Dutch is RDR2's writers' best effort as well as their major failure (SPOILERS)

[amazingbeavis]

Incoming wall of text not worth reading or commenting on.

I consider Dutch to be the central character of RDR2 and the writers succeeded in creating a complex character that is more than meets the eye. Such characters are rare in videogame writing and I commend the writers on this achievement. Certainly, the story owes its depth to Dutch more than to somewhat plain Arthur Morgan. However the writers also failed to maintain the character's integrity by using it as a plot vehicle.

First the good stuff. Dutch is a very charismatic gang leader who is essentially a father figure to his gang family and who instills is philosophy of an honorable thief among the members. He is trusted, loved and respected by his gang. He is also a person who is defined by contradictions and by understanding these contradictions we can understand who Dutch really is.

The problem for Dutch is that America is changing and the previously wild, chaotic and free frontier is increasingly coming under control of the government and the rich oligarchs, such as wealthy oil baron Cornwall. Order and law is established and there is less and less room for people like Dutch and his gang.

Dutch understands this and decides that the logical course of action is to steal enough money for everyone to escape the law and start a new life. So his efforts come down to pulling off one last heist, make enough money and call it quits somewhere in Tahiti. This makes sense until he hit the first contradiction - we find out that Dutch already had enough money from a previous heist, but he kept stringing everyone along for a series of "one last heist"-s and as each would fail one way or another they would just have to attempt the next one.

How can we resolve this contradiction? We do it by understanding that Dutch's real goal was never to make enough money and have everyone retire. His goal was to keep his gang going indefinitely, keep his "family" for as long as possible to continue ruling over them like a typical cult leader would.

That certainly makes sense as well and we could stop there satisfied that we figured out Dutch's character. But then we hit the second contradiction: if that's what Dutch really wanted, why would his raids become more and more brazen and aggressive, attacking the oligarchs directly, attacking the government, the army, trying to start a war between the Native Americans and the US government? It makes no sense. His justifications of creating more chaos to be able to slip away are not even believed by his own gang members, as each raid only triggers harsher response and more scrutiny from the law. We know that after the events of RDR Dutch was able to run another gang for many years just keeping low profile. And yet he made the choice to endanger his gang and bring about its demise that much sooner by challenging the law like never before. How can we resolve this?

The lazy way is to say well he went crazy and paranoid and basically was acting like a crazy person and not like a reasonable man. In short it makes sense that it doesn't make sense.
This is a non-answer and we can do better than this. For that we have to remember his monologue to the army soldiers that were about to capture him. He says that he was fighting change (the same one we talked about, the order, the law, the government boot) and he realized that it was not possible to win and it was like fighting Nature.
Of course he was saying all that to distract the soldiers from his subsequent escape, but this also tells us what he was thinking about, what was on his mind. You don't just pull out a monologue like that out of thin air. It was convincing (and useful) because it rang true.

The gang for him was a tool. It was a weapon he used against the change brought about by lawmen, soldiers, the government, the oil barons... By sowing chaos, undermining and exposing authority he was trying to weaken it to give a chance for the old freedom to come back. He kept fighting even though he suspected it was not a battle he was likely to win. Only at the end of the last chapter, with his gang shattered, he realized that he lost and accepted his defeat. At that point he became a broken and defeated man, for whom the money and the family (gang), just like his own life lost their meaning. Importantly, this is confirmed when we see him in the Epilogue as a broken man with no purpose. Whatever was left of him simply went back to doing what he does best, running a gang, first with Micah, later without. And this is who Dutch really was.

Anyway this was long af, so I'll write the rest some other time maybe.

[Zander]

if you can't understand the games story you can just say so. dutch is a hypocrite plain and simple. the game explains this too you if you'd listen. "maybe people don't change, they just become more of who they are"

[PaleoGhost]

I think Dutch is a clinical narcissist. He needs to be the center of attention and have the unwavering devotion of his followers. He's always demanding the gang have faith in him, hates it when they question his plans, and even offers them false choices (they can leave whenever they wish and have freedom to do as they please, but yet there are rules against leaving/working "behind his back").

I think the craziness in the later chapters is about him trying to regain control of his "everybody's savior" persona after the failed Saint Denis bank job. Before then, you hear nearly all the younger gang members talk about how Dutch took them in when nobody else would or how they feel indebted to him for one reason or another. But after Hosea's death (despite the conman working one of the safest parts of that bank job), the gang really started to question Dutch. And that fulled his paranoia because Dutch didn't feel right about the bank job to begin with.

His need for devotion fueled his desire to prove himself with bigger and flashier jobs. The more heat and the more danger, the more likely his followers would regain their faith in his capabilities. But the more trouble Dutch stirred up, the more Arthur and John questioned him, and that led Dutch to wanting to cut their dissent out of the picture permanently, hence leaving them behind when he was more than capable of saving them.

[Deus Ex]

Dutch is a dreamer, or so he says. But really, he just hates the Uncle Sam, he is angry his father died in the Civil War, and his way of fightning him is by being an outlaw.
He has no greater plans, his intent is to fight that fight for as long as he lives.

He thinks he's some Robin Hood fella, but he's not, he never really was one, only when it suited him or when he could afford it, he hates modern civilization, and his frolicking around has caused untold misery.
He is able to fool others for a long time, but eventually, he cannot hide it, the "next score, the muhnney", it's just an excuse to keep going at it, and he is willing to do it till the last man, himself included.
Plus, he is insane, deep down, what he did in Black Water, what he did in RDR1 and so on.

[amazingbeavis]

Originally posted by Zander:

if you can't understand the games story you can just say so. dutch is a hypocrite plain and simple. the game explains this too you if you'd listen. "maybe people don't change, they just become more of who they are"

I'm sorry it upset you that my post disagrees with your head canon. One of the best advice to writers is show don't tell. If you have to rely on other characters' statements to characterize someone instead of his own actions that means that either it's poor writing or you shouldn't take what they say as a gospel. It's very common in poorly written modern movies and shows when other characters say for instance: "Oh she is the smartest!" and "she" doesn't do a single smart thing throughout.

[amazingbeavis]

Originally posted by PaleoGhost:

I think Dutch is a clinical narcissist. He needs to be the center of attention and have the unwavering devotion of his followers. He's always demanding the gang have faith in him, hates it when they question his plans, and even offers them false choices (they can leave whenever they wish and have freedom to do as they please, but yet there are rules against leaving/working "behind his back").

I think the craziness in the later chapters is about him trying to regain control of his "everybody's savior" persona after the failed Saint Denis bank job. Before then, you hear nearly all the younger gang members talk about how Dutch took them in when nobody else would or how they feel indebted to him for one reason or another. But after Hosea's death (despite the conman working one of the safest parts of that bank job), the gang really started to question Dutch. And that fulled his paranoia because Dutch didn't feel right about the bank job to begin with.

His need for devotion fueled his desire to prove himself with bigger and flashier jobs. The more heat and the more danger, the more likely his followers would regain their faith in his capabilities. But the more trouble Dutch stirred up, the more Arthur and John questioned him, and that led Dutch to wanting to cut their dissent out of the picture permanently, hence leaving them behind when he was more than capable of saving them.

i partially disagree with this take. Yes I agree that he was narcissistic. But I don't believe that narcissism was his primary motivator. If you look at the dynamic of the gang, it was the ever increasing risk that Dutch kept taking (with no reward) and its real consequences (dead gang members) that were creating discomfort and mistrust between the gang members and Dutch. Them treating him as a father presumes him protecting them from danger and not putting their lives at risk needlessly. So to maintain his narcissistic supply he had to do the opposite, reduce the risk, increase the reward and make everyone comfortable again. However he did the opposite, further endangering his status in the group. This shows that his motivation lies elsewhere.

[amazingbeavis]

Originally posted by Deus Ex:

Dutch is a dreamer, or so he says. But really, he just hates the Uncle Sam, he is angry his father died in the Civil War, and his way of fightning him is by being an outlaw.
He has no greater plans, his intent is to fight that fight for as long as he lives.

He thinks he's some Robin Hood fella, but he's not, he never really was one, only when it suited him or when he could afford it, he hates modern civilization, and his frolicking around has caused untold misery.
He is able to fool others for a long time, but eventually, he cannot hide it, the "next score, the muhnney", it's just an excuse to keep going at it, and he is willing to do it till the last man, himself included.
Plus, he is insane, deep down, what he did in Black Water, what he did in RDR1 and so on.

I agree with you, but want to point out that it wasn't just blind hate of Uncle Sam. He saw and understood the large amount of misery that the new order brought to people: slavery, genocide of the natives, exploitation, etc... The hypocrisy is in the fact that he also spread misery, just of a different kind. But his war against civilization was rationalized.