A VERY LONG character analysis.
edit: theres a lot of spelling errors and stuff I have yet to fix…will probs do it eventually.
I believe that Molly O’Shea is one of the most misunderstood characters in Red Dead Redemption ll, both by the characters themselves and by the community. Most, if not, all the gang members have some sort of disdain for her, especially Karen and Susan, finding her high-strung, stuck up, and too good for them. This may be true to an extent, but it’s not the full story.
WARNING!!! again…This post contains spoilers for the game! Don’t read this unless you don’t mind. Also, a lot of this is me TOTALLY stretching things that happen in the game so don’t like…shoot me down.😖
Chapter 2, Horseshoe Overlook and The Start of Everything
Molly is an attractive lady in her mid-to late twenties, meaning she isn’t the youngest, but she definitely isn’t the oldest. This implies that Dutch may have met her years before the game takes place, back when she was maybe twenty or so. (That guess is because Dutch likes uh…younger girls.) Molly was born into a wealthy family in Ireland, which is a reason a few—like Sean Macguire, who was also born in Ireland, just working class—don’t like her. She had travelled to America, her reason she told people was “searching for adventure,” but in her poem, Uaibhreach, she says “I was a girl, until your call - Commanded me to cross the sea.” This could mean that Molly really went to America in search for a lover, who ended up being Dutch Van Der Linde. She must have believed in true love at first sight, because she was in love fairly quickly.
I can say this for sure—Molly had no idea what she was agreeing to. Dutch, who looks like an upper class men, at least in the eyes of a foreigner, is actually an outlaw on the run, bringing a ragtag group of criminals with him. Nonetheless, as long as Dutch was in the camp, she was content for the time being. Dutch was the only thing she could care for, he was her lover, her prince. He would shower her with compliments and dance with her, he wouldn’t push her to do any chores, which I will address later, and it was obvious that he would buy expensive items, like her vanity for her.
Molly, either overheard or told directly, would have found out about Dutch’s past relationships with late Annabelle and Susan Grimshaw, the sour-faced lady who pushed the girls to work around camp while already doing too much herself. It must have worried her, because, really, who wants to end up like Annabelle, the lady that died for being associated with Dutch? Or, what if she ended up like Grimshaw, who had gotten too old and ugly for his liking and in turn, started to become overworked and like a ticking time bomb? Molly dreaded this. She became insecure, constantly fixing her hair, or her makeup, and beginning to wear the most perfect of dresses. She would have alternations of three (if I recall) dresses in the second chapter. This is important for later. In fear of having Annabelle’s fate, Molly had stopped going out. She didn’t want to be seen in fear of someone recognizing her from the gang, and killing her. She didn’t do any chores either, which would make her seem lazy to the other women, but she never would push the girls to do their chores if they complained, because she didn’t want to be found as annoying and prying as Susan. She just prettied herself all day.
Her hair was almost constantly in a half up-half down fashion, the part that was down were beautiful curls that draped down her back. She obviously spent her time to look good, as she very clearly would outdo everyone else. Whilst this happened, the women would envy her. They would envy her for her insecurities, for the wrinkles that only she could see, for the dresses she had forced herself to wear, the corsetted tops that were obviously uncomfortable, but most of all, for the chores she wouldn’t have to do. She felt as if she wasn’t lowly enough to do them, which was probably brought onto by Dutch putting her on a pedistal. Molly needed to be sure that Dutch found her beautiful, or at least more beautiful than a younger girl, like Mary-Beth. Her jealousy, hatred or anger to her wasn’t anything personal. It was simple: Mary-Beth was one of, if not the youngest girls in the gang, showing her innocence and naivety in a cute and bearable way. She itched to learn and gain from situations, and would make the perfect woman. Not to mention how she looked. Mary-Beth was beautiful. She was a younger and much nicer version of Molly and she hated it. Molly envied her while Mary-Beth envied Molly.
Now, she had to be the best. Forever. Molly had to nitpick everything about her appearance, she would preen at herself, it’s why she spent all day at camp doing her makeup. She wouldn’t dirty her clothes doing chores, wouldn’t waste her breath talking to anyone. It explains why she craved Dutch’s attention, she craved anyones attention. If she didn’t outdo everyone else, she would be replaced. She didn’t want to be replaced. She had to position herself above all others, had to make it like Dutch and her were the prince and princess of a kingdom full of workers. She had to be the best because, if not, she’d lose Dutch to Mary-Beth. She couldn’t, because if she lost him, she’d lose everything.
Chapter 3, Clemen’s Point
As Dutch’s decline subtly begins, we see him focus in on himself more than others. He barely paid attention to Molly anymore and would purposefully ignore her. With this, Molly has no one to turn to and starts to feel isolated. Molly at Clemen’s Point starts to slip on prettying herself. Of course, she would still have the most makeup in the camp, but she’d stop doing her fancy and elegant hairstyles and wearing her dresses. Now, she would have a simple braid and dress, this time not corsetted. From this point on, that’s all Molly will wear. Now, she starts to sit alone by the lake shore, away from the rest of the camp.
This is that chapter, that first chapter, that we see Dutch and Molly’s growing hatred and insanity. Actually, this is the first chapter we see them fight. Multiple times. They can go from Molly voicing her concerns and Dutch shooing her, to yelling arguments where Dutch tries to come out the good guy. One is where Molly is doing her makeup, but it’s clear she has something on her mind. She finally has the courage to go speak with Dutch. She asks if she has done anything wrong, to which, Dutch shoos her off to rest. Molly walks off, not feeling any better. In another situation, Molly goes to Abigail for help, in which she leaves unsatisfied when Abigail tells her that Dutch doesn’t love her in the way she wants. Some time after, Molly will angrily walk up to her and Dutch’s shared tent, calling him a liar and that he doesn’t fool her. Dutch, once again, dismisses this for rest. The biggest one, in my opinion, is where Dutch complains about her “constant moping” and “pestering,” where Molly counters with how she just wants respect and affection. The part that I latch onto is how she adds, “All them out there, they’re laughing at me.” I believe that shes realized that the rest of the camp has noticed their growing avoidance, she thinks they’re all playing some, “I told you so” on her. She thinks the women are laughing that her life is falling apart, that Dutch is avoiding her. It’s a small thing that is very important.
Molly at Shady Belle can clearly see how Dutch is like a crashing plane, where everybody else is a passenger going down with him. She can see his constant slip ups more than most because of how well she knew him and his thought process. She’s noticed a lot more that he’s uninterested, but she cant bring herself to admit it. She cant admit that he doesn’t love her anymore. In Shady Belle, Molly’s isolation starts to eat away more rapidly at her. She is seen by the water, throwing rocks, crying, ranting to herself about Dutch’s lies. What does Molly consider a lie? Was it how he promised her an elegant, calm life? Was it how he would tell her he loved her? How he told her nothing was wrong? We don’t know. But we do know that she begins to hate everybody more. Arthur is a pretty big victim, as he reaches out to her a few times and asks if she’s alright. To this, she yells at him on multiple occasions. She had realized that, so long ago, in the Horseshoe Overlook chapter, that Arthur was right. He was right all along. Arthur would always hint that Dutch didn’t love her, that he was a liar. Dutch would dismiss him each time and reassure Molly.
I think the first time we see Molly drunk is during this. She has a small argument with Dutch one night, where she’s seen flailing her arms much like at Beaver Hollow. This could be the start of her alcohol use, as we’ve always seen her so proper and act like she’s above it. Like she’s above anything the others would do. Who knows, maybe during the Guarma chapter, Molly spends her time drinking at bars.
Chapter 5, But it’s Just a Filler
I decided to add this bit of text here because of how we don’t see the rest of the camp during this chapter due to Arthur, Dutch, Micah, Javier and Bill all being in Guarma. We could assume that Molly is day drinking at Saint Denis, much like how she was in Beaver Hollow. It would help understand why she immediately was absent from a lot of the Beaver Hollow scenes and just in general while touring the camp.
The chapters after Clemen’s Point are a progression of Dutch’s insanity and narcissism, clearly shown as he gets Sean, Kieran, Hosea, Lenny, and soon to be Molly, Grimshaw, and Arthur killed out of stupidity. (Yeah, I added Arthur. You could complain that he died from tuberculosis, but I really think it was Dutch’s fault for allowing Strauss to give out loans. If I recall, Dutch is against the whole idea in the beginning of the game anyways. And, Micah had to have shortened his lifespan anyway. Insufferable rat…) Dutch tries to convince himself that he is the hero in his own story, doing anything to get this title, avoiding or combatting anything in his way. This casts Molly more and more aside. Molly notices first and tries more and more desperately to warn and tell others before it’s too late, but unfortunately, nobody listens, as they all trust Dutch, at least more than they do Molly. She helplessly watches him get consumed in narcissism as he tries to make sense and reason with why his disasterous decisions weren’t his fault. His paranoia grows, which has him continue to deliberately alienate Molly.
Molly goes missing from camp for a long period of time before anyone notices. Actually, nobody notices until she comes back. She must have realized she was not looked for, thus not missed by anyone—by Dutch. Knowing that nobody cared she was gone must have been devastating. It must have felt likea knife to the chest. She’s filled with her isolation and depression, Dutch had essentially lovebombed her. Her anger leads to her breakdown later on. Bill finds her in a bar down in Saint Denis and brings her back to Beaver Hollow where, drunk, driven to insanity, depressed, stressed, and fearful, which had all been festering and growing for weeks on end, she began her rage-filled rant.
She yelled like a broken record, Molly did. It was her last attempt at being heard by someone, anyone. She knew she needed to say something that would catch everybody's attention, at least for the last time. She pointed at Micah, “I ain’t him,” she pointed at Mary-Beth, “I ain’t her, I ain’t any of you stooges!” This is her outwardly saying that she isn’t seen as equal to them, but most importantly, she is below Micah and Mary-Beth. Maybe she told them she snitched to the Pinkertons because she knew it would enrage Dutch, thus letting her be in control of his emotions for once and not the other way around. Maybe it was so she could watch him crack, show the real him that he had been hiding under his facade for over 15 years. Maybe she was so drunk that she believed it to be the truth. Agent Milton had told Arthur that he and Ross tried to get some information out of Molly, but she hadn’t said a word. Could she have thought she did? Maybe she just wanted to give everybody a reason good enough to hate her. To finally have a reason to despise her.
What I think, is that she had finally come to terms with how Dutch despised her. "I loved you, you goddamn bastard!" She had accepted that she was replaced by Mary-Beth, and that she had finally stopped loving him. I believe that Molly told them because it meant her demise. A suicide plan with no fail. She had seen the camp kill before, and she was ready to accept her fate. She knew she was too far gone, that she had no place in the camp anymore. There was no point in being alive just to mope, to not have any friends and eventually get killed off anyways, and the only reason that she was in America, the only reason she was still there, had hated her. She may have just wanted to die at that point. I would. We'll never know, besides the fact that it was Micah who snitched to the Pinkertons, not Molly.
And not even two minutes later, she was savagely shot in the stomach by Susan Grimshaw. The lady that Molly had replaced. There had to have been hatred in her heart, because Susan knows how to shoot a gun, and she chose not to give Molly a quick and painless death. Molly had stood for a few seconds before dropping to the ground. Grimshaw must have done it on purpose. Before that, Molly had yelled out, "Go on, shoot me!" Which was directed to Dutch, who had his revolver out. Arthur, he knew she wasn't all there. He urged Dutch not to shoot, that she was just crazy. When Susan had fired, Molly hadn’t looked at Dutch, but at her stomach. the wound wasn’t from a revolver, and she knew that. She knew Dutch hadn’t shot at her. It’s hard to say what she was thinking in those last seconds. Was she angry that Dutch was not the one who killed her? Was she happy about it? Or perhaps, because Dutch wasn’t the one who shot, did he still love her? That last one may be a little far-stretched, knowing that Molly refused to believe now that he loved her.
Susan hadn't hesitated nor flinched, angrily looking over to Arthur. "She knew the rules, Arthur." I'm not sure she did. At least not anymore. Not after all this time. Remember, Molly had been on her pedistal for so long, maybe the rules didn't apply to her. Well, we know that's not the case. Dutch and the rest of the gang followed that rule strictly. She could have thought it though, that she was above that rule just like the rest. Really, I believe she knew deep down. She knew and that was why she went through with her lie.
A small detail that I find quite interesting is how Grimshaw got killed. Just like Molly, Susan had been arguing with Dutch which ended with a gunshot to her stomach. This time, it was on the other side. It was karma in some eyes, but I believe it was because they were one of the same. Molly and Susan both had been used by Dutch, and they both ended up dying for it.
Another detail, unlike Sean, Kieran, Hosea, Lenny, Susan, and Arthur, they burnt Molly's body, denying her a proper burial. It was the final straw that broke the camels back, it was a last reminder that Molly O'Shea had never belonged in the camp.
One more, the way that Dutch would call her “Miss O’Shea” instead of Molly. Using a last name basis normally is etiquette to someone you are not familiar with. Whilst not inherently a manipulation tactic, Dutch using her last name is definitely power play, putting up a wall that would call her inferior. It’s a controlling dynamic that is also shown as disrespect when done over and over with no clear reason. On top of this, Molly clearly dislikes the use of her last name by Van Der Linde, on multiple occasions she corrects him and tells him to use her first name. It’s another small thing that really counts.
By the end of the Van Der Linde gang, Molly O’Shea was one of the only people who had never truly belonged.
