Clemens Point: Favorite part of the soundtrack?I cited Do Not Seek Absolution a few days ago as my favorite instrumental track. It’s this mission where things really come full circle for Arthur on his journey between Chapters 2 and 6, and the score for it is just gorgeous in this moody, gentle, regretful and wistful track where he’s thinking about his life and his choices, and trying so desperately to pay his own debts of honor to a family destroyed by the gang’s debt collecting. He’s doing it while acknowledging he doesn’t expect or even want forgiveness, and he won’t accept it even if it’s offered. He’s doing this because it’s right, not to make himself feel better. Because it won’t make him feel better. There’s no undoing what’s been done, and he knows that.For vocals, probably See The Fire In Your Eyes because it’s another quiet, introspective track that best sums up that character journey. I also love the use of the instrumentals during “Eastward Bound”.Horseshoe Overlook: Favorite town/location?I’m prone to love for St. Denis just because it’s so disorienting and strange and great all at once, with this Western outlaw forced to reckon with the big city that he feels uncomfortable in and has reason to hate. So much action is driven by St. Denis, from the wonderful (meeting Brother Dorkins and Sister Calderon, rescuing Jack) to the weird (meeting Charles Chatenay and Marko Dragic) to the very subtle callbacks (street orphans and Arthur’s own past history as one) to the wistful (seeing clearly both the chemistry and the toxic denial/problems between Mary and Arthur) to the fun and posh stuff that couldn’t happen in small Western towns (the mayor’s garden party, Arthur’s gambling night on the Grand Korrigan) to the emotionally satisfying (Colm O’Driscoll’s comeuppance) to the unsettling (Dutch killing Bronte) to the deeply tragic (the TB diagnosis, the horrible failure of the bank robbery).For well or ill, St. Denis is where stuff truly happens in this game. And it’s a brave choice to make an Eastern(ish) urban environment the driver of so much critical action in an ostensibly cowboah Western game, but it’s a smart one for the realities of an 1899 America.
