I honestly don’t find this theory far fetched. I think Dutch’s delusions of grandeur and his own importance could eventually lead him down the path to cannibalism. He has nothing left but his narcissistic nature. He couldn’t even let John kill him because he had to be the author of his own demise.
Dutch lived the high life whenever he could look at how he's dressed in rdr2,and his sleeping quarters in both games dutch wants the best of the best.Do you really think dutch would eat people he thinks himself above it.
What is interesting to note that in the beginning of RDR2, the Van der Linde are like the Donner Party. Desperate, hungry, and snowed in. If it weren't for Arthur, looting canned goods from the Adler Homestead and hunting those deer with Charles... well, I'd say sucks to be Jack. Either Jack or Pearson, Arthur's suggested meal.
I actually wanted an Undead Nightmare in RDR2 but with Dutch (as a protagonist) hallucinating the old gang members and the people he killed as zombies. It could actually be a great reason on how he descended into insanity. Also cool if they added bank heists and him recruiting his native army from RDR1. Also would be amazing to see his deadeye and a zombie version of The Count.
ZOMBIE COUNT WOULD BE AWESOME (my headcanon) I believe the Count got shot by the pinkertons, in a similar style that Arthur and John's did. So it'd be awesome to see the Count and Dutch remembering what happened in RDR2 leading to the rest of his hallucinations/his nightmare getting worse
Probably not intentional, but in real life there is a thing called Wendigo Psychosis, essentially if someone is forced to commit cannibalism, or is nearly driven to the point of it, they will feel an intense need to consume human flesh, even after they have access to better reasources. Dutch being at his most desperate could have driven him to the point of canniblism.
In fact, the legend goes further in some areas saying that even strong greed in general can leave you open to possession, meaning he would already be ripe for it. He wouldn't even need to be that desperate, just in the wrong area where the spirit hunts. Today in RDR2 I had an alien spaceship hoving over my head at a 1899 Jones town site. Im not sure the idea above is too far fetched.
11:25 I will never not appreciate Fizhy taking time out of his day to dedicate several minutes of a video on a 13 year old game to analyze rust in bathtub.
@@noamias4897 no, it wasn't split personality at all, Hyde was a persona to allow Jekyll to indulge in his secret desires. they're the same person. i recommend you actually read the book, it's very good!
@@carloscatiajoana Tbf a lot of people really know the character from League of Extraordinary Gentlemen and they did use the character(s) as more of a split personality thing iirc,
The bones around the campfire, the presence of other implications of cannibalism and an actual cannibal in the game, and the human skulls present in his living space makes me think this theory is likely. It's not something that Dutch would never do given his mental state at the time. Cannibalism is also by no means something Rockstar is afraid of portraying in their games.
Or maybe hes recruiting cannibals for his gang perhaps that is what the implication is dutch used to surround himself with trelawny hosea and others who where either classy or deep down good but starting with micah he started to recruit worse and worse people until hes surrounded by cannibals rapists and just gang members that are vastly worse than anything the odriscols could do maybe thats also the pount of colm hes dutchs parallel him and colm are on in the same but dutch and his boys put dutch on a pedestal and despise colm idk its interesting and i think iys more about how dutch had a family at one point ( even before rdr2. John mentions how they where all close and dutch even taught him how to read) and now hes just surrounded by madness he himself has become cartoonishly insane and thus surrounds himself with ppl more insane than him to Put himself back on the pedestal just like how he brought ppl in to teach them how to read and raise them to admire him hes taking lost natives who have no tribe or land and have probably been living like outlaws off the grid for years even look at the context rdr2 gives to this when he sees gow angry and easy the chiefs son is to manipulate and how much the natives hate the changing world as him i really do think that the idea is that he is no longer a charmer but a manipulative monster who surrounds himself with dangerous unstable individuals
@@Salem-j7qThere are certain events that may happen when you play as Trevor, where you can take certain people to the "Altruists Cult", there are implications that the Cult is a cannibal one, you can search it online in case you want more information about it
The moment I started to question if Dutch was always a bad guy was when in the second game Arthur first meets the agents while fishing. Milton said a line that stuck with me, "orphaned street kid seduced by that maniacs silver tongue and matures into a degenerate killer". To me that line was like an eye opener, instead of me thinking Dutch saved Arthur I started to consider he just saw an opportunity to have a life long servant who he can manipulate into doing anything for him.
Right! I'd say the reality of Dutch grooming arthur from a young age into making him into a sort of pawn for the gang is something that a lot of people don't really think about. They see it as solely a father-son dynamic, which don't get me wrong it totally is, but it's way WAY more complex than that and I think Dutch manipulated Arthur from the start. He was vulnerable, newly orphaned and alone. Dutch is sort of notorious for his charisma and that's mentioned several times throughout the game.
Same, and I felt the same way about Dutch when I found out how he met Javier. It was another opportunity for him to have another life long servant to manipulate lol. I also found it so weird that after that scene with the Pinkertons + when we trashed Valentine after herding sheep, he was so goddamned paranoid even taunting Arthur at camp from time to time.
I personally don't think he is a cannibal but it brings up an interesting reality. The mere fact that we have to stop and ask "Was dutch a cannibal?" Is representative of who his character was and I think that, at least, was intentional on Rockstar's behalf.
Idk to me it just depends on what you mean by cannibal. Was he actively hunting people to eat? I highly highly doubt it. Has Dutch consumed human meat? Imo absolutely. Take Micah for example. Micah could easily influence Dutch just by being his yes man, despite how horrible he was. So there’s no doubt in mind if Dutch had a couple of cannibals in whatever group he was leading, he would do it.
I would connect this (symbolically) to Beaver Hollow in the second game. The camps get progressively worse as the game goes on, from the more optimistic, classic Western views of Horseshoe Overlook (though not without signs of the gang's fundamental problems - Dutch's fancy clothes, tent, books and gramophone undermine his egalitarian persona from day 1), to the symbolism of the ever-hypocritical Dutch presiding over the gang from a southern manor house at Shady Belle, and finally to Beaver Hollow, a den of degenerate cannibals, which, like his hideout in the first game, is filled with human and animal bones. As Dutch's mental decline accelerates, his environment increasingly reflects his true nature. I would also dispute the idea that lack of food is necessarily an argument against cannibalism. In universe, Roanoke Ridge is full of game, yet the Murfrees still prefer to cannibalise their victims and display their corpses in horrible ways, for reasons that are never revealed to us or even really speculated about in-game. In reality, we see similar behaviours - various tribal groups had (probably some still have) superstitious beliefs about absorbing the power of enemies by eating them, or believe that it's a way of honouring the dead or taking some of their spirit into themselves. Voluntary cannibalism (usually for ritual reasons) may be even more common than survival cannibalism in history and prehistory. Some serial killers also cannibalise victims voluntarily, often because they are excited by breaking the taboo (which could fit with Dutch's character, given his aggressive and outspoken rejection of mainstream society and morality), or because they enjoy the sense of triumphant power it gives them over the victim (again, that motivation could make sense for Dutch - he is an extremely domineering narcissist, who is also very insecure whenever his position is threatened, or he perceives it to be; power is extremely important to Dutch). Edit: Also, I am now recalling his feeding Bronte to an alligator in a new light. Even the name of the quest - 'Revenge is a Dish Best Eaten'. Which kind of establishes, psychologically, that Dutch does gain satisfaction and a sense of power from his enemies being eaten.
@@Devin_Stromgren they get to listen to it. However the difference between what Dutch plays and what music they play I'm positive he's the only one really enjoying it aside from maybe Molly and hosea
Thinking about it I was reminded of Colonel Kurtz in Apocalypse Now... There are actually a few parallels between Kurtz and Dutch in RDR1. As far as I can remember there's no suggestion that Kurtz engages in cannibalism, but he's known to mutilate, decapitate and display the bodies of his enemies. At one point in the film, Kurtz gives a monologue describing how prior to leading his cult he and his troops had been tasked with vaccinating the children of a remote village against polio, and had returned later to find that the villagers had hacked off the arms of every child that received an injection and piled them up. It horrified him and broke him emotionally, but at the same time gave him an epiphany that the only way to defeat an enemy as ruthless as that was to be as bad if not worse himself. As he puts it... "Horror and moral terror are your friends. If they are not, then they are enemies to be feared." When you think about how cannibalism has been used as a weapon of terror, it symbolises the ultimate humiliation and destruction of one's enemies. They have not only been killed, they have been butchered, cooked, consumed, digested and excreted. I wonder if Dutch had a similar epiphany to Kurtz. With the Van der Linde gang he'd built up his ideal for a society that was outside of the law, but cultured and respectful, and it ultimately failed... But seeing the brutality of the Murfree Brood first hand, and possibly the Skinner Brothers and Nite Folk too, perhaps Dutch came to the conclusion that embracing unrestrained savagery was the only way he could hope to build a successful society outside of the encroaching civilisation.
I see two reasons the game uses corpses as murals. The most common is ritualistic scenes which is bizarrely common in 2 but nonexistent in 1. The second is without explanation but linked to gangs, likely to display savagery like the Mercer gangs rampage. So the skulls are to display him as a monster without further depth to that.
I wouldn’t be surprised if Dutch ate folk by the end. He’d clearly lost his mind in Red Dead 1. Eating the remains of some of his enemies and even keeping their skulls, wouldn’t be outside the realm of possibility for him. Maybe in some crazed logic, Dutch believed it’d make him invincible 🤷♀️
@@noobpro5346 well yeah I don't think he'd actually be vegan given the time period and the complete personality shift of older Jack but I think out of everyone he'd be the most likely to go vegan
His last hideout with the old gang was Beaver Hollow. Maybe after he went crazy he tried to decorate his new home like his last "home" in kind of remembrance of his former gang. Would emphasize that he is sick and really is stuck in time and traumatised. In Beaver Hollow he lost Molly, Susan, Arthur to a degree John (because he left hin and thought he must be dead), Swanson left, Strauss was kicked out by Arthur, Pearson left, Trelawny left.... His whole gang got destroyed. So in a sick sense he feels close to the gone members, if he tries to decorate his cave in a way, that would remind him of the last 'altogether' moments of his old gang. Though it was all falling apart, maybe thats how his delusion plays out.
My own theory of Dutch van der Linde is I think the scariest of them all and what makes him such a compelling villain. And the theory is he is just a painfully normal man. It is the scariest to me , because he just tries to fight all the necessary evils of civilization... and throughout the story of RDR 2 he just slowly begins to realize that his preferred most effective way of fighting society's necessary evils is through primal unnecessary evil... or as agent Milton puts it ... he venerates savagery.
Dutch pretends he is a philosopher who does crimes to justify his philosophy. The truth is he is a criminal who does philosophy to justify his crimes. It is ironic he employs Natives in RDR1 even though he caused a whole reservation to lose their home in RDR2 just to save himself.
I call Hosea "Dad" and Dutch "fake dad". Dutch is a meat shield collector. He saves people so they literally owe him their lives. They do it willingly so it doesn't look like he's actually tricking them. But the whole thing is a trap. In fact, my psychology senses start tingling and I cringe everytime Dutch "playfully" accuses someone, mainly Arthur, of not trusting him anymore. It forces the person to feel bad and disloyal, making them more likely to obey next time. Arthur literally sounded like a puppy being scolded to me. Sure his tough exterior seemed fine, but human nature and loyalty to one's idols still has a deep effect. A fearful respect. I find that Arthur eventually realized that his jealousy for John being the new prodigy baby was stupid because the love was a lie, and his envy turned into defender mode once he realized being Dutch's golden child was a horrible thing. The man was a predator. Once that sunk in, John leaving wasn't a problem. John STAYING was a problem. ANY of them staying was a problem. But John had a family. Out of everyone, John had a responsibility that matter far more than Dutch's personal dreams. Arthur's legacy was left in everyone he saved, but it lived mostly through John and his family. Arthur lost so much and gave the rest away at the end. Dutch... Dutch was just a record on repeat... And his actions were on repeat too. He said one thing and did another. After Hosea was gone, his leash was officially off. His talent was to inspire. His motive... For himself. Surrounded by human shaped smokescreens to evade the law. His legacy dies with himself.
2:47 I remember Arthur saying something about poetry and only using it when it starts to help the gang with killing, surviving, etc. I forget the exact quote. But I do remember Dutch's response: "You have no idea." Remember that he reads philosophy books, discusses the topic often, and plans out his own speeches before he presents them. Another edit now that I've finished the video: maybe we're meant to think that Dutch set up some sort of camp for himself after RDR2's epilogue and that's where he was until RDR1. But we see no indication of that in RDR2's post-epilogue freeroam, so he could have been living rough and scrounging up men and a proper camp until RDR1. Doing that for four years straight could very well make the already broken Dutch more insane, until he becomes what we see of him in RDR1. Just a little idea I had, but idk if it's worth anything.
Or maybe hes recruiting cannibals for his gang perhaps that is what the implication is dutch used to surround himself with trelawny hosea and others who where either classy or deep down good but starting with micah he started to recruit worse and worse people until hes surrounded by cannibals rapists and just gang members that are vastly worse than anything the odriscols could do maybe thats also the point of colm hes dutchs parallel him and colm are one in the same but dutch and his boys put dutch on a pedestal and despise colm idk its interesting and i think its more about how dutch had a family at one point ( even before rdr2. John mentions how they where all close and dutch even taught him how to read) and now hes just surrounded by madness he himself has become cartoonishly insane and thus surrounds himself with ppl more insane than him to Put himself back on the pedestal just like how he brought ppl in to teach them how to read and raise them to admire him hes taking lost natives who have no tribe or land and have probably been living like outlaws off the grid for years even look at the context rdr2 gives to this when he sees how angry and easy the chiefs son is to manipulate and how much the natives hate the changing world as him i really do think that the idea is that he is no longer a charmer but a manipulative monster who parrelels with how natives are treated in both games even the first game some Of the first words u hear is a rich couple talking about how greatful they should be that the militaries drove the savages out of the land and the buffalo a symbol for natives are encouraged to be hunt down for sport”they always will find another monster” the first monster in rdr2 wad the natives they where trying to drive out and now that they are mostly tamed or drove out now the new monsters are american outlaws thst there cracking down it all kinda rhymes together
Those are deer femurs. Human femurs look longer and have a distinct ball head that protrudes out to the top side. Deer femurs look pretty much like that asset.
@@hllziepop @11:48. These are not human. They are deer femurs. @14:13, these probably are human. At least they look long and thin enough. I’d have to use somebody else xBox to find out.
@@Hongobogologomo Anthropology classes, my dad hunted deer, I’ve recently had a CT scan of my hip and have the power of an internet search which sometimes actually still turns up what you want.
Im the one who posted this theory on TikTok, and yes you’re right I did use that tumblr post as a source. So happy you’re talking about this, I love your videos
It could also just be people that Dutch and his gang had kidnapped, and tortured, and just let them rot and decompose after they died. It doesn't have to be right there where the bones are found that it happened either. Their bones could have just moved been moved there afterwards. With Dutch's mind the way it was, who knows what kinds of things were going through his head 24/7.
If it weren't for Arthur being there, Dutch would have defintely eaten that old lady in Guarma he strangled to death. He didn't know Spanish, but he did know human beings. Perhaps... too much.
Cannibalism was unfortunately common in the west, it is also known cannibals are in red dead, I don't find it out of the ordinary that Dutch would have joined the Murfrees.
@@magnumdog5464 I was sleepy, when I wrote this, but the amount of cases of cannibalism in the period that was known as "The Old West." Was too high. Especially during the panic of the civil war.
I really like this idea, and it honestly makes sense to me. At this point, Dutch has not only dropped the mask of sanity that he kept up in an attempt to fight his own narcissistic and demented nature, but he has actually EMBRACED his true colors. I know a bunch of people who like to say that Dutch just went mad because of the grief that came from the events of rdr2, but it’s way more complicated than that. The gang humanized Dutch. They gave him respect, compassion, and purpose. Without them, he lost the will to fight his own sinister nature, and the traits and morals that they had rubbed off on him slowly vanished along with the man he had become. By failing to fill the moral void that the gang had left, Dutch reverted to his true self. Unable to find new purpose in life, Dutch would be haunted by the sins of his past, causing him to find a distraction from it in the form of senseless violence that included rape, torture, murder, and now, *cannibalism.*
Dutch kept the gang sane way more than they kept him sane. He was their beacon of hope for decades. The problem is: As flamboyant and charismatic as he is, he's still a hardened criminal who will step on others to achieve his goals. They all are, but rationalized their actions as something noble by only ripping off the "bad guys". Its a façade that can easily slip. All it takes is a series of failures, which is what happens in RDR2.
@@Sqk. Rdr1 pinkertons say it and its in newspaper iirc. I honestly wouldnt put it past him since hes a loony. Also not to mention he basically kept the women of camp around only to switch out for a younger model every time one grows out of their "Prime". First grimshaw, abagail, then molly, then he attempted to flirt with Mary-beth in several camp encounters. He is a creepy old dude after all.
@@caralho5237 The gang didnt "keep dutch sane," they gave him a reason to act like he was. If they saw him openly being the sociopathic blood thirsty narcissist he really was, theyd never follow him. And since theres nothing dutch loves more than being looked up to because of genuine admiration and respect instead of fear, dutch made himself into a robinhood-like character in order to fulfill his desires to rob and kill while also justifying it to the people who looked up to him. However, once the mask slipped and the gang fell apart, he had no desire to put it back on because he no longer really had a reason to. Thats more what I was trying to say.
@@zoroux2826 That's a grim narrative. Too grim. You can clearly see the grief on Dutch's face, both during and after his fall. He isn't a pure narcissist like Homelander, incapable of forming connections. He took in a bunch of thugs and taught them how to act civilized, and he did it for decades. You don't need to be inherently evil to become a monster, all you need is to have exploitable character flaws, which is where Dutch falls into.
It’s a fun theory and definitely a possibility. I think the most likely thing about it is that whether or not it’s true, Dutch has always been about his appearance and reputation. With Dutch now fully embracing being the anti-civilisation outlaw villain, he’s likely to embrace anything that builds the fear and mystique around him. He could very well have declined to the extent of engaging in cannibalism, but he also would be very likely to encourage such rumours (true or not) so that his reputation as the “terrible, monstrous villain Dutch van der “Lind who should be feared and is not to be trifled with” spreads far and wide. He’s likely to prefer being known for his villainous ways rather than not being known at all.
May be a play on the Donner party. A group that got lost on a journey out west only to get trapped in a winter storm and forced to cannibalism. They were brought to trial and I believe it was the first recording of that happening and being allowed due to means of survival... the only other one I know of is the lane crash in the 80s
According to legends it is said that, for those who succumbed to cannibalism are destined to become “Wendigos.” A monster of endless hunger until someone or something puts it out it’s misery.
Damn i had forgotten it, it does fit well with Dutch specially as for his greed in chapter IV onward, we need more money even after both the blackwater train job and the other robbery to Cornwall, or the way he chooses to stay with Micah as for it being that Micah promises more
You really ate with that echoed quote at the end. Well done. I just finished the first game and I am reeling. I don’t even know what to think about Dutch but I do think he’s lost his mind.
I personally think its highly possible. The story of the windigo is more or less a cautionary tale warning against cannibalism in the winter months when food is scarce. So considering we find him chilling with Micah up in the coldest and farthest from civilization corner of the map, id say it's possible. Perhaps they were robbing other starving passersby and when that was no longer enough, possibly after Micah's persuasive act they both became cannibals. I always kinda thought they both looked not only old but kind of sickly when John tracks them down up in the mountains. And human meat is said to be toxic to humans.
I genuinely don’t think Micah would go that far. He is a manipulative, evil, lying rat, but let’s be honest, he’s sane. I think he’d be the first to put a bullet in Dutch if Dutch grossed him out lol
An interesting theory about dutch very well do, but jurying this video I realised something if they made Red Dead Redemption 2 undead nightmare that dutch dream of a free world would have come true because the law and other gangs would be to busy fighting zombies to even brother with dutch gang and maybe would use his leader ship charms to gather more people into the gang and maybe take over a town like rhodes or armadillo.
This is one of the best videos you've made imo. The subject is very intriguing and the commentary is top notch. Really looking forward to more vids like these. Obscure facts and theories are just peak
The only food they would really have access to would be hunting. If they were unable to find food, though... He's the first one putting human meat in his mouth (hold up)
Maybe as each new gang member joined you could switch to playing as them. Then it would end with you playing Mac at the black water massacre and dying to agent Milton
@@Dext3r0us I mean there was a kinda "redemption" cuz if im not wrong Arthurs at beginning of the game mentions that Mac stayed behind and bought some time for the gang to escape
Great video! I really like this theory. I feel like dutch would totally sink so low as to eat human meat, but I think he wouldn't do it for survival or to make people afraid. I think he would do it to prove to himself that he is above man, like Raskolnikov in Crime and Punishment. I imagine Dutch wouldn't gnaw on bones like some feral animal, but prepare (or have prepared) lavish dinners, combining human flesh with wine and vegetables like Hannibal Lecter. I think he still sees himself as a man of class and culture, a great philosopher and enjoyer of fine art.
How about the skinwalker? You should hear military reports on their encounters. In 2021 during a major fire an entire group of armed men got terrified after hearing what sounded like a "Woman" screaming. They weren't terrified at that point. They got scared after their commander called out "Hello?", and in the same voice responded back "Hello?". It was enough to make several armed men get back in their armores humvees.
@@NukelearFallout That would be cool for an encounter on RDO. You're doing a mission with players and communicating on the mic, and something repeats the very last thing you said on the microphone out of nowhere. I'm in full survival horror mode at that point.
@@yaboidre5672 That would be cool. But, the encounter I'm talking about happened in real life! I believe in skinwalkers. Considering how many reports there are. And, one night when I was researching skinwalkers when I lived in Wisconsin, I started hearing a very low growling sound happening outside my window for almost a minute. It was almost 1 am, and there were always dogs that would bark at even the tiniest of noises. That night it was completely silent, except for the growling that made my body tense up and get goose bumps so bad I felt paralyzed for what felt like too long. It was a very deep low growl, one I've never heard from even a dog. Especially for almost a minute straight.... needless to say, I stopped researching skinwalkers after. In fact, the only reason I was researching them is because my family in Wisconsin told me about the Beast of Bray road, and a sighting someone they knew had.
If you mean in red dead redemption two, then they hardly exist and even then their ones were without antlers, or they’re just two star pelts it’s ridiculously annoying and it’s ridiculous
I don’t think Dutch was a full blown cannibal hunting people for food… but him using the body’s of the ones he did kill as a “resource” doesn’t seem out of the realm of possibility. I’d say its likely, even
I fully believe the Skinner Brothers were supposed to be the native american gang Dutch controls in the first game, but Rockstar backed out last minute and made them all white. Yes it probably would've been very disrespectful but there were some tribes which did engage in that form of behavior during those time periods. I say this mainly because I believe it was Dutch who was already in command of them, or he came to power afterward when John hunted down the leaders of the Skinner Brothers during a bounty side mission. Them being cannibals and Dutch becoming a cannibal I could easily believe with the way they string up and gut people like animals. That gang was shown to be one of the most sadistic ever, and they were in the exact same place Dutch's new gang would soon occupy. Dutch becoming leader of the Skinner Brothers would also make sense because it seems after a certain point they stopped attacking Beechers Hope, maybe because Dutch ordered them to? Maybe he did it in honor of Arthur like when he shot Micah. Probably not, but I think its an interesting theory. I also wanted to add that the Skinner Brothers are the only gang in game which doesn't have a stronghold where we can fight and wipe them out, and some how they're always plaguing Tall Trees no matter how many you fight and kill.
Nope they’re not the Skinners you clearly see one of the leaders Otis Skinner and he’s white, the Skinners are nomadic and happen to be settled up in Tall Trees in 1907, and after John wiped out most of them they left. It’s specifically said that Dutchs gang in rdr1 is comprised of young men from reservations nearby so these were just other tribes that were receiving the “Wapiti treatment” and so they turned to Dutch who allowed them to get their vengeance and anger out on those that caused it, aka anyone Dutch points them to like savage dogs ready to attack whatever they deem a threat. Therefore Dutchs men are not from the Skinner gang they were from reservations and the skinners had a few Natives but that doesn’t mean they’re influenced off them in the slightest, people only think so bc they use bows and tomahawks
@@josephstalin2606no they were almost certainly meant to be a hostile native group even there camps , the way the kill (scalping) and the fact half the models are natives I think proves this but for political reasons they decided to add white skinners
Do a video on what happened to Dutch between 1907 and 1911 I mean what do you think made him go from this hermit with regret who's laying low to having a new gang and being completely crazy doing bank robberies again
Yeah, I always thought about that. It's interesting how from 1899-1907, he seemingly was just in hiding the entire time and still seemed somewhat collected. Yet by 1911, he's completely off the deep end.
It would be good to look into that, but unless there's a breadcrumb to pick up on outside knowing his activities in the tall trees area, there's really not a lot to say.
@@illusha3861well if all you saw of Dutch in 1911 was his last encounter you'd think he wasn't totally crazed, maybe it's somewhat the same in 1908? He's acting less crazed than he in that one dialogue with John
in RDR1 it says in one of the early newspapers in an article about the Williamson gang, that Dutch was thought to have died in a failed robbery in 1906 (which i have also heard is the year that the RDR1 devs intended to have been when the gang disbanded so this could have been retconned)
@@Sqk.That could’ve been fixed if they had just made the epilogue take place in 1906 and having an article dedicated to that fire Dutch supposedly died in only for him to show up at the end still. Idk why they opted for 1907 maybe bc they wanted it to be closer to the year the BOI was formed (1908 irl) and they wanted to include Ross starting his investigation
Actually in the army when people people would get PTSD they would keep some body part of their body to make sure. That they have won same goes for dutch he had PTSD most commonly that his enemies would kill him in his sleep so he made sure he would kill them first and kept the skull because of his PTSD
Probably for the same reasons plenty of Americans enjoy Game of Thrones and medieval media even though we don't have a history of castles and knights. Some time periods in history are just way cooler than others
I don't see this being intentional. It seems like they wanted to have bones at Dutch's camp, animal bones, but considering the games budget issues and development time etc they likely just reused the assets like mentioned at 9:45
Honestly at first i really thought that it was far fetched but looking deeper into it. Dutch could have became one during the events after rdr2 epilogue but who knows really.
Dutch could have wanted to make it appear he was a cannibal to frighten others by keeping human remains around him , NOT eating the meat, but having it appear as tho he was. Trophies like the animal skulls, and he was at least for a time a master manipulator. The skull thing could be simply a symbol for his fascination with philosophy, and human femors have been used for tools such as knife handles
If he is a cannibal I think it would have a lot to do with power and knowledge and feeling that he could absorb those things by eating others. An element of survival and insanity? Sure, but if he does partake it’s also because he’s a megalomaniac.
There is something in Rhodes before you collected debt from Gwyn Hughes. At night on top of the bank i was exploring then i heard him telling a woman who was crying it will be ok and he had her locked in a coffin. Also if you go to to cemetery and rest Arthur will rest for a second before getting back up on his own.
To be honest, i think this is my new headcanon, just because it feels like by 1911 Dutch would’ve actually gone insane to that point, and while i dont agree with all the ‘evidence’in the theory, its still something to think about. Edit: i just thought about something else too, a reason for Dutch to have become a cannibal could be that his native american gang believed in some sort of supernatural thing where you kill a human and eat them. When they offered the human meat to him, he just went along with it.
As soon as I clicked on this video I remembered the line: "You can't change a person, you can only bring out more of their true self." Said by Rains Fall if I remember correctly. That gave me chills. The theory might indeed be a little far fetched, but I wouldn't entirely discard the possibility. Dutch Van Der Linde is a character we still need to know a lot about, there are many blanks in his character. Rdr3 possibly? The femus in the cave is a typical Rockstar move, but it might be a clue. Anyway, just keep in mind that the theory exists.
It could also be a 'Ravenous' reference. Snowy atmosphere, discarded bones and a steak on the plate. Iykyk. It also involves a lot of native superstition of a Wendigo which would correlate with the same skulls outside his living quarters.
Or his gang are the ones that are cannibalizing. It’s not unheard of for some Natives to be cannibalistic especially the ones that are as angry and riled up bc of Dutch turning them against society
I dont find this theory far-fetched actually it would make a lot of sense too, I think its not only as intimidation tactic but also if you read accounts of cannibals that didnt do it for survival, a lot of them express also this sense of begin now fused with their "meal" like they're no longer that alone neither. Which wouldn't surprise me that he did it for various reasons. It also resonates thematically with him consuming and cosuming but never be satisfied.
This is a very fun theory and the fact it could be true with all the symbolism seen in the series and it's willingness to drive into really dark places makes it probably one of the best ones of rdr
I honestly don’t find this theory far fetched. I think Dutch’s delusions of grandeur and his own importance could eventually lead him down the path to cannibalism. He has nothing left but his narcissistic nature. He couldn’t even let John kill him because he had to be the author of his own demise.
True, getting shot seems like it'd be preferable to how he went but also was a great scene mirrored by his scene with Arthur and the American army
Yep. He just had to EAT HUMANS to fuel his plans
I mean it’s still extremely far fetched 😂 why would narcissism lead someone to cannibalism when he still had people following him
@@Saber23yeah, I think it would more likely be because of low supplies or just some weird display of power
Dutch lived the high life whenever he could look at how he's dressed in rdr2,and his sleeping quarters in both games dutch wants the best of the best.Do you really think dutch would eat people he thinks himself above it.
John: "YOU... tried... you tried to eat me!"
Dutch: "I DIDN'T HAVE A CHOICE, SON"
Dutch eats babies
Dutch is the final sasquatch in Undead Nightmare confirmed
@@Helvigster berries and mushroom you fool
@@raptorfromthe6ix833 well he did, now none of him (???) are left
some maniac's been murdering him (???)
he was the last of his kind (literally LOL)
YOU EAT *BABYS!!*
Dutch: spread it open and
let me take a deep.. Snif of that Mahi mahi
I got my DNA test back turns out I'm 100% sasquatchian
What is interesting to note that in the beginning of RDR2, the Van der Linde are like the Donner Party. Desperate, hungry, and snowed in. If it weren't for Arthur, looting canned goods from the Adler Homestead and hunting those deer with Charles... well, I'd say sucks to be Jack. Either Jack or Pearson, Arthur's suggested meal.
although, Davey Callanders body was probably still warm...
A shame it couldn't have been Micah if it came down to it.
@@fawnieeerat meat doesn't taste good.
@@thehazyblobTell the "Micah wasn't the traitor" people that
I think they honestly if they couldn’t hunt shit, they’d eat the horses of the newer members of the gang
I actually wanted an Undead Nightmare in RDR2 but with Dutch (as a protagonist) hallucinating the old gang members and the people he killed as zombies. It could actually be a great reason on how he descended into insanity. Also cool if they added bank heists and him recruiting his native army from RDR1. Also would be amazing to see his deadeye and a zombie version of The Count.
The Count is a vampire. His coat is called Albino but horses can’t be albino and there’s no documented cases of it happening.
@@oss8298how tf does the count being albino make him a vampire? Hes a horse.
@@Suprisedbuzzvampirism is a disease, horses being living beings means they can get diseased. Vampirism included.
ZOMBIE COUNT WOULD BE AWESOME
(my headcanon) I believe the Count got shot by the pinkertons, in a similar style that Arthur and John's did. So it'd be awesome to see the Count and Dutch remembering what happened in RDR2 leading to the rest of his hallucinations/his nightmare getting worse
@@centralbasedagency9334 It's just awesome to imagine but whatever
Probably not intentional, but in real life there is a thing called Wendigo Psychosis, essentially if someone is forced to commit cannibalism, or is nearly driven to the point of it, they will feel an intense need to consume human flesh, even after they have access to better reasources.
Dutch being at his most desperate could have driven him to the point of canniblism.
Also think he could’ve just met cannibals, and to charm them or just avoid being eaten himself just went with it.
You know, Ben Franklin once said: "Eat to live." Don't. Live. To eat.
In fact, the legend goes further in some areas saying that even strong greed in general can leave you open to possession, meaning he would already be ripe for it. He wouldn't even need to be that desperate, just in the wrong area where the spirit hunts. Today in RDR2 I had an alien spaceship hoving over my head at a 1899 Jones town site. Im not sure the idea above is too far fetched.
Imagine wasting a Skinner camp, seeing a fat steak on the grille, and going "well, to leave that to rot would be a shame!"
Big whoops.
@@SStupendousRavenous? Great film, by the way
11:25 I will never not appreciate Fizhy taking time out of his day to dedicate several minutes of a video on a 13 year old game to analyze rust in bathtub.
hes liying its not true
@@DutchVanDer_Linde hmmmmmmm
@DutchVanDer_Linde why did you betray arthur Dutch?
@@DutchVanDer_LindeDUTCH YOU EAT BABIES. YOU NEED TO, TO SURVIVE EVERYONE KNOWS THAT
@@DutchVanDer_Lindeah fair bro u'v convinced me
This could’ve made Dutch into two people. The gang charmer Dutch and the survivalist Dutch.
Dr. Jekyll and Mr.Hyde story
@@littlebubba1nah Jekyll and Hyde were two split personalities, Dutch is a charismatic persona but terrible person
@@noamias4897 no, it wasn't split personality at all, Hyde was a persona to allow Jekyll to indulge in his secret desires. they're the same person. i recommend you actually read the book, it's very good!
@@carloscatiajoana i did read it and didn't interpret it that way, but ur probably right
@@carloscatiajoana Tbf a lot of people really know the character from League of Extraordinary Gentlemen and they did use the character(s) as more of a split personality thing iirc,
The bones around the campfire, the presence of other implications of cannibalism and an actual cannibal in the game, and the human skulls present in his living space makes me think this theory is likely. It's not something that Dutch would never do given his mental state at the time. Cannibalism is also by no means something Rockstar is afraid of portraying in their games.
Or maybe hes recruiting cannibals for his gang perhaps that is what the implication is dutch used to surround himself with trelawny hosea and others who where either classy or deep down good but starting with micah he started to recruit worse and worse people until hes surrounded by cannibals rapists and just gang members that are vastly worse than anything the odriscols could do maybe thats also the pount of colm hes dutchs parallel him and colm are on in the same but dutch and his boys put dutch on a pedestal and despise colm idk its interesting and i think iys more about how dutch had a family at one point ( even before rdr2. John mentions how they where all close and dutch even taught him how to read) and now hes just surrounded by madness he himself has become cartoonishly insane and thus surrounds himself with ppl more insane than him to
Put himself back on the pedestal just like how he brought ppl in to teach them how to read and raise them to admire him hes taking lost natives who have no tribe or land and have probably been living like outlaws off the grid for years even look at the context rdr2 gives to this when he sees gow angry and easy the chiefs son is to manipulate and how much the natives hate the changing world as him i really do think that the idea is that he is no longer a charmer but a manipulative monster who surrounds himself with dangerous unstable individuals
Trevor in GTA V even says "Never eat Indian people!" during a switch to him where he's vomiting in a fountain.
@lsswappedcessna not only that but there's literally a cult of cannibals that Trevor can take people to in GTA 5
@@Sin05269WAIT WHAT??? E X P L A I N PLEASE???
@@Salem-j7qThere are certain events that may happen when you play as Trevor, where you can take certain people to the "Altruists Cult", there are implications that the Cult is a cannibal one, you can search it online in case you want more information about it
The moment I started to question if Dutch was always a bad guy was when in the second game Arthur first meets the agents while fishing. Milton said a line that stuck with me, "orphaned street kid seduced by that maniacs silver tongue and matures into a degenerate killer". To me that line was like an eye opener, instead of me thinking Dutch saved Arthur I started to consider he just saw an opportunity to have a life long servant who he can manipulate into doing anything for him.
Right! I'd say the reality of Dutch grooming arthur from a young age into making him into a sort of pawn for the gang is something that a lot of people don't really think about. They see it as solely a father-son dynamic, which don't get me wrong it totally is, but it's way WAY more complex than that and I think Dutch manipulated Arthur from the start. He was vulnerable, newly orphaned and alone. Dutch is sort of notorious for his charisma and that's mentioned several times throughout the game.
No he saved him
Same, and I felt the same way about Dutch when I found out how he met Javier. It was another opportunity for him to have another life long servant to manipulate lol. I also found it so weird that after that scene with the Pinkertons + when we trashed Valentine after herding sheep, he was so goddamned paranoid even taunting Arthur at camp from time to time.
GRIFFITH!!!
Exactly!
I personally don't think he is a cannibal but it brings up an interesting reality. The mere fact that we have to stop and ask "Was dutch a cannibal?" Is representative of who his character was and I think that, at least, was intentional on Rockstar's behalf.
Idk to me it just depends on what you mean by cannibal. Was he actively hunting people to eat? I highly highly doubt it. Has Dutch consumed human meat? Imo absolutely. Take Micah for example. Micah could easily influence Dutch just by being his yes man, despite how horrible he was. So there’s no doubt in mind if Dutch had a couple of cannibals in whatever group he was leading, he would do it.
I would connect this (symbolically) to Beaver Hollow in the second game. The camps get progressively worse as the game goes on, from the more optimistic, classic Western views of Horseshoe Overlook (though not without signs of the gang's fundamental problems - Dutch's fancy clothes, tent, books and gramophone undermine his egalitarian persona from day 1), to the symbolism of the ever-hypocritical Dutch presiding over the gang from a southern manor house at Shady Belle, and finally to Beaver Hollow, a den of degenerate cannibals, which, like his hideout in the first game, is filled with human and animal bones. As Dutch's mental decline accelerates, his environment increasingly reflects his true nature.
I would also dispute the idea that lack of food is necessarily an argument against cannibalism. In universe, Roanoke Ridge is full of game, yet the Murfrees still prefer to cannibalise their victims and display their corpses in horrible ways, for reasons that are never revealed to us or even really speculated about in-game. In reality, we see similar behaviours - various tribal groups had (probably some still have) superstitious beliefs about absorbing the power of enemies by eating them, or believe that it's a way of honouring the dead or taking some of their spirit into themselves. Voluntary cannibalism (usually for ritual reasons) may be even more common than survival cannibalism in history and prehistory.
Some serial killers also cannibalise victims voluntarily, often because they are excited by breaking the taboo (which could fit with Dutch's character, given his aggressive and outspoken rejection of mainstream society and morality), or because they enjoy the sense of triumphant power it gives them over the victim (again, that motivation could make sense for Dutch - he is an extremely domineering narcissist, who is also very insecure whenever his position is threatened, or he perceives it to be; power is extremely important to Dutch).
Edit: Also, I am now recalling his feeding Bronte to an alligator in a new light. Even the name of the quest - 'Revenge is a Dish Best Eaten'. Which kind of establishes, psychologically, that Dutch does gain satisfaction and a sense of power from his enemies being eaten.
Los murfree is bassed in Sawney Beane.
I'm going to dispute specifically the gramophone. The whole gang gets to enjoy the gramophone.
@@Devin_Stromgren they get to listen to it. However the difference between what Dutch plays and what music they play I'm positive he's the only one really enjoying it aside from maybe Molly and hosea
Thinking about it I was reminded of Colonel Kurtz in Apocalypse Now... There are actually a few parallels between Kurtz and Dutch in RDR1.
As far as I can remember there's no suggestion that Kurtz engages in cannibalism, but he's known to mutilate, decapitate and display the bodies of his enemies. At one point in the film, Kurtz gives a monologue describing how prior to leading his cult he and his troops had been tasked with vaccinating the children of a remote village against polio, and had returned later to find that the villagers had hacked off the arms of every child that received an injection and piled them up. It horrified him and broke him emotionally, but at the same time gave him an epiphany that the only way to defeat an enemy as ruthless as that was to be as bad if not worse himself. As he puts it...
"Horror and moral terror are your friends. If they are not, then they are enemies to be feared."
When you think about how cannibalism has been used as a weapon of terror, it symbolises the ultimate humiliation and destruction of one's enemies. They have not only been killed, they have been butchered, cooked, consumed, digested and excreted.
I wonder if Dutch had a similar epiphany to Kurtz. With the Van der Linde gang he'd built up his ideal for a society that was outside of the law, but cultured and respectful, and it ultimately failed... But seeing the brutality of the Murfree Brood first hand, and possibly the Skinner Brothers and Nite Folk too, perhaps Dutch came to the conclusion that embracing unrestrained savagery was the only way he could hope to build a successful society outside of the encroaching civilisation.
I see two reasons the game uses corpses as murals. The most common is ritualistic scenes which is bizarrely common in 2 but nonexistent in 1. The second is without explanation but linked to gangs, likely to display savagery like the Mercer gangs rampage. So the skulls are to display him as a monster without further depth to that.
“It is man, so in love with greed, he has found only appetites.”
🤣🤣🤣
So dutch had himself some manburger helper in absence of his mangoes.
Hosea's Angry Ghost is my new favorite username EVER.
I wouldn’t be surprised if Dutch ate folk by the end. He’d clearly lost his mind in Red Dead 1. Eating the remains of some of his enemies and even keeping their skulls, wouldn’t be outside the realm of possibility for him. Maybe in some crazed logic, Dutch believed it’d make him invincible 🤷♀️
STOP IT I CANT TAKE IT ANYMORE STOP
"You'll never know true strenght, until you'll taste the testicles of a man who wronged you"
Eat your enemy's heart to gain their courage.
@@Vaksharules1999 imagine if Dutch ate John's brain and Arthur's lungs. He would be the worst outlaw the world has ever seen
@@NiCoNiCoNiCola And Micah's heart.
Arthur: “And John and his family, they’re vegan! I’m afraid we gotta let them go!”
Dutch feeling the ultimate sense of betrayal: “John…vegan?”
'Insist?!'
@@mankyscotchgit4986”YOU INSIST?”
Honestly, I could imagine Jack being vegan
@@JohnDoe-hj9fh I don’t think he went vegan since he was in the farm half of his childhood life
@@noobpro5346 well yeah I don't think he'd actually be vegan given the time period and the complete personality shift of older Jack but I think out of everyone he'd be the most likely to go vegan
His last hideout with the old gang was Beaver Hollow. Maybe after he went crazy he tried to decorate his new home like his last "home" in kind of remembrance of his former gang.
Would emphasize that he is sick and really is stuck in time and traumatised. In Beaver Hollow he lost Molly, Susan, Arthur to a degree John (because he left hin and thought he must be dead), Swanson left, Strauss was kicked out by Arthur, Pearson left, Trelawny left....
His whole gang got destroyed.
So in a sick sense he feels close to the gone members, if he tries to decorate his cave in a way, that would remind him of the last 'altogether' moments of his old gang.
Though it was all falling apart, maybe thats how his delusion plays out.
I think it just represents that he sits on the "throne" with bones of his enemies below him, I don't think he ate them
lol when I played the Forest I made a leather chair at the end of a pier and I made it my throne surrounded by lines of heads on sticks and effigies
@@Journey_to_who_knowsA man of culture indeed
My own theory of Dutch van der Linde is I think the scariest of them all and what makes him such a compelling villain.
And the theory is he is just a painfully normal man. It is the scariest to me , because he just tries to fight all the necessary evils of civilization... and throughout the story of RDR 2 he just slowly begins to realize that his preferred most effective way of fighting society's necessary evils is through primal unnecessary evil... or as agent Milton puts it ... he venerates savagery.
Dutch pretends he is a philosopher who does crimes to justify his philosophy. The truth is he is a criminal who does philosophy to justify his crimes.
It is ironic he employs Natives in RDR1 even though he caused a whole reservation to lose their home in RDR2 just to save himself.
@@Skinfaxi my point is we all like to think we're Arthur, but most of us are either Miltons or Dutches...
Some of us are even Micahs...
Milton was reasonably honorable.
I call Hosea "Dad" and Dutch "fake dad". Dutch is a meat shield collector. He saves people so they literally owe him their lives. They do it willingly so it doesn't look like he's actually tricking them. But the whole thing is a trap. In fact, my psychology senses start tingling and I cringe everytime Dutch "playfully" accuses someone, mainly Arthur, of not trusting him anymore. It forces the person to feel bad and disloyal, making them more likely to obey next time. Arthur literally sounded like a puppy being scolded to me. Sure his tough exterior seemed fine, but human nature and loyalty to one's idols still has a deep effect. A fearful respect.
I find that Arthur eventually realized that his jealousy for John being the new prodigy baby was stupid because the love was a lie, and his envy turned into defender mode once he realized being Dutch's golden child was a horrible thing. The man was a predator. Once that sunk in, John leaving wasn't a problem. John STAYING was a problem. ANY of them staying was a problem. But John had a family. Out of everyone, John had a responsibility that matter far more than Dutch's personal dreams. Arthur's legacy was left in everyone he saved, but it lived mostly through John and his family. Arthur lost so much and gave the rest away at the end.
Dutch... Dutch was just a record on repeat... And his actions were on repeat too. He said one thing and did another. After Hosea was gone, his leash was officially off. His talent was to inspire. His motive... For himself. Surrounded by human shaped smokescreens to evade the law. His legacy dies with himself.
2:47 I remember Arthur saying something about poetry and only using it when it starts to help the gang with killing, surviving, etc. I forget the exact quote. But I do remember Dutch's response: "You have no idea." Remember that he reads philosophy books, discusses the topic often, and plans out his own speeches before he presents them.
Another edit now that I've finished the video: maybe we're meant to think that Dutch set up some sort of camp for himself after RDR2's epilogue and that's where he was until RDR1. But we see no indication of that in RDR2's post-epilogue freeroam, so he could have been living rough and scrounging up men and a proper camp until RDR1. Doing that for four years straight could very well make the already broken Dutch more insane, until he becomes what we see of him in RDR1. Just a little idea I had, but idk if it's worth anything.
Or maybe hes recruiting cannibals for his gang perhaps that is what the implication is dutch used to surround himself with trelawny hosea and others who where either classy or deep down good but starting with micah he started to recruit worse and worse people until hes surrounded by cannibals rapists and just gang members that are vastly worse than anything the odriscols could do maybe thats also the point of colm hes dutchs parallel him and colm are one in the same but dutch and his boys put dutch on a pedestal and despise colm idk its interesting and i think its more about how dutch had a family at one point ( even before rdr2. John mentions how they where all close and dutch even taught him how to read) and now hes just surrounded by madness he himself has become cartoonishly insane and thus surrounds himself with ppl more insane than him to
Put himself back on the pedestal just like how he brought ppl in to teach them how to read and raise them to admire him hes taking lost natives who have no tribe or land and have probably been living like outlaws off the grid for years even look at the context rdr2 gives to this when he sees how angry and easy the chiefs son is to manipulate and how much the natives hate the changing world as him i really do think that the idea is that he is no longer a charmer but a manipulative monster who parrelels with how natives are treated in both games even the first game some
Of the first words u hear is a rich couple talking about how greatful they should be that the militaries drove the savages out of the land and the buffalo a symbol for natives are encouraged to be hunt down for sport”they always will find another monster” the first monster in rdr2 wad the natives they where trying to drive out and now that they are mostly tamed or drove out now the new monsters are american outlaws thst there cracking down it all kinda rhymes together
@@rusteddenial453or maybe stop repeating yourself troggy
@@rusteddenial453 You have to work on your punctuation pal.
First step : use it sometimes.
Dutch didn't get his mangos so human flesh will have to suffice
Lp👝
@ArthurCallahan899 maybe dutch only eats goverment agents and officials exclusively out of spite.
Ah yes. The two are very identical to each other...
@@sairentokira4786 can't spell "mango" without "man".
Those are deer femurs. Human femurs look longer and have a distinct ball head that protrudes out to the top side. Deer femurs look pretty much like that asset.
the game displays different animal remains and distinctly uses human femurs in dutch’s room, they do have a ball joint if you look
@@hllziepop @11:48. These are not human. They are deer femurs.
@14:13, these probably are human. At least they look long and thin enough. I’d have to use somebody else xBox to find out.
@eds1942
Maybe YOU are a cannibal
@@Hongobogologomo Anthropology classes, my dad hunted deer, I’ve recently had a CT scan of my hip and have the power of an internet search which sometimes actually still turns up what you want.
I love when random knowledgeable people show up in the yt comments, bravo dude
"What's in Tahiti, Dutch?"
"Babies."
"WHAT?!"
"I mean mangoes."
Im the one who posted this theory on TikTok, and yes you’re right I did use that tumblr post as a source. So happy you’re talking about this, I love your videos
Like the comment yall let's get fizhy attention!
Which tiktok are you talking about specifically cause i also posted one a couple days before this video came out
@@Supercoolyay I posted it almost a month ago and it has over one million views. My @ is jr.rdr2
It could also just be people that Dutch and his gang had kidnapped, and tortured, and just let them rot and decompose after they died. It doesn't have to be right there where the bones are found that it happened either. Their bones could have just moved been moved there afterwards. With Dutch's mind the way it was, who knows what kinds of things were going through his head 24/7.
If it weren't for Arthur being there, Dutch would have defintely eaten that old lady in Guarma he strangled to death. He didn't know Spanish, but he did know human beings. Perhaps... too much.
underrated ass comment, funny too lol
dawg this is your 3rd comment lol
why he didn't steal the gold from her after he killed her.....
I know human beans arthur
@DTXJustin04 Lol! I tried the same, in my head canon he off camera takes the gold from her, because why would he leave it?
Cannibalism was unfortunately common in the west, it is also known cannibals are in red dead, I don't find it out of the ordinary that Dutch would have joined the Murfrees.
skinners not murfrees
@@ilikepigeons6101 that's right, I always mix them up.
Cannibalism was common in the West??? Where did you get this idea?
@@magnumdog5464 I was sleepy, when I wrote this, but the amount of cases of cannibalism in the period that was known as "The Old West." Was too high. Especially during the panic of the civil war.
@@magnumdog5464I was able to find quite a few famous cases of cannibalism in the 1800’s on the internet. And those were only the famous cases.
back publishing some drivel for us to enjoy together - I'll work up a video on the elephant in the room courtesy of Rockstar's latest tweet later.
What if the Skinner Brothers was Dutch’s new gang all along? They don’t look too different from his gang in the first game.
I really like this idea, and it honestly makes sense to me. At this point, Dutch has not only dropped the mask of sanity that he kept up in an attempt to fight his own narcissistic and demented nature, but he has actually EMBRACED his true colors. I know a bunch of people who like to say that Dutch just went mad because of the grief that came from the events of rdr2, but it’s way more complicated than that.
The gang humanized Dutch. They gave him respect, compassion, and purpose. Without them, he lost the will to fight his own sinister nature, and the traits and morals that they had rubbed off on him slowly vanished along with the man he had become. By failing to fill the moral void that the gang had left, Dutch reverted to his true self. Unable to find new purpose in life, Dutch would be haunted by the sins of his past, causing him to find a distraction from it in the form of senseless violence that included rape, torture, murder, and now, *cannibalism.*
wait rape? when in RDR1 does he rape anyone??
Dutch kept the gang sane way more than they kept him sane. He was their beacon of hope for decades.
The problem is: As flamboyant and charismatic as he is, he's still a hardened criminal who will step on others to achieve his goals. They all are, but rationalized their actions as something noble by only ripping off the "bad guys". Its a façade that can easily slip. All it takes is a series of failures, which is what happens in RDR2.
@@Sqk. Rdr1 pinkertons say it and its in newspaper iirc. I honestly wouldnt put it past him since hes a loony. Also not to mention he basically kept the women of camp around only to switch out for a younger model every time one grows out of their "Prime". First grimshaw, abagail, then molly, then he attempted to flirt with Mary-beth in several camp encounters. He is a creepy old dude after all.
@@caralho5237 The gang didnt "keep dutch sane," they gave him a reason to act like he was. If they saw him openly being the sociopathic blood thirsty narcissist he really was, theyd never follow him. And since theres nothing dutch loves more than being looked up to because of genuine admiration and respect instead of fear, dutch made himself into a robinhood-like character in order to fulfill his desires to rob and kill while also justifying it to the people who looked up to him. However, once the mask slipped and the gang fell apart, he had no desire to put it back on because he no longer really had a reason to. Thats more what I was trying to say.
@@zoroux2826 That's a grim narrative. Too grim. You can clearly see the grief on Dutch's face, both during and after his fall. He isn't a pure narcissist like Homelander, incapable of forming connections. He took in a bunch of thugs and taught them how to act civilized, and he did it for decades.
You don't need to be inherently evil to become a monster, all you need is to have exploitable character flaws, which is where Dutch falls into.
It’s a fun theory and definitely a possibility. I think the most likely thing about it is that whether or not it’s true, Dutch has always been about his appearance and reputation. With Dutch now fully embracing being the anti-civilisation outlaw villain, he’s likely to embrace anything that builds the fear and mystique around him. He could very well have declined to the extent of engaging in cannibalism, but he also would be very likely to encourage such rumours (true or not) so that his reputation as the “terrible, monstrous villain Dutch van der “Lind who should be feared and is not to be trifled with” spreads far and wide. He’s likely to prefer being known for his villainous ways rather than not being known at all.
May be a play on the Donner party. A group that got lost on a journey out west only to get trapped in a winter storm and forced to cannibalism. They were brought to trial and I believe it was the first recording of that happening and being allowed due to means of survival... the only other one I know of is the lane crash in the 80s
According to legends it is said that, for those who succumbed to cannibalism are destined to become “Wendigos.” A monster of endless hunger until someone or something puts it out it’s misery.
Damn i had forgotten it, it does fit well with Dutch specially as for his greed in chapter IV onward, we need more money even after both the blackwater train job and the other robbery to Cornwall, or the way he chooses to stay with Micah as for it being that Micah promises more
The line about “Finding another monster” has lived in my head since I was teen. Dutch, in his mania, was warning all of us
He was right because deep down, he knew he was the same as the lawmen who hunted him - cruel, relentless, and unable to stop himself.
You really ate with that echoed quote at the end. Well done.
I just finished the first game and I am reeling. I don’t even know what to think about Dutch but I do think he’s lost his mind.
6:02 I know this is supposed to be a serious moment, but the way Dutch bounces off the cliff gets me every time
I personally think its highly possible. The story of the windigo is more or less a cautionary tale warning against cannibalism in the winter months when food is scarce. So considering we find him chilling with Micah up in the coldest and farthest from civilization corner of the map, id say it's possible. Perhaps they were robbing other starving passersby and when that was no longer enough, possibly after Micah's persuasive act they both became cannibals. I always kinda thought they both looked not only old but kind of sickly when John tracks them down up in the mountains. And human meat is said to be toxic to humans.
I genuinely don’t think Micah would go that far. He is a manipulative, evil, lying rat, but let’s be honest, he’s sane. I think he’d be the first to put a bullet in Dutch if Dutch grossed him out lol
An interesting theory about dutch very well do, but jurying this video I realised something if they made Red Dead Redemption 2 undead nightmare that dutch dream of a free world would have come true because the law and other gangs would be to busy fighting zombies to even brother with dutch gang and maybe would use his leader ship charms to gather more people into the gang and maybe take over a town like rhodes or armadillo.
I thought it was obvious that he was possibly a cannibal considering he has completely lost his mind and is dressed in a manner of a deranged cannibal
fair enough
leather pants? are they that bad i thought he looked alright for a mentally unhinged person XD
@@kiefgaming1701leather pants in a wet environment. They’re gonna shrink faster than my hopes and dreams
@@kiefgaming1701lmao
Been looking forward to this 👌
Somehow, I read that, and Count Dooku’s voice
I don’t buy into this theory in the literal sense but, I wouldn’t be shocked if this was intended by the devs to be a metaphor.
Counter-arguement. Dutch is a vampire allegory in rdr2, but an actual vampire in rdr1.
Is this Hollywood vampire or the original depiction of a vampire?
@@Fugitive685interview with the vampire vampire
This is one of the best videos you've made imo. The subject is very intriguing and the commentary is top notch. Really looking forward to more vids like these. Obscure facts and theories are just peak
I must say I do love your metaphor of Dutch “feeding on people” from the start. As always, fantastic content, the best RDR content creator out there.
Fizhy discussing RDR is always entertaining.
Ntot when it's something that clickbaiting idiot MrBossFTW would say. This is a waste of time.
The only food they would really have access to would be hunting. If they were unable to find food, though... He's the first one putting human meat in his mouth (hold up)
5:56 The shampoo bottle at 3am for literally no reason
real
😂
honestly I think the best way to complete the trilogy now would be Red Dead Redemption 3 where you play Dutch at his prime
Maybe as each new gang member joined you could switch to playing as them. Then it would end with you playing Mac at the black water massacre and dying to agent Milton
this is horrible, there is no redemption
@@Dext3r0us I mean there was a kinda "redemption" cuz if im not wrong Arthurs at beginning of the game mentions that Mac stayed behind and bought some time for the gang to escape
No because we know how Dutch's story ends that's why they didn't make John the main character in rdr2
Great video! I really like this theory.
I feel like dutch would totally sink so low as to eat human meat, but I think he wouldn't do it for survival or to make people afraid. I think he would do it to prove to himself that he is above man, like Raskolnikov in Crime and Punishment.
I imagine Dutch wouldn't gnaw on bones like some feral animal, but prepare (or have prepared) lavish dinners, combining human flesh with wine and vegetables like Hannibal Lecter.
I think he still sees himself as a man of class and culture, a great philosopher and enjoyer of fine art.
this is sooooo spot on..
Fantastic watch! Never knew about this theory before.
I wonder if we'll ever get a mystery involving the Wendigo.
Map panoramic.
How about the skinwalker? You should hear military reports on their encounters. In 2021 during a major fire an entire group of armed men got terrified after hearing what sounded like a "Woman" screaming. They weren't terrified at that point. They got scared after their commander called out "Hello?", and in the same voice responded back "Hello?". It was enough to make several armed men get back in their armores humvees.
@@NukelearFallout That would be cool for an encounter on RDO. You're doing a mission with players and communicating on the mic, and something repeats the very last thing you said on the microphone out of nowhere. I'm in full survival horror mode at that point.
@@yaboidre5672 That would be cool. But, the encounter I'm talking about happened in real life! I believe in skinwalkers. Considering how many reports there are. And, one night when I was researching skinwalkers when I lived in Wisconsin, I started hearing a very low growling sound happening outside my window for almost a minute. It was almost 1 am, and there were always dogs that would bark at even the tiniest of noises. That night it was completely silent, except for the growling that made my body tense up and get goose bumps so bad I felt paralyzed for what felt like too long. It was a very deep low growl, one I've never heard from even a dog. Especially for almost a minute straight.... needless to say, I stopped researching skinwalkers after. In fact, the only reason I was researching them is because my family in Wisconsin told me about the Beast of Bray road, and a sighting someone they knew had.
@@yaboidre5672 Some things in this world are better left kept secret
Over thanksgiving break, I spent 6 hours trying to find a moose🤦♂️
If you mean in red dead redemption two, then they hardly exist and even then their ones were without antlers, or they’re just two star pelts it’s ridiculously annoying and it’s ridiculous
love your Rdr videos would realy love to see more of those :D
I don’t think Dutch was a full blown cannibal hunting people for food… but him using the body’s of the ones he did kill as a “resource” doesn’t seem out of the realm of possibility. I’d say its likely, even
Enjoyed this video quite a bit. Nice work!
I fully believe the Skinner Brothers were supposed to be the native american gang Dutch controls in the first game, but Rockstar backed out last minute and made them all white. Yes it probably would've been very disrespectful but there were some tribes which did engage in that form of behavior during those time periods. I say this mainly because I believe it was Dutch who was already in command of them, or he came to power afterward when John hunted down the leaders of the Skinner Brothers during a bounty side mission. Them being cannibals and Dutch becoming a cannibal I could easily believe with the way they string up and gut people like animals. That gang was shown to be one of the most sadistic ever, and they were in the exact same place Dutch's new gang would soon occupy. Dutch becoming leader of the Skinner Brothers would also make sense because it seems after a certain point they stopped attacking Beechers Hope, maybe because Dutch ordered them to? Maybe he did it in honor of Arthur like when he shot Micah. Probably not, but I think its an interesting theory. I also wanted to add that the Skinner Brothers are the only gang in game which doesn't have a stronghold where we can fight and wipe them out, and some how they're always plaguing Tall Trees no matter how many you fight and kill.
The Skinners weren't a thing in RD1...
Skinner brothers is bassed in the Harpe brothers.
The skinners have both whites and natives
Nope they’re not the Skinners you clearly see one of the leaders Otis Skinner and he’s white, the Skinners are nomadic and happen to be settled up in Tall Trees in 1907, and after John wiped out most of them they left. It’s specifically said that Dutchs gang in rdr1 is comprised of young men from reservations nearby so these were just other tribes that were receiving the “Wapiti treatment” and so they turned to Dutch who allowed them to get their vengeance and anger out on those that caused it, aka anyone Dutch points them to like savage dogs ready to attack whatever they deem a threat. Therefore Dutchs men are not from the Skinner gang they were from reservations and the skinners had a few Natives but that doesn’t mean they’re influenced off them in the slightest, people only think so bc they use bows and tomahawks
@@josephstalin2606no they were almost certainly meant to be a hostile native group even there camps , the way the kill (scalping) and the fact half the models are natives I think proves this but for political reasons they decided to add white skinners
*I like how each new Dutch Vanderlinde video is just making Dutch look and sound more evil...*
Do a video on what happened to Dutch between 1907 and 1911
I mean what do you think made him go from this hermit with regret who's laying low to having a new gang and being completely crazy doing bank robberies again
Yeah, I always thought about that. It's interesting how from 1899-1907, he seemingly was just in hiding the entire time and still seemed somewhat collected. Yet by 1911, he's completely off the deep end.
It would be good to look into that, but unless there's a breadcrumb to pick up on outside knowing his activities in the tall trees area, there's really not a lot to say.
@@illusha3861well if all you saw of Dutch in 1911 was his last encounter you'd think he wasn't totally crazed, maybe it's somewhat the same in 1908? He's acting less crazed than he in that one dialogue with John
in RDR1 it says in one of the early newspapers in an article about the Williamson gang, that Dutch was thought to have died in a failed robbery in 1906 (which i have also heard is the year that the RDR1 devs intended to have been when the gang disbanded so this could have been retconned)
@@Sqk.That could’ve been fixed if they had just made the epilogue take place in 1906 and having an article dedicated to that fire Dutch supposedly died in only for him to show up at the end still. Idk why they opted for 1907 maybe bc they wanted it to be closer to the year the BOI was formed (1908 irl) and they wanted to include Ross starting his investigation
cant go wrong with new fizhy red dead content
Hunting the professor for “sport” makes sense now
Dutch: It puts the lotion in the bucket, Arthur!
Dutch: i got a plan
Jhon: what is it now dutch ?
Dutch: we need to eat agent ross
“The only thing he was consuming was venom” yeah, American Venom.
I like the idea that the three skulls are of Sean, Lenny and Hosea. He wanted the heart and soul of the old gang around him again.
Actually in the army when people people would get PTSD they would keep some body part of their body to make sure. That they have won same goes for dutch he had PTSD most commonly that his enemies would kill him in his sleep so he made sure he would kill them first and kept the skull because of his PTSD
Dutch wouldve become the infamous "Cannibal of Tahiti" if things went to plan.
Definitely something that could fit RDR1, and it brings an extra sense of instability to Dutchy
Dutch: we cant always fight hunger john we cant fight eating humans we cant fight mentality
I need RDR 3 just so I can have so much more content for Fizhy
It do make sense wow 14 years since original RDR came out and still figuring out new things to this day mindblowing
I'm curious, as a British person, what draws you the most to the wild West stories of rdr
Probably for the same reasons plenty of Americans enjoy Game of Thrones and medieval media even though we don't have a history of castles and knights. Some time periods in history are just way cooler than others
I don't see this being intentional. It seems like they wanted to have bones at Dutch's camp, animal bones, but considering the games budget issues and development time etc they likely just reused the assets like mentioned at 9:45
I missed your RDR2 videos. Please keep them coming.
Honestly at first i really thought that it was far fetched but looking deeper into it. Dutch could have became one during the events after rdr2 epilogue but who knows really.
Van der linde, Van der linde I'm always by your side poker plans
🎶 I got a plan Arthur 🎶
Dutch could have wanted to make it appear he was a cannibal to frighten others by keeping human remains around him , NOT eating the meat, but having it appear as tho he was. Trophies like the animal skulls, and he was at least for a time a master manipulator. The skull thing could be simply a symbol for his fascination with philosophy, and human femors have been used for tools such as knife handles
Exactly. Field Marshal Lord Kitchener had a human skull he used as an inkwell.
Can’t wait for your GTA6 content. I’m sure that game will be packed with lore and mysteries.
If he is a cannibal I think it would have a lot to do with power and knowledge and feeling that he could absorb those things by eating others. An element of survival and insanity? Sure, but if he does partake it’s also because he’s a megalomaniac.
Pearson: “We need food!”
Dutch: “This MF is spitting.”
I tried looking for this a few days ago and now it exists
There is something in Rhodes before you collected debt from Gwyn Hughes. At night on top of the bank i was exploring then i heard him telling a woman who was crying it will be ok and he had her locked in a coffin. Also if you go to to cemetery and rest Arthur will rest for a second before getting back up on his own.
We definitely need more RDR/RDR2 drivel videos asap.
"God damnit Dutch you're eating... people?!"
"Son, we just need.... More.... HONEY."
To be honest, i think this is my new headcanon, just because it feels like by 1911 Dutch would’ve actually gone insane to that point, and while i dont agree with all the ‘evidence’in the theory, its still something to think about.
Edit: i just thought about something else too, a reason for Dutch to have become a cannibal could be that his native american gang believed in some sort of supernatural thing where you kill a human and eat them. When they offered the human meat to him, he just went along with it.
As soon as I clicked on this video I remembered the line: "You can't change a person, you can only bring out more of their true self." Said by Rains Fall if I remember correctly. That gave me chills. The theory might indeed be a little far fetched, but I wouldn't entirely discard the possibility. Dutch Van Der Linde is a character we still need to know a lot about, there are many blanks in his character. Rdr3 possibly? The femus in the cave is a typical Rockstar move, but it might be a clue. Anyway, just keep in mind that the theory exists.
Dutch is one of the best written characters in videogames
It could also be a 'Ravenous' reference. Snowy atmosphere, discarded bones and a steak on the plate. Iykyk. It also involves a lot of native superstition of a Wendigo which would correlate with the same skulls outside his living quarters.
The reason Dutch goes insane is because in the end of chapter 4 when the trolley crashes Dutch said that he hurt his head and went insane
You dont say...
BRAIN INJURY?
Stupid theory
@@hasspass8751 how
Dutch gotta change that shirt everytime I see him from afar i think he's just bare chesting it
I think it would be more likely that Dutch used cannibalism as a form of control over his own gang. Maybe as punishment for disloyalty? Idk
Or his gang are the ones that are cannibalizing. It’s not unheard of for some Natives to be cannibalistic especially the ones that are as angry and riled up bc of Dutch turning them against society
5:05 makes me remember the one time arthur and dutch jumped off a cliff to escape the army
I mean, that’s the whole point- it’s a reference, one of the many references that tie Red dead 1 and 2 together… like fr ???
Filbee got the RE6 Leon fit 💯🔥🔥🔥
This theory came up on my TikTok fyp 5 minutes ago, great timing
I dont find this theory far-fetched actually it would make a lot of sense too, I think its not only as intimidation tactic but also if you read accounts of cannibals that didnt do it for survival, a lot of them express also this sense of begin now fused with their "meal" like they're no longer that alone neither. Which wouldn't surprise me that he did it for various reasons. It also resonates thematically with him consuming and cosuming but never be satisfied.
"We need more money Arthur" he chants while eating a human leg.
those bones could have been put there long after Dutch met his demise, returning as Jack completely dismisses the theory for me.
Question is if those only appear *after* the timeskip or if they exist during the mission when you pass through there as John.
@@peepsbates im currently replaying RDR 1 on PS5. When I get to that part i'll return & tell you
@@CLADZEJAYKAYwere they there?
@@mr.nuggies3087 truth be told, I forgot
@@CLADZEJAYKAY dam I didn't think you'd respond 9 months later lol
“You eat babies!”
“We eat mangoes and mushrooms, you fool!”
I just realized how recently this video was uploaded
11:39 it looks kinda like a t bone steak, maybe from the farm area
The goat of red dead content
With every passing day, I realise more and more how unworthy I am of such a statement. I just do my own thing, more often than not.
@@Fizhy if i want to watch content on red dead 2 I always instinctively start browsing through your channel. Your streams or the videos.
This is a very fun theory and the fact it could be true with all the symbolism seen in the series and it's willingness to drive into really dark places makes it probably one of the best ones of rdr