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43 - Red Dead Redemption: Honor, Vengeance & John Marston · Mythic Mind Games

0:03
Speaker 1: Hello, and welcome to Mythic Mind Games, an extension of
0:06
Speaker 1: the Mythic Mind Fellowship which pursues wisdom on the paths
0:09
Speaker 1: between primary and secondary world. I'm doctor Angel Snyder, and
0:12
Speaker 1: I'm glad that you're here. Welcome back to Mythic Mind Games.
0:20
Speaker 2: Today.
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Speaker 1: I am joined by Master Sam Wise, who's been on
0:23
Speaker 1: other Mythic Mind shows a couple of times a while back,
0:26
Speaker 1: and then Michael, who's been here a bit more recently
0:29
Speaker 1: for various things. And today we're talking about Red Dead
0:32
Speaker 1: Redemption one and two. So we talked about two a
0:36
Speaker 1: while back Sam, since then I played Red Dead Redemption one,
0:41
Speaker 1: so I thought we should chat about it for a
0:43
Speaker 1: little bit, but decided we can revisit too. I know
0:45
Speaker 1: Michael just recently played through two, and I don't know.
0:49
Speaker 1: Maybe Sam can convince me into finding more substance in
0:53
Speaker 1: Redemption one. But having played two first, I have to
0:58
Speaker 1: say that I really enjoyed one, but it's definitely not
1:02
Speaker 1: I would say, as immersive or as profound of an experience. However,
1:06
Speaker 1: it is good in its own right, and so I
1:08
Speaker 1: look forward to you to get into some of that.
1:10
Speaker 2: But for now, just start.
1:11
Speaker 1: Off opening statements I love just to hear something about
1:16
Speaker 1: your experience with either one of these games or with
1:19
Speaker 1: both these games together. I'm just kind of sort of
1:21
Speaker 1: opening thoughts. Whatever you want to put out there, Sam,
1:23
Speaker 1: Do you want to take it up first?
1:25
Speaker 3: Sure, So I went the class. What I feel like
1:28
Speaker 3: is the classic ground if you get into Red Dead
1:30
Speaker 3: Redemption nowadays, where I played the second one first and
1:34
Speaker 3: then I went back and played the first one, so
1:37
Speaker 3: you know, it played them in chronological order, but it
1:40
Speaker 3: is it is a very jarring experience going back to
1:45
Speaker 3: twenty eleven Ory ten, whenever the uh, you know, the
1:48
Speaker 3: first game was released after having played you know, Rockstar's
1:52
Speaker 3: Magnum Opus it came out in twenty eighteen. Because you know,
1:56
Speaker 3: the star of Arthur Morgan, The Vanderlin Gang is one
2:00
Speaker 3: of the greatest video game stories, hands down ever, and
2:06
Speaker 3: it's got so many different characters who are all so
2:08
Speaker 3: well fleshed out to the point that you know, it's impossible,
2:11
Speaker 3: as I'm proving right now, it's a near nearly impossible
2:15
Speaker 3: for anyone to have a conversation about Red and one
2:17
Speaker 3: without referencing Red Dead two, because Red to two just
2:20
Speaker 3: surpassed it in every way. Reded one is a is
2:23
Speaker 3: a good story. It's a much more focused story. It's
2:26
Speaker 3: much smaller in scope. It's about, you know, just kind
2:28
Speaker 3: of a single man's journey, and everyone else is much
2:31
Speaker 3: more ancillary than they are in Red Dead two. And
2:35
Speaker 3: you know, John's you know, redemption as it were, is
2:39
Speaker 3: a much kind of shorter path. He doesn't have the
2:42
Speaker 3: same sort of it doesn't have the his character doesn't
2:45
Speaker 3: have the depth that Arthur's does because he's already to
2:48
Speaker 3: an extent on the straight and narrow when you know,
2:53
Speaker 3: such as it is for him when we meet him
2:55
Speaker 3: in Red Dead ones. So you know, I did. I
2:59
Speaker 3: did spend forty minutes talking about the game. I've made
3:01
Speaker 3: a forty minute essay on it, so I had a
3:03
Speaker 3: lot to say. I'll sure sure he visited some of
3:05
Speaker 3: those notes because I haven't thought a lot a lot
3:08
Speaker 3: about it since then, and I've thought a lot about
3:10
Speaker 3: Red Did two since I made that video. So I
3:14
Speaker 3: think that's that's pretty much sums it up. And in
3:16
Speaker 3: a couple of minutes.
3:18
Speaker 1: Yeah, I feel like I would have appreciated Redded one
3:23
Speaker 1: a lot more if I had played it when it
3:25
Speaker 1: was fresh, you know, when it came out before getting
3:27
Speaker 1: to two, because one problem that I have is not
3:29
Speaker 1: only is Too just a more substantial experience, but in
3:35
Speaker 1: many ways they take a lot of the same major
3:37
Speaker 1: narrative arcs from one and just make them better. So yeah,
3:42
Speaker 1: you you know, halfway through the game, for example, you know,
3:45
Speaker 1: you go off to Latin America, get caught up in
3:47
Speaker 1: a revolution, come.
3:48
Speaker 2: Back, spoilers, you die.
3:53
Speaker 1: Uh It's I don't know, A lot of the same
3:55
Speaker 1: sort of arcs play out just better in two.
3:57
Speaker 2: So I don't know.
3:59
Speaker 1: All right, Well, Michael, tell something. I know you just
4:01
Speaker 1: recently went through too.
4:03
Speaker 4: Yeah, I played it back in November and December.
4:06
Speaker 2: I think.
4:09
Speaker 4: As as research in a way, the next writing project
4:12
Speaker 4: I'm pushing towards is more of an American themed tale. Yeah,
4:16
Speaker 4: and so I was really wanting that American Western esthetic
4:19
Speaker 4: as something to experience, and really, yeah, we're going to
4:23
Speaker 4: talk probably more about story type stuff, but as as
4:27
Speaker 4: a as a esthetic work of art, I don't know
4:30
Speaker 4: of any other video game that attempts to challenge so
4:34
Speaker 4: many American landscapes and and and textures in a way
4:41
Speaker 4: that you know, Red Dead Redemption two does from Rocky
4:47
Speaker 4: Mountain esque vistas to some planes down to Bayous in Louisiana,
4:52
Speaker 4: up to some areas that look kind of Kentucky ish
4:55
Speaker 4: when you're getting up into the Northeast. You know, from
4:58
Speaker 4: the from the artistics standpoint, it really is just a
5:02
Speaker 4: very staggering work, you know, and and continuing on with
5:06
Speaker 4: the you know, the different artistic stuff. Musically, it's great,
5:11
Speaker 4: but it voice acting wise, has three of the best
5:15
Speaker 4: vocal performances that video games I've ever had. Arthur Morgan's
5:19
Speaker 4: voice actor just absolutely kills it, Dutch's voice actor absolutely
5:24
Speaker 4: kills it, and Hosea just those three were just phenomenal
5:30
Speaker 4: performances that the writing is already excellent, but they just
5:34
Speaker 4: really elevate some of those moments, you know, especially as
5:38
Speaker 4: things begin to come apart.
5:40
Speaker 2: They're just absolutely fabulous.
5:45
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean it definitely Esthetically it's it's beautiful, which
5:49
Speaker 1: I mean, you know, coming up on approaching it a decade,
5:52
Speaker 1: you know, that's it feels like it should be a
5:55
Speaker 1: pretty big difference and you feel like the age should
5:57
Speaker 1: show more than it does. And so you you can
6:00
Speaker 1: definitely tell the love and the just the artistry they
6:03
Speaker 1: put into it, and you know, the the gang interactions
6:09
Speaker 1: that you get into. It's just another thing that I
6:11
Speaker 1: felt was just missing when I went back to one,
6:14
Speaker 1: where I feel like John Marston is the only really
6:17
Speaker 1: substantial character. And even he I don't know if I
6:20
Speaker 1: can call him really substantial because you know, as Sam said,
6:22
Speaker 1: he kind of has already had his Redemption arc. It's
6:27
Speaker 1: not quite the same power to it.
6:30
Speaker 4: So you said when we were talking about this a
6:32
Speaker 4: couple of months ago, you had said that the first
6:34
Speaker 4: time you played Red Dead Redemption Too, you didn't actually
6:37
Speaker 4: play the epilogue. Did you go back and you play
6:39
Speaker 4: the epilog by any chance? Andrew?
6:41
Speaker 5: No, I actually I still have not done the Oh okay, see,
6:44
Speaker 5: well that's that's what's so interesting about if you start
6:48
Speaker 5: with two, I'm not really left with any desire to
6:51
Speaker 5: go on to one after the epilogue of two, because
6:55
Speaker 5: it's like, just from being around video games for so
6:58
Speaker 5: many years, I know how one right it's like, And
7:01
Speaker 5: I have no idea.
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Speaker 4: I have no desire to take the ending of two
7:05
Speaker 4: away from John Marston and his family. I'm like, no,
7:08
Speaker 4: this is good. We're gonna leave it right here. This
7:10
Speaker 4: is a good and satisfying conclusion, not just a John's story,
7:13
Speaker 4: but also the way that John's story kind of caps
7:15
Speaker 4: off Arthur's story and kind of the fulfillment and the
7:19
Speaker 4: things that Arthur was fighting for at the end at
7:21
Speaker 4: least if you're taking a redemptive path.
7:24
Speaker 3: Yeah, absolutely, playing is you know, author giving John his
7:28
Speaker 3: his his freedom essentially, and then the epilogue ending ending
7:31
Speaker 3: the way it does. It's like John is fulfilling Arthur's legacy, like,
7:34
Speaker 3: you know, becoming the main art he wanted to be.
7:38
Speaker 3: So Red To, like read to two is far more
7:42
Speaker 3: like American fantasy in that way. Whereas those you know,
7:46
Speaker 3: exploring the death of the frontier and everything, the Frontier
7:49
Speaker 3: is not dead quite yet, and it's got the you know,
7:54
Speaker 3: I'm sure we're all quite aware of on fairy stories
7:58
Speaker 3: in Tolkien's talk of you catastrophe right again, depending on
8:01
Speaker 3: your choices. In Red Dead two, you get a you
8:03
Speaker 3: cautast you catastrophic moment, right and so, and the epologue
8:08
Speaker 3: really fulfills that, it shows it to be, you know,
8:10
Speaker 3: not just limited to that single moment. Red Dead one
8:14
Speaker 3: is much more, much less fantasy and much more drama
8:17
Speaker 3: right where it is a tragedy, especially with the I
8:21
Speaker 3: mean the ending of Red Dead One, where I guess
8:25
Speaker 3: again it's gonna be full of spoilers, but the very
8:28
Speaker 3: end of Red Dead one, Uh, you play as Jack,
8:32
Speaker 3: as John's son, who goes and avenges his father and
8:37
Speaker 3: kills the man who killed him, who killed John. So
8:40
Speaker 3: it's this much darker and more cynical story about just
8:45
Speaker 3: the cyclical violence. And you know, it's it's really kind
8:51
Speaker 3: of depressing because you know John again, this was John's
8:54
Speaker 3: struggle was similar to Arthur's struggle. But it it all
8:59
Speaker 3: kind of just, uh, it's all it seems rather deterministic.
9:05
Speaker 4: Well, and and it's kind of it's it's they're telling
9:10
Speaker 4: the great modernist, the great modernist story that is true.
9:16
Speaker 2: Right.
9:16
Speaker 4: There's a lot of modernist and postmodern stories that aren't true,
9:19
Speaker 4: but the one that is true is self destructive behavior
9:22
Speaker 4: leads to self destruction, right, And so I mean that's true.
9:28
Speaker 4: And that's and from what I know of Red Dead one,
9:30
Speaker 4: that's exactly kind of the arc that it takes there
9:32
Speaker 4: in that in that same sort of way, but with
9:35
Speaker 4: with the epilogue of two, it almost kind of subverts
9:40
Speaker 4: that in that way a little bit to saying, well, no,
9:43
Speaker 4: there is a way out. You know, there is a
9:45
Speaker 4: way out of this lifestyle, which you know if you
9:49
Speaker 4: play all the way through through too, as Arthur really
9:54
Speaker 4: pushing all of the more redemptive choices, especially with was
9:57
Speaker 4: her name Mary, Yes, yes, you know, the the the
10:02
Speaker 4: the woman in the past, and especially when it gets
10:04
Speaker 4: to that point walk walk away with me, you know,
10:06
Speaker 4: is the scene that I was waiting for because I
10:09
Speaker 4: knew that the offer was going to come, because because
10:12
Speaker 4: that's that's that, that's another true story, that that the
10:16
Speaker 4: man should try and a man will will redeem himself
10:19
Speaker 4: to earn the love of a woman. Right, It's Beauty
10:22
Speaker 4: and the Beast, And so I knew that that was coming.
10:24
Speaker 4: But also knowing the nature of this modernist tale, it's
10:27
Speaker 4: and you know that the answer is going to be
10:30
Speaker 4: I can't find my way out, right, And so the
10:33
Speaker 4: epilogue of two works almost as a subversion as to
10:36
Speaker 4: the entire rest of the modernist tale of saying there's
10:39
Speaker 4: no way out. And so I'm quite happy to only
10:42
Speaker 4: play two. Maybe someday, if I'm really bored and catch
10:45
Speaker 4: one on the steam sale or something, maybe maybe I'll
10:48
Speaker 4: give it a shot, just to just to say I've
10:49
Speaker 4: done it, you know, but from a a story satisfaction standpoint,
10:53
Speaker 4: ending with the oh, what's the name of the ranch?
10:56
Speaker 4: And hope in the name of the ranch that they
10:58
Speaker 4: hope yep, yep, I'm content with leaving it there for now.
11:03
Speaker 2: Yeah.
11:03
Speaker 1: I like how how Sam you frame that as the
11:07
Speaker 1: second one is more of a fantasy, because it it is,
11:10
Speaker 1: it's much more religious in nature, and and taking Tolkien's
11:15
Speaker 1: vocabulary in mind, or even you know Lewis for that matter,
11:18
Speaker 1: that there's the the in the true myth, the transcendent,
11:24
Speaker 1: the true myth at the Gospel, the Transcendent touches the
11:29
Speaker 1: the factual reality of history, right, and so there is
11:36
Speaker 1: the drama, the very human drama at play here, but
11:39
Speaker 1: it's being redeemed by the Transcendent. And even in Arthur
11:42
Speaker 1: Morgan's story, there's certain hopelessness that's playing out here, you know,
11:46
Speaker 1: especially as his tuberculosis really to the forefront. He gets
11:52
Speaker 1: to the point where he's able to admit I'm dying.
11:56
Speaker 1: Even in his death, the impossibility of this wall he's
11:59
Speaker 1: running against, like there is this sense that there's something
12:03
Speaker 1: beyond this, that there's some hope that his life can
12:06
Speaker 1: have meaning despite the fact that his life is obviously
12:09
Speaker 1: falling apart, it's obviously coming toward the end, and so
12:12
Speaker 1: it's much more of a fantastic you know, there's that
12:14
Speaker 1: transcendent that's that's connecting, there's that fantasy element, there's that
12:18
Speaker 1: religious element, whereas redditdemption one is it feels much more
12:23
Speaker 1: like a kind of like a Nordic tale of the
12:26
Speaker 1: vengeance cycles, right where you get to the end and
12:30
Speaker 1: even if the vengeance of the protagonist is enacted, you're
12:34
Speaker 1: still left with this sense of emptiness of there's no
12:38
Speaker 1: ultimate victory here because I mean, even if he wins,
12:42
Speaker 1: he's lost everything along the way. And so that that
12:46
Speaker 1: is I think a good way of framing that.
12:53
Speaker 3: Yeah, go ahead, yeah, John, uh it Red Dead Red
12:57
Speaker 3: one is really tough because John's final act is just
13:00
Speaker 3: to sacrifice himself right to be give his wife, by
13:02
Speaker 3: his wife and child enough time to escape, which is
13:04
Speaker 3: an incredibly heroic thing to do, you know, very noble,
13:07
Speaker 3: very redemptive, and like that that's you know, very good,
13:11
Speaker 3: that is very you know, inspiring. I think of like
13:15
Speaker 3: good stories basically have two they do two things. Well,
13:19
Speaker 3: they illuminate and they inspire, right so they shine a
13:22
Speaker 3: light on humanity. Right, they tell the truth about our nature,
13:25
Speaker 3: but they also inspire us to be better, right to
13:28
Speaker 3: some extent. You know, dramas are often like those set
13:32
Speaker 3: in the real world. I think of The Wire. I
13:34
Speaker 3: don't know if you've either of you seen that HBO
13:36
Speaker 3: show from the early two thousands that's set in West
13:38
Speaker 3: Baltimore or Folcus on the cops and drug dealers and
13:40
Speaker 3: various working class of Baltimore, and it's very much like
13:45
Speaker 3: that's just pure illumination, is a very good job telling
13:47
Speaker 3: the truth about like humanity, just the system being broken
13:50
Speaker 3: and all these people struggling to make their way and
13:53
Speaker 3: resist being corrupted poorly, but you know, and then you
14:00
Speaker 3: have stories like you know, Lord of the Rings and
14:01
Speaker 3: the problems of Dardian and Star Wars, and it's taken
14:04
Speaker 3: with another example, which are very they are lumining. These
14:07
Speaker 3: they do show us the truth about humanity, but they
14:09
Speaker 3: show it in a in a better light, in a
14:11
Speaker 3: more inspiring way. So John has that element right where
14:15
Speaker 3: John's death is very much inspiring. It's like, this is
14:17
Speaker 3: what a good man does. Uh. The problem is there's
14:20
Speaker 3: that darn free will element where his son does not
14:23
Speaker 3: you know, his his son is not automatically changed and
14:26
Speaker 3: you know, forced to become a good man just because
14:30
Speaker 3: his father died in a heroic way. So that's yeah,
14:34
Speaker 3: that's the tragedy there. I suppose.
14:46
Speaker 2: Well, I don't really know where I go from here.
14:51
Speaker 3: I'll say, if you have another notes say about I. I
14:53
Speaker 3: had lots of notes on Red Dead. One one thing
14:55
Speaker 3: I did like most about John's character. And again you
14:59
Speaker 3: do see this in Arthur, like Andrew your point, but
15:01
Speaker 3: really how they just they kind of took a lot
15:03
Speaker 3: of the themes and character notes from Red didn't want
15:06
Speaker 3: to just made them better. It's very true. But John
15:09
Speaker 3: is very clear sighted, he's very humble. Right, There's you know,
15:13
Speaker 3: there's the war, the Civil war that he finds himself
15:16
Speaker 3: embroiled in in in Mexico, and he's just like completely
15:22
Speaker 3: disillusioned with all of it. One time, it is only
15:25
Speaker 3: in one one thing one the other side is telling
15:27
Speaker 3: him the other thing, uh, and he just kind of
15:29
Speaker 3: goes along with whatever because he's he's completely disillusioned, doesn't care.
15:35
Speaker 3: He doesn't really you know, believe anybody what they're saying,
15:39
Speaker 3: because he knows their fault. They are fault. He's right
15:42
Speaker 3: about that. So yeah, you know, the revolutionaries kind of
15:48
Speaker 3: have like the especially the girl he meets there, Louise
15:51
Speaker 3: I think her name is, and you know, she's she's
15:56
Speaker 3: looking at this extremely romantically, and you know he's just
16:00
Speaker 3: he sees none of it. And yeah, it again, it's
16:05
Speaker 3: one of those things where it's not the story is
16:08
Speaker 3: not showing humanity in a good light, but that's how
16:11
Speaker 3: humans often are, unfortunately, and you know you can see that,
16:15
Speaker 3: you can see at least John is clear headed about
16:17
Speaker 3: all that I did like. And then again you cut
16:20
Speaker 3: to Arthur and Red Dead too. One of the some
16:21
Speaker 3: of the first words out of his mouth are or
16:23
Speaker 3: bad men, but we ain't them, and they're like, okay, yeah,
16:26
Speaker 3: you know, here we go. It's it's it's the same
16:28
Speaker 3: sort of thing, just done quite a bit better.
16:31
Speaker 2: Yeah.
16:31
Speaker 4: You know every time that I talked about you know,
16:34
Speaker 4: as I was playing through this game and I was
16:36
Speaker 4: you know, I was kind of talking through it with
16:39
Speaker 4: my wife, you know, who's not going to get a
16:40
Speaker 4: chance to play it. Every is that sort of thing.
16:42
Speaker 4: So I was kind of telling her that one line
16:44
Speaker 4: was the one I always kept going back to describe
16:48
Speaker 4: what the h Vanderlin gang thought of themselves. We're bad men,
16:53
Speaker 4: but we're not them, right, And this, this this multi
16:57
Speaker 4: layered lie that Dutch has convinced everyone into you you
17:03
Speaker 4: can be bad, but I mean it's true, there's levels
17:06
Speaker 4: of bad, but you know, it's it's just sorry, it's
17:10
Speaker 4: just a great line. I just had to comment that. Man,
17:13
Speaker 4: it's just such a great line because it's just it's
17:15
Speaker 4: it was very early. It's in the prologue, isn't it.
17:17
Speaker 3: Yep, yeah, it's in the It's in the prolog.
17:19
Speaker 4: So it tells you basically everything you need to know
17:21
Speaker 4: about Dutch going forward, and it's it's almost prophetic in
17:24
Speaker 4: how it plays out that well, actually you are just
17:28
Speaker 4: bad men.
17:29
Speaker 3: And the line that is Dutch Dutch fallows up so
17:32
Speaker 3: that Arthur says that to Sadie right when they rescue her,
17:36
Speaker 3: and then they take kieran prisoner and bring him back
17:40
Speaker 3: to Dutch, and Dutch has a line which I think
17:42
Speaker 3: is even like even better. That's like, you know, we
17:47
Speaker 3: we feed fellas is need feeding, and shoot them shooting
17:51
Speaker 3: fellows news shooting. There might be a third, you know,
17:53
Speaker 3: but it's like we give people there due we get
17:55
Speaker 3: like Dutch is very much like we are just right.
17:59
Speaker 3: This is what he's telling them, you know, uh, like yeah,
18:02
Speaker 3: you can tell that's the lie that he's that he's
18:04
Speaker 3: gotten everyone to believe that like they are, they're doing
18:07
Speaker 3: what is just, what is what is righteous? You know,
18:10
Speaker 3: they're they're not taking any more than their own, They're
18:12
Speaker 3: giving people their due. Hi's just, it's just brilliant.
18:16
Speaker 4: Well, it reminds me a lot of there's this there's
18:19
Speaker 4: this false nocent of freedom, which is freedom from all restraint. Right,
18:25
Speaker 4: there's nothing, there's no system, there's no laws, there's anything.
18:28
Speaker 4: We're going to be We're going to be the free men.
18:30
Speaker 4: And that that freedom is this this idealized as a
18:34
Speaker 4: virtue right, which is of course anti biblical to say,
18:40
Speaker 4: you know that freedom is the freedom to do whatever
18:43
Speaker 4: you want, whereas you know, biblically speaking, well, the freedom
18:46
Speaker 4: is is freedom basically to be virtuous, you know, is
18:52
Speaker 4: really how it should be. And and you almost think
18:55
Speaker 4: about and this is going to be really nerdy here,
18:57
Speaker 4: but if you remember old Star Wars EU the same,
19:00
Speaker 4: if you know they have this the Sith Code, it's
19:04
Speaker 4: really about freeing oneself from all shackles, and they have
19:08
Speaker 4: like this almost messianic prophecy of this perfect sith, you know,
19:11
Speaker 4: this Cithari who will have no attachments and shackles to anything,
19:15
Speaker 4: that'll be the ultimate free being basically.
19:18
Speaker 2: You know.
19:19
Speaker 4: So it's interesting seeing in Red Dead Redemption to this
19:22
Speaker 4: this this freedom has a false virtue to itself, which
19:29
Speaker 4: is something that arises as a perversion of the American
19:34
Speaker 4: ideal in a way. You know, it's it's the land
19:38
Speaker 4: of the free and the home of the brave right,
19:41
Speaker 4: but but free to do what you know, and there's
19:44
Speaker 4: this this this this mythologizing we've done of the Old
19:48
Speaker 4: West as being this rougher place than it was in reality.
19:51
Speaker 4: There's obviously lots of rough things that happened, but you know,
19:54
Speaker 4: as we as we kind of talk about the Old West,
19:57
Speaker 4: there's a lot of fiction that's worked into that narrative,
19:59
Speaker 4: but is very They really tapped into that in Red
20:03
Speaker 4: Dead Redemption too, as this this false virtue, And that's
20:07
Speaker 4: exactly how Dutch convinces himself that he's a good man,
20:12
Speaker 4: because he's virtuous in his own mind, because he's free
20:16
Speaker 4: and he's leaving leading these people to freedom, right and
20:19
Speaker 4: that's the gang under him.
20:20
Speaker 1: And that's one of the things that makes two so
20:22
Speaker 1: compelling that Dutch has established this noble lie or maybe
20:27
Speaker 1: this live nobility where it sounds very inspiring, as you
20:31
Speaker 1: were saying, it makes them feel like they're on the
20:33
Speaker 1: right side of things, even if they're on the wrong
20:34
Speaker 1: side of the law. And that's one of the things
20:37
Speaker 1: that Arthur had really attached on to that despite the
20:41
Speaker 1: fact that, well, he recognizes that he's a bad man,
20:44
Speaker 1: well he recognizes that he's a bad man because he's
20:47
Speaker 1: had a taste of nobility, even if it's coming through
20:49
Speaker 1: the lives of Dutch. So much so that as the
20:53
Speaker 1: fault lines in Dutch continue to show more and more
20:55
Speaker 1: throughout the game, Arthur becomes kind of disillusion but he
21:00
Speaker 1: still wants something real. He wants the real thing that
21:03
Speaker 1: Dutch falsely offered him. And so there's yeah, there's just
21:08
Speaker 1: it's it's it's a much more sophisticated game.
21:11
Speaker 2: Whereas I was gonna say.
21:13
Speaker 4: And the the the second virtue of the Vanderlin gang
21:17
Speaker 4: is loyalty. You know which loyalty is another easily led astray,
21:24
Speaker 4: you know, loyalty to what is always the question you know,
21:27
Speaker 4: are are you Are you loyal to something that is
21:30
Speaker 4: worthy of that loyalty, or are you loyal to something
21:34
Speaker 4: that is going to lead you astray and lead you
21:36
Speaker 4: and itself to destruction, which is obviously the case here.
21:40
Speaker 4: And and even though as early as the second chapter, well,
21:46
Speaker 4: I guess really the third the third chapter, once they
21:49
Speaker 4: move down into the kind of old Confederate inspired area.
21:55
Speaker 4: As early as that Arthur knows there on the raw path,
22:00
Speaker 4: he knows that Dutches's leadership isn't going to get him
22:04
Speaker 4: out right it get anyone out, but he endlessly stays
22:10
Speaker 4: because he's loyal, you know, he's this is this is
22:14
Speaker 4: what you do. I'm loyal to this. This is what
22:15
Speaker 4: I'm gonna do. But it's like that's it's not a
22:18
Speaker 4: it's not a ver it's not the virtue he thinks
22:20
Speaker 4: it is.
22:21
Speaker 1: Right there, there's a I mean, there's a kind of
22:23
Speaker 1: virtue in that in that, you know, he doesn't yet
22:26
Speaker 1: nowhere else to go, but he does know that loyalty
22:29
Speaker 1: is a good thing. And you know, I think of
22:30
Speaker 1: in you know, in the Cimbrillion, where where Tolkien says
22:33
Speaker 1: that the one virtue of Suron is that for a
22:38
Speaker 1: time he was loyal to someone else, namely more Goth.
22:40
Speaker 1: Now being loyal to more Goth is not a great thing,
22:42
Speaker 1: but but loyalty itself is recognizing that you are intrinsically
22:47
Speaker 1: part of a hierarchy like that is.
22:49
Speaker 2: A good thing.
22:50
Speaker 1: Ideally you're going to get the hierarchy right, but nonetheless
22:53
Speaker 1: that loyalty itself is a good thing.
22:54
Speaker 2: And that's what Arthur knew or or.
22:56
Speaker 4: At least, you know, figure out a way to want
23:00
Speaker 4: the best for that structure you find yourself in, you know,
23:03
Speaker 4: and it's it's Arthur does very genuinely, I think, care
23:08
Speaker 4: for a lot of those people, and especially towards the
23:10
Speaker 4: end when the writing is really on the wall and
23:14
Speaker 4: you know he has the perculosis. Is he's beginning to
23:16
Speaker 4: make amends along the way, and the people that he
23:19
Speaker 4: actually cares about more, he's you know, he's trying to
23:22
Speaker 4: do right by them and make sure that they're set
23:24
Speaker 4: up for when he's gone. You know, you see that
23:27
Speaker 4: that loyalty does do good for him, and eventually the
23:31
Speaker 4: people that haven't earned his loyalty, he has to eventually
23:34
Speaker 4: sever those ties. But it's far far too late, obviously,
23:38
Speaker 4: you know thet he doesn't draw the line until he
23:42
Speaker 4: has both feet in the grave. For lack of a
23:43
Speaker 4: better analogy.
23:46
Speaker 3: There's there's a line that he has this kind of
23:49
Speaker 3: pivotal conversation with John after they've said it, after they've
23:52
Speaker 3: set the dynamite for blow up the train tracks, and
23:56
Speaker 3: you know, he tells him like, be loyal to what
23:58
Speaker 3: matters and I think I said the diamond. And then
24:01
Speaker 3: after after that, does you know, we'll find out just
24:03
Speaker 3: who and you know who and what we should be
24:05
Speaker 3: loyal to, and yeah, it says like that's the This
24:08
Speaker 3: is the first time that Arthur has ever really asked
24:11
Speaker 3: himself that question that he's considered who I should be
24:14
Speaker 3: loyal to, because from you know, a young age at
24:16
Speaker 3: least since whatever Dutch took him in, it was Dutch
24:19
Speaker 3: and Josea, right, like that was that was it, that
24:21
Speaker 3: was what it was loyal to. And now there now
24:23
Speaker 3: there's a question about it, right, loyalty still matters to him,
24:26
Speaker 3: and I mean his loyalty to Dutch still, I mean
24:30
Speaker 3: still exists. So that's why he goes back to the
24:34
Speaker 3: camp after, you know, saying goodbye to to Sadie and Abigail,
24:38
Speaker 3: like he goes back to Dutch. He could just kind
24:40
Speaker 3: of leave, right he he doesn't know where John is.
24:42
Speaker 3: John's dead for all he knows at that point, right,
24:45
Speaker 3: He's dying. But he goes back because he just he
24:48
Speaker 3: wants to save Dutch from himself, from Micah, from whatever.
24:53
Speaker 3: So that loyalty very much exists, but it's it's definitely
24:55
Speaker 3: a reformed loyalty. It's a much truer loyalty, Like it's
25:00
Speaker 3: a loyalty to what is good for Dutch rather than
25:03
Speaker 3: what Dutch wants. And I found that to be a
25:07
Speaker 3: very well done shift in Arthur's attitude, right.
25:12
Speaker 4: Because then it's loyalty mediated by love, right as what
25:16
Speaker 4: it begins to care what is best for the person
25:19
Speaker 4: that I'm loyal to, and it's you can't continue down
25:22
Speaker 4: this road, but you just cannot keep going this way.
25:25
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's something that I have to deal with a
25:29
Speaker 1: lot when I'm teaching, especially on campus, when you know,
25:33
Speaker 1: most of my students are very much postmodern college students
25:38
Speaker 1: and thinking that there's no such thing as real moral order.
25:41
Speaker 1: Everything just sort of made up. Everything's subjective. But then
25:44
Speaker 1: they're all going to say things like, you know, we
25:46
Speaker 1: want genuine loving relationships. But the problem is love can't
25:51
Speaker 1: exist unless there is something like the good. I mean,
25:54
Speaker 1: as Aristotle says, that that you know, real love is
25:56
Speaker 1: willing the good of the other. Right, that's what takes
25:58
Speaker 1: it beyond simply what makes me feel nice to how
26:01
Speaker 1: can I actually better the life of someone else? But
26:04
Speaker 1: if you're going to better someone else's life, then you
26:06
Speaker 1: have to recognize there's an hotness that they ought to
26:09
Speaker 1: be following, and that you can play a part in
26:11
Speaker 1: helping them to discover that oughtness, the way that they
26:13
Speaker 1: ought to be living. And so in this game, I mean,
26:17
Speaker 1: we find some really countercultural things playing out here relative
26:21
Speaker 1: to you twenty first century postmodernism, that there is a
26:26
Speaker 1: way that people ought to be living their lives. And Arthur,
26:29
Speaker 1: as he approaches the end of his mortal life, he
26:33
Speaker 1: starts to see things with more of that transcendent kind
26:36
Speaker 1: of perspective, that kind of perspective that sees through the
26:40
Speaker 1: not simply how do I want to be living? But
26:42
Speaker 1: how should I be living? And by extent, how should
26:44
Speaker 1: the people rarely be living? And what can I do
26:46
Speaker 1: to help them get there? It's very it's a remarkable
26:50
Speaker 1: degree of substance in coming out of this top tier
26:55
Speaker 1: game in you know, twenty eighteen.
26:58
Speaker 4: Yeah, you know. One of the things that it's also
27:00
Speaker 4: worth praising Red Dead Redemption too, for is that the
27:05
Speaker 4: writers did a pretty good job for the most part,
27:09
Speaker 4: with some exceptions, of trying to capture how people thought
27:13
Speaker 4: and believed at the time more so than now. You know,
27:17
Speaker 4: if they made Red Dead Redemption to now I have,
27:21
Speaker 4: you know, I feel there would be a lot more
27:23
Speaker 4: writer intrusion. You know, you talk about how Arthur progresses
27:29
Speaker 4: further along on that understanding of the aught, you know,
27:33
Speaker 4: what he ought to do. But even in the very beginning,
27:36
Speaker 4: when he first tells Sadie were bad men, but not
27:39
Speaker 4: those men, he already understood there's already a built in
27:42
Speaker 4: understanding that there's an ought, you know, which was that
27:47
Speaker 4: was much more baked into society. We hadn't chased that
27:50
Speaker 4: as far out, you know, even the most irreligious in
27:54
Speaker 4: eighteen ninety seven, you know, in the United States were
27:57
Speaker 4: far more, far more or a tune that there is
28:02
Speaker 4: a an ought and an ought not to but but
28:06
Speaker 4: but speaking towards going towards that inevitable you know, as
28:08
Speaker 4: he's getting towards that end. From a narrative perspective in
28:11
Speaker 4: the video game, the h the tuberculosis was is really
28:19
Speaker 4: really a wonderful both narrative and gameplay device that I
28:25
Speaker 4: had not known about. Uh that that was a spoiler
28:29
Speaker 4: I hadn't known about. And I had the first time
28:32
Speaker 4: that Arthur coughed and I don't know when it is,
28:34
Speaker 4: I was like, Oh, that's weird, you know, because because
28:36
Speaker 4: he starts quite early, you know, I I don't remember
28:41
Speaker 4: when the first time it was is it might be
28:43
Speaker 4: down kind of again in that old Confederate area. But
28:47
Speaker 4: then as it's growing more when we're in uh San
28:49
Speaker 4: Denis in fake New Orleans, I'm going, I'm like, okay,
28:53
Speaker 4: some he got coughed on in the beginning that he
28:57
Speaker 4: has tuberculosis. He has tuberculos. And that moment right there
29:02
Speaker 4: is just such a good moment. Seeing what the writers
29:05
Speaker 4: are doing with setting up that inevitability of the again
29:10
Speaker 4: that you cannot get out story and watching how it
29:14
Speaker 4: plays up out to subvert it when you play the
29:16
Speaker 4: more redemptive path to it is really just a master
29:20
Speaker 4: work of storytelling. But it's also interesting in a video
29:22
Speaker 4: game too. To be more a little less moral, you know,
29:26
Speaker 4: because video games are usually empowerment. Whereas you get to
29:31
Speaker 4: this bat this fun these final chapters in Red Dead
29:34
Speaker 4: Redemption two, and there's a growing disempowerment, which is, you know,
29:39
Speaker 4: a subversion of the power myth that video games usually
29:44
Speaker 4: go on. But man, did they use that for great storytelling?
29:47
Speaker 2: Now?
29:47
Speaker 3: I have to ask, I would guess I know the answer.
29:50
Speaker 3: It's assuming you've only done one play through each. We're
29:54
Speaker 3: both high honor Arthur.
29:56
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, I started off a little bit happier,
30:00
Speaker 1: but I'm definitely honorable by the end.
30:03
Speaker 3: So I'm I'm playing through for a second time now,
30:05
Speaker 3: and I'm playing through his low honor because I know
30:07
Speaker 3: there are differences in especially later in the game, and
30:10
Speaker 3: like in the cut scenes. Right, So the cut scene
30:13
Speaker 3: right when like Ia, it plays as you're walking out
30:16
Speaker 3: of the doctor's office, and Arthur's hearing like voices from
30:19
Speaker 3: his from his past, you know, from the recent past,
30:23
Speaker 3: from the story you've played through, and they're different if
30:25
Speaker 3: you're a low honor high owner. When Shawn gets killed,
30:28
Speaker 3: I know it's it's different, Karen gets killed. They're different.
30:31
Speaker 3: Arthur is reacting in different ways depending on his under level,
30:34
Speaker 3: and so it's like, Okay, I you know, I wanted
30:36
Speaker 3: to like go through and get that that whole experience,
30:40
Speaker 3: you know, make a video of mention once some of
30:41
Speaker 3: the more full philosophy of the game how it Rodievo whatever.
30:46
Speaker 3: And so I'm playing is low Honor Arthur, which means
30:48
Speaker 3: lots of robbing and killing and tying people up whatever.
30:52
Speaker 3: And I hate it and and they make it. It's
30:56
Speaker 3: not just because it's like, oh this is ugly whatever
30:58
Speaker 3: pixels on the screen, but it's how they there is.
31:00
Speaker 3: There are like interactions you'll have in camp where like
31:04
Speaker 3: there's one time where it's just kind of it said,
31:07
Speaker 3: like you know, okay, yeah, I'll talk to this person
31:08
Speaker 3: off was Mary Bath or whoever? Someone at camp when
31:10
Speaker 3: you're one of the minor characters who are all wonderfully
31:13
Speaker 3: fleshed out, like just to an incredible extent, and Arthur's
31:18
Speaker 3: like sitting down and like kind of confessing what he's
31:21
Speaker 3: been doing and that he he doesn't really know why
31:25
Speaker 3: and it's making him uncomfortable and it's bad for the
31:27
Speaker 3: game because he's causing trouble. It's like, I don't know
31:31
Speaker 3: why I'm doing this. And it spoke. I was like,
31:35
Speaker 3: oh gosh, no, I can't do this to Arthur. I
31:37
Speaker 3: have to have to show soldier on and you know,
31:39
Speaker 3: get get the bad ending, get the bad cut scenes whatever.
31:43
Speaker 3: But I think they did marvelous jobs showing you like
31:46
Speaker 3: this is this isn't the way, this is not what
31:48
Speaker 3: you're supposed to be doing it, like this is bad
31:50
Speaker 3: for Arthur, showing you kind of like the the emptiness
31:53
Speaker 3: of that, you know, wanton evil. Which yeah, so I
31:58
Speaker 3: was like, I was, I was stun again. It's Rockstar
32:01
Speaker 3: and I haven't played any other Rockstar games aside from
32:03
Speaker 3: these two. I haven't played into the GTA games yet
32:06
Speaker 3: or or anything. I'm more curious now just because they
32:10
Speaker 3: depicted morality and you go to evil so poignantly in
32:15
Speaker 3: these games. But I like I was, I was shocked
32:19
Speaker 3: because you know, I figure, okay, yeah, whatever, they'll just
32:21
Speaker 3: let me run around robbing people, running people over the horse,
32:23
Speaker 3: who cares, you know, but they really hammer it at
32:27
Speaker 3: home that yeah, this is this is bad bad, You're
32:29
Speaker 3: you're you're no longer we ain't them, you're them now.
32:35
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah.
32:35
Speaker 1: I played about halfway through a second play through as
32:38
Speaker 1: Low Honor and you know, it's fun on the gameplay
32:41
Speaker 1: level just to you know, rob and rob trains and
32:44
Speaker 1: to steal whatever you want to. Like, it's kind of
32:45
Speaker 1: fun to mess around like that. But then in every
32:48
Speaker 1: cut scene I hated that Arthur Morgan, he's such a jerk,
32:52
Speaker 1: which it's which kind of maybe reflect on the fact
32:57
Speaker 1: that it's easy and even kind of fun to do
33:02
Speaker 1: the wrong thing. But I don't like to step back
33:04
Speaker 1: and actually look at who it is that's now doing
33:07
Speaker 1: those things, and I feel like that there's some good
33:10
Speaker 1: application there during our own life, in our relationship with sin,
33:13
Speaker 1: when you know, sometimes it's fun to do the wrong thing,
33:18
Speaker 1: but then as soon as you stop and reflect and
33:20
Speaker 1: look at the mirror, you just feel that emptiness, and
33:23
Speaker 1: I don't I think that there's some application there.
33:26
Speaker 3: I will say that my little Honor author is dressed
33:28
Speaker 3: all in kind of like red and has like a
33:31
Speaker 3: hat that kind of pulled pulled over over his eyes.
33:33
Speaker 3: It's very dastardly look. So at least I only, okay aesthetically,
33:37
Speaker 3: I gotta play the part too.
33:40
Speaker 4: I think it's interesting, you know that we're talking about
33:45
Speaker 4: not enjoying playing a an evil play through a video game.
33:52
Speaker 4: You know, morality systems and video games are all are
33:54
Speaker 4: They can often be kind of hit or miss because
33:57
Speaker 4: they're you're they're either choir boy or or you know,
34:01
Speaker 4: just absolute devil, right, and so they can be a
34:06
Speaker 4: little a little gamey, right, But it's it's fascinating how
34:11
Speaker 4: how basically the everyone's experience is just about the same.
34:17
Speaker 4: You know, when whenever sometimes you'll see a game company release,
34:22
Speaker 4: you know, sometime after some big games are released, and
34:24
Speaker 4: they'll do like an infographic of all the ways that
34:27
Speaker 4: people are playing it, and what you inevitably see is
34:30
Speaker 4: somewhere between eighty and ninety percent of playthroughs are good
34:33
Speaker 4: guy playthroughs, right, And this isn't like, this isn't like
34:36
Speaker 4: pulling from you know, these are the Christians playing and they're.
34:40
Speaker 2: Just doing the good guys.
34:41
Speaker 4: It's everybody right, because we we all definitely intrinsically know
34:48
Speaker 4: all of these things that we should and should not
34:50
Speaker 4: be doing. And video games because they are this this
34:55
Speaker 4: this fantasy and we're playing this other person. There's this
35:00
Speaker 4: there's this separation of I know what I should be doing.
35:04
Speaker 4: This is a this is a story, this is a
35:05
Speaker 4: fantasy character this person should be a hero. Why would
35:09
Speaker 4: I steal this widow's trophy and sell it and then
35:15
Speaker 4: go back and tell her Knights of the Old Republic
35:17
Speaker 4: one and the most horrific video game choice I've ever seen.
35:22
Speaker 4: Do you remember that, and Andrew? I see you smiling there.
35:25
Speaker 4: That's I started a dark side play through Knights of
35:29
Speaker 4: the Old Republic years and years ago. The first time
35:31
Speaker 4: after I played it, I did Good Guy played through, restarted,
35:34
Speaker 4: started a dark side play through, got to that point,
35:36
Speaker 4: and stop, I turned it off. I was like, no,
35:38
Speaker 4: I can't go any further. Un done, it's over.
35:41
Speaker 3: So I only I only did a Good Guy played
35:43
Speaker 3: through of Kotor because I played it like last last year.
35:46
Speaker 3: Maybe oh yes, for the first time, I love, but
35:49
Speaker 3: I did, I did like research the the yeah, the
35:52
Speaker 3: dark side play through and yeah, I think so, I
35:55
Speaker 3: think I know what moment you're referring to.
35:56
Speaker 4: Well, what's so funny about that moment is you know
35:59
Speaker 4: I can't It's not just like this binary choice. There's
36:02
Speaker 4: like five options, right, and like the Goodie two shoe
36:07
Speaker 4: one isn't just paying her back, it's lying and paying
36:10
Speaker 4: her back like double what you were supposed to, right,
36:14
Speaker 4: so it's like you can do like this above and
36:15
Speaker 4: beyond to all the way down to ripping her off,
36:19
Speaker 4: and then the bottom one is basically ripping off going
36:23
Speaker 4: back and bragging about it.
36:24
Speaker 1: Right, It's like it's such See That's why I actually
36:29
Speaker 1: don't have a hard time being bad in the Kodeor
36:31
Speaker 1: game because well because usually being bad is like so
36:35
Speaker 1: comically bad, like it doesn't feel real.
36:38
Speaker 4: Maybe maybe, but man, that one is just so petty.
36:43
Speaker 4: It's like it's like it's it's like it's like more
36:47
Speaker 4: Goth ruining her in's children's life. You know, it's like
36:50
Speaker 4: the petty form of absolutenity, that's.
36:52
Speaker 1: What I mean, where it's like so like comically evil
36:56
Speaker 1: where you're not really getting anything from it at this
36:57
Speaker 1: point other than just the satisfaction of being which plus
37:01
Speaker 1: you get some cool you know, force powers and they're
37:03
Speaker 1: always better on the dark side. And so for the
37:06
Speaker 1: Kodor games, I'm totally fine playing the villain because again
37:10
Speaker 1: it's so outrageous, but I you know, Red Dead Redemption
37:15
Speaker 1: definitely breaks me of that because it feels so much
37:18
Speaker 1: more real.
37:20
Speaker 4: I don't think I could do it in Red Dead Redemption.
37:23
Speaker 4: I did go back and watch some of those a
37:26
Speaker 4: few of some different conversations, Like I watched Reverend Swanson's
37:30
Speaker 4: final scene is rather different whether you're on a noble
37:33
Speaker 4: or a or an evil path or was it no
37:38
Speaker 4: no honor and dishonor is that what it is?
37:40
Speaker 3: And yeah, yeah, I don't know, but but I do.
37:43
Speaker 4: Really find it fascinating that the the struggle to do
37:47
Speaker 4: the evil path in a video game seems to be
37:50
Speaker 4: pretty pretty universal, and that pretty much everybody, pretty much
37:56
Speaker 4: everybody plays straight laced good guys in video games.
37:59
Speaker 3: See I found it a tweet by a former Mass
38:02
Speaker 3: Effect dad that said something like ninety two percent of
38:04
Speaker 3: Mass Effective players were Paragon.
38:07
Speaker 4: And that's interesting too, because Mass Effect tries to take
38:11
Speaker 4: a different route that renegade sometimes isn't quite just straight evil.
38:17
Speaker 4: Sometimes it's just aggressive, and sometimes it's humorously aggressive, because
38:21
Speaker 4: let's be real, everybody likes punching the reporter, right. But
38:25
Speaker 4: other times, even though Mass Effect was trying to do
38:28
Speaker 4: a different even still sometimes it's like hilarious, kick the
38:31
Speaker 4: puppy on the layout, It's like, what are you doing?
38:35
Speaker 3: I wonder if they'd made if they'd made like the
38:38
Speaker 3: Paragon color orange and the renegade color.
38:40
Speaker 4: Blue if it would have made a difference, that's an
38:43
Speaker 4: interesting experiment. That's that sounds like that sounds like something
38:47
Speaker 4: somebody should do for like a some sort of dissertation,
38:51
Speaker 4: have some small game and do some a B testing
38:54
Speaker 4: with colors for good choices and bad choices. That would
38:57
Speaker 4: be That is fascinating.
39:00
Speaker 3: Because I my most recent video that I made for
39:02
Speaker 3: YouTube was on like how Avatar last Air but evil,
39:06
Speaker 3: and I you know said, it's a very it's it
39:07
Speaker 3: wrote it simply, not simplistically, but but simply, and you know,
39:11
Speaker 3: and one of the examples for you know, writing it
39:13
Speaker 3: simply is that the Fire Nation wears red and the
39:16
Speaker 3: you know, the Water Tribe and the Earth Kingdom they
39:18
Speaker 3: were blue and green. You know, this is like this
39:20
Speaker 3: is how we like learned distinction like good and evil,
39:22
Speaker 3: for you know, from time memorials like red bad, you know,
39:27
Speaker 3: blue green, whatever like those are good. And I think
39:30
Speaker 3: that's again, like I said, my Arthur Morgan, who's you know,
39:34
Speaker 3: low honor is is dressed and red because it's just
39:37
Speaker 3: pervasive through society. For you know, I couldn't even tell
39:41
Speaker 3: you where it originated.
39:42
Speaker 4: I am sure that somebody has done some studying on
39:45
Speaker 4: colors and cultural connotations, and I'm sure they probably aren't
39:52
Speaker 4: quite universal, but I think there's probably a lot of
39:54
Speaker 4: cross because I think a lot of those have also
39:57
Speaker 4: passed into video games as well, I mean codified with
39:59
Speaker 4: VI games. You know, red is almost definitely associated with
40:03
Speaker 4: evil because of blood and fire, almost without a doubt.
40:06
Speaker 1: I mean also red is associated with passion. I would say,
40:10
Speaker 1: unbridled passion, uncontrolled passion.
40:12
Speaker 2: Mm hmm.
40:13
Speaker 3: Then again, the Empire shoots green lasers and the rebellion
40:17
Speaker 3: shoots red lasers, so that.
40:18
Speaker 1: One's always thrown me off. It doesn't seem right.
40:20
Speaker 4: That is a that is a very interesting choice that
40:24
Speaker 4: I've thought about through the years.
40:25
Speaker 2: And then let's.
40:27
Speaker 4: Clone shoot blue. Yep, blue, Mandalorians are yellow.
40:32
Speaker 1: Yeah, the Sith have red lightsabers, Yeah, right, right, will
40:36
Speaker 1: have passion.
40:39
Speaker 4: But you know that's side note joke. You know, that's
40:43
Speaker 4: one of the the funny funny things about about sci
40:48
Speaker 4: fi and fantasy is color tells you a lot. And
40:53
Speaker 4: if something is a very luminous green that has high
40:58
Speaker 4: yellow content to it, you should touch it. Do not
41:01
Speaker 4: touch the thing with that color of green. It's going
41:03
Speaker 4: to corrupt you same with some you know, specific shades
41:06
Speaker 4: of purple. It's like, you don't, you don't touch the
41:09
Speaker 4: artifact that's sitting there that's got that that luminous, nasty
41:12
Speaker 4: green to it, Like.
41:13
Speaker 3: What are you doing?
41:14
Speaker 2: What are you doing?
41:14
Speaker 4: Hero? Stay away from that?
41:16
Speaker 2: So it is.
41:17
Speaker 4: It is interesting. A color, you know, has these very
41:20
Speaker 4: old psychological things. You know, why do we associate green
41:24
Speaker 4: with poison? I mean, are there really even any any
41:26
Speaker 4: green poisons out there that are ancient? It's like, what, why?
41:30
Speaker 2: Why?
41:31
Speaker 4: Why is poison have a deep association with green? I
41:34
Speaker 4: don't know. I don't that one. I don't particularly know.
41:36
Speaker 2: I don't know. I mean something about the hostility of.
41:38
Speaker 4: Nature maybe, yeah, But it's interesting. I'm sure there's some
41:42
Speaker 4: studies on it. I I've never looked into it.
41:45
Speaker 1: Well, speaking of colors, anything, we would talk about anything
41:47
Speaker 1: else about a red dead.
41:48
Speaker 3: Redemption, I mean that there are you asked me about
41:52
Speaker 3: a certain aspect of it. I could go on for
41:54
Speaker 3: a while. Well, but I mean there's there's there's almost
41:58
Speaker 3: almost too much, you know, So okay, he does the
42:03
Speaker 3: one thing. The most reviled character by the by our characters,
42:08
Speaker 3: by Arthur's in particular, in the whole show or in
42:12
Speaker 3: the whole game, is Levi Strauss right, He's the you know,
42:17
Speaker 3: the the campus bookkeeper and money lender, which is such
42:21
Speaker 3: an I find that's such an interesting kind of I
42:24
Speaker 3: don't know perspective of Arthur where he really hates the
42:28
Speaker 3: guy who gives people money, gives money to desperate people,
42:32
Speaker 3: and then demands that he Arthur go do the dirty
42:34
Speaker 3: work of beating their payment out of them, and the
42:38
Speaker 3: sense that if Strauss went and beat the payment out
42:41
Speaker 3: of them, Arthur would respect him a lot more because
42:44
Speaker 3: he throws him out at least in the at least
42:47
Speaker 3: in high honor play through, So, as far as any
42:49
Speaker 3: of us know, he throws Strauss out of camp by
42:51
Speaker 3: the end of the game.
42:53
Speaker 4: Yeah, that's the one I'm most interested. How that's different, No,
42:57
Speaker 4: I don't.
42:57
Speaker 3: It's because you know so far again, and I don't
43:00
Speaker 3: know when really like kyaner Loan are really coming to play.
43:03
Speaker 3: There's been a couple of Camp interactions, but no major
43:05
Speaker 3: changes and cut scenes that I've seen. But yeah, so
43:09
Speaker 3: I'm really interesting because I don't know if Arthur's running
43:11
Speaker 3: around wantonly you know, murdering folks, then I don't know
43:14
Speaker 3: why earth he would care if he's got to beat
43:17
Speaker 3: up a couple more people, because you know, Strauss's to
43:20
Speaker 3: you know, cowardly or weak to do it himself.
43:22
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean I think that even when he's doing
43:24
Speaker 1: the wrong thing, I mean, he's still a Arthur's a
43:26
Speaker 1: very concrete guy. He's a guy who substance where you know,
43:30
Speaker 1: he's not going to send someone to do the killing
43:31
Speaker 1: for him or to do the grunt work. He's going
43:34
Speaker 1: to do it himself like that. There should be a
43:35
Speaker 1: connection between your your gun and your word.
43:39
Speaker 3: So maybe that's it, you know, and maybe he's maybe
43:41
Speaker 3: he's just hypocritical.
43:42
Speaker 2: You know.
43:43
Speaker 3: It's again so far in the play threes, whenever I
43:45
Speaker 3: interact with Strauss, he's he doesn't like him Arthur very much.
43:48
Speaker 3: Is is not happy that Strauss is sending him off
43:50
Speaker 3: to you know, beat up desks for people who owe
43:53
Speaker 3: stress money. But so it just it might be a
43:56
Speaker 3: little bit more hypocritical in low honor that it isn't
43:59
Speaker 3: high honor, which to an extent it is someone hypocritical
44:02
Speaker 3: even then. But yeah, I think it's just kind of
44:07
Speaker 3: the code of it of the gang. Dutch has a
44:09
Speaker 3: line it says like, you know, for Robin Banks, to user,
44:12
Speaker 3: he seems more dignified somehow or something like that.
44:15
Speaker 4: Low honor could also play off of the fact that
44:20
Speaker 4: Strauss's occupation is what ultimately gets Arthur killed as well.
44:26
Speaker 3: That is true.
44:27
Speaker 4: Yeah, no, there should be a your your stupid money lending. Yeah,
44:33
Speaker 4: this is this is what caught me into the state
44:35
Speaker 4: I'm in. So it's possible they play that up a
44:37
Speaker 4: little more, the personal personal how you harmed.
44:41
Speaker 2: Me because of this?
44:43
Speaker 1: Yeah, and you know, on that, I really appreciate that
44:46
Speaker 1: Arthur's death came directly from the work that he was
44:50
Speaker 1: doing versus you know, well it is kind of an
44:53
Speaker 1: echo of what we get with Marten in the first game.
44:57
Speaker 2: Well echo going backwards king.
44:59
Speaker 1: A lot, you know, John, he gets killed by the
45:05
Speaker 1: agency of someone else, which adds a a additional dynamic where,
45:10
Speaker 1: you know, one hand, he could say lived by the gun,
45:12
Speaker 1: died by the gun, and that's sort of his story,
45:14
Speaker 1: but at the same time that part of the reason
45:17
Speaker 1: why he was robbed of his happy ending was because
45:19
Speaker 1: of the decision of someone else, an external agent, whereas
45:23
Speaker 1: for Arthur Morgan it very much directly came out of
45:26
Speaker 1: what he was doing himself, which I think just adds
45:29
Speaker 1: a certain level of poetry to it, adds a special
45:32
Speaker 1: existential level to what we get in his story.
45:36
Speaker 4: Well, and it's also the first half of the Gospel.
45:38
Speaker 4: It's that you cannot outrun the sin that you've done.
45:42
Speaker 4: Arthur Morgan cannot get away from that one thing that
45:45
Speaker 4: he did, no matter how hard he tries. There's nothing
45:47
Speaker 4: that can get him away from it.
45:49
Speaker 1: Yeah, And I made this argument around the last time
45:52
Speaker 1: we were talking about it that the story of Arthur
45:54
Speaker 1: Morgan is very similar to Tolstoy's story of the Death
45:58
Speaker 1: of Evan Iliach, where Ivan Ilyitch he's this you. He
46:03
Speaker 1: starts off KM mediocre, but he becomes a pretty successful magistrate,
46:07
Speaker 1: and he really revels in the power and the station
46:10
Speaker 1: that he's achieved. It's all he's ever wanted, power station
46:12
Speaker 1: to be seen as somewhat important. And then finally, at
46:16
Speaker 1: the height of his career, he's getting really preoccupied with
46:21
Speaker 1: decorating his apartment to like look like the kind of
46:23
Speaker 1: status he wants to be seen as having. And it's
46:26
Speaker 1: in that process that he ends up. You know. He
46:28
Speaker 1: tells one of his servants and a step aside, you're
46:30
Speaker 1: not putting this window treatment up exactly right, and so
46:33
Speaker 1: he does it himself. He falls over hits his side.
46:37
Speaker 1: It seems like a pretty minor injury, but as he
46:38
Speaker 1: continues through the story, he gets this growing sickness that
46:42
Speaker 1: gets worse and worse and worse, until finally he gets
46:45
Speaker 1: to the point where it's pretty clear he's going to
46:48
Speaker 1: die directly out of his desire to take control of
46:51
Speaker 1: his life in an unhealthy sort of way. And it's
46:54
Speaker 1: not until he hits the very end of his life
46:58
Speaker 1: when he gets this sort of redemptive moment of looking
47:02
Speaker 1: out to something beyond the control he's been trying to
47:05
Speaker 1: grasp onto. So it maps onto Arthur Morgan's story very well,
47:10
Speaker 1: which is what This was one of the early major
47:14
Speaker 1: pieces of evidence that I had in my sort of
47:16
Speaker 1: building theory that video games can play at least a
47:18
Speaker 1: quanti literary role, that there's something there's real art at
47:22
Speaker 1: play here, and that helped to really solidify that for me.
47:27
Speaker 3: One of the most subtle touches in Arthur's death that
47:31
Speaker 3: I think that I didn't even really notice the first playing.
47:35
Speaker 3: I was doing research and kind of reading other people's
47:36
Speaker 3: thoughts about the game and everything I noticed it. So
47:40
Speaker 3: there's a camp interaction that I didn't see, and I
47:43
Speaker 3: don't think I even saw this time around. I don't
47:44
Speaker 3: know when it happens. I think it's fairly early on
47:46
Speaker 3: chapter two or three, where there's a few people sitting around,
47:50
Speaker 3: you know, the picnic tables that were in camp, and
47:54
Speaker 3: talking about how they want to be buried. Everyone's got
47:56
Speaker 3: their ideas, and someone asks Arthur, I think goes An.
47:59
Speaker 3: He asks Arthur, you know, how do you want to
48:00
Speaker 3: be buried? And he says, I don't know, just you know,
48:02
Speaker 3: bury me facing west to so I can remember all
48:04
Speaker 3: the good times we had together. And I think they do.
48:07
Speaker 3: I think, I think, I think if you when you
48:08
Speaker 3: look at his grave, they do. But when he actually dies,
48:12
Speaker 3: he's facing the sunrise, like he's looking at the sun
48:14
Speaker 3: as it's rising, right, so he's at even then, you know,
48:19
Speaker 3: whatever point this is, you know, he's already seeing the
48:21
Speaker 3: writing on the wall and he's saying like, yeah, our
48:24
Speaker 3: our time is nigh undone. So I just want to remember,
48:28
Speaker 3: you know, the times of freedom and fun and you know,
48:30
Speaker 3: open sky and everything that we did have, and that
48:35
Speaker 3: attitude shifts throughout the story where even if he can't
48:38
Speaker 3: have the future, he's gonna give it to somebody else, Right,
48:40
Speaker 3: so he's able to look forward to a new day
48:43
Speaker 3: in more than one sense, right, both for John and
48:46
Speaker 3: hopefully for himself, you know, having found his his redemption.
48:50
Speaker 3: I found that, you know, so that it's very clearly
48:53
Speaker 3: you know, purposeful. But yeah, I found that that particular
48:58
Speaker 3: aspect of his death, uh, very moving, especially on reflecting
49:02
Speaker 3: and kind of realizing what they were saying with.
49:04
Speaker 1: It, right even in his death. I mean, obviously it's
49:07
Speaker 1: not like an explicitly Christian game, but in a more
49:10
Speaker 1: of a vague sense, even in his death he experience
49:13
Speaker 1: is a kind of resurrection, right in his associating with
49:15
Speaker 1: association with the sunrise, that he escaped the finality of
49:19
Speaker 1: the sunset, and he finds something like a renewal of
49:22
Speaker 1: life even in his death, which again connects very well
49:25
Speaker 1: to the Evan Illia story I just telling you about.
49:27
Speaker 1: When you know Evan Elliot Toldsoy's character he's never able
49:32
Speaker 1: to fully articulate anything like real repentance because by the
49:36
Speaker 1: time he gets that point, he's so sick. You literally
49:38
Speaker 1: can't even say anything. He's just in so much pain.
49:41
Speaker 1: But the final words that he hears is somebody else
49:43
Speaker 1: in the room saying it not even related to what's happening,
49:47
Speaker 1: but he hears the words it is finished, obviously echoing Christ.
49:52
Speaker 2: And so it's just this.
49:53
Speaker 1: Subtle nod to the hope that real meaning can be
49:56
Speaker 1: found even at the final point of a bad life,
50:02
Speaker 1: a bad mortal life, there's still hope they can be
50:04
Speaker 1: found at the very end. It's a very Christian idea
50:07
Speaker 1: coming here out of rock Star, which you know, known
50:10
Speaker 1: for grand theft auto.
50:12
Speaker 3: I the moment that I did notice my first play through,
50:17
Speaker 3: like right away when they said it was like, well,
50:20
Speaker 3: it's when Arthur was saying goodbye to Sadie and Abigail,
50:23
Speaker 3: right before he goes back to camp at the very end,
50:25
Speaker 3: and Abiel gives him like the the key I think
50:28
Speaker 3: to like du to Dutchess, you know lock box it
50:30
Speaker 3: has all the money in it. And she says, I
50:33
Speaker 3: always was a good thief. Or Arthur may have said
50:35
Speaker 3: you always work a thief. I forget who forget says it,
50:38
Speaker 3: but someone says you are was a good thief, and
50:40
Speaker 3: I went, that's not an accident. If that's a coincidence,
50:44
Speaker 3: that's remarkable. And I think it's with those words that
50:48
Speaker 3: like that the music for his final ride to camp
50:52
Speaker 3: starts kicking in, and like if that's an accident, that's
50:56
Speaker 3: like a divine intervention accident it was, It's it's remarkable.
51:02
Speaker 3: So and there are but there are a lot of
51:04
Speaker 3: beyond you know, Christian themes especially we look at like
51:07
Speaker 3: the titles of the of the missions, especially I think
51:13
Speaker 3: even maybe even more so in Red Dead Redimption one,
51:18
Speaker 3: But they're I mean they're they're named after like they're
51:21
Speaker 3: named after like Bible verses, a lot of them. Yeah,
51:24
Speaker 3: so there's one, you know, there's the you know hand,
51:26
Speaker 3: you will know the truth and the truth will set
51:28
Speaker 3: you free. Those are two of the later chapter two
51:30
Speaker 3: of the later missions and Red Dead one to spare
51:33
Speaker 3: the Love, spoil the Child is not quite it but close.
51:36
Speaker 3: And then the final chapter is the last Enemy that
51:38
Speaker 3: Shall be destroyed. So there are a lot of you know,
51:42
Speaker 3: explicit Biblical references, even with like the mission names of
51:44
Speaker 3: Red Dead one, which I found really cool.
51:47
Speaker 1: Yeah, you can't really tell a story about redemption without
51:51
Speaker 1: having some echo of Christianity. Ut play, you know, especially
51:55
Speaker 1: in the Western context.
51:56
Speaker 2: Right.
51:58
Speaker 4: Well, it's the story that no one can escape, whether
52:00
Speaker 4: they want to or not. It's lurking in the background
52:03
Speaker 4: of everyone that has lived in the West and had
52:05
Speaker 4: any exposure to Christianity.
52:07
Speaker 2: You know. It's why.
52:10
Speaker 4: I always think it's so funny how in you know,
52:15
Speaker 4: Star Wars periodically you'll see this this conversation online. It's like,
52:20
Speaker 4: why was starth Vader redeemed? I don't get it. He
52:23
Speaker 4: didn't earn it. It was like, because George Lucas instinctively
52:27
Speaker 4: new the redemption is about forgiveness, not about earning it.
52:33
Speaker 4: You know, It's like, not not even old hippie George
52:36
Speaker 4: Lucas could really escape an intrinsic understanding of the grand story,
52:42
Speaker 4: or at least a partial understanding. Let's let's say that
52:45
Speaker 4: an instinctual understanding.
52:47
Speaker 3: That's the word I'm looking for.
52:49
Speaker 2: Well, we've made it about an hour.
52:53
Speaker 1: You know, even though we talked about a while back,
52:57
Speaker 1: I wanted to revisit it, you know, after playing through one,
53:00
Speaker 1: I want to be able to talk about that a
53:01
Speaker 1: little bit. But I figured one probably doesn't carry the
53:04
Speaker 1: same degree of substance, so I thought it would be
53:05
Speaker 1: a good idea to do luve them together here. But
53:08
Speaker 1: do you think you have any final thoughts that you
53:10
Speaker 1: really want to get out there before we start to wrap.
53:13
Speaker 3: No, I don't think so.
53:14
Speaker 1: All right, well, I appreciate you guys joining me for this.
53:17
Speaker 1: I think the next thing we're going to be talking
53:19
Speaker 1: about in the Games podcast is going to be Chrono
53:23
Speaker 1: Trigger in a couple of weeks. Sam, do you have
53:26
Speaker 1: any have you played Krona Trigger?
53:29
Speaker 3: No, I have not that one's I think I've got that,
53:31
Speaker 3: you know, whistle Wish listed on Steam, but I didn't
53:33
Speaker 3: play it back in the day and I've I've yet
53:34
Speaker 3: to actually pick it up.
53:35
Speaker 2: So fair enough.
53:37
Speaker 1: Yeah, I played it around with it some back in
53:40
Speaker 1: the day, but it didn't really stick with me at
53:42
Speaker 1: the time. But I just played it recently on Sam
53:44
Speaker 1: and it's it's a good one, totally FOURD to that.
53:46
Speaker 4: But you might get schooled Andrew if your if your
53:50
Speaker 4: opinion is still a little now I actual correct opinion.
53:55
Speaker 1: I have repented once. I once I reframed what the
53:59
Speaker 1: game is, I turned around on that.
54:02
Speaker 4: It's definitely one that I think if you played it
54:05
Speaker 4: and I at that ten to twelve years old, that
54:07
Speaker 4: it makes that permanent impression on you. I really think
54:11
Speaker 4: there's this Yeah, we can talk about it when it comes,
54:15
Speaker 4: but there's definitely this specific kind of adventure that it
54:18
Speaker 4: locks into, which is just really just speaks to a
54:20
Speaker 4: lot of people. There's a reason it tops so many
54:22
Speaker 4: people's lists of all time games despite it being, as
54:25
Speaker 4: you say, somewhat simple in nature. So that'll be a
54:29
Speaker 4: good one.
54:30
Speaker 1: We'll get there in a couple of weeks, but for
54:32
Speaker 1: now we'll go ahead and leave it there. So thanks again, Thanks,
54:35
Speaker 1: thanks sir, Thank you for listening to Mythic Mind Games.
54:39
Speaker 1: If you enjoyed that conversation and you would like to
54:41
Speaker 1: hear more things along these lines than I encourage you
54:43
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55:03
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55:14
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55:19
Speaker 1: in some of my upcoming courses and so again that
55:22
Speaker 1: is Patreon dot com slash Mythic Mind or just click
55:24
Speaker 1: that link in the show notes. As I mentioned, and
55:27
Speaker 1: in a couple of weeks, for the next episode of
55:29
Speaker 1: Mythic Mind Games, we'll be discussing Chrono Trigger. But the
55:32
Speaker 1: next thing to come out from Mythic Mind will be
55:34
Speaker 1: on Monday over on the main Mythic Mind podcast as
55:36
Speaker 1: well as men YouTube channel, where we'll be continuing with
55:39
Speaker 1: the Life, Death and Meaning with Beaywulf and Boethia series,
55:42
Speaker 1: focusing on some secondary material for the Boethia's section, specifically
55:47
Speaker 1: looking at Stoicism and Epicureanism. But that is it for now,
55:51
Speaker 1: so I will talk to you then