaws being over". I think crime just advanced more while the older criminals are completely alien to the notion of "mafias" and big gangs like them. If Micah would have betrayed the gang towards the end, he probably would have been killed off afterwards like John was at the end of Rdr. I think that he was only a rat towards the end, with how he acted and such; only really being out for himself. But the most likely reason he didn't rat them out like that was because it wouldn't be a guaranteed escape, the worry of the Pinkertons just killing him right after they grabbed Dutch.
i take it as rockstar trying to hide the twist so badly that they forgot to make sense. the best plot twist is one you can piece together before you beat the game or start to piece together
Your video helped me see the light. The rat was Abigail. 1. In chapter 6, the gang is in St. Denis robbing a train and the Pinkertons raid the camp 2 states away, they couldn't pick up Ms Grimshaw or Tilly or Marybeth, not even even a toddler in Jack, but they managed to pick up Abigail, who they wanted to use as bait to get Arthur and Dutch to come rescue her. The reason she gets picked so easily is because she is working with the Pinkertons to capture Dutch, with Dutch gone and her having the key to the gang's savings, she take the money and run away with John and Jack. 2. In chapter 4, the only 2 gang members involved in the bank robbery but who don't actually go into the bank is Hosea and Abigail. Hosea is captured after someone tips the Pinkertons about the robbery, but Abigail manages to "escape". I believe she's the one that tipped the Pinkertons about the robbery and she managed to escape only because she is working with them. John gets arrested and gets taken into protective custody while the rest of the gang is chased down. Abigail is definitely the rat.
If Abigail was the rat then why did she kill Milton? Sadie was tied up and Milton was about to kill the weakened Arthur. It was pretty much a win for Milton. Also if Abigail was the rat then why did Milton even kidnap her to begin with?
@@agentsmith811 she killed Milton before he had the chance to reveal she was the rat. I also stated in my theory that she wasn't infact kidnapped, it was intended to be a trap for Dutch to come rescue her, which did not happen because Micah convinced Dutch to abandon her.
The thing i love about this game is how people have different interpretations of what might have happened, id say there isnt enough to either prove or disprove micah being the rat. I stand with the people who say micah is the rat, as the way he says at the end, when arthur calls him a rat and he says i am a survivor, is almost an admission to his part with the pinkertons
The game literally tells you that Micah is the rat. It’s not ambiguous at all. No one else is seriously mentioned as a snitch besides Molly, but Karen straight up calls Ms Grimshaw a liar for suggesting that possibility and slaps her. You have to hypothesize and make up an entirely new scenario that wasn’t present in the game to arrive at that conclusion, which makes it bullshit. Rockstar doesn’t even hint at it being anyone else because it isn’t anyone else.
Lakay wasn't Micahs doing, in fact the Pinkertons in Shady Belle can find the note Sadie left and one remarks how its a trap and it's where the gang is Even if you kill the agents there and pick up Sadies note Arthur will put it back on the table and it's not unlikely other agents would have found it later Bill may have accidentally led the Pinkertons to the specific area but of course not of his own idea Micah could never have told Milton where the gang was straight after Guarma because he'd have to find them so he wouldn't have ever known where the gang was at that time I think if you look into this segment its pretty clear Micah may have ratted on the gang but he wouldn't have been able to give whereabouts so the information from him then wouldn't be too useful Micah was very into the idea of getting the Blackwater money along with whatever else he'd collect on the way, so if he wanted both the money from the gang and the Pinkertons his best bet would be to lead the Pinkertons on but not enough for them to interfere with the gang Even if he didn't rat as much on the gang he still had ripped it apart internally with his manipulation of Dutch, he took complete advantage of the events that'd deter Dutchs mental state completely and started fueling his ego and making him feel in control Dutch was in no position to be left on his own as his sanity was draining with his feelings of Arthur and John hating him, the many deaths and trials that effected him greatly and the very likely concussion he received on the trolley Obviously his mental state post Blackwater had been damaged which you can notice in camp during chapter 2 when he's acting alot more unusual Also during that time Micah tries sucking up to him but talking to Dutch after it he's not falling for it During the Saint Denis Bank robbery Micahs white suit is very standout and could have been a signal for who not to shoot for the Pinkertons, the Pinkertons who showed up instantly In his actions of tearing the gang apart he truly betrayed everyone rat or not What he really seemed to have wanted was power over a gang and being able to do whatever he liked, just like Colm O'Driscoll And just like Colm, Micah made a deal with the law and had Dutch already up in his camp to turnover to them, then he tried to persuade John to join him and Dutch so he'd be able to turn John, Dutch and Sadie (he wouldn't have known about Charles but would have likely gave him in too) to Agent Ross Speaking of agent Ross what does he do in rdr1? He gets John to go and hunt down the van der linde gang to turn in Micah was who they were using for that before John as they'd know Micah would gladly do it So he could have been doing it from the start, especially considering Blackwater Blackwater was something micah was very insistent on with Dutch, now with that evidence there's not a more likely candidate for the cause of the Blackwater massacre Arthur and Hosea were doing a housing scam of sorts which apparently would have covered the money they'd need to find a new place but Micah convinced Dutch with the promise of the riches Sure itd make sense for the boat to have security but a Pinkerton ambush? Micah is also the one who seemed the least confused and the most upset about the money, which if we're going with the narrative he's trying to get the best out of both it makes sense Molly was a rat likely but she wanted to hurt Dutch in spite of what he'd done to her Micah was definitely a rat, not the cause for everything of course but he seems to have background knowledge on bigger things Those are just my thoughts on how Micahs a rat but of course any theory could be true, great video by the way I don't see enough discussion on the intricate parts of the story like this and you presented good ideas and theories
Also not to mention how Micah could have even been trying to turn Arthur in at one point. In the mission where you steal the dynamite wagon with Bill, at the last cutscene Micah tells Arthur “stick with me and you’ll live.” Which is a pretty subtle way of Micah indirectly telling Arthur “if you stick with me you’re gonna swing and I’ll laugh while it happens.”
@@rolfschmidtrdo84 yeah that reminds me also, micah goes off during that mission down the same road the Pinkerton patrol goes down and he puts it as "business" Was gonna add that but forgot
WRITTEN ESSAY ABOUT IT. Abigail had a million reasons to betray the gang and that's why i personally think that maybe abigail was the rat all along. 1. Since the beginning when jack and arthur were fishing, and the 'Agents' Showed up, maybe afterward that mission, jack could easily have spoken to abigail, about the men that they found while in the fishing trip, giving abigail the idea of a definitive solution of her problem with the gang and with john because she knew all along that the gang wouldn't survive for much longer, And probably she could show interest to do a negotiation with milton and pinkertons. And so this could gives us a solid background for a potential betray from abigail. 2. The relation between her and john we're falling apart, due to the gang, being as smart woman as she really is. She knew that by taking john out of this criminal life, they could live a peaceful life being a family, and being honest. and she knew even more since chapter 1, that this way of life could kill john, and even jack and herself, So now we got 2 POTENTIAL AND FUNDAMENTAL Clues for abigail to betray the gang, now let's go for the other part when everything starts to fall apart, and abigail's plan starts to fail. 3. Let's suppose that abigail set up a deal with milton and ross, And now we go to the big heist At saint denis heist, abigail at this point already prompted milton and ross, to mount up a setup to catch everybody, and to leave john and abigail walk away from this free, but it goes wrong and hosea gets caught, "Remembering that hosea before dying, we could see at his face that he saw something and he knew the traitor 'Abigail'," And dies. milton being ruthless as he is kills hosea because he wasn't part of their deal because the deal that they set up was just with John, Jack, And abigail. So the rest of the gang didn't matter much to this very deal. So seeing that the deal had gone wrong with milton, She returned to the camp to warn the others, because in Milton's plan they would get everyone in the same day, And Abigail thought one thing but what happened was another. the deal gone wrong, and probably john would get screwed too, "One Sad Disclaimer If this supposed deal never happened, and john never we're caught in the heist, he wouldn't be in the criminal police files because till that point john wasn't a wanted man, So considering this, he would never have died in 1911 because he was an unknown man to the police so his period in the prison, and his criminal history, was the ultimate determinator of his fate in 1911, He could live as a free man with abigail and jack but fate had other plans.", 4. Milton didn't accomplish his part of the deal, abigail was "BETRAYED" By milton's deal, and milton wanted john to swing too after he knew of his existence in chapter 3, when john roasted him by saying 'Rip Van Winkle', So after all this turmoil the whole chapter 5 happens ETC. "ignoring the set up with the Pinkertons in lakay because isn't much of that important," 5. Seeing that the plan failed, and now they are even more screwed up, abigail didn't have much of a choice so she had another plan. steal dutch money and run away with her family, but even that we're screwed up too. So after the train heist in chapter 6, milton in a desperate try, sequestered abigail to use her as bait for the gang, "that's why the whole city was crowded with Pinkerton" because the whole thing was a set up to catch the gang, AND NOW WE COME TO THE POINT WHERE I WANTED TO COME. When milton says that micah was the rat he was lying because he knew the shit had hit the fan, And he wanted for at least the last time try to plant the chaos and break dutch's gang, He could have approached micah with other intentions in the past but micah knew what he had in hands after the heist gone right, And he probably would have killed dutch and the remaining of the gang, if arthur didn't show up at that very scene where the confront happens, believing that micah was the rat. that's why he was running around with cliff and joe around the camp, he would kill dutch, take all the money for them, and walk away from it, That was his plan all along but in the end, trying to mask this he played in dutch's side. Trying to "Kill" Arthur and John but it went wrong too. CONCLUSION So i don't believe that micah was the rat, The screenplay says one thing, but there's always a hidden thing, a hidden plot point to create debate, and this "hidden" plot point is very well done for a hidden plot point that is never used is just there to suggest something, obviously there is plot holes and thing that don't make quite a sense in this theory. but a hidden plot point it's there only to suggest and create debate, the only way for us to know who was the real rat is to read the original screenplay from the game, and analyze this very plot point, when some story suggests a thing but does other you can tell that there is an ambiguity right there, Because that's already an old trick from screenwriters, Hell i know this because I'm a screenwriter too i even use this kind of method in my writings because i know that this kind of things keeps the story alive and the same thing happens here as well with rdr 2 and this only proves that rdr 2 is the magnum opus of rockstar Gameography, because is really well written this kind of thing is used to confuse us and create debate the same thing we are doing here as well. So yeah i know my theory isn't perfect thank for reading my "Written Essay" but that's my theory and that is my ultimate conclusion for me i believe that ABIGAIL Is "Guilty" and micah is "Innocent". THANK YOU BYE, HAPPY 1922 FOR YALL.
I agree with your argument I always had a thought in the back of my mind that something was not right about Micah being a rat and on my second play through I knew that we don’t get the full picture of what happens and the best I could think of was that Arthur was right all along they didn’t need a rat! Don’t get me wrong Micah was not a good person but he always looked out for what’s the best case scenario for him personally!
I'm glad someone else has come to Micah's defense. He was my favorite character in the story because he seemed to be the only one in the game who realized that they were outlaws and was having fun with it. He was the only guy who actually acted like he was in the kind of gang that was described in RDR1. Which means he has to be the character that all of the actually bad stuff gets dumped onto, because Rockstar wanted to have its cake of showing off that oft-hyped prologue to the story of RDR1, but also wanted to make characters that could be easily empathized with. So now this guy who could have otherwise been an interesting foil for Arthur becomes the obvious rat because he's the only member of the gang who's more antagonistic than friendly, the only one who is openly racist, and also routinely said to be a snake and shifty by everybody in the story at least once. I read somewhere that Rockstar wrote Micah the way they did in response to fans who loved Trevor Phillips in GTA V. I'm sad that they seemed to be entirely accurate in their assessment that fans would hate Micah, even though they loved Trevor, because Trevor may have done monstrously evil things, but he did them to strangers and jerks, whereas Micah doing moderately evil (and usually just rude) things to NPCs that the players care about makes him the lowest scum of the Earth.
@Storm Mist I'm not denying that happened, I'm just saying I'm happy to see someone defend him. I think it's stupid that the game sets him up to be hated from the word go, gives him no redeeming qualities, and then makes him the rat.
This is an interesting theory but I think it’s pretty obvious that Micah was always a traitor. He could have ratted them out before the game (Blackwater), but like Arthur says, they were getting sloppy at this point. Micah could have been the one to rat Arthur out to Colm, because how else would Colm’s men know exactly where Arthur was positioned? And the reason they didn’t grab Dutch then and there was because it was part of Colm’s plan. Make Dutch angry, have him and his gang come raging over here, and then have the law grab them, while he (and presumably Micah) slip away. Also, the Epilogue. Why would there be Pinkertons on the mountain? Micah wanted to turn Dutch in. This is why he kept saying all this “Join us John” bullshit. It was just bait for him to have someone else to give over to the Pinkertons. I think Micah could have ratted the gang out many times before hand. He could have even been giving anonymous tips to the Pinkertons or something. The Saint Denis Job went to shit just like Micahs Ferry Job, and here he is wearing an all white suit, maybe to stand out from the gang so they don’t shoot him? Just what I think, I cant be bothered writing out a whole book on this as its long enough but cool video either way PVPCat
1 the o Driscoll’s were probably planning on sniping Dutch but when Arthur was there they captured 2 Micah was a dangerous outlaw so the objections could been looking for him but another theory was that the Pinkerton were trying to catch Dutch why is why Ross was heavy set on Dutch in rdr
Also the ferry job was because the pinkertons head quarters are near west Elizabeth and Dutch shooting a girl in the head and the trolley was because of Brontë tipping the police and the bank was because of the trolley and the death of bronte the Pinkerton are literally detetectives they just tracked down the gang
Finally, someone gets it. Molly was actually the rat. She was the one who told the law/Pinkertons about the bank heist in Saint Denis. She was nowhere to be found from about the middle of Chapter 4, till Uncle found her drunk in Saint Denis and brought her to Beaver Hollow. She loved Dutch but hated the gang members since Colter. In Chapter three all she did was argue with Dutch about her suspicions about Dutch and Mary Beth. Her jealousy turned love for Dutch to hate. Remember, “He’ll hath no fury as a woman scorned.” One scene in particular, is when (in Chapter 3) Molly tried to talk with Arthur about her problems with Dutch. But, she and Arthur were rudely interrupted by Uncle about robbing a wagon with a lock box. Molly, looked so disgusted and just walked away. Then, as soon as the gang got to Shady Bell, and as Dutch and Arthur we’re riding out to find Jack, she tried to talk to Dutch one last time. But, he spurned her and just rode away, complaining to Arthur about her. From that point on, her mind was set. When she found out about the Bank Job, she decided to go to the Pinkertons and betray the gang that she hated so much. She wanted to make Dutch suffer as he had made her suffer. Next time we see her after she left the gang, she was drunk and admitting that it was her who had told Agent Milton and Ross about the bank job. Then Grimshaw killed her. Later in Chapter 6, after Milton captured Abigail, he said that it was Micah that betrayed the gang, not Molly. He didn’t know that Molly was already dead. His lie to Arthur was to cover for Molly, who was his asset. I believe that Milton thought that after he killed Arthur, he’d let the women go and they would lead him to Dutch. Micah was always about the Blackwater money that he helped Dutch steal. He’s obsessed with it all throughout the entire game. So, why wouldn’t he be loyal to Dutch? They were both cut from the same cloth. $150K, to Micah was worth sticking close to Dutch and the gang. Micah had no motivation to betray Dutch. His fortune and dreams were tied to Dutch and the gang. The real story within the superficial story of the gang is still the biggest and best secret in the game. Very few get it in their first play through.
@@gravity4467 “clearly did not play the game” after he named chapters and what the characters said and did. Bruh really ? He explained why Milton said it wasn’t Molly, to cover for her. It’s up to interpretation if Milton was telling the truth or lying but what difference does it make, really ?
There are 2 things I think could have happened. Either Milton, using this as insurance, told Arthur that Micah was a rat to dissolve the gang permanently due to mistrust. That way in the event that he somehow died, there would be so much discord in the group that they will just fight with each other and disband or kill each other. Or, Milton, having already thought he won, decided to gloat and tell Arthur about how Micah was the rat all along and that Molly didn't talk at all. It's common for people to get extremely confident when they have the upper hand and he had no reason to lie to Arthur, especially since at that point he was 100% sure that Arthur would die right there.
I think you are correct about Milton using Arthur and Micah to separate the gang as the main message of the last mission is that the gang started tearing itself apart. Not one member of the gang in the last mission actually died to a Pinkerton only each other.
You make a lot of good points here. There are always two sides (or more) to every story. Just like in real life, the truth often lies somewhere in the middle. I believe Micah was a rat, but nowhere near to the extent that most people think. He wasn't a rat from the beginning at all, and if he ratted on the gang after Guarma, it was only little hints that would benefit himself without compromising his relationship with Dutch. The scraps at his camp near Strawberry tell us a few things, most importantly that he knew who Dutch was, and he wanted to join his gang. The reasons why, I think, are simple. Since we also know that Micah was the one who talked Dutch into the ferry heist in Blackwater, my theory is that Micah wanted to rob the ferry but there was no possible way he could do it by himself. He joined Dutch's gang to use them for that heist. Afterword, he had two problems, sharing the money with several other people (most of which didn't even help steal it) and only Dutch and Hosea knew where the money was stashed. That money was his primary concern, as indicated by the numerous times he mentions it during the story, but to get the money and not have to share it, he would have to play along with the gang for a while, get in Dutch's best graces to find out where the money was, and to slowly whittle down the gangs members so he wouldn't have to share with them. He talks about certain members of the gang like the women and the reverend being useless, because they were useless to him and he didn't want to share with them. He tried numerous times to get other members captured or killed, especially when he set up the deal with Colm when Arthur got captured. He convinced Dutch that both John and Arthur were betraying the gang, in an attempt to get rid of them since they were the primary people standing in the way of his plans. By ch 6 he had successfully turned Dutch against John and Arthur while also becoming Dutch's right hand man after Hosea died, but he still hadn't gotten Dutch to tell him where to find the Blackwater stash. I believe Micah was confronted by the Pinkertons just like Arthur was at the river when fishing with Jack. Of course, Micah couldn't just turn Dutch in since only Dutch knew where to find the Blackwater money, so he cooperated with them only enough to sabotage the gang without getting himself or Dutch caught or killed. This is why Milton told Arthur that that Micah was a rat, likely also because he and Micah planned to destroy the gang together, making each member easier to capture which benefited both Micah and Milton. I believe that Molly ratted on the gang far more than Micah did, including telling the pinkertons about the St. Denis bank robbery. Bill definitely led the Pinkertons to Lakay, not Micah. Micah was able to follow the Pinkertons from the boat where Dutch killed Cornwall, get what Dutch needed and get away from them because he was already dealing with them, acting as a double agent by promising them that he'd get them Dutch eventually. After the gang imploded at the end of ch 6, Micah asked Dutch to go with him, since Micah still didn't know where to find the Blackwater stash, but Dutch walked the other way. This tells me that Micah and Dutch went their separate ways for a while, but eventually met back up since we see them together on Mt. Hagen with the Blackwater money. So my theory is that Micah ventured out on his own for a while, built up his own gang over the course of several years, then somehow tracked down Dutch and finally convinced him to go get the money from Blackwater if Dutch didn't already have it. As the leader of his gang, he could keep all of the money himself, except that he'd still have to split it with Dutch, so he would have had to convince Dutch to join him, but Dutch likely had reservations about it, perhaps even being wise to Micah's plans to destroy his gang years before. At the point where we find them on Mt. Hagen, I believe that Micah was planning to turn in Dutch and keep all of the Blackwater money (which is why the Pinkertons showed up there, the were likely expecting to arrest Dutch but found Micah dead instead), while Dutch was planning to kill Micah in revenge, a very common theme throughout the whole story, and why he told John he was there for the same reason as him. The Pinkertons knew Dutch couldn't have wiped out Micah's gang all by himself, which is what led them to tracking down John, who at that point was the easiest member of the gang to find since Javier was in Mexico, Sadie and Charles were in Canada, Dutch was keeping a very low profile, Bill had a gang protecting him, and all of the other major members were dead. Finally, after killing Micah, how was the Blackwater money split? Considering that John gets about $25,000 of that money, we can assume he split it in 3 parts with Sadie and Charles, which accounts for $75,000 of it. We must then assume that Dutch took the other $75,000 for himself, either because he wanted to split the money with John, or because that was all he could carry. It can also be assumed that Dutch, Micah or both of them had already spent a considerable amount of the money, leaving only about $100,000 which was split equally 4 ways between Dutch, John, Sadie and Charles, but it's doubtful that they spent $50,000 and were still living in shacks on top of a mountain.
Your argument makes perfect sense, however I don't think you can knock on R* and say that it was poor writing style. It seems like maybe R* did all of this on purpose. Yes they want to us to believe that Micah is the Rat, but then at the same time question our selves... Why should I believe the Pinkertons? But why Should I believe Micah? he's a narcissistic a-hole... Thank you for putting in all this time and putting together this well organized theory. Very much appreciated!
this will probably be the last story in rockstars series anyways, leslie and dan are gone so who is left that made every game special? my guess is new faces will come in that will give their own take to the series which will make the charm it had in past games feel very different in upcoming games and usually 90% of the time my guesses are right(except if i wanna win the lottery).
Micah was a horrible person but NOT a rat!! There was a rat in chapter 2 during the second train robbery which you can do while Micah is still in jail in Strawberry. You can read in the newspaper after the robbery that the lawmen were tipped off which is why they showed up so fast. The only ones who knew about the train robbery were John, Charles, Sean, Abigal and Arthur! John was most likely the rat the whole time which makes sense because the Pinkerton's find Micah and Dutch's hideout only after John does. Who else would tell them where it is? Sadie or Charles? No..... it also leads up perfectly to RDR1 where John is forced to bring the rest of the gang in when the Pinkerton's capture Abigal and Jack. They got tired of him failing to deliver so they kidnapped them to force him to finally get it done. John was the rat!!!!!!
I’ve always thought this, I think Milton told Arthur it was Micah to cause the gang to split up for good and turn against each other thinking it would be easy to pick them up if they were already distracted by each other.
Idk because even Micah's actor Peter Blomquist confirmed that Micah was the rat. Although Micah himself never really directly admitted it in game. In all 4 endings, he denies that he talked to the Pinkertons.
I also would like to see a video about Dutch, because i don't think he was the most evil character that the majority of people say, because from my impression he started to lose it after Hosea died and that was intentionally done by Milton at that exact time, Dutch later betrayed Arthur yes this is true but imagine yourself if you lost a friend who was like your brother, it's clear that Hosea was Dutch's moral compass, you can see at the end when John thanks Dutch, he just walks by John looking at him and then walks away without a word, he's fed up with everything and Micah was the last piece of the puzzle he needed taking care of.
I should also like to state that I think that Milton didn’t lie about Micah specifically because he thought he (Milton) thought he had caught Arthur and was going to either arrest or kill him
“Blessed are the peacemakers” was where I got suspicious of Micah but there were 4 riders that saw them riding together and Colm had 2 guards so the other 4 saw Arthur split off from the group and that’s why I think Micah isn’t the rat.
Milton never said Micah talked. He said that he’s been a good boy since they let him go. Micah’s a comical psychopath. So they realized pretty quickly that they weren’t going to get anything reliable out of him nor his direct cooperation. So, instead they just offered him a deal, got an idea about his goals and motivations. Then let him go and kept tabs and the pressure on him from a distance. Knowing that he would look for a scapegoat, that his paranoia would drive the gang apart as he whispered in their ears and pointed fingers, and that he would make as much of a mess in different areas as he could just in case he needed skip out or a bigger bounty to trade. But, that would not only help them to track the gang down. (Who didn’t know that the Pinkerton’s had men everywhere just watching on the off change that one of gang members shows up, so they tail them to the gang’s hideout), but also weaken the gang. And there was an off chance that Micah’s actions would not only get them Dutch, but maybe even the Blackwater money. Dutch simply echod Micah. And Dutch was always going to be Micah’s get out of jail for free card and bank card. Freedom to make a lot of problems with a good gang at his back in case he needed bailing out, the Blackwater money, and if everything completely goes south, offer up Dutch or if he can get away with the Blackwater money stab Dutch in the back or hand him over. He might need a coin toss for that one.
I’d like to note that before Arthur inevitably broke Micah out of jail and before they shot Annesburg to hell and back, he said that he noticed ever since Micah joined the gang, there’s been nothing but trouble. That could mean that Micah was a rat before it was confirmed, or it could just simply mean he made some impulsive, sloppy decisions and it led to the Pinkertons finding out.
SPOILER ALERT wow this theory is genius. First let's talk about freedom. Freedom is what the wild wild west is standing for, freedom is what Dutch believes and builds his entire charisma around it so gang follows him blindly. Don't get me wrong Dutch genuinely believes and means what he says, he is not using the concept of freedom to manipulate the other members. No he got so caught up into his own believes/principals/ideologies/philosophies or how ever you want to call it, that he becomes a stubborn man. On one hand Arthur is left with a man, his father figure and idol, who's fighting for a dream of freedom as a greater cause but oblivious of his failure and on the other hand a ruthless bastard whose freedom consits to do, kill and take what- and however he pleases. Micah has been born into his criminal career, his father being a notorious murderer and all. Micah was left without a choice, and by the time he joined the gang he didn't know any better then being evil in every possible way. (don't be fooled thinking he might be dumb or stupid, he ain't!) Despite how much everyone hates Micah, he is quit important for Arthur's moral compass. Micah makes Arthur realizes that the kind of freedom that Micah enjoys ain't right and that Dutch's' Dream of Freedom has been an endless chase in a changing world. Micah is the reason why Arthur stops being loyal to Dutch. Micah opened up Arthur's' eyes to realize that Jack who is born inside the gang, into a criminal life such as Micah, is innocent and deserves his own chance to choose if he goes high or low honor. Without Micah, Arthur would have stayed loyal to Dutch until the end but the audience loves changes that's why they are worth telling a story, so Arthur does the only morally good thing and helps Abigail to get Jack his Freedom. We, the audience are with the protagonist Arthur (no matter if good, bad or ugly ;) ), so we tend to think and believe what the protagonist does, because the story is told from their perspective (a good example for how powerful perspective can be is Martin Scorsese's' "Shutter island"). Even when we continue playing as John we tend to believe that Micah betrayed the gang so we go up that mountain to kill him. Al the protagonists are simply oblivious to the fact that Abigail did what was in her son's best interest. She has the biggest motive to betray the gang in order to offer her son, Jack, a decent life. RockStar has never ever disappointed us with any bad writing and I refuse to believe it's the case in one of their most iconic games, so the only logical reason for Agent Milton telling Arthur about Micah being a traitor is to split the gang. Milton does this on every encounter with Arthur or the Gang, he makes very clear that he will leave the others alone if they gave him Dutch. If Micah would have gone for the reward on Dutch's' head he had enough chances through out the game. Most likely he was willing to sell out the gang towards the end but he didn't succeed because Micah couldn't offer the Pinkertons anything they didn't already know. For exemple the st. Denis Bank robbery, Micah dressed up different than the others to not been shot and my guess is that the Pinkertons left him alive because he might come in handy when Abigail isn't a useful informant anymore. Abigail knows that Arthur is Dutch's' finest gun so by sending Arthur to a private conversation with the Pinkertons while fishing was her first attempt to convincing him to sell out Dutch but Arthur was way to loyal towards his father figure and he needed "evil" Micah to get him to choose against Dutch. Abigail is the reason why John survives al encounters with the Pinkertons because they want to stay in Abigail's' favor it also ties together how Leviticus could find Dutch in Valentine. And at last but not least for those who played rdr1, we played an entire game chasing down Dutch and what's left of the gang, as John Marston working for the Pinkertons, so Jack can finally be free. It's twisted but the RDR saga is about a man directed by a woman into betraying all his friends to provide a better life for a boy which suppose to be his son. But like we all know Abigail was a hooker and again my guess is that she just did what's best for her offspring and chose the one gang member she could manipulate the easiest because how should she know who the father actually should be? It could as easy be Arthur or Dutch for all we know. In order to protect Jack, Abigail chose John and provided us with 100s of hours of game-play, riddling and darn good entertainment in which even Arthur Morgan found real purpose by helping a young boy leaving this cruel life - redemption.
Sadly this just seemed to be another shot at Rockstar. PVPCat used to have the most entertaining and educational content available. Now it is just a bunch of negativity and grand conspiracy theories. Blaming Rockstar for portraying Micah in a bad light is a new low that stretches even further than I would have imagined even you would. If you don't like the game and don't like Rockstar, move on and find something else rather than trying to spread your toxicity and negative vibes about it. The sad story here is what happened to your content. I'd rather see you do something else and bring back the old, happy and positive PVPCat. We all know Rockstar could do better by us (the players) but that isn't something we can control, obviously, so don't waste energy on it and worry about the things you can control.
That's actually a good point. I always thought Dutch got sloppy after guarma and because of that, it made it easier for the Pinkertons to find them again and again. I never really believed Micah was a rat. He just didn't act like it
The reason he’s the rat is because agent Milton said we picked up Mika after he came back from Gorma There’s no reason for agent Milton to lie to Arthur because he believes that he’s going to die so in that way he wanted to gloat to Arthur
Agent Milton did not lie; that's completely absurd. We should remember that it's just a fictional story, and it's not fair to compare real psychology with a made-up narrative. You might be overanalyzing it a bit too much, lol. The fact that Bill asked around for the location isn't strong evidence for the Pinkertons to track him. Bill might be stupid, but he's not that dumb. We have to accept the story for what it presents, which is that Micah was the only traitor, and it's immensely satisfying to see him face the consequences in the end.
I never bought Milton's story about Micah. Like you, I think Micah is a terrible person, but not a rat. If there actually was a rat, Milton wouldn't reveal who it was because he could still use them and he knew the gang would kill them if they found out. What he knew was that Arthur and Micah were Dutch's main guys and by far the most dangerous of the gang. If he could split Arthur and Micah it would make it far easier to take them down. He denies Molly said anything but that is exactly what he would say to protect her identity. But as Arthur pointed out, there might not have been a rat at all. They were sloppy and stupid. The world was changing and they were still operating in the old mind set. They were doomed from the start.
Micah was working with the O'Driscoll gang. O'Driscoll gang may have been tipping off the law. It's not until after Act 5, until after the Caribbean, Micha becomes an informer to the law, as they say in the cut scene. Milton isn't lying. Abigail was a traitor and tipping off the law, but wanted John spared and not harmed. She was doing this to protect Jack, and wanted to settle down. This is why people start thinking John is a traitor. She hates the gang because of how they treat her. Plus she doesn't want people to know Arthur is Jack's father, as Jack grows older.
He shot Grimshaw, had the bounty paper scrap for Dutch in his wilderness camp, his corpse searched by Edgar Ross. There is just a lot of clues he had a role in the gang being found.
I think you’re right that Milton was going to at least let Sadie and Abigail go so that they would do what Arthur ultimately did. It’s interesting that he had the drop on Arthur, but chose to tell him about Micah instead of just immediately killing him like he did Hosea.
Are we just going to ignore the fact that Rockstar CREATED the game, they told us Micah was the rat, and then killed him…Arguing that Rockstar lied to us about Micah being the snitch when they were the ones who made the story and told it to us is absurd. I’m struggling to understand why you made this video. Don’t get me wrong, it was a great video and I liked it, but it doesn’t make any sense my dude.
InvestiGator visits RDR2 story.
I wanna see you as a naviGator through RDR3 :D
who?
Hi it’s me the neglGotiator don’t listen to the other guy he’s just instiGator
This is a great video like how its structured and it really made me rethink micha a bit you earned a subscription
You pronounce Lakay correctly then pronounce Lagras wrong
The fact that Agents Ross and Fordham knew where Micah’s body was so quickly may suggest that Micah was planning on turning Dutch over to them in order to continue.
Micah at that point was running rampant and his gang was a small army. Its logical that they found the camp due to all the criminal activities that a gang that big brings. Maybe Dutch being there was just coincidence.
@@martinford4553 either possibility works.
we dont know if they found the body quick, it could be between 1907-1912
Micah isn't working with the pinkertons at this point after Milton's death. If you read the blackwater newspaper after Micah's death it tells that bounty hunters and Pinkertons had been trying to track him down for a while
@@omereger3166 1910*
When Arthur comes back to camp to tell the gang about Micah, he said to Micah, "You talked(to Pinkertons)." Micah looks at Dutch and said, "Dutch, think of the future." To me, it's saying that it doesn't matter whether he talked or not, only the future is important. It just sounds like he's admitting without saying it explicitly. He's just trying to wash it off with the future.
I think so too
It could also explain why he is pushing so hard for them to get the Blackwater money, because he knows the gang doesn’t have long, and he wants Dutch (the last man alive who knows where it is) to get the blackwater money. Before he turns him in.
he just try survive, when pinkerton arrest him, he try to find way out to survive. micah is only his own side
Cat, I think one flaw is that Milton thought Arthur was done and that's why he divulged Micah's involvement. I don't think he was lying, just gloating. To him, there was no way out for Arthur.
That's my view. It might be as far as Milton perceives, but he has to have at least 'some' leverage to be confident in that perception ... although Milton is something of a one-dimension character and antagonist in comparison to Bell, so it's ambiguous.
exactly, I said the same thing. I played through the story like 5 times back to back and never once got the idea that milton is full of shit. The way rockstar tells the story, just makes zero sense to lie and expect you to catch on that milton is lying. Why would milton lie to dead men/women on the final mission that micah is a rat? In that moment, milton had the upper hand and didn't intend on at least arthur and sadie leaving alive, john was suspected to be dead too, so obviously Abigail wouldn't go back to camp and separate them or confront dutch that micah is a rat. Everyone saying milton is lying is overthinking this way too much
Exactly and also Milton, unlike Ross, has also been known to always be truthful he’s never lied to get his way he’s always stayed within the law
@@toma5289 not to mention, Arthur is the protagonist of the game and in red dead/ most games, what the main character says or is told, especially when playing the story is the full truth, it's gospel. The game usually always gives the correct information to the main character throughout the story by the other leading characters. I've found that in games what the main character is told or says out loud is usually facts and obviously serves to tell the story and give you the correct information.
It only makes sense for the game to conclude and tell you the truth so you understand the story, you finally learn at the end that micah is the traitor, I can't see the game lying just to leave it semi-unresolved. It just makes confronting dutch and micah at the end a little pointless besides the fact that he's responsible for arthurs death. Even john and the other protagonists say too micah is the "rat". Rockstar is clearly establishing this to the "player".
Another comment on here by agentsmith811 said that in the final mission:
"When John is about to confront Micah in American Venom, an actual literal rat can be seen scurrying out near Micah’s cabin."
I went and checked and it's true, a rat can be seen running across the front of the cabin where micah is hiding, as to signal the player "this is where micah is hiding" then micah kicks open the door and comes out seconds later. Like I said, it only makes sense for it to be true based on the subtle hints and not so subtle, obvious ones that we're told through the game.
you an see it starting at 18:27 _here:_
ruclips.net/video/VIhfB_0AOo8/видео.html
Yeah, he had almost no reason to lie since Arthur was at his mercy and was about to die anyway.
There is literally a rat crossing the cutscene before Micah emerges from his cabin in the epilogue. Rats don't live on iced over glaciers.
Not to mention the fact that there are various clues in the game that Micah had been sabotaging the gang since long before he made a deal with the Pinkertons. Every job Micah is brought on, goes wrong. Every one. The one's he doesn't know about go smoothly. Micah goes out of his way to make the gang easy to follow. You could just chalk that up to his bad temper and bloodlust but that doesn't jive with the fact that outside of the gang (before and after) he successfully kept a low profile for years. His own brother also describes him as "evil" which is an interesting choice of word; if it was just about his blood crazed murder sprees the words you'd use would be "crazy", "unhinged" or "psycho" but "evil" implies deliberate action. Rockstar is way too pedantic about details like this for this to be an accident.
It was ALWAYS his intent to have the Blackwater money for himself, and to possibly collect on Dutch's bounty once he had it (if you search Micah's camp in strawberry you will find Dutch's wanted poster). Note the Pinkertons show up at Mt. Hagen where Dutch was holed up with Micah and they express disappointment at the fact that Micah is dead.
There IS a lie that people believe about Micah and that's that he is stupid. Micah had EVERYONE wrapped around his little finger. He had Dutch convinced he was a good man at heart and everyone else at camp convinced he was a dumb, aggressive moron. The guy is deliberately as obnoxious as he can be to everyone BUT Dutch to drive a wedge between them. The more people leave the gang or doubt Dutch, the fewer he'll need to share the Blackwater loot with. Whenever there's a chance to ditch or kill someone from the gang, he takes it.
The thing people don't get about Micah is that he is, in fact, very very cunning. And that is a trait befitting someone who is truly evil.
I thought John Marston was/is the rat. When he asks you to join him in a train robbery in the early game, the mission goes badly, and the authorities show up relatively quickly from somewhere nearby. Almost as if they knew the train would stop where it did. After you eliminate them all, John is the first to ask if they were tipped off and then he inquires about a possible rat among them. This is smart when you think about it, if you are the rat, and it's obvious the gang has been set up but survived the encounter, you would want to point out the possibility of a rat in the group because with it being your idea that a rat exists, it can take off some of the pressure and suspicion falling on you. It would also make a bit of sense that John was informing on the gang. Arthur doesn't fully trust him because John ran off for a year and then shows back up randomly. When things go bad in Blackwater, John is all of a sudden missing again and then Rockstar has your character go find him in the mountains. It's worth noting that John does ultimately end up working for the government to eliminate his former gang.
Now, i will consent that it's possible that Rockstar might have been trying to make it seem like John the entire time because we know he ultimately ends up killing off the gang, and there was always speculation during the first Red Dead Redemption that we were playing as a backstabber and snitch. So it's possible, maybe even probable, that Micah was created in order to take off some of the suspicions around John doing all of his old friends dirty. I think you're probably right about Micah, but there are plenty of holes in John's whereabouts and he's the only member of the gang that has a family to think about. He's often portrayed as a useless deadbeat dad but we know that whenever John is off missing, he is actually doing everything he does for his family.
I'm still suspicious of John, I think it's possible that Dutch's gang had two informants.
@@panspermiapancakes i havent played the first red dead but that theory is interesting. but if john was the rat, why did micah never deny that he himself was the rat? micah always tried to distract everyone from the fact that they were suspicious of him and he would say to think of the future and stuff like that. and also another thing that i saw somewhere else is that micah has never worn white but when the gang goes to rob the saint denis bank, he wore a full white suit. many people speculate that he did that so the pinkertons would know it was him and not shoot him.
@@bxoomi The white suit theory has always been interesting for Micah but there isn't really any evidence that Micah was informing before Guarma and most evidence points towards him not informing until after they return. I don't think he informed anyone about the bank robbery. The white suit was symbolizing his distancing from the gang, perhaps a bit of foreshadowing of what was to come from him. I am fairly certain that the Pinkertons had a planted informant within Bronte's gang which is why the Pinkertons knew about Dutch and the heist. Then in Guarma while everyone is trying to escape and Dutch is doing all the math in his head and comes to the conclusion that the possible rat is John and Abigale, it actually does seem like the most logical conclusion, and while I do think its possible that John was informing, that heist in St Denis was more than likely a result of a planted informant because it is worth noting that John is sent to a prison camp after he is captured. The most suspicious thing about it all where the Marstons are concerned is that Abigale somehow manages to dodge authorities.
Either way, if you're Dutch and trying to see things from his perspective, the most obvious conclusion would be John, even if he's not guilty at all.
@@bxoomi did you watch the video?
Arthur fanboys am I right 🙄😏
**dang this thread got insane.. Just for everyone on here.. i admit i am conflicted.. micah could have been the rat or he could not have been the rat.. i see both sides for sure.. I still think he was the rat for a number of reasons but rockstar definitely left it open which is cool..If we were dealing with "old school rockstar" they would have made a single player DLC and maybe we would have gotten a definitive answer on Micah but since they are chasing the Shark Card and Gold cheddar more than anything these days, it looks like we are left to speculate..
I disagree.. Micah basically admitted guilt but justified his ratting as "i'm a survivor".. the issues and "missed opportunities" you found are interesting but are more likely plot holes and mistakes by rockstar.. The agents did find Lakay without Micah tho, there is a scene where they find the letter @ shady belle if you do the encounter correctly.. Interesting stuff tho, great vid.. i love that you finally played the story mode.. can't believe it took you so long, the story mode is leaps and bounds better than online in my opinion .. dasvidaniya
That's more like it boah, big thumbs up. He lacks viewing the game as a literal playable cenimatic story. It's not some half ass thought out story game.
And Also there is a part when the gang is found at lakay were Micah yells asked everyone you could find so even if they didnt find the letter someone Bill asked could have told
Online doesn't even *compare* to the Singe Player
If you haven’t played Story mode. You haven’t played Red Dead Redemption 2. Online is described with one word. Redundancy. It’s fun in the beginning, having to buy and upgrade everything. But once you have everything it’s the Same thing over and over. There’s nothing left to buy. No properties. Nothing.
@@warrr_machine don't get the whole properties thing but yeah, it is very empty and repetitive
Dutch is the real antagonist of the story. Micah is an outlaw who loves being an outlaw. In the 6th chapter, they set up Micah to be the person you have to fight in the big emotional confrontation but I feel like it was a red herring. It was a masterful move because it makes the Mexican standoff with Dutch at the end of the epilogue work so well. In reality the main theme of the game is about Dutch losing his grip on sanity while coming to terms with the fact that the world has changed and he can't lead a gang of outlaws in in it any more.
yeah thats what makes it a good prequel, it shows us the descent of dutch and how he became the villain in rdr1. its great storytelling really, they decided to show his descent with his narcissism and how unhinged he becomes and it sets up his villain origin story for the events of rdr1. i love when game developers put serious thought and attention to the small stuff, makes it worth while.
@Storm Mist I think the rat angle is a misdirect. The real reason why the storytelling was so well done is that Dutch went on and on all game about being Loyal and how he would die in the place of anyone of the gang, but when Arthur is dying he drops him like a bad habit in favor of Micah and surviving. While it is true that Arthur and John were second guessing him a lot, he also gave them a lot of reasons to do so. Dutch wasn't exactly pulling his own weight.
@Storm Mist Dutch never changed he just became what he truly was.
@Storm Mist But even Hosea (RIP old Man) said that something was off with Dutch already in Blackwater. He and Arthur had the Real Estate-Scam going on but Dutch insisted to rob the Ferry that transported Money from Saint Denis to Blackwater. And that´s where he shot this innocent Girl in the Head. If getting asked about it by Arthur he talks it down and said that it´s not important.
@@AbdoAbdo-ix1bo He changed. I knew a man who changed his values for the opposite after he failed. He made a fatal mistake under a lot of pressure and wasn´t able to figure it out anymore. He couldn't make things good again nor better so lost hope and enjoyed being awful, sort of... He was calm and care for everyone before, but became violent, greedy, and selfish. He started drinking heavily and later committed suicide.
You won’t get a dislike from me - you put a lot of thought into this video! There’s no question in my mind though that Micah was the rat. I believe the Pinkertons threatened and used Micah, the same way they use John in RDR1, for help and information about the gang’s activities. I think Micah was so obsessed with finding the Blackwater money because he believed that getting his hands on that much money would enable him to disappear where the Pinkertons couldn’t find him and he’d be free. I think agent Milton told Arthur the truth about Micah because he didn’t think Arthur would be leaving that room with Abigail, he was planning to shoot Arthur, and he told him the truth to antagonize him a bit - to let him know that the rat was one of Arthur’s own gang. I also think that during Arthur and Micah’s fight, when Arthur calls Micah a rat and Micah says I’m a survivor is actually an admission of guilt - he’s telling Arthur he had to do what he did to survive. Great video though Cat!
i agree, cats points are alk valid, but can easily be explained by r* deciding that micah was to be the bad guy and sloppy writing from there on
Yes exactly bro.
This is what the evidence points to and I’m glad someone else can see it
Agreed
@@the_regular_dinosaurus_rex it’s not bad writing it’s about perspective you’re playing from Arthur’s perspective and Arthur despises Micah so it enhances his flaws and clouds his judgment
feel the same way
There’s one thing confuses me on whether Micah’s a rat or not. If Micah didn’t tell Milton that they were at Guarma then how the hell would Milton have known where they where unless “someobody” talked?🧐
The people on the ship?
The gang is fairly large with plenty of people having reasoning to rat
He didn't know they were at Guarma, just that they went to the Caribean
fussar and his overseer knew who them are at the end..overseer told dutch and arthur right before fussar entered the room
@@shapoorrad700 This, Hercule even said that Fussar was aware of they are and in few days wants to hand them to US, considering Pinkertons controlled both in game and real life all prisoner exchanges to US (atleast the northen one) then they were already aware they are at Guarma and Milton knew Dutch will return sooner or later.
You didn't cover the part when a Pinkerton shouts "There's Micah Bell" at the final camp when Arthur and John are forced to retreat into the cave. That would suggest he is recognizable to them as they don't shout "There's Dutch" or "There's Arthur" etc.
lazy detail or maybe the agents who see arthur and dutch didnt have time for that
Also in that Mission, Micah aims but doesn't shoot at the Pinkertons which I believe is a very intentional detail by Rockstar showing that he was, in some way or another, allied with them.
@@jonathan8325 did anyone test if this is the case all the time?
I...I do not know. Damn! :(
The two best gunslingers in camp are Micah and Arthur. it shows nothing special about the guy.
Could Micah have worn a white suit to distinguish himself from the other gang members who were wearing black suits so the Pinkerton's would see him stick out and not shoot him. Whooo knows
They all wore different suits
Pinkerton would have killed micah as soon as they had enough info
micha wasent a rat yet
Traditionally in western movies, the good guys always wore white hats while that bad guys wore black hats. I think it was just an artistic decision by Rockstar to turn this around by having Arthur wearing black & Micah white.
@@MSPintail yea beacuse if you think about it arthur was the antagonist for being a cold killer outlaw and micha being good for helping the law
The reason why Micah didn't sell them out immediately is because, as he says, he's a survivor. Knowing what we know about the Pinkertons and Edgar Ross, if Micah went and told during the Cornwall assasination mission he might have been killed by Milton as he wasn't needed or he would have been let go, but he wouldn't have found the Blackwater stash. If he knew where either the current stash or the Blackwater one was, or if he had a gaurantee for his safety, then he probably would have told.
As for Lakay, he might have told, but the Pinkertons were waiting for the gang to get together so they could surround and ambush them with men and a gatling gun. So he could have told, but they were waiting to get the bigger members of the gang like Dutch and Arthur, therefore they didn't strike the moment Micah got back.
How would Micah have known they were camped at Lakay anyway? If they picked him up as soon as he got back, it’s likely he hadn’t received word of the camp and so was let go to figure it out. Then, the Pinkertons followed Bill.
@Mask Godz no they didn’t. That’s why Arthur went to search shady bell for clues of the Gang’s whereabouts. Some of them found a letter sent to the post office by Sadie to “Tacitus Kilgore”. They had no idea what Lakay even was until after they arrived.
@Mask Godz They didn’t pick Micah up when he first got back. They found him after the Lakay attack. Micah isn’t dumb, he would’ve hauled ass if he knew the Pinkertons were coming to the camp.
The issue, Edgar Ross wanted Cornwall dead. He knew they were there because of Milton and Micah. This is why Micah claims to go find something during this. Edgar Ross was also against Milton, you'll notice this if you look close. I felt that Micah was using Milton to get Arthur, but made a deal to save himself. Even Micah knew dealing with Ross was dangerous as Ross wanted everyone dead, we learn some of this in Red Dead Redemption 1. What happens to Milton (A huge mistake by Sadie and Arthur) changes Micah's ideas and plans and he understands that he himself was now in danger.
When jack kidnapped in Red Dead 2 full gameplay 👇👇👇 ruclips.net/video/V7wg1mVe4R0/видео.html
For me, the “I’m a survivor” comment when confronted by Arthur seals the deal that Micah was the rat. Bill lead them to Lakay, but Micah was the rat.
100%
I always interrupted “blessed are the peacemakers” as Micah told Colm where Arthur would be stationed so his men could kidnap him and Micah could get closer to Dutch. I suppose it’s because Micah sets up the meeting with Colm, another great vid though cat!
It is possible, but there is no proof at all :)
Yes I always thought that too but never seen anyone else talk about it
It could be also that the o Driscoll’s aren’t stupid and would predict a sniper
@@ACLA23 Yeah, as you start ascending the hill after crossing Dewberry creek and see 4 O'Driscoll's above, yet when Colm meets Dutch by the oil derrick he only has 2 guards with him, so they saw Arthur split off and had the 1 other guy sneak up on him. Also it's established that the O'Driscolls set the whole thing up by talking to Pearson when he was on a supply run to Rhodes, it wasn't Micah who spoke with them.
@Rexter182 Micah didn't set up the meeting with Colm, Pearson did.
I think the reason Micah didn’t take the opportunities to kill Dutch was because he wanted the gang to fall apart and he wanted the gang to stop trusting Arthur and John so the blame would fall on them. Before chapter 6, nobody trusted Micah and he would be the first person to get blamed which is why he tried to gain Arthur’s trust in chapter 2 but when he realized he couldn’t gain their trust, he started turning the gang against each other to be less suspicious so he didn’t want to kill Dutch when everyone would immediately blame him
I also think it´s off that Javier and Bill were still loyal to Dutch in the End. I mean Javier mentioned that he couldn´t go anywhere else as the Price on his Head is too big and he would always be loyal to Dutch because he took him in but Bill and Arthur went better along each other than Micah and Bill. Micah even punched Bill for no Reason very early in the Game.
He wanted Dutch’s fat bounty
2:39 there is a easter egg that if you stay in shady belle you’ll see the pinkertons reading the same letter that you read in there and the agent says : they’re in lakay
hello Dutch, whens the next train robbery
@@MonkeyInnaSuit. cringe
@@isthatmateo8332 based
@@Thomas_Angelo ratio
@@tank-stubbs counter ratio
Micah's voice actor was phenomenal; so well-played!!
I think that Micah may have been picked up almost immediately after Guarma, the reason he got back so fast was BECAUSE he talked and was let go. He probably saw the gang falling apart and chose to use it for what it was worth. I think the Pinkertons followed Bill even though they knew where they were as a red herring so the gang doesn't suspect Micah.
He did wear white in the Saint Denis robbery. Someone pointed that out in a comment section I dove into. It’s a simple admissible detail but it’s something to take note of. Though there is a possibility Micah isn’t a traitor, I don’t think we can say he didn’t destroy the gang and Dutch let him do it. Whether or not he’s a traitor, Dutch let him get in his head.
You arent seeing the bigger picture, micha would never give up that easy on 150 thousand dollars, thats like 50 billion in those days
Also as cat said theres no reason for them to wait for everyone to regroup instead of ambushing the main few and then hunting down everyone else
Gemini __ HML the bank robbery was because of the trolley and the death of bronte people hate in Micah for no reason istg
Gemini __ HML and he wore white as a contrast becausE Arthur wore black so Micah wore white
@OneGxxdSpliff its just bad programming of the game , u arent supposed to be in free cam and see every cutscene
I like the Micha character he’s a fun addition to the cast I actually would’ve liked a feature that you could be dishonorable and get along with micha and do more jobs together
Thats a beautiful thought my man, I would really like that feature
Micah never killed dutch even when the opportunity was there because dutch was the only one who knew where the lost money from blackwater was stashed.
then why he dont shoot him in the prologue before john come ?
When John is about to confront Micah in American Venom, an actual literal rat can be seen scurrying out near Micah’s cabin. I think it’s pretty obvious that Rockstar intended for Micah to be the rat.
yea, this video makes no sense, the claims and conspiracy is just overthinking that rockstar must be trying to trick us because the writing is complex so "naturally there must be this big secret". It's nonsense
I always shoot it lol
Yeah, made me laugh when i saw it.
btw I went and checked and you're right.
It can be seen starting at 18:27 here:
ruclips.net/video/VIhfB_0AOo8/видео.html
Game developers are known to do this to signal the player where to go or hint who is there. I mean I think it's obviously signaling the player "hey the rat is in here".
@@jamesgordon9825 same
I agree with Molly being traitor A which caused most of the chaos but Micah, his whole character caused a lot of infighting within the group but it’s quite clear that he also talked cause why would Milton lie during a fight against a man who is dying but also in the epilogue Micah mentions that a lot of social calls probably means he’s been trying to make deals
Molly never said anything to Milton. She just caused arguments in camp.
@@SUN-DANCE so you believe what Milton told you?
@@rickgrimes8870 Yeah thats stupid Milton lieing would create a catalyst to break apart the gang making it much easier for their soon coming attack
I don’t believe Molly was a traitor - she knew her relationship with Dutch was finished and she was upset and trying to get his attention in the camp right before Susan shot her
just so u know social call is when u attack someone , preferably kill him (u make an example out of him)
I think a lot of people miss out that Milton was not going to kill Abigail so him telling Arthur that Micah was a rat would be told to the rest of the gang by her either throwing off suspicion of a real rat or further isolating Dutch making him easier to capture.
but abigail was tied up and about to be sent to jail so she couldn't tell dutch or the gang that micah was a rat.
Capturing Abigail was part of his plan to lure out either John, Arthur, or even both. Micah was extremely cunning throughout the game. He would know that if Milton caught Abigail, Arthur or John would go to save her. Milton's job all along was end the Van der Linde gang, he just took the approach of trying to get the gang to turn on Dutch. If would be able to take out Dutch's most lethal and loyal enforcer it would put the Pinkertons at a major advantage.
But he's still a rat for fighting Arthur when he was sick but still getting claped
That doesnt make him a rat though
honor with criminals? ye crazy?
@@thatguy7683 yeah I know I'm just saying he's a rat for fighting a sick person but still getting claped
I think you just wanted to put claped in a sentence like Franklin does
@@orbital-_-cannon-_-xdxd125 ...Do you not know what it means to be a rat???
I’ve always asked myself what if he wasn’t a traitor and realized he never said he was the traitor. BUT even if he wasn’t a traitor he was a coward and was in dutches ear and making him a coward as well like not saving John from jail and leaving Arthur to die.
12:18 micah didnt killed Dutch because he wanted the Blackwater money and only Dutch and hosea knew where it was.
If he really wanted the black-water money then he wouldn’t be working with the Pinkertons to take down Dutch.
Rockstar definitely overdid it when it came to building Micah as an Antagonist with so many negative qualities to make him easy to hate. Genuinely surprised he actually donated a share of money to the box. Regardless of being a rat or not Micah was a terrible man.
I don’t think it’s rockstar’s lazy writing that shows Micah as completely unredeemable I think it’s Arthur and john’s bias towards him and they’re obviously not going to see themselves as, as bad as him. It’s all about perspective and you’re playing from Arthur’s perspective.
" There is a bigger picture trust me"
I agree 100% John could easy be the bad guy of rdr 1 if it is seen from another perspective
@Mr. FinesseR where does it say or show that Micha was gonna r@p3
@Mr. FinesseR he was clearly trying to scare and antignize her
@Mr. FinesseR you really think he was about to rape her in front of Dutch and Arthur? I doubt it
Innocent until proven guilty, and even if this theory is wrong, we will never know if Micah was the rat for sure
I believe Micah was a traitor to a degree. And Micah didn’t trust Milton and that’s why he didn’t give them away directly for example in Annesburg.
Grinch as your pfp
Nah I’m pretty sure he’s a rat because why would agent Milton lie if he was most likely going to kill Arthur and not let him leave with Abigail
Maybe Micah had old wanted posters of Dutch because he wanted to join his gang at the time. Highest profile has the highest rewards. If things didn't turn out well, he could betray him and collect the bounty.
An interesting potential, but I still stand by the perception he sought out Dutch to get in close so he could eventually bank the bounty. That may have changed later, but that was his initial motivation in my opinion.
That doesn;t actually explain why he had the posters unless you feel that the only way for Micah to claim the reward was to produce a wanted poster of Dutch Van der Linde, which is a silly notion.
@Technicolor Vision So you think Micah needed it after he actually met Dutch and was in the gang. Interesting. Maybe Micah is REALLY bad remebering faces. Super duper bad even.
@Technicolor Vision andn then he'd keep it, because he's super bad at remembering who is in his gang. Like I already said. Look, you can be obstinate all you like but don't pretend you don't know what I say, I'm not going to beleive you're dumb.
Honestly I thought Micah was working with them from the beginning, which is why police always show up unexpectedly and they always fail their missions, even the Blackwater ferry. I dunno, I feel like Rockstar started out with one story and wound up with another.
My take on Micah is always summarized in that one term : a survivor. The Pinkertons indeed caught Micah after Guarma but Micah pretend to agree to cooperate with them in order for them to let him go. Once he's back at that camp, he's not giving any info on the gang to the Pinkertons cause it might endanger his own live.
dude. why would they let him go based on a promise to cooperate.
@@chokonnit7337 I mean what kind of crucial info that he will share to the Pinkertons during his capture? He just arrived from Guarma and did not know Dutch's location or the gang's hideout in Lakay at that time. The only info that he might tell to them is the abandoned hideout Shady Belle, which explains the arrival of the Pinkertons when Arthur is in there. But with Micah willingly to spit the Shady Belle hideout (which he knew that it was abandoned), he might already earned Milton's trust to be their rat.
Micah though is known to be extremely reckless and puts himself and others constantly in situations where he or others might die (like the shootout in strawberry, he had no reason to but he chose to get violent, endangering himself and Arthur when he could've come back later to just take out that one guy in silence.) Micah is not 100% stupid but he isn't very careful either. He would get his money one way or another. And by getting the pinkertons after them and him killing pinkertons would only make him seem like a more trustworthy character to Dutch. I think that Micah bell deffo talked, how much information he gave I don't know, probably not a lot.
@@REassassiNATION It is obvious that the pinkertons made him a deal to not go after him in exchange for information on what the gang was going to do and where they were staying. They literally allowed micah to continue for years running his own gang in the epilogue. Micah even admits to betraying the gang by telling arthur that he’s a survivor when confronted. come on bruh
@@chokonnit7337 Then why Micah didn't share the info to the Pinkertons when Dutch was going to assassinate Cornwall? That was the most easiest opportunity for Pinkertons to catch Dutch and even Arthur. Like PvPcat said, Micah has million of chances to rat out Dutch without needing the involvement of the gang but he choose not to.
I still think Micha was a "traitor" before the riverboat robbery. Using the stashed loot as bait. That's why he brings it up so often seeing it as a win-win. Either they retrieve the money and fell to Tahiti or the gang gets caught and he takes home some bounty money.
There is enough grey area and possible offscreen shenanigans to justify both options. Rat or not
IMO I think Micha played both sides.
Giving just enough to both sides to be considered useful and indispensable.
I don't think Micha is pro-Pinkerton anti-Dutch traitor. Just setting up an optimal win-win situation for himself.
Which explains the missed opportunities.
He gives the Pinkertons enough for them to believe he's an asset but doesn't give enough to destroy the gang.
agree but I dont think he was interested in their bounty more about taking control of the gang and Dutch
@@omereger3166 maybe he wanted both but when he realized the gang was starting to fall he wanted to get the money and jump off the boat
Micha wasn’t made as pure evil. He’s a terrible person, but you can hear him in camp basically talking to himself, working out the flaws in his philosophy and the futility of his struggles. My second play through gave me a different perspective on him.
He’s quite depth-full and dynamic.
I think the fact that there are so many contradictory theories about the rat proves that this part of the story is not well-written...
Micah being the rat is just weird. His main goal was to retreive the blackwater money, and for that he needs Dutch because only Dutch knows where the stash is. So it would make no sense to betray Dutch if you desperately need him. This is why he kept agreeing with Dutch and slipped more ideas into his head to become his new favorite. Betraying the gang only ruins his reputation in Dutch's eyes, we see that Dutch leaves him after the fight with Arthur, so what was the point of all this? Also, he doesn't seem like the type who would ever work with the law, we see in the epilogue that he's still a gangster and that he likes it. And I don't see any reason for Pinkertons to get the most notorious gang member and be like "hey that guy can work for us, the one who kills and robs the most"... I think that the rat stuff was thrown in the game just to make a simple excuse for Micah being the final boss, as if you couldn't have done that better...
I would be fine with Micah betraying Dutch AFTER they get the money from blackwater, that way he gets all the money and has guaranteed freedom, but betraying Dutch before that is just stupid and out of character.
Biggest lie is that there's a third meteorite.
Lol facts man I could never find that thing
I bet its either cut content since there was somewhere i dont remember where a writing that said some girl found a meteorite while fishing or you have to use that as a clue to go and fish for the damned thing
This theory kind of missed the entire point of Micah's character: he wants the Blackwater money. He was a rat from the start, he used the gang because he needed help. Remember, it was him that turned Dutch onto the ferry carrying the money. Before the Pinkerton's got him, his plan was to corrupt Dutch, get him to split away from the rest of the gang, and take the money. He didn't know where it was hidden, so he had to go along with the gang's plan. When the Pinkerton's caught him, he wasn't just trying to help them and then go about his business, giving up on a life of crime: he told them everything he knew and agreed to be an informant. However, he still planned to get the money. If Bill were able to ask around and find the location of the gang, the Pinkerton's surely could, they're professional investigators. They likely found their location and that's how Micah rejoined. They wouldn't have just followed Bill because they would've needed more time to organize. They got ready to roll in as soon as Micah got there, and knowing the Pinkertons, they likely considered Micah just as disposable as the rest of them. Anyway, it was Micah that eventually led them to Beaver Hollow, it's also why Micah was willing to fight Arthur on the mountain. It's after the confrontation that Micah split away with everyone, still wanting the Blackwater money, but unable to get it. That's why he started his own gang and searched for Dutch.
Indeed. The clues are all there. Micah has been a Pinkerton Agent from the start. Hes a criminal informant. He is allowed to continue being an outlaw, so long as he provides much greater information the agency are after over time.
He wasn't ratting on them from be beginning, but you're right about him joining the gang just to pull of the ferry heist. You're also right that he had to follow Dutch since he didn't know where the money was. From the start, he was trying to get other members killed or captured just so he wouldn't have to split the money with them. I don't think he actually ratted until after Guarma, but he wasn't stupid, he likely only gave them enough info to help him whittle down the gangs membership without getting himself or Dutch captured or killed. For this reason, I don't think he had anything to do with the Pinkertons finding them at Lakay, I think it was Molly that told them where the gang went, and I think she told them about the St. Denis bank robbery too. Any ratting that Micah did would have been to get Arthur, John or other members caught or killed in exchange for keeping himself and Dutch protected, but he probably had to promise to get them Dutch eventually to get the Pinkertons help. I think that's why the Pinkertons showed up on Mt. Hagen, they were expecting to finally capture Dutch, but Dutch was wise enough to realize that Micah was going to turn him in and keep the Blackwater money, which is why he told John that he was there for the same reason, to kill Micah for revenge.
@@smartassdroid5149 He was never an agent, he was just out for himself. He used Dutch's gang to pull off the ferry heist, but found himself in a pickle afterword since only Dutch knew where the money was stashed. He had to stick with the gang and get in good with Dutch so he could get the money in the end. Any ratting he did was for the sole purpose of protecting himself and Dutch while destroying the gang so he could get the money and not have to share any of it.
Micah is a talker. If he were picked up by pinkertons at some point, I'm sure he would have said anything to them to get out. But he wouldn't keep on talking to them once they let him go. Makes much more sense that it's just sloppynes and generall infighting that led to all the bad things that happend.
I do still think the real reason for Micah killing all of Strawberry was because he had tried to sell out the gang for his own freedom, and wanted to make sure there was no one left who knew about it. But I really like the idea about Micah just keeping that old wanted poster due to vanity, "a goal to aspire to". That makes a lot of sense. He basically wanted to become Ducht, and it seems Dutch and Micah were a lot more alike than they might first seem.
aye he want to become dutch want to be that important that legendary
did we ever find out why micah went on that solo adventure after we rescued him?
@@teratoma. Not "confirmed" as far as I know. We only got what Micah was saying about "wanting to bring in a treat before returning". I kind of think that was true though. After a failure the size of the black water incident, Micah figured he would have lost all of Butch's trust and wanted a way to somewhat redeem that (so he could continue weazling his way to the top). I figure if Micah had been in charge, and one of his screwed up to that extent, Micah would have shot them or kicked them out of the gang and assumed Butch would do the same. This is ju alot of theorizing from me, though.
This video deserved a like. You got good and valid points there.
But in Saint Denise Pinkertons showed up out of nowhere, that couldn‘t be a coincidence. Hosea, Dutch and Micah were the only ones who knew the plan. Hosea got killed and Milton cared about Dutch. This means that Micah was the only one who could set the trap at the Bank of Saint Denise
I don’t really see any valid points because he just talks about why didn’t Micah just kill dutch or why he didn’t he do something else in the end he had an end goal, not only to survive but to get rid of dead weight and share the Blackwater money he wanted dutch to tell him where the money was stashed, he used the gang
Milton states that they only picked him up after guarma though. I think this is a big point that everyone misses.
The biggest lie is that rockstar cares about rdo
But no-one believes in this :)
Well it makes sense considering they’re not making enough money compared to GTA online 🤷🏾
Very thorough examination of the situation. However, I think you missed one thing. Agent Milton said they picked him up after he got off the boat from Guarma. At that time, none of them knew where the new camp was, to include Micah.
Good point 👍
Micah is a traitor and you can not change my mind
Well, I at least tried :)
micah is a survivor
@@namelessless5859 ever notice how micah sounds exactly like Michael from Gta 5
@@unorthodoxspork5634
He just doesn’t
@@yourarseismine1016 He does. I don’t mean his voice but the things he says
Im more curious on how Arthur didnt infected anybody with a tuberculosis
Yes, unfortunately, this is quite nonsensical, tuberculosis is very contagious. Also the way it is diagnosed is probably not very realistic.
This is gonna turn into a meme like the micheal isn't in witness protection meme
WITNESS PROTECTION FOR WHAT NO ONE WAS CONVICTED OF ANYTHING
Currently doing another play-through to find support for my theory, which I suspect gives evidence in camp interactions and minor details. I agree that Micah represents the easiest target, and so I would call him a " red dead herring." I had always suspected that the betrayals were from multiple people, acting independently- and were not part of an overarching scheme by any one person in any one chapter. For example: In the beginning, I recall that Mary-Beth is the one who found out about the train while in Valentine, with the wealthy passengers- that the gang mentions the law responded awfully quickly to. Arthur will routinely mention around camp that a number of the women seem like "you're up to something," even if he makes it sound more like a mischievous thing- and the women are always cagey when he does this, responding seriously, or nervously. I think that each of the young women, ( so excluding Grimshaw) had, independently, made efforts to get the gang broken up. They would not face consequences as the men would, and Abigail's per-emptive theft of the key is too co-incidental to be overlooked. The Red Dead Redemption series is about choice, and about those decisions coming home to roost, not just for the player- but all characters involved. In the case of Abigail, I think her personal destiny is overshadowed by Johns, but she also suffers as a result of her actions. It is also possible that Pearson is responsible for one of the informing episodes. I recall from the Godfather an important line from Don Corleone- "the man who brings you an offering of peace between the families, he is the traitor" and sure enough, Pearson presented the meet up with the O'Driscols. I realize that I might be looking like a lunatic here, but the consequence of side characters who have clear agency- especially when we do not interact with them overmuch, is that it is conspicuous when they appear to escape consequence free, as a number of those mentioned did. Hell, the end game wrap up/epilogue could be a culmination of John leading the Pinkertons right to him by telling every traitor and rat in the old gang where he is and what name he is using. The shootout at Micah's camp is just the most obvious, but they were already on the move - and did not come with a plenitude of men- the assumption Rock Star intending for us to think is that they must be welcome guests, and not already hot on the heels of Marston, knowing they would find a massacre. thank you for coming to my TED talk.
from this point of view it kinda really makes sense that Dutch was confused at the end and didn't know whom to believe
He trusted Micah, a Johnny come lately who never showed concern for anyone but himself, over Arthur, who he had rode with for 20+years and had raised as a son. That alone was utterly foolish on Dutch's part.
I guess one question I would ask is how did they even know there was a guarma trip? That individual was the traitor.
Fussar told the US goverment about it.
You know after replaying through the game knowing everything that happens and what Micha does. I couldn’t help but genuinely enjoy his personality and the interactions he has with Arthur. At least till the end when the shit begins to hit the fan
I've always been suspicious about Micah being a traitor. If you detach yourself from the story and Arthur Morgan's spurs and look at like a detective. We need means, motive, and opportunity. What motive does Micah have to betray the gang? If you look at his characterization the only thing that motivates Micah is money. Turning in Dutch, or even the entire gang would never net him anywhere near the 150,000 dollars Dutch has hidden. So we don't have a proper motive. So onto means, does Micah have the ability to communicate with the Pinkertons and relay information to them? Not really the only way for long distant communications back then were letters and telegraphs. Both of which we never see Micah doing, plus he rarely ever leaves the camp unless he's in a mission. Otherwise he's just chillin around the camp antagonizing everyone. If Micah were secretly leaving the camp every little bit to go meet up with the Pinkertons don't you think somebody would've followed him or noticed the meetings? I think Cat already went over opportunity perfectly in the video. Micah had dozens of opportunities during the story the betray Dutch and turn him in yet he never does. Personally I've always been suspicious of Abigale being the actual traitor, think about it. She wants John to get out of the gang to be a father to Jack and a husband to herself. That's motive, also all the Pinkertons would have to do is threaten Jack and she'd roll quicker than a tumbleweed. Abigale was also captured and detained by the Pinkertons not once but twice! Once in the Saint Denis bank robbery and once after the train robbery. That gives her means and opportunity to sale out the gang during an interrogation. I mean was nobody else suspicious that Abigale magically escaped custody all on her own after that massive bank robbery? She was caught helping Hosea plant explosives for a distraction. She's just as much of a criminal but they just let her go. Then like Cat pointed out when the Pinkertons come to camp during that final train robbery they don't take anyone except for Abigale. Maybe the plan was to look like she was kidnapped so the entire gang would rush to her rescue only for Dutch to run into Milton in that shop, but instead Dutch abandoned her which was completely out of character for him up until that point. Micah is a much easier person to blame because he's so unlikable but the truth is betrayal doesn't come from an enemy or antagonist. It comes from the place we least expect it. Which is what makes it so devastating.
She was taken just outside of camp. Also Hosea in chapter 2, trys to talk John into leaving with his family, because the life was no place to raise a boy.
My theory exactly bro you got it
And honestly I believe she set John up in Rdr1 to save her own life but I think the agreement was that John had to atleast kill off the remaining gang members. and at the end The government would kill John in order to grant Abigail immunity. And another thing no one bats an eye at is the fact that trelawny is not even apart of the gang but however he always seems to know where they are at any given time. And he always seems to leave camp and disappear days before the pinkertons show up and manages to show up as soon as the gang finds a new location Which if you ask me he’s literally the snitch the entire time. And another thing that proves that point is that why was he able to hang around the gang for as long as he wanted and was the only one of them that could go back to black water
True. Her and jack are spared in red dead redemption one further adding to this speculation but I've always believed the story is all about John he's the one whom the entire story is centred around judging by the events that take place in the first game that's why the pinkertons chose him to get rid of Bill ,Javier and Dutch i believe he believed that was John's story of redemption from the events that take place in rd1 Dutch even hints at his suspicion of them to Arthur before you escape from guarma
United we stand, divided we fall. Milton needs to divide the gang & sow the seeds of distrust. Who better than the latest member to join the gang, than me?
I also gave Arthur the offhand holster when he broke me out of Strawberry jail, as a thank you. I maybe an arsehole, but I have my own sense of justice & honour
Just my opinion on why Micah waited a long time to betray Dutch is most likely because he was waiting for the best time to steal the gang's money AND turn Dutch in.
there's a popular theory that says that Micah was the rat all along
but never had face to face contact with Milton cus he told everything to Colm O'Driscoll, and then Colm told to Milton the information that Micah gave them, but after the guarma incident, Milton talked directly to Micah cus at the time you come back from guarma, Colm O'Driscoll had been captured, so agent Milton find out who was the person that gave the information to Colm, and that's how he found Micah,
that's why Milton says Micah only gave them info after guarma, because before that, Colm was the one that told everything to Milton, and the info he gave to the agents, was given by Micah to Colm
Milton really had no reason to lie to Arthur, he thought that he was about to kill Arthur. To Milton, saying that to Arthur was just one of those moments where the villain reveals that he’s been in control the whole time
was he really about to kill arthur
Yeah, Micah being the rat seemed really tacked on at the last minute. Abigail is the rat.
Nope
I do kind of agree with Arthur's point on not needing a rat; which conflicts with the message of "the time of outlaws being over". I think crime just advanced more while the older criminals are completely alien to the notion of "mafias" and big gangs like them. If Micah would have betrayed the gang towards the end, he probably would have been killed off afterwards like John was at the end of Rdr. I think that he was only a rat towards the end, with how he acted and such; only really being out for himself. But the most likely reason he didn't rat them out like that was because it wouldn't be a guaranteed escape, the worry of the Pinkertons just killing him right after they grabbed Dutch.
i take it as rockstar trying to hide the twist so badly that they forgot to make sense. the best plot twist is one you can piece together before you beat the game or start to piece together
Your video helped me see the light. The rat was Abigail.
1. In chapter 6, the gang is in St. Denis robbing a train and the Pinkertons raid the camp 2 states away, they couldn't pick up Ms Grimshaw or Tilly or Marybeth, not even even a toddler in Jack, but they managed to pick up Abigail, who they wanted to use as bait to get Arthur and Dutch to come rescue her. The reason she gets picked so easily is because she is working with the Pinkertons to capture Dutch, with Dutch gone and her having the key to the gang's savings, she take the money and run away with John and Jack.
2. In chapter 4, the only 2 gang members involved in the bank robbery but who don't actually go into the bank is Hosea and Abigail. Hosea is captured after someone tips the Pinkertons about the robbery, but Abigail manages to "escape". I believe she's the one that tipped the Pinkertons about the robbery and she managed to escape only because she is working with them. John gets arrested and gets taken into protective custody while the rest of the gang is chased down.
Abigail is definitely the rat.
that has some sense, abigail surely say some info to get her freedom
why did Abigail beg Arthur and Sadie to rescue John from " protective custody" ? smh
If Abigail was the rat then why did she kill Milton? Sadie was tied up and Milton was about to kill the weakened Arthur. It was pretty much a win for Milton. Also if Abigail was the rat then why did Milton even kidnap her to begin with?
Argument 1) why didnt Abigail steal the chest that has all the money too if that was the case
@@agentsmith811 she killed Milton before he had the chance to reveal she was the rat. I also stated in my theory that she wasn't infact kidnapped, it was intended to be a trap for Dutch to come rescue her, which did not happen because Micah convinced Dutch to abandon her.
The thing i love about this game is how people have different interpretations of what might have happened, id say there isnt enough to either prove or disprove micah being the rat. I stand with the people who say micah is the rat, as the way he says at the end, when arthur calls him a rat and he says i am a survivor, is almost an admission to his part with the pinkertons
He did outlive Arthur do he is a survivor
@@straightfrommissouri outliving somebody doesnt dismiss the rat part.
The game literally tells you that Micah is the rat. It’s not ambiguous at all. No one else is seriously mentioned as a snitch besides Molly, but Karen straight up calls Ms Grimshaw a liar for suggesting that possibility and slaps her. You have to hypothesize and make up an entirely new scenario that wasn’t present in the game to arrive at that conclusion, which makes it bullshit. Rockstar doesn’t even hint at it being anyone else because it isn’t anyone else.
@@pugachevskobra5636 there are a quite some people who think it wasnt Micah so yeah, they all disagree with you. I agree that it is Micah
Lakay wasn't Micahs doing, in fact the Pinkertons in Shady Belle can find the note Sadie left and one remarks how its a trap and it's where the gang is
Even if you kill the agents there and pick up Sadies note Arthur will put it back on the table and it's not unlikely other agents would have found it later
Bill may have accidentally led the Pinkertons to the specific area but of course not of his own idea
Micah could never have told Milton where the gang was straight after Guarma because he'd have to find them so he wouldn't have ever known where the gang was at that time
I think if you look into this segment its pretty clear Micah may have ratted on the gang but he wouldn't have been able to give whereabouts so the information from him then wouldn't be too useful
Micah was very into the idea of getting the Blackwater money along with whatever else he'd collect on the way, so if he wanted both the money from the gang and the Pinkertons his best bet would be to lead the Pinkertons on but not enough for them to interfere with the gang
Even if he didn't rat as much on the gang he still had ripped it apart internally with his manipulation of Dutch, he took complete advantage of the events that'd deter Dutchs mental state completely and started fueling his ego and making him feel in control
Dutch was in no position to be left on his own as his sanity was draining with his feelings of Arthur and John hating him, the many deaths and trials that effected him greatly and the very likely concussion he received on the trolley
Obviously his mental state post Blackwater had been damaged which you can notice in camp during chapter 2 when he's acting alot more unusual
Also during that time Micah tries sucking up to him but talking to Dutch after it he's not falling for it
During the Saint Denis Bank robbery Micahs white suit is very standout and could have been a signal for who not to shoot for the Pinkertons, the Pinkertons who showed up instantly
In his actions of tearing the gang apart he truly betrayed everyone rat or not
What he really seemed to have wanted was power over a gang and being able to do whatever he liked, just like Colm O'Driscoll
And just like Colm, Micah made a deal with the law and had Dutch already up in his camp to turnover to them, then he tried to persuade John to join him and Dutch so he'd be able to turn John, Dutch and Sadie (he wouldn't have known about Charles but would have likely gave him in too) to Agent Ross
Speaking of agent Ross what does he do in rdr1?
He gets John to go and hunt down the van der linde gang to turn in
Micah was who they were using for that before John as they'd know Micah would gladly do it
So he could have been doing it from the start, especially considering Blackwater
Blackwater was something micah was very insistent on with Dutch, now with that evidence there's not a more likely candidate for the cause of the Blackwater massacre
Arthur and Hosea were doing a housing scam of sorts which apparently would have covered the money they'd need to find a new place but Micah convinced Dutch with the promise of the riches
Sure itd make sense for the boat to have security but a Pinkerton ambush?
Micah is also the one who seemed the least confused and the most upset about the money, which if we're going with the narrative he's trying to get the best out of both it makes sense
Molly was a rat likely but she wanted to hurt Dutch in spite of what he'd done to her
Micah was definitely a rat, not the cause for everything of course but he seems to have background knowledge on bigger things
Those are just my thoughts on how Micahs a rat but of course any theory could be true, great video by the way I don't see enough discussion on the intricate parts of the story like this and you presented good ideas and theories
Also not to mention how Micah could have even been trying to turn Arthur in at one point.
In the mission where you steal the dynamite wagon with Bill, at the last cutscene Micah tells Arthur “stick with me and you’ll live.” Which is a pretty subtle way of Micah indirectly telling Arthur “if you stick with me you’re gonna swing and I’ll laugh while it happens.”
@@rolfschmidtrdo84 yeah that reminds me also, micah goes off during that mission down the same road the Pinkerton patrol goes down and he puts it as "business"
Was gonna add that but forgot
WRITTEN ESSAY ABOUT IT.
Abigail had a million reasons to betray the gang and that's why i personally think that maybe abigail was the rat all along. 1. Since the beginning when jack and arthur were fishing, and the 'Agents' Showed up, maybe afterward that mission, jack could easily have spoken to abigail, about the men that they found while in the fishing trip, giving abigail the idea of a definitive solution of her problem with the gang and with john because she knew all along that the gang wouldn't survive for much longer, And probably she could show interest to do a negotiation with milton and pinkertons. And so this could gives us a solid background for a potential betray from abigail. 2. The relation between her and john we're falling apart, due to the gang, being as smart woman as she really is. She knew that by taking john out of this criminal life, they could live a peaceful life being a family, and being honest. and she knew even more since chapter 1, that this way of life could kill john, and even jack and herself, So now we got 2 POTENTIAL AND FUNDAMENTAL Clues for abigail to betray the gang, now let's go for the other part when everything starts to fall apart, and abigail's plan starts to fail. 3. Let's suppose that abigail set up a deal with milton and ross, And now we go to the big heist At saint denis heist, abigail at this point already prompted milton and ross, to mount up a setup to catch everybody, and to leave john and abigail walk away from this free, but it goes wrong and hosea gets caught, "Remembering that hosea before dying, we could see at his face that he saw something and he knew the traitor 'Abigail'," And dies. milton being ruthless as he is kills hosea because he wasn't part of their deal because the deal that they set up was just with John, Jack, And abigail. So the rest of the gang didn't matter much to this very deal. So seeing that the deal had gone wrong with milton, She returned to the camp to warn the others, because in Milton's plan they would get everyone in the same day, And Abigail thought one thing but what happened was another. the deal gone wrong, and probably john would get screwed too, "One Sad Disclaimer If this supposed deal never happened, and john never we're caught in the heist, he wouldn't be in the criminal police files because till that point john wasn't a wanted man, So considering this, he would never have died in 1911 because he was an unknown man to the police so his period in the prison, and his criminal history, was the ultimate determinator of his fate in 1911, He could live as a free man with abigail and jack but fate had other plans.", 4. Milton didn't accomplish his part of the deal, abigail was "BETRAYED" By milton's deal, and milton wanted john to swing too after he knew of his existence in chapter 3, when john roasted him by saying 'Rip Van Winkle', So after all this turmoil the whole chapter 5 happens ETC. "ignoring the set up with the Pinkertons in lakay because isn't much of that important," 5. Seeing that the plan failed, and now they are even more screwed up, abigail didn't have much of a choice so she had another plan. steal dutch money and run away with her family, but even that we're screwed up too. So after the train heist in chapter 6, milton in a desperate try, sequestered abigail to use her as bait for the gang, "that's why the whole city was crowded with Pinkerton" because the whole thing was a set up to catch the gang, AND NOW WE COME TO THE POINT WHERE I WANTED TO COME. When milton says that micah was the rat he was lying because he knew the shit had hit the fan, And he wanted for at least the last time try to plant the chaos and break dutch's gang, He could have approached micah with other intentions in the past but micah knew what he had in hands after the heist gone right, And he probably would have killed dutch and the remaining of the gang, if arthur didn't show up at that very scene where the confront happens, believing that micah was the rat. that's why he was running around with cliff and joe around the camp, he would kill dutch, take all the money for them, and walk away from it, That was his plan all along but in the end, trying to mask this he played in dutch's side. Trying to "Kill" Arthur and John but it went wrong too.
CONCLUSION
So i don't believe that micah was the rat, The screenplay says one thing, but there's always a hidden thing, a hidden plot point to create debate, and this "hidden" plot point is very well done for a hidden plot point that is never used is just there to suggest something, obviously there is plot holes and thing that don't make quite a sense in this theory. but a hidden plot point it's there only to suggest and create debate, the only way for us to know who was the real rat is to read the original screenplay from the game, and analyze this very plot point, when some story suggests a thing but does other you can tell that there is an ambiguity right there, Because that's already an old trick from screenwriters, Hell i know this because I'm a screenwriter too i even use this kind of method in my writings because i know that this kind of things keeps the story alive and the same thing happens here as well with rdr 2 and this only proves that rdr 2 is the magnum opus of rockstar Gameography, because is really well written this kind of thing is used to confuse us and create debate the same thing we are doing here as well. So yeah i know my theory isn't perfect thank for reading my "Written Essay" but that's my theory and that is my ultimate conclusion for me i believe that ABIGAIL Is "Guilty" and micah is "Innocent".
THANK YOU BYE, HAPPY 1922 FOR YALL.
Only problem with all of that is that Milton had Arthur at gunpoint and had every intention of killing him. He had no reason to lie at that point.
I agree with your argument
I always had a thought in the back of my mind that something was not right about Micah being a rat and on my second play through I knew that we don’t get the full picture of what happens and the best I could think of was that Arthur was right all along they didn’t need a rat! Don’t get me wrong Micah was not a good person but he always looked out for what’s the best case scenario for him personally!
I'm glad someone else has come to Micah's defense. He was my favorite character in the story because he seemed to be the only one in the game who realized that they were outlaws and was having fun with it. He was the only guy who actually acted like he was in the kind of gang that was described in RDR1. Which means he has to be the character that all of the actually bad stuff gets dumped onto, because Rockstar wanted to have its cake of showing off that oft-hyped prologue to the story of RDR1, but also wanted to make characters that could be easily empathized with. So now this guy who could have otherwise been an interesting foil for Arthur becomes the obvious rat because he's the only member of the gang who's more antagonistic than friendly, the only one who is openly racist, and also routinely said to be a snake and shifty by everybody in the story at least once.
I read somewhere that Rockstar wrote Micah the way they did in response to fans who loved Trevor Phillips in GTA V. I'm sad that they seemed to be entirely accurate in their assessment that fans would hate Micah, even though they loved Trevor, because Trevor may have done monstrously evil things, but he did them to strangers and jerks, whereas Micah doing moderately evil (and usually just rude) things to NPCs that the players care about makes him the lowest scum of the Earth.
@Storm Mist I'm not denying that happened, I'm just saying I'm happy to see someone defend him. I think it's stupid that the game sets him up to be hated from the word go, gives him no redeeming qualities, and then makes him the rat.
Honestly this clarification just makes the game much greater than it was.
the more you look into the story, the more you see all of the glaring plot holes
This is an interesting theory but I think it’s pretty obvious that Micah was always a traitor. He could have ratted them out before the game (Blackwater), but like Arthur says, they were getting sloppy at this point.
Micah could have been the one to rat Arthur out to Colm, because how else would Colm’s men know exactly where Arthur was positioned? And the reason they didn’t grab Dutch then and there was because it was part of Colm’s plan. Make Dutch angry, have him and his gang come raging over here, and then have the law grab them, while he (and presumably Micah) slip away.
Also, the Epilogue. Why would there be Pinkertons on the mountain? Micah wanted to turn Dutch in. This is why he kept saying all this “Join us John” bullshit. It was just bait for him to have someone else to give over to the Pinkertons.
I think Micah could have ratted the gang out many times before hand. He could have even been giving anonymous tips to the Pinkertons or something. The Saint Denis Job went to shit just like Micahs Ferry Job, and here he is wearing an all white suit, maybe to stand out from the gang so they don’t shoot him?
Just what I think, I cant be bothered writing out a whole book on this as its long enough but cool video either way PVPCat
1 the o Driscoll’s were probably planning on sniping Dutch but when Arthur was there they captured 2 Micah was a dangerous outlaw so the objections could been looking for him but another theory was that the Pinkerton were trying to catch Dutch why is why Ross was heavy set on Dutch in rdr
Also the ferry job was because the pinkertons head quarters are near west Elizabeth and Dutch shooting a girl in the head and the trolley was because of Brontë tipping the police and the bank was because of the trolley and the death of bronte the Pinkerton are literally detetectives they just tracked down the gang
And the white suit is because he’s a contrast to Arthur who wore black and blue while Micah wore white and red
Finally, someone gets it. Molly was actually the rat. She was the one who told the law/Pinkertons about the bank heist in Saint Denis. She was nowhere to be found from about the middle of Chapter 4, till Uncle found her drunk in Saint Denis and brought her to Beaver Hollow.
She loved Dutch but hated the gang members since Colter. In Chapter three all she did was argue with Dutch about her suspicions about Dutch and Mary Beth. Her jealousy turned love for Dutch to hate. Remember, “He’ll hath no fury as a woman scorned.”
One scene in particular, is when (in Chapter 3) Molly tried to talk with Arthur about her problems with Dutch. But, she and Arthur were rudely interrupted by Uncle about robbing a wagon with a lock box. Molly, looked so disgusted and just walked away.
Then, as soon as the gang got to Shady Bell, and as Dutch and Arthur we’re riding out to find Jack, she tried to talk to Dutch one last time. But, he spurned her and just rode away, complaining to Arthur about her.
From that point on, her mind was set. When she found out about the Bank Job, she decided to go to the Pinkertons and betray the gang that she hated so much. She wanted to make Dutch suffer as he had made her suffer.
Next time we see her after she left the gang, she was drunk and admitting that it was her who had told Agent Milton and Ross about the bank job. Then Grimshaw killed her.
Later in Chapter 6, after Milton captured Abigail, he said that it was Micah that betrayed the gang, not Molly. He didn’t know that Molly was already dead. His lie to Arthur was to cover for Molly, who was his asset. I believe that Milton thought that after he killed Arthur, he’d let the women go and they would lead him to Dutch.
Micah was always about the Blackwater money that he helped Dutch steal. He’s obsessed with it all throughout the entire game. So, why wouldn’t he be loyal to Dutch? They were both cut from the same cloth. $150K, to Micah was worth sticking close to Dutch and the gang. Micah had no motivation to betray Dutch. His fortune and dreams were tied to Dutch and the gang.
The real story within the superficial story of the gang is still the biggest and best secret in the game. Very few get it in their first play through.
You clearly did not play the game. Milton literally says himself that Molly is not the rat.
@@gravity4467 “clearly did not play the game” after he named chapters and what the characters said and did. Bruh really ? He explained why Milton said it wasn’t Molly, to cover for her. It’s up to interpretation if Milton was telling the truth or lying but what difference does it make, really ?
@@miguelalaniz3701 Why would he lie when he had Arthur on gunpoint? That makes no sense.
@@gravity4467 why not ?
There are 2 things I think could have happened.
Either Milton, using this as insurance, told Arthur that Micah was a rat to dissolve the gang permanently due to mistrust. That way in the event that he somehow died, there would be so much discord in the group that they will just fight with each other and disband or kill each other.
Or, Milton, having already thought he won, decided to gloat and tell Arthur about how Micah was the rat all along and that Molly didn't talk at all. It's common for people to get extremely confident when they have the upper hand and he had no reason to lie to Arthur, especially since at that point he was 100% sure that Arthur would die right there.
I think you are correct about Milton using Arthur and Micah to separate the gang as the main message of the last mission is that the gang started tearing itself apart. Not one member of the gang in the last mission actually died to a Pinkerton only each other.
Rock star is a lie it self
You make a lot of good points here. There are always two sides (or more) to every story. Just like in real life, the truth often lies somewhere in the middle. I believe Micah was a rat, but nowhere near to the extent that most people think. He wasn't a rat from the beginning at all, and if he ratted on the gang after Guarma, it was only little hints that would benefit himself without compromising his relationship with Dutch.
The scraps at his camp near Strawberry tell us a few things, most importantly that he knew who Dutch was, and he wanted to join his gang. The reasons why, I think, are simple. Since we also know that Micah was the one who talked Dutch into the ferry heist in Blackwater, my theory is that Micah wanted to rob the ferry but there was no possible way he could do it by himself. He joined Dutch's gang to use them for that heist. Afterword, he had two problems, sharing the money with several other people (most of which didn't even help steal it) and only Dutch and Hosea knew where the money was stashed. That money was his primary concern, as indicated by the numerous times he mentions it during the story, but to get the money and not have to share it, he would have to play along with the gang for a while, get in Dutch's best graces to find out where the money was, and to slowly whittle down the gangs members so he wouldn't have to share with them. He talks about certain members of the gang like the women and the reverend being useless, because they were useless to him and he didn't want to share with them. He tried numerous times to get other members captured or killed, especially when he set up the deal with Colm when Arthur got captured. He convinced Dutch that both John and Arthur were betraying the gang, in an attempt to get rid of them since they were the primary people standing in the way of his plans. By ch 6 he had successfully turned Dutch against John and Arthur while also becoming Dutch's right hand man after Hosea died, but he still hadn't gotten Dutch to tell him where to find the Blackwater stash.
I believe Micah was confronted by the Pinkertons just like Arthur was at the river when fishing with Jack. Of course, Micah couldn't just turn Dutch in since only Dutch knew where to find the Blackwater money, so he cooperated with them only enough to sabotage the gang without getting himself or Dutch caught or killed. This is why Milton told Arthur that that Micah was a rat, likely also because he and Micah planned to destroy the gang together, making each member easier to capture which benefited both Micah and Milton. I believe that Molly ratted on the gang far more than Micah did, including telling the pinkertons about the St. Denis bank robbery. Bill definitely led the Pinkertons to Lakay, not Micah. Micah was able to follow the Pinkertons from the boat where Dutch killed Cornwall, get what Dutch needed and get away from them because he was already dealing with them, acting as a double agent by promising them that he'd get them Dutch eventually.
After the gang imploded at the end of ch 6, Micah asked Dutch to go with him, since Micah still didn't know where to find the Blackwater stash, but Dutch walked the other way. This tells me that Micah and Dutch went their separate ways for a while, but eventually met back up since we see them together on Mt. Hagen with the Blackwater money. So my theory is that Micah ventured out on his own for a while, built up his own gang over the course of several years, then somehow tracked down Dutch and finally convinced him to go get the money from Blackwater if Dutch didn't already have it. As the leader of his gang, he could keep all of the money himself, except that he'd still have to split it with Dutch, so he would have had to convince Dutch to join him, but Dutch likely had reservations about it, perhaps even being wise to Micah's plans to destroy his gang years before. At the point where we find them on Mt. Hagen, I believe that Micah was planning to turn in Dutch and keep all of the Blackwater money (which is why the Pinkertons showed up there, the were likely expecting to arrest Dutch but found Micah dead instead), while Dutch was planning to kill Micah in revenge, a very common theme throughout the whole story, and why he told John he was there for the same reason as him. The Pinkertons knew Dutch couldn't have wiped out Micah's gang all by himself, which is what led them to tracking down John, who at that point was the easiest member of the gang to find since Javier was in Mexico, Sadie and Charles were in Canada, Dutch was keeping a very low profile, Bill had a gang protecting him, and all of the other major members were dead.
Finally, after killing Micah, how was the Blackwater money split? Considering that John gets about $25,000 of that money, we can assume he split it in 3 parts with Sadie and Charles, which accounts for $75,000 of it. We must then assume that Dutch took the other $75,000 for himself, either because he wanted to split the money with John, or because that was all he could carry. It can also be assumed that Dutch, Micah or both of them had already spent a considerable amount of the money, leaving only about $100,000 which was split equally 4 ways between Dutch, John, Sadie and Charles, but it's doubtful that they spent $50,000 and were still living in shacks on top of a mountain.
Your argument makes perfect sense, however I don't think you can knock on R* and say that it was poor writing style. It seems like maybe R* did all of this on purpose. Yes they want to us to believe that Micah is the Rat, but then at the same time question our selves... Why should I believe the Pinkertons? But why Should I believe Micah? he's a narcissistic a-hole...
Thank you for putting in all this time and putting together this well organized theory. Very much appreciated!
this will probably be the last story in rockstars series anyways, leslie and dan are gone so who is left that made every game special? my guess is new faces will come in that will give their own take to the series which will make the charm it had in past games feel very different in upcoming games and usually 90% of the time my guesses are right(except if i wanna win the lottery).
Micah was a horrible person but NOT a rat!! There was a rat in chapter 2 during the second train robbery which you can do while Micah is still in jail in Strawberry. You can read in the newspaper after the robbery that the lawmen were tipped off which is why they showed up so fast. The only ones who knew about the train robbery were John, Charles, Sean, Abigal and Arthur! John was most likely the rat the whole time which makes sense because the Pinkerton's find Micah and Dutch's hideout only after John does. Who else would tell them where it is? Sadie or Charles? No..... it also leads up perfectly to RDR1 where John is forced to bring the rest of the gang in when the Pinkerton's capture Abigal and Jack. They got tired of him failing to deliver so they kidnapped them to force him to finally get it done. John was the rat!!!!!!
John would have a motive as well
That’s why I love this game . Such a complex and well written story
I think Agent Milton told Arthur so that the gang would turn against each other, and that would make it easier for the Pinkertons to destroy the gang
I’ve always thought this, I think Milton told Arthur it was Micah to cause the gang to split up for good and turn against each other thinking it would be easy to pick them up if they were already distracted by each other.
But he was gloating to Arthur Milton was going to kill Arthur however tormented him. Before hand I don’t think he intended to let Arthur go
Idk because even Micah's actor Peter Blomquist confirmed that Micah was the rat. Although Micah himself never really directly admitted it in game. In all 4 endings, he denies that he talked to the Pinkertons.
I also would like to see a video about Dutch, because i don't think he was the most evil character that the majority of people say, because from my impression he started to lose it after Hosea died and that was intentionally done by Milton at that exact time, Dutch later betrayed Arthur yes this is true but imagine yourself if you lost a friend who was like your brother, it's clear that Hosea was Dutch's moral compass, you can see at the end when John thanks Dutch, he just walks by John looking at him and then walks away without a word, he's fed up with everything and Micah was the last piece of the puzzle he needed taking care of.
what the hell are you saying? How many men of the law did he kill directly and indirectly? How many families has he ruined?
@@seamuswbiggerarmalite3379 Are you high?.
I should also like to state that I think that Milton didn’t lie about Micah specifically because he thought he (Milton) thought he had caught Arthur and was going to either arrest or kill him
“Blessed are the peacemakers” was where I got suspicious of Micah but there were 4 riders that saw them riding together and Colm had 2 guards so the other 4 saw Arthur split off from the group and that’s why I think Micah isn’t the rat.
Stupid theory but whatever floats your boat
Milton never said Micah talked. He said that he’s been a good boy since they let him go.
Micah’s a comical psychopath. So they realized pretty quickly that they weren’t going to get anything reliable out of him nor his direct cooperation. So, instead they just offered him a deal, got an idea about his goals and motivations. Then let him go and kept tabs and the pressure on him from a distance. Knowing that he would look for a scapegoat, that his paranoia would drive the gang apart as he whispered in their ears and pointed fingers, and that he would make as much of a mess in different areas as he could just in case he needed skip out or a bigger bounty to trade. But, that would not only help them to track the gang down. (Who didn’t know that the Pinkerton’s had men everywhere just watching on the off change that one of gang members shows up, so they tail them to the gang’s hideout), but also weaken the gang. And there was an off chance that Micah’s actions would not only get them Dutch, but maybe even the Blackwater money.
Dutch simply echod Micah. And Dutch was always going to be Micah’s get out of jail for free card and bank card. Freedom to make a lot of problems with a good gang at his back in case he needed bailing out, the Blackwater money, and if everything completely goes south, offer up Dutch or if he can get away with the Blackwater money stab Dutch in the back or hand him over. He might need a coin toss for that one.
this video is quite the video, keep up the good content Cat.
You watched a 20 min video in 3 minutes?
@@timb2895 in the watching my friend
I’d like to note that before Arthur inevitably broke Micah out of jail and before they shot Annesburg to hell and back, he said that he noticed ever since Micah joined the gang, there’s been nothing but trouble. That could mean that Micah was a rat before it was confirmed, or it could just simply mean he made some impulsive, sloppy decisions and it led to the Pinkertons finding out.
*strawberry
Maybe you're right, i too believe that Micah isn't a rat, but he manipulated Dutch what led gang to fall apart
SPOILER ALERT
wow this theory is genius.
First let's talk about freedom. Freedom is what the wild wild west is standing for, freedom is what Dutch believes and builds his entire charisma around it so gang follows him blindly. Don't get me wrong Dutch genuinely believes and means what he says, he is not using the concept of freedom to manipulate the other members. No he got so caught up into his own believes/principals/ideologies/philosophies or how ever you want to call it, that he becomes a stubborn man.
On one hand Arthur is left with a man, his father figure and idol, who's fighting for a dream of freedom as a greater cause but oblivious of his failure and on the other hand a ruthless bastard whose freedom consits to do, kill and take what- and however he pleases.
Micah has been born into his criminal career, his father being a notorious murderer and all. Micah was left without a choice, and by the time he joined the gang he didn't know any better then being evil in every possible way. (don't be fooled thinking he might be dumb or stupid, he ain't!)
Despite how much everyone hates Micah, he is quit important for Arthur's moral compass. Micah makes Arthur realizes that the kind of freedom that Micah enjoys ain't right and that Dutch's' Dream of Freedom has been an endless chase in a changing world.
Micah is the reason why Arthur stops being loyal to Dutch. Micah opened up Arthur's' eyes to realize that Jack who is born inside the gang, into a criminal life such as Micah, is innocent and deserves his own chance to choose if he goes high or low honor.
Without Micah, Arthur would have stayed loyal to Dutch until the end but the audience loves changes that's why they are worth telling a story, so Arthur does the only morally good thing and helps Abigail to get Jack his Freedom.
We, the audience are with the protagonist Arthur (no matter if good, bad or ugly ;) ), so we tend to think and believe what the protagonist does, because the story is told from their perspective (a good example for how powerful perspective can be is Martin Scorsese's' "Shutter island"). Even when we continue playing as John we tend to believe that Micah betrayed the gang so we go up that mountain to kill him. Al the protagonists are simply oblivious to the fact that Abigail did what was in her son's best interest. She has the biggest motive to betray the gang in order to offer her son, Jack, a decent life.
RockStar has never ever disappointed us with any bad writing and I refuse to believe it's the case in one of their most iconic games, so the only logical reason for Agent Milton telling Arthur about Micah being a traitor is to split the gang. Milton does this on every encounter with Arthur or the Gang, he makes very clear that he will leave the others alone if they gave him Dutch. If Micah would have gone for the reward on Dutch's' head he had enough chances through out the game. Most likely he was willing to sell out the gang towards the end but he didn't succeed because Micah couldn't offer the Pinkertons anything they didn't already know. For exemple the st. Denis Bank robbery, Micah dressed up different than the others to not been shot and my guess is that the Pinkertons left him alive because he might come in handy when Abigail isn't a useful informant anymore.
Abigail knows that Arthur is Dutch's' finest gun so by sending Arthur to a private conversation with the Pinkertons while fishing was her first attempt to convincing him to sell out Dutch but Arthur was way to loyal towards his father figure and he needed "evil" Micah to get him to choose against Dutch.
Abigail is the reason why John survives al encounters with the Pinkertons because they want to stay in Abigail's' favor it also ties together how Leviticus could find Dutch in Valentine. And at last but not least for those who played rdr1, we played an entire game chasing down Dutch and what's left of the gang, as John Marston working for the Pinkertons, so Jack can finally be free.
It's twisted but the RDR saga is about a man directed by a woman into betraying all his friends to provide a better life for a boy which suppose to be his son. But like we all know Abigail was a hooker and again my guess is that she just did what's best for her offspring and chose the one gang member she could manipulate the easiest because how should she know who the father actually should be? It could as easy be Arthur or Dutch for all we know.
In order to protect Jack, Abigail chose John and provided us with 100s of hours of game-play, riddling and darn good entertainment in which even Arthur Morgan found real purpose by helping a young boy leaving this cruel life - redemption.
Sadly this just seemed to be another shot at Rockstar. PVPCat used to have the most entertaining and educational content available. Now it is just a bunch of negativity and grand conspiracy theories. Blaming Rockstar for portraying Micah in a bad light is a new low that stretches even further than I would have imagined even you would. If you don't like the game and don't like Rockstar, move on and find something else rather than trying to spread your toxicity and negative vibes about it. The sad story here is what happened to your content. I'd rather see you do something else and bring back the old, happy and positive PVPCat. We all know Rockstar could do better by us (the players) but that isn't something we can control, obviously, so don't waste energy on it and worry about the things you can control.
Clickbait ... how the mighty fall.... turning into a clown for real... smh.
Only Pvp Cat > PvP Cat
I think he just had a different view. RUclipsrs are allowed to have that.
They kinda deserve it,they treat their fanbases,especially the ones that arent for gta like dogshit
In the first clip, when Arthur is going back to camp, you can actually see some pinkerton up on the hills in the back. I love that details
That's actually a good point. I always thought Dutch got sloppy after guarma and because of that, it made it easier for the Pinkertons to find them again and again. I never really believed Micah was a rat. He just didn't act like it
The reason he’s the rat is because agent Milton said we picked up Mika after he came back from Gorma There’s no reason for agent Milton to lie to Arthur because he believes that he’s going to die so in that way he wanted to gloat to Arthur
He is not a rat he is the entire sewage system
"Ah shit, here we go again"
Agent Milton did not lie; that's completely absurd. We should remember that it's just a fictional story, and it's not fair to compare real psychology with a made-up narrative. You might be overanalyzing it a bit too much, lol. The fact that Bill asked around for the location isn't strong evidence for the Pinkertons to track him. Bill might be stupid, but he's not that dumb. We have to accept the story for what it presents, which is that Micah was the only traitor, and it's immensely satisfying to see him face the consequences in the end.
I never bought Milton's story about Micah. Like you, I think Micah is a terrible person, but not a rat. If there actually was a rat, Milton wouldn't reveal who it was because he could still use them and he knew the gang would kill them if they found out. What he knew was that Arthur and Micah were Dutch's main guys and by far the most dangerous of the gang. If he could split Arthur and Micah it would make it far easier to take them down. He denies Molly said anything but that is exactly what he would say to protect her identity. But as Arthur pointed out, there might not have been a rat at all. They were sloppy and stupid. The world was changing and they were still operating in the old mind set. They were doomed from the start.
Micah was working with the O'Driscoll gang. O'Driscoll gang may have been tipping off the law. It's not until after Act 5, until after the Caribbean, Micha becomes an informer to the law, as they say in the cut scene. Milton isn't lying.
Abigail was a traitor and tipping off the law, but wanted John spared and not harmed. She was doing this to protect Jack, and wanted to settle down. This is why people start thinking John is a traitor. She hates the gang because of how they treat her. Plus she doesn't want people to know Arthur is Jack's father, as Jack grows older.
MAKE MORE STORY MODE CONTENT. PLEASE !
He shot Grimshaw, had the bounty paper scrap for Dutch in his wilderness camp, his corpse searched by Edgar Ross. There is just a lot of clues he had a role in the gang being found.
I really like that you looked at this with a critical eye, fantastic take on Micah.
I think you’re right that Milton was going to at least let Sadie and Abigail go so that they would do what Arthur ultimately did. It’s interesting that he had the drop on Arthur, but chose to tell him about Micah instead of just immediately killing him like he did Hosea.
Are we just going to ignore the fact that Rockstar CREATED the game, they told us Micah was the rat, and then killed him…Arguing that Rockstar lied to us about Micah being the snitch when they were the ones who made the story and told it to us is absurd. I’m struggling to understand why you made this video. Don’t get me wrong, it was a great video and I liked it, but it doesn’t make any sense my dude.
My thoughts, exactly. Rockstar literally told us Micah was the rat.
Plot twist?
Who said micah is a rat HE'S a snake