haven't played red dead 2 in a few weeks but man I'm still thinking about underused theming of fathers and sons, and the duty of the son to the father, but the lack there of from father to son
that make sense?
best way I can put it is the failure of the father that gets past on.
Dutch puts all these values of loyalty into every member of the gang, but the first two boys have it the worst. Arthur and John were practically raised, no matter how late in the teenage years, by Dutch and Hosea. However the loyalty only seems to go one way, now I put this mainly on Dutch as the years progress and the gang basically becomes his cult, they gotta believe in his plan and dream. Hosea i'm gonna give more grace cause he did believe in the dream, and only the dream, he's more or less Dutch's equal, not a follower, and as such isn't promoting sole faith in Dutch (fact check me on that).
However despite all this loyalty earnt for Dutch, i'd say little the same he has for everyone else, he constantly questions Arthur's faith in his authority, when people die he uses them as motivation to keep on going and morale high- oh and he leaves Arthur to die on the mountain. This may have been less prevelant as the younger years of the gang, considering rdr2 is about the fallout and the last days of them.
Dutch presents that initial teaching, I owe the son nothing, he owes everything to me.
It's arguable from this Arthur and John have taken this philosophy in their own way, the initial neglect of their sons.
Arthur is a pretty cut and dry story- that the game really does not want you to focus on- which I think is a shame considering if we want to focus on his redemption I believe exploration of his dead "other" family would be a great thing to think about. But I could go on about the missed potential of Eliza and Isaac forever so best not dwell on it.
We do have little information on it but key details is that Arthur only appeared in Isaac's life periodically, Isaac was an accident, and he died from a petty robbery, probably no older than Jack in rdr2 with the small parallel of Arthur teaching Jack to fish, and one really obscure fishing line about taking his own son to do it.
Arthur I would say is bound by those first values instilled by Dutch in his loyalty, however like shown, loyalty to the father and the bare minimum for the son. Arthur is I would say stuck on what to do with these seperate families, but also he knows he couldn't settle down, not that young, he'll teach the boy how to survive but there is next to no present relationship. And then the boy dies. We don't really get any insight on it beside's Arthur's later action but as we know he left after seeing the graves and doesn't look bad. ultimately a part of him blames himself for not being there but he had his loyalties and his 'real family' over his own blood.
This guilt is displayed however through the admission that in the event John didn't return Arthur would offer to marry Abigail- yes I know there is some form of implication he liked her but for sake of argument I'm gonna focus it on potential guilt- I think overall he saw himself in John, those flighty and avoidant tendancies, and he'd rather to not have him make the same mistakes- or at the least make amends in some way for his by giving a single mother and son security he never gave his own.
John isn't as much as a failure as Arthur but there is an initial flight instinct they both share from how they were raised which results in that one year where he abandoned Abigail and Jack, he doesn't believe himself fit to be a dad. He comes back and really only until the end of the game does he recognise Jack as his son and wins both him and Abigail back.
I guess John doesn't directly relate to this ideal placed, but he does seem to at least a little exhibit that mentality of the father owing nothing. Thankfully he's snapped out of that.
I say if this was a narrative of breaking a cycle it would be on placing the youth first, getting the farm, his family back together, making an honest living, it was all in a bid to change himself- and in some way to make sure Jack never followed his path. Unfortunately for him that never happens.
I may have lost my original point but overall I really like this subtle storytelling of this chosen, but deeply broken family, and how these approaches to fatherhood- or even the approach to believing you can't do fatherhood- had either been past down or in common in some way.
