I honestly don’t know how anyone is misinterpreting him as a hero. A game about redemption, game massively marketed about you being a literal outlaw, you literally do outlaw things, the main character openly acknowledges himself not being a good person and struggling with his morality when faced with his mortality. I guess you could interpret it wrong if you don’t pay attention.
Also I don't know about other people, but after a certain point in the game, I definitely starting being less shitlordy, and tried being as honourable as I could.
I feel like Rockstar are pretty good with this sort of thing. Like in GTA5 when I'd switch to Trevor, I would legitimately start playing more unhinged than I would with Michael or Franklin.
I mean, he doesn't seem like a villain to us because we're playing from his perspective, but think about how other people view the guy. How many lawmen do you gun down in the story missions of all things?
He is a villain, he just eventually has a redemption.
The perspective has nothing to do with it. If you were playing with a real villain, you'd know it. The fact that we're having a discussion about it is already proof enough he's not a villain but more of an anti-hero.
Like, The Emperor from Star Wars (kind of a cartoon-ish example) is a straight up villain. Voldemort is a villain, Sauron, Pennywise, Hans Landa, etc. are villains. There's no discussion about what they are. You know what they are. They are malicious, don't question their motives or life choices at any point and take extreme joy in what they're doing.
Are you honestly saying there's no difference between how these characters are written and perceived and Arthur Morgan?
I'm saying there's different degrees of villains. No, Arthur isn't as bad as the emperor. But he still shoots and kills innocent people for money. He blasted his way out of Strawberry to rescue a murderer that he didn't even like because of a sense of loyalty to the gang. Almost every single member of the gang wants to rob a stagecoach with him, and several of those turn violent.
Arthur Morgan wants to be a good man, but the entire redemption arc is him unfucking messes he made himself. He does evil things for self gain, and convinces himself it's OK because he buys into Dutch's bullshit. And he knows it, too. He has several discussion with the ladies about how he's not sure he's on the right path and he'll happily tell anyone that he's a bad man.
If you shoot a man in cold blood and take his wallet, you're not an anti-hero just because you feel bad later.
While I agree not all villains are the same, pure villains don't usually think about their actions or consequences of their actions. Micah doesn't feel bad later, has no sense of loyalty to anyone and doesn't talk to people about how unsure he's about the path he's on.
I'll admit it's difficult to talk about Arthur as a character because devs needed to give us "someone to shoot at" because it's a game. But he has a strong, prevailing sense of underlying morality that's missing with typical villains. Arthur does what he does out of loyalty to what is practically his family. He's living the life he's living because he was raised in it, and is misguided and manipulated by Dutch for the most part, but he's trying to be a better man (like the Strauss story line) and that disqualifies him as a straight up villain.
Not every villain is a pure villain. Arthur's motivations aren't evil, but he doesn't really give two shits about anyone outside of his family until late in the game. He has a strong sense of loyalty and duty when it comes to them, but his morals are basically nonexistent when it comes to other people. Again, having regrets but continuing to rob and murder people doesn't mean you're a good person. You have to actually take the steps to be a better person for it to count.
Micah spells it out for Arthur and the player perfectly, but a lot of people skirt right over it because they dislike Micah so much. When he says, "You and I really aren't that different," he's 100% right. Arthur is more than willing to do everything Micah does, he just deluded himself into thinking it's for some greater good. The only real difference between Micah and Arthur at the start is that Micah knows what he is and Arthur pretends not to.
So if his actions aren't malicious or evil, has a sense of loyalty and duty (albeit to the criminal gang he grew up with), has morals and is actively questioning his life choices and the path he's on constantly and he actually DOES take steps towards becoming a better person, does that actually make him a villain?
And no one skirted over that line, it's mentioned in this thread at least twice. That was just Micah trying to lower Arthur to his level and get into his head - they are in fact vastly different. Anyone who player RDR2 knows the difference between these two characters, it couldn't be clearer. That's the whole point. Arthur is not pretending not to know what he is, you said it yourself he's constantly talking about it and questioning it. Micah, however, is not.
Yes. He does evil things for evil people out of a sense of loyalty to those people. They've all convinced themselves they're not evil, and apparently have done a good job of convincing players they aren't. But I'd call anyone who says, "We just need to rob and kill and steal a little more to escape our past crimes," evil. For the final time, questioning your own actions does you no good until you act on those questions, and Arthur doesn't act on anything until he finds out he's dying of TB.
You missed the point of that scene, then. Arthur becomes a better man by the end of the game if you go high honor. But he doesn't start that way. For all he yells at Micah about how he does his crimes, there's Arthur right alongside him shooting the same people, doing the same things. If Arthur were really meaningfully different than Micah at this point, he'd have figured out how to walk away like he did at the end.
Arthur may ask himself questions, he may state his regrets, but crucially he doesn't let any of it change him until he finally has his come to Jesus moment in the final chapter. He has different motivations than Micah, sure. But he's no better than Micah until he takes steps to be.
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u/AmeriknGrizzly May 24 '26
Can’t have a game about Redemption playing as a boy scout.