|
"Mature Content Warning!" |
 |
This Article Contains Spoilers -
WARNING: This article contains major spoilers. If you do not wish to know vital information on plot / character elements in a story, you may not wish to read beyond this warning: We hold no responsibility for any negative effects these facts may have on your enjoyment of said media should you continue. |
| “ | Nothin' means more to me than this gang. I would kill for it. I would happily die for it. I wish things were different... But it weren't us who changed. | „ |
| ~ Arthur in the last trailer. |
| “ | Listen to me. When the time comes, you gotta run and don’t look back. This is over. | „ |
| ~ Arthur advising John not to follow Dutch anymore and save himself and his family. |
Arthur Morgan is the main protagonist of the 2018 western-adventure game Red Dead Redemption 2 and the overarching protagonist of its 2010 predecessor Red Dead Redemption.
He was the lead enforcer of the Van der Linde gang who begins to have doubts about his loyalty to the gang's leader, Dutch van der Linde.
He is voiced by Roger Clark.
His Evil Rankings[]
What Makes Him Heinous?[]
- He has been an outlaw for over 20 years, and has no problem committing crimes like, killing and robbing innocent people, rival gangs, law enforcers, etc.
- Even if you are playing him with High Honor, his kill count of rival gangs, Pinkertons, law enforcement, and the Army can easily reach into the thousands.
- Him aiding the gang acts as a catalyst for their carnage, such as helping Sadie Adler; who is responsible for quite a bit of collateral damage; helping Dutch, which causes the deaths of countless; and pointedly, breaking Micah out of Strawberry.
- He goes out with the gang to rob a train from Leviticus Cornwall and killed several train guards with Lenny. After that, he along with the others took 3 train guards hostage and determined to the player’s choice, can have the option to kill them. Not only that, but this act also caused Leviticus Cornwall to call the Pinkerton Detective Agency which leads to deaths of Mac, Lenny and Hosea later on in the game.
- When Jimmy Brooks was hanging off a cliff, Arthur can have the choices to kill him by waiting for Jimmy to lose his grip or by stepping on his fingers and watching Jimmy fall to his death.
- During a brawl in Valentine, he beats a man named Tommy so badly that he is left with permanent brain damage. It's very likely he would've killed Tommy too had Thomas Downes not pulled Arthur off of him.
- After he becomes drunk with Lenny, he almost drowns a guy to death in a horse trough, because he was annoying him.
- On Strauss’ orders, he confronts Thomas Downes, who has tuberculosis, and beats him to a pulp, causing his death later on. And while Arthur collects the debt from Edith, Thomas’s wife, he also subtly threatens Archie, Thomas’ son, for looking at him the wrong way.
- This act ruins their lives in the process. Edith and Archie are forced sell their home and move to Saint Denis where Edith works as a prostitute. Archie, for his part, works as a miner where his colleagues bully him, especially the foreman. While the damage can be mitigated in the optional two-part quest “Do not seek absolution” where Arthur helps them get out of their horrible situation and gives them money to start anew, it doesn’t change the fact that Arthur’s actions caused this in the first place.
- He breaks Micah Bell out of the prison in Strawberry, leading to both of them killing half of the town.
- In doing this, he is also directly responsible for all of the violence Micah later commits, up to and including betraying the gang and killing a little girl.
- Robs a train with Sean, John and Charles, beating any passenger that refuses to surrender their money. And when law enforcement comes, he kills several of them until he, and the gang could have a chance to escape.
- He robs a stagecoach with Uncle, Bill, and Charles while also killing many guards to secure it.
- He robs a bank with Karen, Lenny, and Bill while killing many law enforcement officers that were trying to capture them as well.
- After collecting the debt the Downes family owed to Leopold Strauss, when he felt that the son of the family, Archer, was giving him a disrespectful look, he menacingly threatened to kill him too, just like he did with his father Thomas, to keep his mother mourning.
- He robs a stagecoach with Micah, killing the stagecoach guards in the process.
- Under Catherine Braithwaite’s orders, he and Sean set the Grays’ crops on fire, while also killing many Grays, and they both also steal the guard’s payroll, which unintentionally causes Sean’s death later on.
- He, Javier, Strauss, and Trelawny make a plan to rob a cruise ship and killed many guards after they were exposed.
- He robs a bank with Dutch and Lenny with the information that Bronte gave them. Though it was revealed that it was a set up.
- He kills dozens of Bronte's men so Dutch could kill Angelo Bronte in revenge for the set up.
- He robs the biggest bank of Saint Denis and killed several Pinkertons in the process. This act had led both Hosea and Lenny to get killed by the Pinkertons.
- He and Sadie start a jailbreak and took one of the prison guards hostage. While it was to free John, Arthur and Sadie still kill dozens of guards, who were just doing their jobs incarcerating admittedly-dangerous outlaws, during their escape.
- He helps the Wapti Indians rage a war against Colonel Henry Favours and kills several of his men and then Favours himself.
- He and Bill rob a stagecoach of dynamite on Micah’s orders, and also killed numerous Pinkertons that were guarding it.
- For a train heist, Arthur and John blow up a bridge for a train to fall over. During the heist, he killed several train guards and even some of their horses with a machine gun.
- His fatalistic refusal to just call it quits with associating with Dutch - despite numerous evidence that he doesn't care about him anymore, if he ever did - led to the Wapiti tribe being exploited by Dutch and Eagle Flies' death, led to his own death, and instilled a desire for revenge in Sadie and John that led to the latter's death in the first game.
What Makes Him Inconsistent?[]
- As an on & off character, he has lots of heroic traits and actions.
- He is overall tragic, due to a difficult childhood and experiences with abusive father figures that affected his ability to form healthy relationships and cope with stress as an adult. That, coupled with the fact that his girlfriend Eliza and son Isaac were murdered during a robbery, gave him PTSD and had showed remorse for not doing anything to prevent their deaths.
- During his life as an adult, he goes through a lot of traumatic events that happen throughout the story. He witnessed Davey, Jenny, Sean, Kieran, Hosea, Lenny, Susan, and Molly die in front of his own eyes, contracts TB and knows that he is going to die, and that his father figure, Dutch, and two of his friends, Bill and Javier, betrayed him despite everything he’s done for them.
- He is shown to have care and affability towards people. He has a good relationship with the Van der Linde gang and was saddened by their deaths. He helps Susan rescue Tilly after she was kidnaped by the Foreman brothers, he gives Trelawny his blessing to leave the gang peacefully and he repeatedly protects the gang from their enemies.
- He's shown to have a good relationship with the Marston family and acts as a surrogate uncle for Jack. While he did resent John's irresponsibility towards his family, this was later subverted when John takes responsibility for his family and the two come to view each other as brothers. He can also have some Pet-The-Dog moments with Abigail and little Jack, and can be generally affable to people such as the Wapiti Indians and random strangers. In fact, his affability also extends to civilians, such as apologizing for bumping into them or complimenting/greeting them (if the player chooses to greet them instead of antagonising them).
- He was genuinely loyal to Dutch and the Van Der Linde gang, serving them for over 20 years. Even when defeat becomes more prevalent and members start to die frequently, Arthur still stands beside the gang. Arthur's loyalty only waivers, and rightfully so, when Dutch reveals his true colors by abandoning him to die, and instigating the war between the Wapiti Natives and the US Army. And even after all of this, Arthur still assists Dutch in multiple robberies, and when he learned that Micah informed on the gang, Arthur used this to try to get Dutch to see reason so that he could release himself from Micah’s manipulation, which Dutch unfortunately didn’t do until the very end.
- He is shown to have standards against racism, sexism, betrayal, irresponsibility, exploitation and corruption. He disapproves of Micah’s violent, narcissistic and racist behavior and he was genuinely angry towards him for his manipulative behavior towards Dutch and that he sold the gang out to the Pinkertons. He is disgusted having to be Strauss' loan shark and hates preying on the desperate and the poor. Later on, he resents how far the gang has strayed from their honorable ways of only stealing from the rich and corrupt, and giving that money to the poor. A far cry from their current selfish ways of robbing everyone in sight.
- Regardless of his honor, he helps John and his family escape the gang so they can live better lives.
- His death is played for sympathy as after fighting Micah, when Dutch interferes, Arthur tells him that he gave him all he had and that he succeeded in what he tried to do in the end. After that, he succumbs to his injuries and illness and die from tuberculosis laying on the ground and watching the sunrise before his last breath. Alternatively, he is mercilessly executed by Micah either shooting him in the head or stabbing him in the back, while sad music plays as well. If Arthur dies with High Honor while regardless if the former helps John or leave him for the money, a sun will rise while the sad music is played.
- Most of his acts and honour is determined to the player’s choice, so whilst it's possible to play Arthur - at the worst - as though a Near Pure Evil protagonist, it's also their choice if Arthur becomes a better person.
Trivia[]
- At maximal High Honour, players can play Arthur as though a Near Pure Good protagonist, in that whilst he still partakes in the outlaw's lifestyle and aids in their violent lives, as well as being jerkish at times, otherwise has no other corrupting qualities and always does the honorable thing.
- Arthur, however, is Inconsistently Admirable in canon.
- At maximal Low Honour, Arthur can be played as a Near Pure Evil character, as he cares for his friends due to helping them, but can otherwise have no redeeming qualities whatsoever in killing countless innocents on optionally brutal ways, as well as being apathetic to the gangs' members deaths; notably indifferently monologuing in the aftermath of Sean's death and noting there is no confederate gold, in contrast to his honourable play through in which he notes that Sean was like an "annoying little brother" to him.
- Arthur, however, is Inconsistently Heinous in canon, regardless of the moral scale, owing to his severe preventions; regardless of how heinous the player makes him.
External Links[]
- Arthur Morgan on the Villains Wiki
- Arthur Morgan on the Heroes Wiki
- Arthur Morgan on the Red Dead Wiki
- Arthur Morgan on the Inconsistently Admirable Wiki
[]
 Inconsistently Heinous
| ||
|
Grand Theft Auto Bully Red Dead | ||