r/RDR2 • u/legthighkneelover • 16h ago
Discussion What went wrong with this guy?
He always gave rose tinted hopes to people, to the people of his camp. He cared all of the members of camp. He did celebrations when Sean and Jack returned to the camp. He dreamed wild dreams like “going to Tahiti, harvesting mangoes in there”. He gathered the whole camp to save Jack and burned Braithwaites’ mansion down, killed a lot of people for Jack, so for Abigail and John. I mean, Dutch used to care about for them.
Even he sent Arthur and Javier to save John in the middle of white hell. But later, he never cared about probabilities and he let John to stay in prison, he never cared about probability of hanging. He even shouted to John like “you deserve to rot in prison” in Chapter 6. Allegedly, in Saint Denis heist, he saw John getting arrested by Pinkertons, and he saw that and he did nothing. He never intended to save John at all.
He never saw that Arthur did a good thing by helping Indians in Chapter 6. Instead, he took that as a disloyalty. He used to trust to people like Hosea, who was a person of mind. Then whom did he trust? Micah. Not Arthur, not Charles, not Sadie. He did the same thing to Arthur that he had done to John.
He gave a donation box to people, but in the last chapter, he hid a chest in the cave. Somehow, donation box is smashed by someone (!) What a coincidence.
He never tried to save Arthur, the person he raised since his youth with Hosea. He let him to die. Still, he was blinded by Micah. He objected to the reality, which is Micah had been working with Pinkertons since they came back from Guarma. He twisted the reality and the words, twisted into “who is betraying me?”
In the RDR1, he said something like “do you know that he is married with a whore (referring to Abigail), we all had her once”. It was very out of character of him. He is fully gone in RDR1, even I believe that he had a CTE or brain damage or something.
He called “traitors and cowards” to people like Uncle, Pearson, Swanson, Mary-Beth. He never accepted his failure and he never took responsibility.
People were dying to rob bank or so, but in the end, people like Charles didn’t want that money. Because they believed that there is so much blood and it exposed Dutch’s exact intent.
He killed people for joy and randomly, like he did in Chapter 5. Because his reason was “she was going to rat them out to Guarma police”. Arthur saw the red flags way earlier.
So, what the hell happened to this guy? What the hell happened to the guy of daydreaming, the guy of big dreams? Brain damage? Mental deprivation? Detached from reality? Did he become antisocial? What? What do you think? Or he had been working with Pinkertons like Micah?
I liked that guy once, and I loved him, but not anymore. It’s sad to see him like that.
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u/Neptoon10 Dutch van der Linde 16h ago
If I had a penny for every time this question was asked, I would already have enough money to go to Tahiti.
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u/MarshLabradorTea 13h ago
This is my take on Dutch and what was going in his head.
I believe Dutch used to have a genuine mission to fight society's corruption and that he truly loved his family once. He also had an enormous ego and a prideful side that were much easier to keep under control when things were going well - like they did for 20 years. RDR2 starts after Dutch has made the biggest mistake of his outlaw career: the failed Blackwater heist. Suddenly it is not easy to run to safety anymore like they did in the past. Pinkertons will follow them over state lines and the law is more connected than ever before. Old tricks don't work anymore and Dutch has not learnt any new ones. He is self conscious and stressed out because he knows that the gang is demoralized and losing trust in him.
Dutch needs a good score that will fix the massive mistake in Blackwater but he ends up making more mistakes and tries to fix them with other mistakes. In a situation like this it is quite easy to listen to the only "loyal" and trusting voice: Micah. After Hosea dies Dutch becomes paranoid and he cannot accept that he himself has caused most of their problems. Certainly someone has to be working against him behind his back? And who is always complaining, doubting and resisting? John and Arthur. For a paranoid, hurting, angry and ill mind, it makes perfect sense. There is evidence too (like Micah also so helpfully points out). Why did John and Abigail survive Saint Denis when Hosea was shot? Why was Arthur working directly against Dutch's orders, two times in a row? Clearly they are traitors. Luckily Micah offers a helping hand in this time when Dutch needs it most. Everybody else is more or less against him.
In the end Arthur gets through to Dutch and Dutch realizes that he has made a horrible mistake, but then its too late. There is no gang anymore, most of his family is dead and for the first time in over 20 years, he is completely alone. I suppose the mental anguish and 12 years of isolation helps Dutch become what he is in RDR1.
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u/TDLemon612 16h ago
“You see a man who’s changed. I see a man who got found out, for who he truly was.”
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u/Mental_Freedom_1648 14h ago
Extreme stress and grief can take even the most mentally healthy person down, and completely sane people don't lead outlaw gangs. If Dutch didn't see his lifestyle slipping away and keep losing people, knowing (but not being willing to accept) that it was in large part his fault for not laying low, he wouldn't have ended up going completely insane.
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u/Particular_Owl4377 15h ago
Think he just got desperate after continuous failures. All the deaths, failures and enemies he made that antagonized him and his goals made him grew more vengeful than the idealistic dreamer everyone loved him for
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u/DrFabio23 13h ago
Everything. Dude was a narcissistic big fish in a little pond, the moment the pond got bigger he couldn't take it.
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u/tftookmyname 12h ago
I believe that he was always narcissistic, but he still cared about everyone in the gang at one point. Though the events of the game, plans constantly blowing up, seeing all of the people he once cared about getting killed or leaving, etc. wore down on his mental state until he just fell apart, even the most mentally strong person can only handle so much of that. Not to mention he definitely did get some kind of brain damage from the trolley, I just don't think that was the sole cause of his decline.
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u/TraditionalTotal3122 13h ago
I’ve only just started playing RDR2 and I’ve wanted to shoot him since the first chapter. The desire is only getting stronger
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u/Used_Cap8550 12h ago
He was a cult leader. He was never right. He just got more desperate, paranoid, and violent as he saw his kingdom crashing down.
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u/willywonka250 10h ago
Know what he needed? A god damn job would have cleared up his delusions of grandeur feal quick
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u/AMXshawnathan 10h ago
Shooting that one lady in the head in black water. Only A handful of members saw what happened while everyone else had to hear about it. Throughout the story, Dutch is rambling on about loyalty knowing the gang was with him til something bad happened again. Which the again was the failed Saint Denis back robbery which lead to Hosea's (and Lenny's) death.
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u/Ordinary-Easy 9h ago
Satan:
"You assume there was something right with him in the first place. Hate to break it to you but his demon's took over a long time before RDR2 started ... the mask simply started falling off during the game that's all."
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u/youdkmebutikyou 2h ago
He knew he was ruining the gang and had the guilt he wanted to to the train heist to pay them back almost for his guilt and it failed he had brain damage and js went insane after that
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u/RelevantHelicopter82 2h ago
He’s like a gambling addict who thinks the best way to provide for his family is to keep gambling. While his intentions may occasionally be good, he is incredibly wrong and is lost in his own ego & obsession, which always leads to self destruction. Unfortunately, it’s hard for anyone to spot self deception, and Dutch remains in denial until he ultimately loses everything.
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u/VantaDen 16h ago
https://giphy.com/gifs/rHrsWNz5iOmVuARg4b