ok i was thinkin long n hard about them last night and all day today during work and goooood lord the parallels
they both clearly respected each other but molly’s undercutting disdain for dutch’s “stooges” and arthur consistently holding her at a polite distance by virtue of her being dutch’s partner meant they wouldn’t be able to push their relationship along enough to get to a point where they could depend on one another to actually survive. molly felt she could rely on arthur as did everyone else (despite him never following up with her about dutch), and arthur felt sorry for her, again, as did everyone else
obvious parallels include arthur’s “i gave you all i had” and molly’s “i’ve nothing left, i gave you all”. arthur was a boy dutch used and exploited like a workhorse whereas molly was a girl isolated from everything she knew, put on a pedestal, and kept in a cage. both were past their prime according to dutch and tossed aside when he had no more use for either of them
they were replaced by dutch with someone else: he flirts openly with mary-beth, thus betraying molly, and micah is in his ear more and more, shutting arthur out. even molly felt replaced by micah when she points at him and says “i aren’t him” just before she dies
at the beginning of the game, both sleep in close proximity to dutch. in colter both share his cabin and later molly slept in his tent and arthur was right next to it. as the game progresses, both sleep further and further away from him. their last sleeping locations before their deaths (molly’s at shady belle and arthur’s at beaver hollow) are the furthest we’ve seen them be from dutch, foreshadowing their impending demises as they had been cast out of the safest point in camp
arthur can antagonize molly for not doing chores around camp, something several gang members despise her for. however, he gets special privileges all the time as pointed out by bill. he gets his own tent, his actions are excused by dutch, etc. they are both given preferential treatment, but arthur is the man who does everything and molly is the woman who does nothing. he is loved and she is hated
in a similar vein, both were manipulated by dutch into thinking they were special, as we see when dutch says arthur is like a son to him (and the look on arthur’s face….) “but you’re more than that” because of course, he calls others in the gang his sons. also when molly lashes out at karen and says she was a fool for “believing i was better, somehow”
they both suffered greatly but arthur reached out and formed alliances with charles, sadie, john, etc. whereas molly withdrew from her relationships and had no one. both changed: arthur for the better and molly for the worst
neither could escape dutch alive and both arthur and molly died for a love they were never able to keep. in the end, it was too late for both of them. both their deaths were slow and tangible as they nearly withered away while still alive: arthur from his tuberculosis and molly from her depression and paranoia
arthur died alone saving the ones he loved but molly died surrounded by a gang that didn’t care about her after supposedly betraying and thereby endangering them. posthumously, arthur is celebrated and remembered despite his countless crimes, including murder. molly was forgotten, not even graced by her name before her corpse was desecrated and burned, just called a body—an ‘it’ for committing a single ‘crime’ against the gang. arthur receives a grave, molly does not
dutch destroyed both of their lives and their deaths changed the trajectories of so many lives
ok that’s it i can’t take anymore