How Arthur Morgan & John Marston Are Different
Rockstar’s duology of games that showcase the last days of the Old West have largely received praise for their storytelling and characterization, including the development of the playable protagonists — the main protagonist of Red Dead Redemption 2, Arthur Morgan, and the hero of the first Red Dead Redemption, John Marston, have a great deal in common, but players who have completed both titles can distinguish the two. Though the two men have shared experiences and similar skillsets, Arthur is a less hopeful figure, given that he left his one true love (Mary Gillis) behind to continue his life as an outlaw alongside Dutch Van Der Linde. John, conversely, married former prostitute Abigail Roberts and survived the collapse of the Van Der Linde gang to live as a family man. John connected to Dutch largely based on ideals, where Arthur's connection was purely to Dutch as a father figure. Arthur had less autonomy and could not conceive of a life without Dutch and the gang, while John was able to leave the shadow of surrogate father, at least for a little while.
[Warning: Spoilers for Red Dead Redemption and Red Dead Redemption 2 below]
Read Dead Redemption 2 is a prequel to Red Dead Redemption, primarily featuring Arthur Morgan, a loyalist of Dutch Van Der Linde through the final days of Dutch’s ostensibly high-minded outlaw gang. The dying spasms of the doomed Van Der Linde gang in RDR2 are drawn out excruciatingly, rather than depicting the arc of the gang's rise and fall, making the second game an overextended denouement to a story Rockstar has never properly told, only alluded to. The original Red Dead Redemption takes place some years later, and features John Marston, another former member of Dutch’s gang, hunting down
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