The most depressing part is that both Micah and Ross never really paid for their crimes, they just got killed years after an ending where they already won
Yeah for sure, both of them died in ways that really achieved nothing. John killing Micah only led to his downfall, most likely Jack killing Ross won't be much different. Man I love Red Dead, really good story and themes
I feel like this especially applies to Agent Ross. He outlived his superior during his time in the Pinkertons and witnessed the down fall of the Van Der Linde gang. By the time Jack confronted him, he was already a retired, old man who was enjoying the sunset years of his life. Though he both lost the duel, he won in the end.
These are great examples of how the old west is explored in both RDR games, showing how revenge and violence never ends in this world and that it brings nothing but doom for the "winners". It always made me think that both Arthur and John never got redemption for their acts, only ending influencing Jack to follow the same path, and so making the non sense violence cycle go on, in the west. *Just watched the rest of the video and ClassicAsh said the same thing '_'
Your last point on the Wild West being a time of relative anarchy and people just shooting each other, void of any noble or honorable motivation, really resonates with me. My great great grandmother was born in Tombstone, Arizona, was alive during the OK Corral shootout, and personally knew Wyatt Earp. Apparently, when she was an old woman in the 1960’s, she’d watch the western TV drama based on Wyatt Earp and would get angry at the romantic way he was written and then yell at the tv that “Wyatt was just some chump that liked to shoot people!”😂
I was so young when I played rdr1. I totally forgot how long and drawn out it was in the beginning. All I remember was how mesmerizing it was traveling to Mexico.
Honestly the same dude. I was too young to fully understand the story of this game and now I'm older it's hard to believe that a game where the second you step into like the woodland part of the map you get instantly mauled by 2 bears (literally all I remember from my time playing the game) was so damn deep with ideals and such.
RDR1 is the reason I grew to love western genre especially (neo-westerns) and cowboy culture making me realize that we’re all hues of grey that should strive to do good. Fantastic video!!!
I think Bonnie is here to show that John Marston is a loyal husband to abigail. As it’s shown in later cutscenes, Bonnie is interested in John, and he probably likes her too, but he already married Abigail and he is trying to be the best for his family (not like Reyes)
For what it's worth, the Clint Eastwood Spaghetti westerns are remarkably cynical, too, and were controversial when they first came out. Eastwood's character is an antihero.
Holy hell, I never put 2 and 2 together about Dutch and Jack's dialogues in the end. Dutch, a man set in his ways and jaded with the world, tells John that men like him can't change. He can't fight gravity. Jack, young and hopeful for the future, talks with wonder about a machine to make men fly. To fight gravity.
Really glad to have this stumble across my recommendations, I've been replaying through Red Dead 2 recently (so far up to Chapter 4) and this makes me all nostalgic for the original RDR and the story it conveyed all those years ago. Would love to see an RDR2 analysis from you, this was a really wonderful video!
"You know, I dreamt of documenting the last days of the Old West. The romance, the honor, the nobility! But it turns out it's just people killing each other." "I could've told you that."
I’m a huge fan of the RDR franchise and all I can say is that this video is perfect. The perfect review to a perfect game! And it’s especially great since no one ever came close to this type of video! Great job!
I always forget that the first game takes place right before the entirety of Europe was plunged into war. It's crazy to think that what Dutch said about a new monster was true. World War I had the horrors of trench warfare, as well as atrocities like the Armenian Genocide. Years later, Hitler rises to power in 1934, signaling the era of another monster who did so much harm to humanity as a whole with his atrocities and the war he started
I got into the western genre from red dead redemption 1 and now it is easily my favorite genre oat and use it as inspiration for all of my film projects to this day. (btw this is a amazing video only 1k views and 100 subs is criminal keep up the amazing work)
I'm from Arizona and I absolutely love the Old West, a very fun genre to play around with and overall one of my favorites :) Thank you! I'm really glad you enjoyed the video!
I'm honestly not a fan of the western genre. Never been. However RDR and RDR2 are such absolutely amazing games that I found myself spending hours upon hours just riding around, doing absolutely nothing. To this day, RDR is one of my comfort games and while I can't play it (for the lack of owning a PS3), I still love it.
You may actual like westerns then. Plenty of westerns 1970s on just like rdr. Shit the shootest out law Josey Wales and Jeremiah Johnson and unforgiving are all more or less cut out and put into both games.
@@Dusted_Glitch How would that work? Remaking RDR1 would have to be its own game with an entire new story, region and side content, how it could just be added as an update to RDR2
Fantastic analysis. First act of Red Dead was a slog lol Really caught me off guard when I played it, but like you said the themes of Red Dead truly make this game special.
The first act suffers from pacing issues and non-nuanced cast of side characters where the satire on paper makes sense but is just who all these characters are. If a lot of the nuance was present from the beginning and the missions weren't just prelude to the big action, it would've been a lot better.
Don't agree with everything you said, but the overall message I totally agree with. And this was an extremely good video, which is something I don't say lightly. Feelt more like 15min then almot half an hour. Kept my attention all the way through.
Same. I agree with the core thesis of Redemption as a satire of America's idealism of the West and his point about the 1-dimensional early story characters. However, several of his critiques on the 1st act I thought were him missing the point of the story.
well the amount of torture arthurs body had been through as well as the fight with micah and the headshot to arthurs head rivals in johns death physically but the reasoning to me is stronger for john's death
@@Dragoncam13 well low honor to high honor certainly works for the story... i did this exact thing for my 1st playthrough but after I did a whole low honor playthrough, certain scenes and the last ride to the gangs hideout work so well for the low honor version that majority of high honor players agree that the low honor last ride version is the best because of the tone, scenery and quotes plus with playing low honor and still helping rains fall is so fucking good because you really need to try and maintain a balance for you not to go overboard with high honor and to maintain that, you'd kill bounty hunters (including the dogs because I feel like arthur wouldn't give a shit about killing dogs after his own died especially since he has voicelines for killing dogs as well as horses) and bystanders who threaten you for whatever the reasons is.... Arthur can still achieve redemption by doing these things that I mentioned to maintain low honor.... look at kratos or dante from the divine comedy game adaptation.... both kratos and dante are sick bastards who achieve redemption (at least for dante in the end since kratos' is a bit too complicated for kratos achieving redemption in his younger ghost of sparta days) but the methods that they use are still morally grey with dante in admist of his redemption r3pes cleopatra as the final killing blow because shes a sex demon now this isn't to say that arthur could r3pe someone in his path for redemption because no that's not possible but the concept of doing fucked up things like with arthur killing a bounty hunter dog, killing horses and killing bystanders can still bring redemption to arthur at that stage of his life.... its the same thing with Altair from AC1 where his whole mission in that game is to redeem himself through killing 9 templar targets because he was a bad person at the start of the game yet altair still kills ppl ruthlessly after he interrogates someone whos involved with a templar that he's hunting even though he could be innocent yet altair still kills him because he doesn't want to leave loose ends yet he's on a path to redemption through killing 9 templars
@@Dragoncam13 rockstar definitely makes some of the best depictions of how humanity works and they perfected it in manhunt and when i see someone glorifying arthur as a good person and how ppl felt like a close friend just died... it rubs me the wrong way because arthur isn't supposed to be like that and certainly rockstar didn't entirely intend to do that for arthur especially with how rockstar introduced him in the 2nd trailer of RDR2 where that trailer is supposed to be the introduction of Arthur Morgan
@@Dragoncam13 plus I don't understand why ppl don't get that the honor system isn't like a morality system from something like inFAMOUS but its simply made for how honorable arthur is and not how good or bad he is.... Arthur is still a bad person with whatever his honor level is
Im glad that you paid attention to the finer philosophical details, its hard to tell if the writers really thought as deeply as you interpreted it all, but then again the whole world is built on analogies and people just need to sketch an outline for others to fill in the details in their own fashion. I had watched other videos about it before but i think this is the best one i have seen yet on Red dead 1. I havent enjoyed any video this much in months. Thank you a lot.
Thank you! That really means alot. I feel like too many Video Essay people just kinda list what happens, not really going into detail on what the game means or what it tries to say. If you ain't got nothin to say, why say it is the philosophy for the videos :)
I came to a similar idea of what this video is saying. I think many can interpret what it's trying to do, but at the same time, I feel like everyone can see this game in a different light. I feel like the cynical look of this game could also be seen as one of hope as you also do have the option to play as Jack with him helping more people in the stranger missions. It's a factor of just how much people want to invest in the themes of history as well as the western genre and or the real-life basis of the American frontier.
I love how Red Dead Redemption is about showcasing the darkness of the west while still indulging in its badass style, it's one of those games that shows you it's horror. A little thing I did in John's final deadeye was to not shoot anyone. I recommend doing this. I will say though I think the Clint Eastwood westerns were not trying to be "cool" in a full-on fashion as much as they were trying to be calmer and collected which I feel showcases the world of the American Frontier better than most.
Hey, you there reading the comments. don't worry, whatever makes you be you is not set in stone, who you are doesn't control your choices, the choices you make define who you are. It is possible to change, because it is possible to choose.
wow, just wow. an absolutely incredible analysis of this game's themes and characters. just an amazingly engaging watch start to finish. I know you said this game is by no means a masterpiece, but... man I really want to call it one because it speaks to me in way that only a hand full of other games have (Shadow of the Colossus, Kingdom Hearts 2 and MGS 3 to name them). absolutely stellar work mate
Thank you so much! Really means alot :) Masterpiece is a really interesting word, I don't think any game is a true perfect "Masterpiece" but I do think any game can be a masterpiece in a certain type of way, such as the games you said
No way you have 135 subscibers, from the quality of the video i thought you would have atleast 10k, you earned my sub friend good luck with the algorithm
Thank you for this video. It’s one of my favorite videos on RUclips and I’ve come back to watch it several times even thought I have never even plated rdr. I got into it because I fell in love with rdr2 and I’d love to see a video about that.
Thank you for the super kind words, those really mean a lot :) Hopefully I'll get back to making videos soon, been dealing with some personal stuff but I'm getting there!
Although Ive Never Played RDR1, After I Completed RDR2 I Got Intrigued By The Messages Behind Everything And Wanted To Look Deeper In. Great Video Man I Enjoyed The Overview On Everything
I know you say the new Austin chapter is the hardest to get through but I always notice that once I get to the ending or even once we run into west dickens again on black water I always find myself longing for the new austin days and dreading what's ahead. The tall trees chapter is definitely the darkest and most cynical part of the game and so I always find myself wanting to go back to the wacky light hearted vibe the new Austin missions had.
I just love the idea of how you deconstruct this romantic view that we have of the wild west. I am european, portuguese to be precise and I just love everything about western culture, specifically in the United States, I am a consumer of almost everything American, from entertainment to food, etc, not that I don't respect other cultures because I do but I just love the history of America. But this video is an educational one, we tend to look to the past in a romantic way but the reality is much much different, I love red dead redemption 1 and 2 but the reality of the wild west was not some fancy cowboys with their revolver shooting the bad guys and saving the day, the reality is that the wild west was brutal, dirty and full of disease Fantastic video 👍
That's literally the reality of anywhere at any time in antiquity, though. I feel the real reason so many sources feel compelled to "deconstruct" the admiration for the Old West is because it represents a time when the pioneering spirit of Americans still remained, and was full of communities without the presence of government or central planning. This is equated with it being "uncivilized", but it actually forced the civil servants to be present and accountable to the people they served. They actually did feature the "community policing" that gets proposed these days, in that if you committed a crime, a posse would be organized to hunt you down and bring you in to face justice. You can argue with the methods that these communities employed to function, but while it was definitely not the romantic society of a John Wayne movie, the Old West was also far from the anarchic free-for-all it's shown as in "deconstructions".
Red Dead 1 re-defined and opened up the portrayal of the Wild West better than any movie could. A lot of people think it was like every Eastwood/John Wayne movie but it was too dark for them
Really good Red Dead analysis! Though if I'm being honest, I cringed whenever the essayist talked about the "glorious American cowboy hero" over footage of The Man With No Name (a morally dubious anti-hero from an Italian film franchise). I think comparisons to a classic era cowboy, like the star personas of John Wayne and/or Gary Cooper, would've been more in-line with this video's thesis. That's a minor film history nitpick though. Everything else is deeply insightful stuff about the game and the characters. Nice!
Nah I 100% agree with you about the man with no name! Only reason I really use that footage is because its the most well known Western so easy to relate to a broader audience, I think people see Clint Eastwood and go "Wow! Badass American Cowboy!" Thank you for all you said, it really means alot :)
Agreed. RDR1 (specifically the 1st act in New Austin) is a deconstruction and satirization of the classic western of the 40s and 50s with the idea of the swaggering, noble lone ranger like John Wayne who comes to an untamed region and helps the people there - quickly becoming a local hero. While A Man With No Name is closer to who John actually is; a quiet morally grey individual who mainly follows his own agenda. Although still, John is much more morally discernible and romantic character at heart. His goal is inherently noble but it contrasts with his actions to achieve it which are very morally flexible.
how is it that your videos are such high quality, you have a smooth voice, and you make good content, but you dont have hundreds of thousands of subscribers? keep it up man, you earned a new subscription :)
I like this re-romanticism of the old west, no longer looked upon as a bountiful time of good and evil battles on the frontier, but a time of great strife and hardship that this country went through. Something tough and lasting, but not necessarily good.
I’m glad you pointed out that every early game character is just satire, like that fact annoyed me so hard about this game, makes me not care about the story overall when every character around me is just awful.
I agree to disagree. RDR1 is fundamentally a cynical satire unlike it's more sincere, optimistic prequel and its 1st act is satirizing classic westerns where the protagonist is often surrounded by 1-dimensional caricatures of fools, degenerates and crazies. So in that regard, it works imo. However, where it fails as opposed to the rest of the story is how the satire is handled - rather than use it as to highlight a deeper nuisance about the characters like Reyes, DeSanta, Ross and Dutch in the Mexico and West Elizabeth chapters, it has the characters all devolve to just the satire.
@@themadtitan7603 Um the end is definitely tonally different from the start and the satire is definitely done a bit more smartly. But maybe i just stupid
@@crazychase98 That's...what I said. Which is that the satire in the first act falters because it isn't used as simply a front to explore deeper themes or the characters in-depth, but just to present a cast of wacky and funny characters to surround the players with.
00:16 Not trying to be nitpicky but actually Clint Eastwood's movies are kinda more similar to the story of RDR series rather than the glorified wild west stories since Eastwood mostly starred in Spaghetti Westerns where the protagonist is a morally grey character who is trying to survive in a world without any morals. In fact, Unforgiven(which is directed also by Eastwood) has a similar premise with RDR1 that it is a story about an outlaw who tried to run away from his past being dragged back in the world of violence. I'd say movies starring John Wayne from the 1940s are closer to a glorified western story rather than an Eastwood movie. Other than great video. Loved it
RDR is the greatest game of its generation The gritty, dull, unforgiving, honest setting is a perfect representation of John as a character. This to me is perfect storytelling and the main protagonist is perfect for the overall setting of the game. The nostalgia I have for this game is unbelievable. I love it. But that nostalgia doesn’t make me over exaggerate how good this game is. This game is one of the greatest games of all time. There’s some things it did better than RDR2 in my opinion. Obviously overall RDR2 is the “better” game But RDR1 is so beautifully personal
John’s plan at the start was to die. From his perspective, he has to do the bidding of the government to kill his old friends. While their betrayal makes it easier, it’s still not a simple task for John. He may have thought that he had nothing to live for and that if he died, Ross would let his family go. It’s a nice nod to his death later. Fate intervened because John had work still to do in the world.
If they ever do get around to making a Red Dead Redemption 1 remake I think there needs to be a scene during the Farm chapter where John takes Jack and sit him down and explain to him everything that happened while he was away therefore giving jack closure on all of his questions and assuring him that everything John did was real and all for him
The most interesting thing in Rdr is the theme of redemption. John’s redemption was the future he hoped his son would create becoming a writer since he like books or whatever so thats what John died for the truly tragic thing about Rdr is that Jack became an orphan. I feel like if Abigail lived Jack would’ve lead a different life but since he lost everything he loved he became just like his father an angry orphan who becomes a outlaw but unlike John, Jack didnt have an Arthur to look after him. I swear if we ever get a RDR3 we need to explore what happened in Jacks life after the Federal Raid on his home, where did him and Abigail go? Why did become an outlaw anyway when he never was a very tough kid? I would love answers to this and then picking up to Jack killing Ross and what happened after i guess
Holy hell I’m sorry but you lost me when you said you didn’t know Johns plan going to fort Mercer. I’ve played this game back to front many many times, I find this story to be one of the best in gaming history, and your analysis of it is great but I had to stop there: John believes he will never see his family again, that he will never acclimate to the civilized world, he knows deep down he will be used and abused by the bureau until he gets killed somewhere. This move is a gamble. John’s last friend he knows, the last man that may be able to fight back against the system that Javier, Dutch, John and Bill had all fought against. When Bill denied John’s plea, John attempts a last ditch draw on his old companion. It’s mostly a suicide attempt and how you didn’t tie that back into there being no glory in the old west confused me pretty badly. I like the video still, this was very well made. Hope to see some great content in the future
This is amazing analysis! Yeah I think the suicide attempt went a little of my head, however I would still argue while it may be suicide attempt, no matter what it wasn't the smartest. John dying won't solve any of the problems. Him dead still leaves Dutch alive, and since Abigail is their last resource I wouldn't be surprised if they went to her next. (Ross says this in the game, but you could make the argument it was a scare tactic. But say he did start working will Bill, his family is pretty much dead at that point. However I think you have convinced me it was a moment of weakness for John. He was at a low and just wanted an out. Once Bonnie brought him back he may of realized it was such. Again amazing Analysis!
Seth was super interesting. Especially as it's revealed he lost everything due to a lost for gold. Bonnie is the other side of the coin to John and illustrates just because your a good person in the Wild West you aren't guaranteed a happy ending.
I think all of the New Austin characters had an interesting aspect to their characters or backstory. I just wish they were all like Bonnie and Marshall Leigh Johnson and were more developed.
Subscribing, that's a really well done video, hope you do more! Still, just saying, the spaghetti western like the dollar trilogy really were going in the same vibe as RDR, depicting that life as cruel, people as greedy and stuff like that. It's more of the american western a la John Wayne that had this idealized far west, with clean and nice sheriffs that saves everyone and yadda yadda. Still a great video
No, you're 100% right! I agree completely about the Dollar Trilogy being a more brutal representation of the west then John Wayne movies. Only reason I showed them alot was because that's what I think when most people start thinking of "Westerns" and "Badass Clint Eastwood Cowboy" they think of those movies Thank you for watching! I really appreciate what you said :)
RDR1 is neither a classic or spaghetti western imo. It satirizes and deconstructs the different western genres in each act of its story; 1st act a satire on classic western, 2nd act satirizes Spaghetti Westerns while the 3rd act is the least satirical because it most represents what the game actually is; a revisionist western. And the technical 4th chapter on Beecher's Hope is a more optimistic, psychological western imo.
I watched a video elsewhere talking about the three different interpretations of civilization: The community, the movement, or the tribe. According to the video, community is united by a common goal. A movement is united by a common cause, and a tribe is united by a common enemy. Leaving aside the overtly racist overtones of the term "tribalism," the social dynamics described by the term seem to outline the core problems of civilization. No matter how a group identifies itself, whether it be a nation, a religion or creed, a family, etc, it's all too easy for that group to identify itself though its common enemy rather than its common goal, or common cause. And once that enemy becomes the tie that binds the group together, that group becomes authoritarian. A strong stance against the enemy becomes the highest goal, and disloyalty becomes the greatest sin. Leaders are chosen based entirely on resolve against the enemy rather than concern for the people. Any demand for accountability in leadership is considered disloyal to the group, which makes one an enemy. Soon, the lives of individual citizens stop mattering. Only the group matters, and the group is represented exclusively by the leader, and their resolve, above all else. This seems extreme, but I see it bear out again and again in all walks of life, from religious groups to political stances to fandoms. Red Dead Redemption plays this out on both sides, with Dutch wanting to be the unquestioned leader of his gang, while the railroad barons of America become the unquestioning authorities of the west. Neither is interested in accountability. Both unite their groups using the other as their enemy. They are not true communities, nor social movements. They are both tribes. The terrible secret embedded in the human psyche is that we can all be hacked via the trick of the common enemy. Once that's established, we give up our own personal freedoms for the sake of the group. And a tribe, but that definition of the term, doesn't serve the group. It only serves the leader. The leader is the only member who can't be sacrificed for the sake of the whole. So inevitably, the leaders of these groups never have any loyalty to the group. They're just the most effective at gathering the group together against the common enemy, whether that enemy be the outlaws, or the law itself, or just people who worship a different god, or the same god, but differently. RDR1 and 2 both do an incredible job exploring this. But I think it's important to remember that this isn't the inevitable fate of humanity, as the games seem to suggest. We're not doomed to killing or being killed, to swearing loyalty to a leader that doesn't care about our lives, or being painted as the enemy. There are other forces in civilization that stand against that mindset. We just have to recognize those forces and put our energy into them. The only true enemy in civilization is the instinct to find a common enemy that unites us.
I would argue that the spaghetti western genre wasn't really romanticising the old west either. The spaghetti western genre started with the dollars films, and Sergio Leone has always been very upfront that those films were meant as a critique of the classic westerns, which were generally very romanticised and usually had unambiguously good, honorable heroes who took down bad guys. That's why, not only are the dollars films much more gritty, but the man with no name protagonist is intentionally morally flawed. He's manipulative, backstabbing, ruthless, self serving and motivated almost entirely by greed (every film his ultimate goal is to get some kind of financial reward). He's only a hero in the sense that he's better than the people he kills, but that's not a high bar. That's not a criticism of the dollars films btw, I love them, and the lack of romanticisation and morally flawed protagonists are a big part of why I think they're so brillant
For me personally, I enjoyed the first section of the game (before Mexico), and felt the Mexico section of the game was such a drag. It was still fun, but I just felt I was doing errands after errands after errands, that section could've been shorter.
No one liked Edgar Ross, so I can see his murder being ignored as one of the many men he crossed. I'd like to think Jack turned around and became the writer he wanted to be. Dying of old age in the 1960-80s
Most westerns are about very flawed men. Rooster Cogburn, Shane, the Outlaw Josie Whales, Young guns, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance kid, The Wild bunch. Just to name a few. And the Nameless Man was more of an antihero.
It would have been cool if Javier and Bill escaped to dutch in the end and in Mexico when John found out what happened he would just turn around and punch somebody
Your analysis of RDR is like none I have ever seen, you point out exactly what it conveys with no vagueness. I feel sorry that you did not enjoy the first part of the game, the side content like the mission-chain ''Deadalus And Son'', ''Eva in Peril'' and many others deepen the themes that you explained in the video. Of course one of the most important if the ''I Know You'' mission-chain which tests the player and John's morality. One thing I would like to ask, what did Dutch mean exactly ''they need to justify their wages''. Form what you said in the video, civilization needs wars and criminal activity to happen in order to have the common people believe in it and support it.
Thanks, man, I appreciate it :) To me when Dutch says "They need to justify their wages" it's him describing basically the military-industrial complex. It's important to note while taking on Dutch we are on an armored car. The government needs to give a reason for that to exist, so they hunt down who they need to, starting with Dutch, then John. The game also takes place only 4 years before World War I, which is notorious for that type of mindset.
Should Play Maxpayne 3 the Gunplay is some of the best I have played in game Rockstar really perfected their Gunplay with that game. RDR1 is still Great in terms of how enemies react to getting shot makes each kill feel great. The story of RDR1 and 2 are amazing they really show how everyone has the own sense of what right and Wrong are. The Open Worlds in both games really set a high bar when they game out with how alive and detailed they were.
Okay
The most depressing part is that both Micah and Ross never really paid for their crimes, they just got killed years after an ending where they already won
Yeah for sure, both of them died in ways that really achieved nothing. John killing Micah only led to his downfall, most likely Jack killing Ross won't be much different.
Man I love Red Dead, really good story and themes
I feel like this especially applies to Agent Ross.
He outlived his superior during his time in the Pinkertons and witnessed the down fall of the Van Der Linde gang. By the time Jack confronted him, he was already a retired, old man who was enjoying the sunset years of his life. Though he both lost the duel, he won in the end.
These are great examples of how the old west is explored in both RDR games, showing how revenge and violence never ends in this world and that it brings nothing but doom for the "winners". It always made me think that both Arthur and John never got redemption for their acts, only ending influencing Jack to follow the same path, and so making the non sense violence cycle go on, in the west.
*Just watched the rest of the video and ClassicAsh said the same thing '_'
@@classicash2442 man when i first played red dead redemption last year, it somehow felt so nostalgic although i never played it as a kid.
Arthur didn’t lose he got the last hit on Micah While half dead and he also earned redemption, micah also needed to be saved by Dutch
Your last point on the Wild West being a time of relative anarchy and people just shooting each other, void of any noble or honorable motivation, really resonates with me. My great great grandmother was born in Tombstone, Arizona, was alive during the OK Corral shootout, and personally knew Wyatt Earp. Apparently, when she was an old woman in the 1960’s, she’d watch the western TV drama based on Wyatt Earp and would get angry at the romantic way he was written and then yell at the tv that “Wyatt was just some chump that liked to shoot people!”😂
lmaoo when he made that point i immediately thought abt tombstone ig my suspicion is confirmed
Lol he was.
Man, riding into Mexico is really one of my all time best gaming memories. That shift was monumental
For real, it's in my top 5 Rockstar moments for sure!
for sure, from the song that plays with that one acoustic guitar, to the subtle change in scenery, it was amazing.
Does anyone know the song he was playing at 14:53
When you just got off of the driftwood with Irish and you hear Far Away as John is roaming across Mexico searching for Javier and Bill
Mexiicccmmmoooo should be in rdr 2too dud man
I was so young when I played rdr1. I totally forgot how long and drawn out it was in the beginning. All I remember was how mesmerizing it was traveling to Mexico.
The tone shift is spectacular, really glad Mexico picked up alot of the slack New Austin had.
Honestly the same dude. I was too young to fully understand the story of this game and now I'm older it's hard to believe that a game where the second you step into like the woodland part of the map you get instantly mauled by 2 bears (literally all I remember from my time playing the game) was so damn deep with ideals and such.
Seeing Escalero for the first time at night all lit up was awesome.
RDR1 is the reason I grew to love western genre especially (neo-westerns) and cowboy culture making me realize that we’re all hues of grey that should strive to do good. Fantastic video!!!
It is really good, I love the themes of it so much :)
Thank you! I'm glad you enjoyed the video :)
I think Bonnie is here to show that John Marston is a loyal husband to abigail. As it’s shown in later cutscenes, Bonnie is interested in John, and he probably likes her too, but he already married Abigail and he is trying to be the best for his family (not like Reyes)
For what it's worth, the Clint Eastwood Spaghetti westerns are remarkably cynical, too, and were controversial when they first came out. Eastwood's character is an antihero.
High Plains Drifter and The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly are prime examples of this
Holy hell, I never put 2 and 2 together about Dutch and Jack's dialogues in the end. Dutch, a man set in his ways and jaded with the world, tells John that men like him can't change. He can't fight gravity.
Jack, young and hopeful for the future, talks with wonder about a machine to make men fly.
To fight gravity.
Really glad to have this stumble across my recommendations, I've been replaying through Red Dead 2 recently (so far up to Chapter 4) and this makes me all nostalgic for the original RDR and the story it conveyed all those years ago. Would love to see an RDR2 analysis from you, this was a really wonderful video!
Thank you so much! Really means alot :)
"You know, I dreamt of documenting the last days of the Old West. The romance, the honor, the nobility! But it turns out it's just people killing each other."
"I could've told you that."
I’m a huge fan of the RDR franchise and all I can say is that this video is perfect. The perfect review to a perfect game! And it’s especially great since no one ever came close to this type of video! Great job!
Hahaha, thank you I'm really glad you enjoyed it :)
This video is very enjoyable, I hope it gets the views it deserves
Thank you! Means alot :)
Here's hopin it gains some traction!
I always forget that the first game takes place right before the entirety of Europe was plunged into war. It's crazy to think that what Dutch said about a new monster was true. World War I had the horrors of trench warfare, as well as atrocities like the Armenian Genocide. Years later, Hitler rises to power in 1934, signaling the era of another monster who did so much harm to humanity as a whole with his atrocities and the war he started
I got into the western genre from red dead redemption 1 and now it is easily my favorite genre oat and use it as inspiration for all of my film projects to this day. (btw this is a amazing video only 1k views and 100 subs is criminal keep up the amazing work)
I'm from Arizona and I absolutely love the Old West, a very fun genre to play around with and overall one of my favorites :)
Thank you! I'm really glad you enjoyed the video!
I'm honestly not a fan of the western genre. Never been.
However RDR and RDR2 are such absolutely amazing games that I found myself spending hours upon hours just riding around, doing absolutely nothing. To this day, RDR is one of my comfort games and while I can't play it (for the lack of owning a PS3), I still love it.
You may actual like westerns then. Plenty of westerns 1970s on just like rdr. Shit the shootest out law Josey Wales and Jeremiah Johnson and unforgiving are all more or less cut out and put into both games.
This was one of the best game videos i've ever watched. You are extremely underrated
The RDR is my favourite game of all time the story is great and the characters are great thats all i have to say
Just finished rdr1 a week ago and its beautiful. Such a well executed story and its a shame that we wont get a remake. Your video is very good too
It is really good, and it's a grandshame it won't get a remake just a waste.
I'm glad you enjoyed the video :)
if only rdr2 updated more to continue epilouge
@@Dusted_Glitch How would that work? Remaking RDR1 would have to be its own game with an entire new story, region and side content, how it could just be added as an update to RDR2
@@themadtitan7603 im saying piece by piece and pls no controversy
@@Dusted_Glitch I'm not trying to argue or cause controversy, I'm genuinely asking.
Fantastic analysis. First act of Red Dead was a slog lol Really caught me off guard when I played it, but like you said the themes of Red Dead truly make this game special.
Takes a bit but once you get to real meat you know its special.
The first act suffers from pacing issues and non-nuanced cast of side characters where the satire on paper makes sense but is just who all these characters are. If a lot of the nuance was present from the beginning and the missions weren't just prelude to the big action, it would've been a lot better.
Yet the second game the epilogue suffers from it. 8 hours of john was boring and unnecessary. At Least the first game its world building
I've watched this video like 4 times and I have no idea why it doesn't have millions of views. Keep it up dude
Haha! Thank you so much, i'm really glad you enjoy it :)
Don't agree with everything you said, but the overall message I totally agree with. And this was an extremely good video, which is something I don't say lightly. Feelt more like 15min then almot half an hour. Kept my attention all the way through.
Thank you so much! I'm really glad you enjoyed it and glad it felt shorter then it was!
Same. I agree with the core thesis of Redemption as a satire of America's idealism of the West and his point about the 1-dimensional early story characters. However, several of his critiques on the 1st act I thought were him missing the point of the story.
This was really solid. I thoroughly enjoyed it 😄
:))))))
John's death hurts to watch every time. It feels worse than Authur's.
well the amount of torture arthurs body had been through as well as the fight with micah and the headshot to arthurs head rivals in johns death physically but the reasoning to me is stronger for john's death
@@godzillazfriction you had the bad ending,in thr good ending Arthur died peacefully of TB
@@Dragoncam13 well low honor to high honor certainly works for the story... i did this exact thing for my 1st playthrough but after I did a whole low honor playthrough, certain scenes and the last ride to the gangs hideout work so well for the low honor version that majority of high honor players agree that the low honor last ride version is the best because of the tone, scenery and quotes plus with playing low honor and still helping rains fall is so fucking good because you really need to try and maintain a balance for you not to go overboard with high honor and to maintain that, you'd kill bounty hunters (including the dogs because I feel like arthur wouldn't give a shit about killing dogs after his own died especially since he has voicelines for killing dogs as well as horses) and bystanders who threaten you for whatever the reasons is.... Arthur can still achieve redemption by doing these things that I mentioned to maintain low honor.... look at kratos or dante from the divine comedy game adaptation.... both kratos and dante are sick bastards who achieve redemption (at least for dante in the end since kratos' is a bit too complicated for kratos achieving redemption in his younger ghost of sparta days) but the methods that they use are still morally grey with dante in admist of his redemption r3pes cleopatra as the final killing blow because shes a sex demon now this isn't to say that arthur could r3pe someone in his path for redemption because no that's not possible but the concept of doing fucked up things like with arthur killing a bounty hunter dog, killing horses and killing bystanders can still bring redemption to arthur at that stage of his life.... its the same thing with Altair from AC1 where his whole mission in that game is to redeem himself through killing 9 templar targets because he was a bad person at the start of the game yet altair still kills ppl ruthlessly after he interrogates someone whos involved with a templar that he's hunting even though he could be innocent yet altair still kills him because he doesn't want to leave loose ends yet he's on a path to redemption through killing 9 templars
@@Dragoncam13 rockstar definitely makes some of the best depictions of how humanity works and they perfected it in manhunt and when i see someone glorifying arthur as a good person and how ppl felt like a close friend just died... it rubs me the wrong way because arthur isn't supposed to be like that and certainly rockstar didn't entirely intend to do that for arthur especially with how rockstar introduced him in the 2nd trailer of RDR2 where that trailer is supposed to be the introduction of Arthur Morgan
@@Dragoncam13 plus I don't understand why ppl don't get that the honor system isn't like a morality system from something like inFAMOUS but its simply made for how honorable arthur is and not how good or bad he is.... Arthur is still a bad person with whatever his honor level is
this is an excellently edited and commentated video about one of my favourite games, good work man
Thank you! I'm glad you enjoyed it!
Damn, this is such a well-made and interesting video! Your mic is really good, too! I hope the algorithm picks this up big. 😀👍
Thank you so much! Means alot, I'm really glad you enjoyed it :)
Here's hoping! Would be a dream if it goes far!
Im glad that you paid attention to the finer philosophical details, its hard to tell if the writers really thought as deeply as you interpreted it all, but then again the whole world is built on analogies and people just need to sketch an outline for others to fill in the details in their own fashion. I had watched other videos about it before but i think this is the best one i have seen yet on Red dead 1. I havent enjoyed any video this much in months. Thank you a lot.
Thank you! That really means alot. I feel like too many Video Essay people just kinda list what happens, not really going into detail on what the game means or what it tries to say.
If you ain't got nothin to say, why say it is the philosophy for the videos :)
I came to a similar idea of what this video is saying. I think many can interpret what it's trying to do, but at the same time, I feel like everyone can see this game in a different light. I feel like the cynical look of this game could also be seen as one of hope as you also do have the option to play as Jack with him helping more people in the stranger missions. It's a factor of just how much people want to invest in the themes of history as well as the western genre and or the real-life basis of the American frontier.
@@classicash2442 I like your video man but I will tell you that others have come to many of the conclusions you list off in this.
I expected this video to be from a 20k+ subs channel, it’s so well made! You deserve more subs man
Thank you! Here's hoping I get there one day :)
Watched this video and was genuinely surprised your channel doesnt have more subscribers, you def deserve more
Haha, thank you! I'm really glad you think so :)
Absolutely loved this video, love how you can pace out a near 30 minute video and make it entertaining all through out.
Haha! Thank you I was worried it was a tad too long but I'm glad it felt shorter :)
I love how Red Dead Redemption is about showcasing the darkness of the west while still indulging in its badass style, it's one of those games that shows you it's horror.
A little thing I did in John's final deadeye was to not shoot anyone. I recommend doing this.
I will say though I think the Clint Eastwood westerns were not trying to be "cool" in a full-on fashion as much as they were trying to be calmer and collected which I feel showcases the world of the American Frontier better than most.
Really good video! With the amount of essays made about this game, yours stood out and was really interesting to watch and listen to.
Thank you! That really means alot :)
Brilliant analysis! I thoroughly enjoyed it. Keep up the great work!
Thank you! I'm really glad you enjoyed it :)
Hey, you there reading the comments. don't worry, whatever makes you be you is not set in stone, who you are doesn't control your choices, the choices you make define who you are.
It is possible to change, because it is possible to choose.
wow, just wow. an absolutely incredible analysis of this game's themes and characters. just an amazingly engaging watch start to finish. I know you said this game is by no means a masterpiece, but... man I really want to call it one because it speaks to me in way that only a hand full of other games have (Shadow of the Colossus, Kingdom Hearts 2 and MGS 3 to name them). absolutely stellar work mate
Thank you so much! Really means alot :)
Masterpiece is a really interesting word, I don't think any game is a true perfect "Masterpiece" but I do think any game can be a masterpiece in a certain type of way, such as the games you said
No way you have 135 subscibers, from the quality of the video i thought you would have atleast 10k, you earned my sub friend good luck with the algorithm
Haha, thanks! Everything you said means alot :)
Thank you for this video. It’s one of my favorite videos on RUclips and I’ve come back to watch it several times even thought I have never even plated rdr. I got into it because I fell in love with rdr2 and I’d love to see a video about that.
Thank you for the super kind words, those really mean a lot :)
Hopefully I'll get back to making videos soon, been dealing with some personal stuff but I'm getting there!
These video essays are fantastic man keep it up, this is awesome many successes to ur channel !!!
Thank you! I'm glad you enjoy them :)
Best game I ever played. Single Player and Online. Great times they were... 😔🙏
RDR1 Multiplayer > RDR2 Online
@@mrmoviemanic1 It was simple and fun to play with other people back then.
Although Ive Never Played RDR1, After I Completed RDR2 I Got Intrigued By The Messages Behind Everything And Wanted To Look Deeper In. Great Video Man I Enjoyed The Overview On Everything
I know you say the new Austin chapter is the hardest to get through but I always notice that once I get to the ending or even once we run into west dickens again on black water I always find myself longing for the new austin days and dreading what's ahead. The tall trees chapter is definitely the darkest and most cynical part of the game and so I always find myself wanting to go back to the wacky light hearted vibe the new Austin missions had.
the greed, the brutality, that was the west. great video. subscribed
The algorithm gods have blessed me
Haha! I'm glad you think so :)
I just love the idea of how you deconstruct this romantic view that we have of the wild west. I am european, portuguese to be precise and I just love everything about western culture, specifically in the United States, I am a consumer of almost everything American, from entertainment to food, etc, not that I don't respect other cultures because I do but I just love the history of America.
But this video is an educational one, we tend to look to the past in a romantic way but the reality is much much different, I love red dead redemption 1 and 2 but the reality of the wild west was not some fancy cowboys with their revolver shooting the bad guys and saving the day, the reality is that the wild west was brutal, dirty and full of disease
Fantastic video 👍
That's literally the reality of anywhere at any time in antiquity, though. I feel the real reason so many sources feel compelled to "deconstruct" the admiration for the Old West is because it represents a time when the pioneering spirit of Americans still remained, and was full of communities without the presence of government or central planning. This is equated with it being "uncivilized", but it actually forced the civil servants to be present and accountable to the people they served. They actually did feature the "community policing" that gets proposed these days, in that if you committed a crime, a posse would be organized to hunt you down and bring you in to face justice. You can argue with the methods that these communities employed to function, but while it was definitely not the romantic society of a John Wayne movie, the Old West was also far from the anarchic free-for-all it's shown as in "deconstructions".
Red Dead 1 re-defined and opened up the portrayal of the Wild West better than any movie could. A lot of people think it was like every Eastwood/John Wayne movie but it was too dark for them
Really good Red Dead analysis! Though if I'm being honest, I cringed whenever the essayist talked about the "glorious American cowboy hero" over footage of The Man With No Name (a morally dubious anti-hero from an Italian film franchise). I think comparisons to a classic era cowboy, like the star personas of John Wayne and/or Gary Cooper, would've been more in-line with this video's thesis.
That's a minor film history nitpick though. Everything else is deeply insightful stuff about the game and the characters. Nice!
Nah I 100% agree with you about the man with no name! Only reason I really use that footage is because its the most well known Western so easy to relate to a broader audience, I think people see Clint Eastwood and go "Wow! Badass American Cowboy!"
Thank you for all you said, it really means alot :)
Agreed. RDR1 (specifically the 1st act in New Austin) is a deconstruction and satirization of the classic western of the 40s and 50s with the idea of the swaggering, noble lone ranger like John Wayne who comes to an untamed region and helps the people there - quickly becoming a local hero. While A Man With No Name is closer to who John actually is; a quiet morally grey individual who mainly follows his own agenda.
Although still, John is much more morally discernible and romantic character at heart. His goal is inherently noble but it contrasts with his actions to achieve it which are very morally flexible.
how is it that your videos are such high quality, you have a smooth voice, and you make good content, but you dont have hundreds of thousands of subscribers? keep it up man, you earned a new subscription :)
Haha, thank you that all really means alot :)
Hopefully I get there one day!
@@classicash2442 i bet you will, be well!!
Thank you for this! RD1 is probably my fav game of all time and this video is spectacular on it.
Thank you! Means alot :)
thought i was watching a video from a channel with over 100k subs until i looked at ur sub count damn bro keep it up
Haha! Thank you the really means alot :)
Holy shit the windows 3d movie maker ending!
Excellent vid on a stellar game.
You know it :)
Thank you, that means alot!
RUclips nailed it with this recommendation, I enjoyed this video very much.
I'm glad you watched and enjoyed it :)
Seeing a new red dead redemption video always makes my day, and this is a great one 😎👌
I like this re-romanticism of the old west, no longer looked upon as a bountiful time of good and evil battles on the frontier, but a time of great strife and hardship that this country went through. Something tough and lasting, but not necessarily good.
Definitely loved your narrative of the game as well as your perspective of the past.
Keep up the journey Ash XoXo❤️🙏🤠
Only 1000 this is outrageous for how good of a video it is
Haha! Thanks, i'm glad you think so :)
sheesh i got shivers hearing thoses rdr 1 themes again. nice vid !!! keep working like that
Thank you! I'm really glad you enjoyed it :)
while the dollar trilogy has its moments of cool shootouts, it does not romanticize cowboys but in fact the very opposite of it
I’m glad you pointed out that every early game character is just satire, like that fact annoyed me so hard about this game, makes me not care about the story overall when every character around me is just awful.
Yeah for real, the first act the game was a real slow burn for me, and is the hardest part to get through.
I agree to disagree. RDR1 is fundamentally a cynical satire unlike it's more sincere, optimistic prequel and its 1st act is satirizing classic westerns where the protagonist is often surrounded by 1-dimensional caricatures of fools, degenerates and crazies. So in that regard, it works imo.
However, where it fails as opposed to the rest of the story is how the satire is handled - rather than use it as to highlight a deeper nuisance about the characters like Reyes, DeSanta, Ross and Dutch in the Mexico and West Elizabeth chapters, it has the characters all devolve to just the satire.
@@themadtitan7603 Um the end is definitely tonally different from the start and the satire is definitely done a bit more smartly. But maybe i just stupid
@@crazychase98 That's...what I said. Which is that the satire in the first act falters because it isn't used as simply a front to explore deeper themes or the characters in-depth, but just to present a cast of wacky and funny characters to surround the players with.
00:16 Not trying to be nitpicky but actually Clint Eastwood's movies are kinda more similar to the story of RDR series rather than the glorified wild west stories since Eastwood mostly starred in Spaghetti Westerns where the protagonist is a morally grey character who is trying to survive in a world without any morals. In fact, Unforgiven(which is directed also by Eastwood) has a similar premise with RDR1 that it is a story about an outlaw who tried to run away from his past being dragged back in the world of violence. I'd say movies starring John Wayne from the 1940s are closer to a glorified western story rather than an Eastwood movie. Other than great video. Loved it
When I first play RDR1 many years ago. I always wondered how Dutch knew John Marston.
There ain't no glory in killing folks just gives you mental scars that'll always haunt you
John getting killed was one of the most heartbreaking scenes in a game
....second only to Arthur's death in RDR2
RDR is the greatest game of its generation
The gritty, dull, unforgiving, honest setting is a perfect representation of John as a character.
This to me is perfect storytelling and the main protagonist is perfect for the overall setting of the game.
The nostalgia I have for this game is unbelievable. I love it. But that nostalgia doesn’t make me over exaggerate how good this game is.
This game is one of the greatest games of all time.
There’s some things it did better than RDR2 in my opinion.
Obviously overall RDR2 is the “better” game
But RDR1 is so beautifully personal
This is why I can't decide which movie is closer to RDR. The Good the Bad and the Ugly or Unforgiven.
John’s plan at the start was to die. From his perspective, he has to do the bidding of the government to kill his old friends. While their betrayal makes it easier, it’s still not a simple task for John. He may have thought that he had nothing to live for and that if he died, Ross would let his family go.
It’s a nice nod to his death later. Fate intervened because John had work still to do in the world.
You know, it’s even worse they didn’t even choose to repent of their sins
If they ever do get around to making a Red Dead Redemption 1 remake I think there needs to be a scene during the Farm chapter where John takes Jack and sit him down and explain to him everything that happened while he was away therefore giving jack closure on all of his questions and assuring him that everything John did was real and all for him
HOW DO YO HAVE ONLY 432 SUBS THIS VIDEO IS INCREDIBLE
The most interesting thing in Rdr is the theme of redemption. John’s redemption was the future he hoped his son would create becoming a writer since he like books or whatever so thats what John died for the truly tragic thing about Rdr is that Jack became an orphan. I feel like if Abigail lived
Jack would’ve lead a different life but since he lost everything he loved he became just like his father an angry orphan who becomes a outlaw but unlike John, Jack didnt have an Arthur to look after him. I swear if we ever get a RDR3 we need to explore what happened in Jacks life after the Federal Raid on his home, where did him and Abigail go? Why did become an outlaw anyway when he never was a very tough kid? I would love answers to this and then picking up to Jack killing Ross and what happened after i guess
Holy hell I’m sorry but you lost me when you said you didn’t know Johns plan going to fort Mercer. I’ve played this game back to front many many times, I find this story to be one of the best in gaming history, and your analysis of it is great but I had to stop there:
John believes he will never see his family again, that he will never acclimate to the civilized world, he knows deep down he will be used and abused by the bureau until he gets killed somewhere.
This move is a gamble. John’s last friend he knows, the last man that may be able to fight back against the system that Javier, Dutch, John and Bill had all fought against.
When Bill denied John’s plea, John attempts a last ditch draw on his old companion. It’s mostly a suicide attempt and how you didn’t tie that back into there being no glory in the old west confused me pretty badly.
I like the video still, this was very well made. Hope to see some great content in the future
This is amazing analysis! Yeah I think the suicide attempt went a little of my head, however I would still argue while it may be suicide attempt, no matter what it wasn't the smartest.
John dying won't solve any of the problems. Him dead still leaves Dutch alive, and since Abigail is their last resource I wouldn't be surprised if they went to her next. (Ross says this in the game, but you could make the argument it was a scare tactic. But say he did start working will Bill, his family is pretty much dead at that point.
However I think you have convinced me it was a moment of weakness for John. He was at a low and just wanted an out. Once Bonnie brought him back he may of realized it was such.
Again amazing Analysis!
A wise man once said: " Revenge, Revenge is a fools game"
Seth was super interesting. Especially as it's revealed he lost everything due to a lost for gold.
Bonnie is the other side of the coin to John and illustrates just because your a good person in the Wild West you aren't guaranteed a happy ending.
I think all of the New Austin characters had an interesting aspect to their characters or backstory. I just wish they were all like Bonnie and Marshall Leigh Johnson and were more developed.
"CEO of cocaine?!" i'm dead
Subscribing, that's a really well done video, hope you do more! Still, just saying, the spaghetti western like the dollar trilogy really were going in the same vibe as RDR, depicting that life as cruel, people as greedy and stuff like that. It's more of the american western a la John Wayne that had this idealized far west, with clean and nice sheriffs that saves everyone and yadda yadda. Still a great video
No, you're 100% right! I agree completely about the Dollar Trilogy being a more brutal representation of the west then John Wayne movies. Only reason I showed them alot was because that's what I think when most people start thinking of "Westerns" and "Badass Clint Eastwood Cowboy" they think of those movies
Thank you for watching! I really appreciate what you said :)
RDR1 is neither a classic or spaghetti western imo. It satirizes and deconstructs the different western genres in each act of its story; 1st act a satire on classic western, 2nd act satirizes Spaghetti Westerns while the 3rd act is the least satirical because it most represents what the game actually is; a revisionist western. And the technical 4th chapter on Beecher's Hope is a more optimistic, psychological western imo.
I think I have rockstar satire disease and I don’t think there’s a cure
I know you do, but we don't judge you for it :)
You’re so considerate 🤪👎🥰
I watched a video elsewhere talking about the three different interpretations of civilization: The community, the movement, or the tribe. According to the video, community is united by a common goal. A movement is united by a common cause, and a tribe is united by a common enemy. Leaving aside the overtly racist overtones of the term "tribalism," the social dynamics described by the term seem to outline the core problems of civilization. No matter how a group identifies itself, whether it be a nation, a religion or creed, a family, etc, it's all too easy for that group to identify itself though its common enemy rather than its common goal, or common cause. And once that enemy becomes the tie that binds the group together, that group becomes authoritarian. A strong stance against the enemy becomes the highest goal, and disloyalty becomes the greatest sin. Leaders are chosen based entirely on resolve against the enemy rather than concern for the people. Any demand for accountability in leadership is considered disloyal to the group, which makes one an enemy. Soon, the lives of individual citizens stop mattering. Only the group matters, and the group is represented exclusively by the leader, and their resolve, above all else.
This seems extreme, but I see it bear out again and again in all walks of life, from religious groups to political stances to fandoms. Red Dead Redemption plays this out on both sides, with Dutch wanting to be the unquestioned leader of his gang, while the railroad barons of America become the unquestioning authorities of the west. Neither is interested in accountability. Both unite their groups using the other as their enemy. They are not true communities, nor social movements. They are both tribes. The terrible secret embedded in the human psyche is that we can all be hacked via the trick of the common enemy. Once that's established, we give up our own personal freedoms for the sake of the group. And a tribe, but that definition of the term, doesn't serve the group. It only serves the leader. The leader is the only member who can't be sacrificed for the sake of the whole. So inevitably, the leaders of these groups never have any loyalty to the group. They're just the most effective at gathering the group together against the common enemy, whether that enemy be the outlaws, or the law itself, or just people who worship a different god, or the same god, but differently.
RDR1 and 2 both do an incredible job exploring this. But I think it's important to remember that this isn't the inevitable fate of humanity, as the games seem to suggest. We're not doomed to killing or being killed, to swearing loyalty to a leader that doesn't care about our lives, or being painted as the enemy. There are other forces in civilization that stand against that mindset. We just have to recognize those forces and put our energy into them. The only true enemy in civilization is the instinct to find a common enemy that unites us.
You know what ClassicAsh, i'll say this ones actually good. RDR is one of my all time best games. No more DnD though? I won then.
I've gained your approval, but at what cost.....
@@classicash2442 A poor mans DnD guide with better ones on this service.
15:07 wtf is wrong with John's eyes hahaha
This is a fantastic video. Great work.
Thank you! Means alot :P
I would argue that the spaghetti western genre wasn't really romanticising the old west either. The spaghetti western genre started with the dollars films, and Sergio Leone has always been very upfront that those films were meant as a critique of the classic westerns, which were generally very romanticised and usually had unambiguously good, honorable heroes who took down bad guys. That's why, not only are the dollars films much more gritty, but the man with no name protagonist is intentionally morally flawed. He's manipulative, backstabbing, ruthless, self serving and motivated almost entirely by greed (every film his ultimate goal is to get some kind of financial reward). He's only a hero in the sense that he's better than the people he kills, but that's not a high bar. That's not a criticism of the dollars films btw, I love them, and the lack of romanticisation and morally flawed protagonists are a big part of why I think they're so brillant
For me personally, I enjoyed the first section of the game (before Mexico), and felt the Mexico section of the game was such a drag. It was still fun, but I just felt I was doing errands after errands after errands, that section could've been shorter.
i just noticed that Reyes has the same mustache as Lenin
Such a great video. Very well done
Thank you! Means alot :)
I wouldn't say it is for certain that Jack became an outlaw.
Great video, just found ur channel seems cool I’ll subscribe, keep up the great videos you’ll find big success soon
Thank you! I'm glad you think so, and I really appreciate what you said :)
Red dead 1 is a masterpiece in my eyes 🥹
No one liked Edgar Ross, so I can see his murder being ignored as one of the many men he crossed. I'd like to think Jack turned around and became the writer he wanted to be. Dying of old age in the 1960-80s
Most westerns are about very flawed men. Rooster Cogburn, Shane, the Outlaw Josie Whales, Young guns, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance kid, The Wild bunch. Just to name a few. And the Nameless Man was more of an antihero.
Great video. Bonus points for the Hamilton reference lol
Thank you! Yeah I thought the Hamilton reference would get some laughs :)
It would have been cool if Javier and Bill escaped to dutch in the end and in Mexico when John found out what happened he would just turn around and punch somebody
10/10 banger video, really makes me wanna play RDR1 again
This video wouldn't be nearly as good without the cowboy accent bits.
This video amazing ( you need more subscribers)
Haha! Thanks im glad you think so :)
this is really well done, loved the vid
Your analysis of RDR is like none I have ever seen, you point out exactly what it conveys with no vagueness. I feel sorry that you did not enjoy the first part of the game, the side content like the mission-chain ''Deadalus And Son'', ''Eva in Peril'' and many others deepen the themes that you explained in the video. Of course one of the most important if the ''I Know You'' mission-chain which tests the player and John's morality.
One thing I would like to ask, what did Dutch mean exactly ''they need to justify their wages''. Form what you said in the video, civilization needs wars and criminal activity to happen in order to have the common people believe in it and support it.
Thanks, man, I appreciate it :)
To me when Dutch says "They need to justify their wages" it's him describing basically the military-industrial complex. It's important to note while taking on Dutch we are on an armored car. The government needs to give a reason for that to exist, so they hunt down who they need to, starting with Dutch, then John. The game also takes place only 4 years before World War I, which is notorious for that type of mindset.
@@classicash2442 You say that the government needs a reason for the armored car to exist, what is that reason?
great video
Thank you! I'm really glad you enjoyed it:)
Anybody know the name of the song that starts at around 0:33 ? Great vid!
I am keenly interested in Uganda's first Blu-Ray.
Should Play Maxpayne 3 the Gunplay is some of the best I have played in game Rockstar really perfected their Gunplay with that game. RDR1 is still Great in terms of how enemies react to getting shot makes each kill feel great. The story of RDR1 and 2 are amazing they really show how everyone has the own sense of what right and Wrong are. The Open Worlds in both games really set a high bar when they game out with how alive and detailed they were.
2:05
I like da Mark Twain :)
Me too my friend, me too :)