“What really happened down there on that boat?”
“We missed you, that’s what.”
I do constantly think about how the Blackwater Massacre happened when Hosea and Arthur, Dutch’s main confidants, were absent. We have so little information about what exactly happened on that boat, and at every inquiry to Dutch in the main story, he’s very cagey about it.
The Strange Man references Heidi in the first game, an innocent civilian, and her death is described as particularly brutal; Javier comments she was in a ‘bad way’; John comments he couldn’t get the image of her death out of his head, and that Micah was essentially egging Dutch on. If you ask Dutch about it, he’ll be defensive about it, denying he had done what had to be done. That’s what he does; he does horrible things and makes out he’s justified. Obviously, though, this is the most prominent part of when he started deteriorating, at loss to his morals.
This interaction is wild to me at the start of the game, because in Dutch’s eyes, he probably sees it as: ‘It wouldn’t have happened if I had you by my side. The heist wouldn’t have gone wrong if we’d had you with us.’ But I don’t think he realizes the double meaning of that statement, how Arthur and Hosea act as a double morality compass to him. Heidi McCourt wouldn’t have died. You would have stopped me. The Old Guard were a democracy, and they respected each other & their decisions. If Arthur had been there, it would have been extremely likely Heidi might have survived. Blackwater was still a trap, obviously, but Dutch likely wouldn’t have caved to Micah’s intentions & his inner demons.
Arthur and Hosea were his impulse control, and Micah just enabled every bad thought Dutch might have considered (see chapter 6).
