We know that animal symbolism is huge in rdr2, but I especially love how the gang having "assigned" animals was made canon thanks to red dead online - as belt buckles of all things! (gorgeous ones too!)
Charles, Micah, Sadie, Karen, Javier, Strauss, Swanson, and Bill each had themed buckles from the long discontinued Outlaw Passes. They weren't directly named after each gang member, but the clothing and details are almost exact to their human counterparts!
They really made a character like Arthur Morgan and not only gave him crippling self esteem issues, but they gave him confidence so low that he doesn't share his passions with anyone ever.
Like what do you mean Arthur loves to write but thinks he writes like a fool?
What do you mean Arthur loves to draw and is really talented but he doesn't see it that way?
What do you mean Arthur loves the smaller things in life but doesn't feel like he's deserving of good things?
What do you mean there was a whole different side to Arthur that the people he cared about rarely got to see?
What do you mean he lived and died with parts of his life tucked away tight in the pages of the journal that only one other person has ever been able to read?
There was a post about rdr2 red flags and the post itself was alright, but my comment received a lot of unsavoury replies so I wanted to make my own post about Mary Linton (because she's apparently more hated than the game's actual antagonists).
You see, I think a lot of the criticism aimed at Mary is less based on what the game actually shows us and more on the gendered expectations people place on female characters especially. It is truly disappointing to see such rampant and unjust hate for a character that is seen as a "nag" before being understood. The original poster wasn't particularly helping the situation in the comments either but I digress.
There's no point in me showing the worst replies here, we've heard it all before and giving them attention doesn't help, but it truly is an embarrassing display of how many people seem so unwilling to engage or empathise with a complex female character (in a game known for being complex and filled with other even more complex characters for that matter) yet are happy to understand the complexity of male characters.
There are 109 missions in rdr2, one hundred and nine, and yet people really have it out for one character who only appeared in three missions out of that one hundred and nine, and apparently committed the world's most unforgivable crime by asking Arthur for help.
See, the irony in calling Mary out for "using" Arthur and "manipulating" him and "taking advantage" of him is painful when all three of those missions give you the option to just... decline. As in, you don't have to do it. You don't have to help her. Arthur doesn't have to help her. Players can literally choose to say no and walk away.
You cannot reasonably tell me that hating Mary solely for being in the game and asking for help is worth her being labelled as such when she isn't the manipulator or the one who takes advantage because if anything, that's Dutch. Not Mary.
(And Dutch as a character does not nearly receive the same amount of immediate hate when mentioned I'll tell you that).
There's a difference between saying "I understand why Mary acted the way she did, but I still don't really like her character" and "Mary only used Arthur and manipulated him for her own gain" because one is a fair opinion and the other is just factually untrue since, once again, you can just say no to her.
You. Can. Say. No.
Manipulation removes someone's agency (a person's free will and their capacity to make autonomous choices). Yet in the game, Mary wrote and Arthur chose to go. Mary asked for help, Arthur chose whether to say yes or no. Mary asked to run away with him, and Arthur truthfully said he couldn't. None of that removed Arthur's agency.
All the evidence of the complexity of Arthur and Mary's relationship is written right there in the journal. Arthur loved Mary, Mary loved Arthur, neither could part with their lives and families and it tore them apart with everything that followed. There's so much nuance to it.
It's not as simple as "Mary bad Arthur good" because Arthur wasn't the perfect man to Mary either. The whole point was that neither of them were perfect and they both wished things had been different because they wanted a life together. They never stopped loving eachother, even to the end.
Arthur had even proposed to Mary, that's how much he loved her!!! And Mary kept the ring!! She kept it for so long before returning it because she understood that Arthur couldn't change, and Arthur understood that he couldn't either.
Mary doesn't exist just to serve in Arthur's story, and I think that's why she's so hated. She had her own life, and her own wants and her own fears and her own limits and failures. She is a character in herself and people judge her as if she's some nuisance written to interrupt Arthur's life.
And you know what? Everything she asks for is incredibly reasonable and I'm tired of pretending it isn't. She didn't demand Arthur leave the gang and stop being an outlaw, she just asks for his help and tells him she cannot build a life with him if he can't change.
And Arthur agreed with that! He never spent time saying that she was wrong, because he very frequently said that she was right! And I'd argue that Mary was one of the few people who actually saw Arthur as a man before seeing him as an outlaw because they had so much history together.
Their relationship didn't fail because one was cruel and the other was manipulated, their relationship failed because they truly loved eachother at the wrong time, in the wrong circumstances, and neither of them could be what the other needed.
That's not manipulation or abuse guys. That's fucking tragedy.
Arthur himself doesn't hate Mary, yet so many players do and it's so disappointing to see.
If the person who actually lived through that relationship doesn't blame her, then maybe the players should ask themselves why they do.
I remember so vividly on my first playthrough (when you help Margaret find the animals) I gasped so loud when you mosey into the farm and see an actual lion. A LION.
Every worker on the ranch: WOAH THERE!!!! STAND BACK!!! ITS THE DEVIL!! THERE'S A MONSTER IN THAT THERE BARN!! AN EVIL CREATURE SENT BY SATAN HIMSELF!!!
