What Nobody Talks About In Red Dead Redemption 2

Let's get this out of the way first: Red Dead Redemption 2 is an undeniable achievement. The game is realistic to a fault, asking players to do far more than most games would dare in the name of immersion. And the story is truly moving. You'll reach the end of Red Dead Redemption 2's campaign, and later, its epilogue, and feel genuine moments of loss, anger, and joy.

But there are definitely some glaring logical holes in this game.

In some cases, characters just do things that don't quite add up. In others, you have to suspend disbelief a little bit for plot points to land. And sometimes, the game just fails to address important characters and events outright. It's been some time since Red Dead 2 arrived, and now that we've had a chance to evaluate it entirely with a more critical eye, there are definitely some things that are really bugging us. And we can't let them go.

These are the messed up things in Red Dead Redemption 2 nobody talks about.

If you've played the original Red Dead Redemption, there's a good chance you saw what was coming for Arthur Morgan. He doesn't show up in that story, which meant that his exit in Red Dead Redemption 2 would either come via riding off into the sunset or staring at one as he died. Unfortunately for Arthur, it was the latter. After falling down in Saint Denis, Arthur visits a doctor and is diagnosed with tuberculosis. And he lives out the remainder of the time suffering through the effects of the disease.

Somehow, without infecting a single other person.

Arthur spends so much time around other people in Red Dead Redemption 2, particularly in camp. According to the CDC, "TB bacteria are spread through the air from one person to another." But none of Arthur's coughing fits get anyone else sick. None of the close-up conversations he has with other people manage to transmit the disease, either. It's almost as though everyone around him is either extremely lucky or has some kind of immunity.

Odds are, Arthur would've at least spread his TB to someone.

Thanks to Red Dead Redemption 2's campaign, some things are out of your control. You're going to get into gunfights. You're going to rob stagecoaches. You will kill and you will steal. And not only will those actions affect your Honor level in the game, but they'll also put you square in the sights of the law. If you stroll into a town you've caused trouble in and anyone recognizes you, be ready to fight or be ready to run.

That is, unless you simply visit a post office and pay off your bounties.

Believe it or not, almost all of your bad deeds can be wiped away if you have enough money. It doesn't matter if you've accidentally hit someone with your horse in town, drawing the ire of the sheriff. It doesn't matter if you murder every single person in a train station, painting the place red. Stroll up to the post office window, plunk down some coins, and you'll instantly be absolved of your sins.

It's one of those situations where "video games are gonna video game." The option to pay bounties is there to keep the story chugging along, but it still doesn't make a whole lot of sense.

Arthur Morgan is a very complicated character. He's spent his whole life as a bandit, stealing to survive and killing when necessary. But depending on how you play through Red Dead Redemption 2, he can show flashes of good, and can actually make a full-fledged turn toward the end of the campaign (should you so choose). But there's a Low Honor option for those who'd rather not help John Marston escape for a better life. And it's one that really doesn't add up when you think about it.

Instead of helping John at the end of the campaign, Arthur can choose to go back to the gang's camp for the money Dutch is hiding. Money he won't even get to spend.

Arthur is in pretty terrible shape in the last moments of the campaign. In fact, he looks like he could drop dead at any moment. Yet there's an option for him to choose money over everything else. The question is, what would he even do with that money? Retire and take a nice cruise? Arthur's life is so past the point of saving that all of the money in the world wouldn't make a difference.

This is a plot hole that no one can really explain.

Early on in Red Dead Redemption 2's story, Arthur takes on the role of stand-in dad for Jack Marston. At Abigail's request, Arthur takes little Jack fishing, showing him how to cast out into the river and wait for a bite. It's not the most exciting thing for a little kid, and Jack quickly loses interest in the activity. But as the two are wrapping up their fishing expedition, an unfriendly visitor happens upon them.

It's Edgar Ross of the Pinkerton Detective Agency. And he wants to know where Dutch is.

Arthur is still incredibly loyal to Dutch and the Van der Linde gang at this point, so he doesn't give up any information about Dutch's whereabouts. But the thing that doesn't make sense is how truly awful Edgar Ross is at his job. If he had a single investigative bone in his body, he would've simply followed Arthur and Jack back to the camp, which was about a 30-second horse ride away. Or, at the very least, he would've searched the surrounding area.

But he doesn't search. Instead, Ross exits the area, leaving Arthur and Jack to ride back to camp alone. And Ross, apparently, goes searching everywhere else for Dutch Van der Linde.

The leader of the Van der Linde gang, Dutch, evolves significantly over the course of Red Dead Redemption 2. He starts out as a sort of father figure for the gang and its members, making sure everyone is taking care of, and offering leadership and a vision for everyone's future. But as time passes, he becomes less interested in protecting everyone else and more worried about scoring a happy ending for himself. It's this shift in Dutch's demeanor that causes his girlfriend, Molly O'Shea, to grow increasingly frustrated with Dutch and the lack of attention she gives him.

But her play for more attention makes absolutely no sense.

Granted, Molly is incredibly drunk when she stumbles over to Dutch in camp and tells him — and the rest of the gang — that they've been running into Pinkertons because she was secretly a rat the whole time. But she had to know that the gang kills traitors, and with one shot from Susan Grimshaw, Molly meets her end. The thing is, we learn later in the game that Molly wasn't the rat at all. Micah was actually the one tipping the Pinkertons off. Which means that Molly lost her life taking credit for something she didn't actually do.

Why would anyone do that?

Arthur Morgan is, for the most part, whoever you want him to be. You'll obviously still be taking part in heists with the gang; that's part of the job description. But you can otherwise steer Arthur down a good path or a bad path. You can either be the conflicted good guy, doing what you can to help the people of Red Dead Redemption 2, or you can be a cutthroat killer, taking what you want while leaving a trail of bodies in your wake.

But you'd think Arthur would at least be nice to the folks in his camp. So why, then, is he so rude when it comes to eating?

If you've spent a decent amount of time in Red Dead Redemption 2's camp, you've likely swung by the cooking pot a time or two. You've filled up your bowl with stew, and you've tediously pushed a button every time you wanted to take a bite. And once you were finished, you went to the river, washed your bowl out — oh no, wait. You didn't do that last part. You simply threw your bowl and spoon on the ground for someone else to clean up.

Not cool.

In Red Dead Redemption 2, you hear a lot about the town of Blackwater before you ever actually visit it. When the game begins, you learn the Van der Linde gang is on the run from the law due to a failed ferry heist in Blackwater. And for all of the main campaign, you can see that the area of Blackwater has a "dead or alive" bounty out for all of the gang's members. It would be foolish for anyone associated with the group to go back to Blackwater. It would almost certainly mean incarceration, if not death.

Yet John Marston just strolls into Blackwater in the epilogue as though nothing happened.

And it gets even more nonsensical from there: John is able to secure a bank loan for his ranch property at the Blackwater bank. John buys the materials to build his home in Blackwater. Heck, John even builds his ranch right outside of Blackwater at Beecher's Hope. For a guy who was once wanted by the law, Marston walks freely around the town like he owns it.

Did everyone just forget about him?

Both Sadie Adler and John Marston were Van der Linde gang members, and both have done their fair share of killing. Any lawman with half a brain would be happy to take either one in under normal circumstances. But it seems anyone wearing a badge in Red Dead 2 has a terrible case of amnesia, because once the epilogue kicks off, neither Sadie nor John are recognized.

But that's not all. Sadie actually becomes a bounty hunter, wrangling criminals for the various sheriffs in the world. And John, in need of some money to pay for his new home, joins her.

There's something to be said for living a life of crime and then, eventually, going straight. But that usually happens after you've served out some kind of punishment for your actions — not because everyone working for the law conveniently forgets who you are.

Who knew that the gang didn't have to keep running forever! They could've just become bounty hunters.

We can't stress enough how close John's ranch, Beecher's Hope, is to Blackwater. You can take a road right out of town, make one turn, and boom — you've found John Marston. It's inconceivable that no Pinkerton would've crossed paths with John at some point, yet in Red Dead Redemption 2's epilogue, it never happens. Instead, John lives the good life right out in the open. He has his own huge ranch property, his own home, and a happy family life.

So why is it that John Marston can pretty much hide out in plain sight while Micah and Dutch are forced to camp at the highest, coldest mountaintop in the game?

If you've finished the epilogue, you know how incredibly difficult it is to reach Micah and Dutch's campsite. And you've probably seen how treacherous the conditions are there. Micah and Dutch feel as though they have to stay there in order to evade the long arm of the law. Yet John — who eventually makes his way to that mountaintop to end Micah's life — seems to reside down in civilization without anyone noticing.

It makes no sense.

When John and Abigail break away from the gang and try to start a new life, they have to do so under cover. They're both wanted, after all. So both take new jobs and assume pseudonyms as Jim and Agatha Milton.

For those who weren't paying attention during Red Dead Redemption 2's main campaign, the cover identities might seem unremarkable. But if you have an eye for detail, you'll find the last name in particular a little twisted.

Near the end of the campaign, Abigail was abducted by the Pinkertons. Arthur and Sadie team up to rescue her, and eventually, Arthur makes his way into the room where Abigail is being kept. He tussles with the Pinkerton agent that's been tailing the gang throughout Red Dead 2's story, and looks to be losing the fight — until Abigail recovers a gun and shoots the agent dead.

The agent's name was Andrew Milton. Yes, John and Abigail used the last name of the agent Abigail killed as a pseudonym. And the game never hints as to whether or not this was intentional.

Throughout Red Dead Redemption 2, the Pinkerton National Detective Agency comes across as either perfectly capable or completely inept. Its agents somehow can't track down Dutch Van der Linde's camp south of Valentine, despite being a short ride away from it. On the other hand, though, the Pinkertons are able to discover and assault various gang hideouts elsewhere. The agency has the gang dead to rights toward the end of Red Dead 2's campaign. And then everyone escapes again.

The Pinkertons somehow pull off an investigative wonder, though, when they happen upon Micah and Dutch's mountaintop camp.

Despite the fact that John Marston and his family have been all over Red Dead Redemption 2's world, and despite the fact that John has done business in Blackwater and built a home right outside the town, the Pinkertons are never able to find him. That is, until they find the site of the standoff between Micah and John. Suddenly, on this mountaintop in an entirely different state, the Pinkertons have enough evidence to locate John Marston at Beecher's Hope.

We see Edgar Ross staring at the ranch during the game's credits, leading to the events of Red Dead Redemption. But what led them to the ranch remains a mystery.

The beautiful thing about the way Red Dead Redemption 2 ends is that, for the most part, we know what's happened to pretty much everyone involved in the tale. Arthur has passed away. A number of characters will killed, including Micah, Hosea, Lenny, Sean, Miss Grimshaw, and Molly. John, Abigail, and Jack are living at Beecher's Hope with Uncle. Charles has gone to Canada. Sadie has traveled to South America. Tilly has gotten married. Mr. Pearson has opened a shop. Mary-Beth becomes a writer. And Dutch, Javier, and Bill are scattered — their whereabouts unknown.

But there's no mention of Karen.

We last see Karen when everything falls apart for the gang at Beaver Hollow. But outside of that, there's no word on where she is, what she's doing, or if she's even still alive. The game just flat-out skips Karen as a character during the credits, where everyone else's stories get wrapped up. For a game with such attention to detail, it seems unfathomable that Red Dead Redemption 2 would fail to end Karen's story in any meaningful way. But that's exactly what it did. As far as the end of Red Dead 2 is concerned, Karen has simply vanished.