The Monastic Vision of Red Dead Redemption 2
Spoiler warning: This essay contains basically . . . every spoiler for Red Dead Redemption II.
Last year I got really sick. I had a walking pneumonia that festered for several months and became severe to the point where I ended up being hospitalized with sepsis for the better part of a week. Recovery was slow, including a sinus surgery that will hopefully prevent this kind of thing from happening again, as this was my third bout of pneumonia in 4 years.
As I recovered, I found myself playing Red Dead Redemption II. A lot. I didn’t really have the energy for anything mentally taxing or challenging. I needed something that I could drift off to sleep with. I’d already beaten Red Dead II a few years back. But I hadn’t fully explored the nooks and crannies of it — and it is a vast sprawling world, full to the brim with discovery. In my first playthrough I’d never gotten around to all the obsessive side quests — the hunting, fishing, collecting orchids for the milliner, mapping the locations of dinosaur bones and dream catchers, etc. So I spent much of last summer in the quiet rhythm of this mundane daily work.
I. Matins: The Descent
The game takes place on the verge of the 20th century. Modernity has arrived, the west is settled, and the age of the outlaw is coming to an end. There’s just too much civilization out there for uncivilized men. It’s harder and harder to find wild land to hide away in, and you can’t just ride away from the scene of the crime like you used to, as the local sheriff isn’t the only force to be reckoned with anymore. There are men deputized by the federal government — Pinkertons — who pursue lawbreakers relentlessly.
Red Dead’s protagonist, Arthur Morgan, is a founding member and “favorite son” of the gang of outlaws known as the Van Der Lindes. The story opens with the gang riding down the stark frozen waste of Mount Hagen. They are on the run for some especially sinister deeds done in the town of Blackwater, which are constantly alluded to but never fully described. For the entire course of the game, Blackwater is walled off, unable to be accessed without being instantly gunned down. Blackwater is far from Eden, but the gang are cast out all the same. In Christian tradition, the Garden of Eden is understood to have been at the top of a mountain. Descending a mountain is a symbol of the fall, as if physically increasing the distance between mankind and God. So Arthur and the gang begin the game cast out, descending, just like Adam and Eve.
Here, the world opens up into nearly endless possibilities. It’s up to the player to decide what sort of man they want to be, for the knowledge of good or the knowledge of evil. You can be the cowboy who says “howdy mister”, or you can be the chaotic bastard who greets folks: “Your face looks familiar. Reminds me of the last time I lifted my horse's tail”. There are folk who need savin’, bad men who need killin’, and stagecoaches due for robbin’. You can suck the venom out of a stranger’s snakebitten leg, or you can just shoot the fool and take his coin.
You find yourself reciting “howdy misters” for your transgressions as if they were Hail Mary’s.
Your decisions determine your “honor” — a characteristic the game measures with a meter that flashes on screen, weighing your good and bad actions with immediate moral certainty. You rob a stagecoach, your honor goes down; you give a stranger a ride back to town, your honor goes up. Your honor score has a real impact on the game. Strangers are warmer to the honorable cowboy, and with lower honor, Arthur’s sentiments in dialogue are colder, more cynical, even downright cruel. The tone of the ending is also affected by honor, with a low honor score feeling darker and more regretful. This system is delightfully flushed out — on one occasion I happened across an interment in a churchyard in Rhodes. I often find myself giving in to bizarre impulses when playing video games, as the unreality affords some liberty to test the limits of how the world will react to unusual behavior. So I made Arthur hop down into the open grave, right on top of the casket as the vicar was leading prayers for the dead. In most video games, I find this kind of thing leads to a feeling of derealization — the non-playable characters lifelessly gawk and continue in their monotonous programmed behavior, as if the man dancing on the casket was invisible to them. But the developers at Rockstar were clever enough to anticipate fools like me. So the crowd reacts with horror, and my honor shoots downward.
But sometimes the honor system can feel a bit absurd and imbalanced. You can go on a bloody rampage murdering scores of innocent civilians, and later fix the harm done to your honor by walking around town mashing the “greet” button for a few minutes. Or, if you prefer, you can do a bit of fishing, so long as you throw back all the fish you catch. Even if it feels a little trivial, this is at least some sort of penance. You find yourself reciting “howdy misters” for your transgressions as if they were Hail Mary’s.
But make no mistake. Arthur Morgan is a bad, bad man. Even if you try to be the honorable sort of cowboy, in the course of the gameplay it’s inevitable that sometimes you end up accidentally shooting the poor kidnapped woman you hoped to rescue. There is some evil you cannot avoid. The gunslinger’s path comes at a cost. Arthur had a son once — Isaac, his only son. He’d impregnated a woman he’d met at some saloon. But he told her he’d do right by her and the kid, stopping by every now and then. But one day when he came to visit, he saw two crosses outside. Some bad men had shot them dead, all for ten dollars. He laments: “You don’t get to live a bad life and have good things happen to you”. And there are bad things you must do. The player cannot avoid the mission where Arthur is forced to collect a debt from a sickly man named Thomas Downes on behalf of the gang. You beat him cruelly, to the point of death, but he has nothing to give you — except for tuberculosis, which Arthur contracts during the beating, his face smeared with the man's coughed-up blood.
Arthur’s health slowly deteriorates as the Pinkertons chase the gang relentlessly across the west. Dutch, the gang’s leader, keeps promising one last job that will finally deliver the gang’s security and freedom. And every time it sours, with more and more members of the Van der Linde gang getting killed in pointless shootouts. As Arthur grapples with his own mortality, he also begins to reckon the futility of Dutch’s endless scheming, his goddamn plan. (“I saw all the deeds that are done under the sun, and see, all is vanity and a chasing after wind.”) But in the midst of all this cynical futility, the moments that really bring the game to life are found in the litany of simple, small work found in between the wrecking swells of the main plotline.
II. Lauds: Flickers of Light
The first respite is the work to be done in the vast expanse of wilderness. From the swamps of Lagras to the soaring heights of West Grizzly — there are wild horses to tame, fish to catch, pelts to collect. There are various missions that coax you deep into the wild. Much beauty can be found there, a reward for your toil. I set out to hunt a perfect beaver, a task that required considerable time and patience, and found myself in the midst of a dappled sunrise that enveloped the Elysian Pool, cloaking the distant ridge in rich velvet hues. On another occasion, I was deep in the northern wilderness to collect some herbs when I noticed a bull moose grazing by Donner Falls, shrouded in the mists of the mighty waterfall behind it. Getting closer, I realized there was a blue jay perched on the moose’s back. I forgot about the task that had brought me here, spending the next few minutes soaking in the symbiotic, unspoiled liveliness that stretched out before me.
Of course it's just a game, a pale imitation of real life. But all the same, these sublime moments in the wilderness strike up many of the same feelings of awe and appreciation that you feel when you see such things in reality. Some of the most beautiful moments in the game are not found in cutscenes, the chaotic shootouts and wild pursuits — but instead in transit from one place to the next. There are some trails so beautiful I found myself opting not to use the fast travel options the game offers because I was fond of the journey. After all, in this life, it is not always our moments that are beautiful, but rather the moments between the moments. There is much about our world that is hideous, dark, and futile. Much of our work is in vain, striving either for or against the whims of power and greed, united only in strife. Maybe the reason the sunset turns red is just to catch our gaze, and maybe the reason we exist is that someone should cast their gaze upon the sunset. I don’t know if anything else in this life makes sense, but this wild beauty does.
The second respite can be found in the diverse folks you encounter along the way: strange, kind, despicable, and everything in between. They forcefully remind Arthur of his humanity. In the typical canon of western tropes, the cowboy is the stand-in for white, western civilization. He forges a path into rugged unsettled lands, striking down the “uncivilized” men who stand in the way of American destiny. If he wavers in his convictions, he “goes native” — rejecting civilization with all its modern complications, choosing instead to side with the simple lives of the indigenous people who live apart from civilization in harmony with nature. Red Dead brilliantly inverts this trope — because it is Dutch and the Van Der Linde gang that are the ones at war with civilization. It makes no difference if they’re dealing with the well-to-do folks from St. Denis or the Wapiti people confined in a reservation and betrayed by the government — to Dutch, they’re all just means to his callous, antisocial ends. Arthur does not “go native” in the traditional sense. Rather, all the people you come across throughout the game coax him into civilization, away from Dutch’s cynical view that “there ain’t no such thing as civilized”.
Being that this is the wild west, we should start with the bad and ugly. There’s plenty to choose from: klansmen, serial killers, a whining unemployed slave-catcher, depraved gangs that prey on the innocent, and worst of all, that rat Micah. They bring out your thirst for violent retribution, for schadenfreude. Hungering and thirsting for righteousness doesn’t have to start with high-minded, lofty ideals. Sometimes the first hunger pangs are nothing more than hot-blooded wrath. You may not be a good man, but you can certainly recognize a bad one. As Arthur tells the slave-catcher: “Some jobs ain’t for saving, and some legacies… they are for pissin’ on.”
But you don’t just contend with bad folks. You find yourself crossing paths with good folks too, and for some reason they see good in you. A monk in Saint Denis compels you to rescue trafficked slaves from a local pawnbroker. You stumble upon a woman deep in a remote forest, bent over the grave of her husband — he was recently mauled by a bear, leaving her to fend for herself with no survival skills. If you choose to help these people, they express sincerest gratitude, telling Arthur he’s a good man. Arthur, for his part, is bashful. They wouldn’t say that if they knew what else he’d done. He’s not a good man. He recognizes that his sickness is what he deserves for the evil that he’s done — “I was a fool. And I’m suffering for my foolishness”.
But what does it matter whether you’re a good man or not? Doing good is becoming good. Sister Calderón (a nun you befriend if you live an honorable life) exhorts you: “Life is full of pain. But there is also love and beauty… Take a gamble that love exists and do a loving act”. It is no coincidence that this advice is given by a nun — this is a beautiful summation of the idea of sanctification, central to the vision of monastic life. Where repentance represents that first cathartic moment of turning away from sin towards grace, sanctification refers to the millions of small, mundane, and repetitious acts of virtue in which we manifest grace into the world through our daily habits. It is one thing for the heart to crave goodness, but it is another matter to pursue goodness in our daily affairs. Christian monasticism was premised on the idea that even the coarsest of sinners could be set apart by living a life of gradual sanctification through honest toil and fellowship with the other laborers, all centered around the spiritual disciplines of the canonical hours.
Of course, Arthur Morgan is no monk. He is rough, violent, and crude to the end. And yet, he is set apart from society, though not exactly in the manner that St. Benedict or St Francis had envisioned. Rather, Arthur makes his camp with drunk, cantankerous idiots. But they do keep a rhythm not totally unlike the canonical hours. Early in the day, they toil together in chores for the survival of the camp. As night falls, they sing together, comfort one another, and share a communal meal out of the same pot. Yes, they’re almost always drunk, and they bicker constantly (I’m led to understand that monks have their moments too). But however far this may be from true monastic life, Arthur still sees something sacred in the life of their fellowship. This community is worth more than any personal profit that can be had at their expense, and more than anyone else, these fools give Arthur faith that love exists and compel him to do loving acts.
So Arthur is filled with these fleeting glimpses of monastic life — the daily toil of work in harmony with creation and for the good of his fellow man. Every day the sun rises and sets over the camp, and little by little, this toil makes a good man out of a bad one, coaxing Arthur out of his misanthropy. For the first time in his life, he sees Dutch and the gang clearly — they are not misunderstood outcasts on the fringes of a society. They have lived solely for their own self-interest, sowing the seeds of their own destruction — their exile is self-imposed.
III. Vespers: Go In Peace
At the end, Arthur is singularly focused on John Marston, who he sees as a kid brother figure within the gang. Arthur sees a lot of his younger self in John, especially with John’s wife and young son. He deeply desires to set John free from the cycle of destruction that had swallowed his own life and destroyed his own family. Arthur’s last stand is a final choice between selfless sacrifice (allowing John to escape to be with his family), or taking cynical revenge on Dutch (stealing his horde of wealth and leaving John to fend for himself).
f you make the cynical choice, you die down in the mud at the mouth of the Beaver Hollow Cave. Just as the mountain signifies paradise and closeness to God, in Christian art the cave typically signifies death, destruction, and hell.
But if all that seems too subtle and academic, Red Dead makes sure to remove any doubt of what this setting signifies. When you first encounter Beaver Hollow earlier in the plot, it is occupied by a particularly gruesome gang of outlaws known as the Murfree Brood. They are inbred, deformed, devilish looking men who kidnap, mutilate, and even eat their victims. When you first come across Beaver Hollow cave there is a macabre display at the mouth of the cave — splayed out rotting corpses strung up in some form of profane shrine. The cave is smeared with blood, decorated with human remains. It is unmistakably hellish.
Even though you’ve cleared out the Murfrees (and mopped up their mess) by the time you get to this point of the game, that imagery lingers in your mind. The path of revenge leads you out of the cave straight into a knife fight with Micah (that goddamn snake). He gets the better of you, but in the great tradition of retribution (Leviticus 24:17-20), you have the chance to cut out one of his eyes. But all the same, in the end, he gets you, stabbing you in the back — the camp burns down around you, conjuring images of hellfire as Arthur dies here at the gates to hell. There is no glory here, just vengeance. Nothing more. Even still, if your honor is good enough, a beam of light breaks through the trees as Arthur gasps his final breaths, and you can’t help but wonder if there is hope for an only slightly good thief to be snatched up from the mouth of hell.
But should you make the noble choice, choosing to give John cover to allow his escape, the gunfight drives you up a nearby mountain — signifying redemption and the narrative closure of returning to the heights you descended in the game’s opening chapter. Here, just as in the other ending, it culminates in a final encounter with Micah, this time with fists instead of knives. Once the dust settles, Arthur lies dying, coughing and savagely beaten, exactly as he had once left Thomas Downes (the man Arthur contracted tuberculosis from). After all, this is Arthur’s debt to pay.
Micah gloats to Dutch: “Come on buddy. We made it. We won”. In broken gasps, Arthur replies: “John made it. He’s the only one. The rest of us… no. But I tried. In the end, I did.” The only way to make it is to be free from the selfish cycles of destruction and lust for revenge. In that respect, Arthur never truly makes it. As he tells a fellow gang member who also lost her partner: “You know, you and me, we’re more ghosts than people”. But even so, Arthur tries. And that effort is the sanctification that gives Arthur’s life and death a purpose. Lying on that mountain ledge — beaten, bloodied, and gasping — he takes in one last sunrise, bathed in its gentle glow as he succumbs to his injuries and disease.
Being as sick as I was at the time, Arthur felt incredibly real to me. There were some days we coughed up blood together. I felt a strange kind of companionship with him. I’d find myself appreciating the sunset from some remote camp in the wilderness for several minutes before suddenly remembering I was watching it through Arthur’s eyes and not my own, as if I was momentarily lost in the character. I wrestled with questions of my own purpose, of what kind of man I could become were I to learn how to try like this.
The most emotionally resonant moment of the game for me (playing as an honorable cowboy, of course) is a sequence just before the very end, as Arthur rides along a familiar path through the wilderness to face his final confrontation and inevitable death. He is frail, skeletal. His eyes are sunken in, and his breaths are ragged. A distant and haunting melody coated with reverb and synth fades in as Arthur mounts his horse, groaning with the effort. He reaches into his saddle bag, pulls out his hat, fixing it on his head for the last time. He sets off through the forest — the setting sun streaming through the treeline, refracting off the dust kicked up by his horse, enveloping him in a hazy shroud of light. The melancholy refrain of the song wraps around you:
“That’s the way it is. That’s the way it is.”
You’ve ridden down this path dozens of times. Now as you watch as familiar landmarks float by, memorable lines of dialogue echo out of Arthur’s recollection, mixing hope with regret. Some of these words reassure Arthur that he is a good man. Others remind him that any attempt to change came too late, the damage already having been done.
“That’s the way it is. That’s the way it is.”
The final voice of Arthur’s recollection comes from Mary-Beth, one of the women in the gang Arthur allowed himself to be vulnerable around. Her words echo through Arthur’s thoughts: “Maybe it’s a sign Arthur. Try…try to do the right thing”.
We must acknowledge that sometimes there are things we cannot change. Some realities are immovable. We cannot change our past failures, the broken homes we come out of, the people we’ve hurt, even the illnesses and ailments we find ourselves with. But we can still try, at least to face the inevitable with the best version of ourselves. We can find bitter comfort that we tried, standing tall in the face of it all — whether we wrought it on ourselves or not. We can try to sanctify ourselves in the work we can do and with the friendships we make, with the hope that maybe someone else might make it, even if we don’t.
That’s the way it is. It ain’t much — but for Arthur Morgan and all us folks who see a bit of ourselves in him — it might just be enough.