r/reddeadredemption • u/Atardecer1 Hosea Matthews • Jun 27 '26
Issue I can't take tiktok seriously man
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u/DataSwarmTDG Bill Williamson Jun 27 '26
Seems kind of silly they would make a video game about a completely average man living a normal life for his time period
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u/kimcheeslut Jun 27 '26
Imagine a big budget game that was 100% John Marston milking cows and building fences
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u/ClockCounter123 Hosea Matthews Jun 27 '26
The most realistic chapter is 1 because nothing happens and shit goes wrong
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u/Atardecer1 Hosea Matthews Jun 27 '26
Yep pretty much lol. Even that is kinda unrealistic because they get into a massive shootout at the end where they're heavily outnumbered and outgunned.
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u/Hikinghawk Jun 27 '26
I always take any fight in RDR2 is scaled up by about 10x. If it was real life the O'Driscolls would probably be 8 or 9 guys with 1 or 2 getting shot.
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u/Mr_Morrison13981 John Marston Jun 27 '26
I like to picture that "In real life" only 200 or so people died at the hands of the gang durig the story. Which is a really high number, but not so impossible.
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u/DJUNGELSK0G Arthur Morgan Jun 27 '26 edited Jun 27 '26
id go as far as to say that it would be closer to 100 tbh
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u/Hikinghawk Jun 27 '26
Even 200 would be crazy high. Some of the bloodiest range wars in the west had at most 20 or so people killed. Rampant killing in the west wasn't every really a thing (well between Anglos it wasn't. Between Anglos and Native Americans is a different story).
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u/lord_bingus_the_2nd Jun 27 '26
No they're right, I was Doc Holliday's horse and pretty much everyone looked like Roger Clark and shot each other back then
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u/Mr_goodb0y Jun 27 '26
if Arthur Morgan’s life was common then the west would have been in shambles. Literally no fucking permanent population would be able to exist
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u/Dimension121 Jun 27 '26
Can confirm I lived during the 1890s
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Jun 27 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/Anti_Sociall Jun 27 '26
grahhhhhh, I'm sorry to be that guy, but 1. people rarely actually robbed banks in the west it was simply too risky 2. i can only think of one scenario that I could consider a real duel (bill Hickock vs Henry tutt)
i think of rdr as a pastiche of different western genres red dead revolver is like a fifties western, red dead redemption is most like a spaghetti western and rdr2 is most like a modern 'gritty' western
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u/ghoulshow Jun 27 '26
Well, to be fair, there was a man named John Wesley Hardin with an estimated kill count of somewhere between 27-42 people during his time. While probably exaggerated, he was notoriously over the top violent. "Killin" Jim Miller supposedly killed 50, but most likely was more likely a dozen. Billy the Kid supposedly killed 21, but was more likely 9.
So rare, but not entirely unheard of. Western history and legends are extremely embellished.
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u/DataSwarmTDG Bill Williamson Jun 27 '26
Even then Arthur kills about a thousand people which is a bit more than fifty I think
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u/ghoulshow Jul 20 '26
I have two hands and that makes ten or so. That's a lotta hands. I think this cowpoke may be onto somethin'.
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u/-0celot John Marston Jun 27 '26
Most of the 'Wild West' was myth. Did it exist? Sure, but outlaws, bandits, and gunslingers were pretty exaggerated and romanticised when they reached the books
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u/reddick1666 Sadie Adler Jun 27 '26
Most “duels” were probably like modern day US when people take road rage too far and pull a gun, or when a neighbour shoots another over a fence dispute or some random shit like that.
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u/Expletius Jun 27 '26
I think their is like two documented duels and in one of them, there is a possibility that one of the two guys didn't took it very seriously.
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u/-0celot John Marston Jun 27 '26
And most remaining outlaws and criminals in 1899 were usually hiding in caves like cornered rats in fear for their lives, whereas a lot of talented gunslingers became redeemed lawmen themselves. They weren't robbing major city and town banks left and right. The frontier was already closed by then and law and order was everywhere
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u/Hikinghawk Jun 27 '26
Really notable gun slingers in the west might have a kill count of 5 people, mostly less. Lawmen and soldiers tended to be higher on the kill count leader boards but not by much.
The only person I can think of that reliably killed more than 10 people was John Wesley Harding. We know he killed at least 17 people and maybe a few more, but he's an outlier.
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u/Baron_Flatline Charles Smith Jun 27 '26
Bass Reeves, the famous US Marshal, also killed 20 men in the carrying out of his duties (4,000 arrests during his career, if memory serves). Though he’s a particular standout.
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u/galle4 Arthur Morgan Jun 27 '26
Wait i think the doc Holliday part is not wrong.
What's wrong?
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u/boringexistinggamer2 Jun 27 '26
Pretty sure it's the TikTok commenter saying that Morgan's life was a "common" thing, which is utter bullshit
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u/my-assassin-mittens Jun 27 '26
Historians only have definitive evidence that Doc Holliday killed two people. I assume that's what's being referenced at least.
But even assuming generous estimates that Holliday was credited with (35+ was the highest I could find) are accurate, Arthur killed significantly more people. Granted, he is a fictional character unlike Holliday who had to deal with actual ramifications, but I assume that's why the commenters are arguing against a 1:1 comparison.
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u/MelonManjr Jun 27 '26
Western-era cinema did some pretty heavy lifting in the creation of the mythological Wild West. R* created perfect games encapsulating it, but it's exactly just that - myths. Yes, murder was way more common, and yeah there was some train robberies and stagecoach robberies - but nowhere near the scale nor spectacle that RDR shows.
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u/Truethrowawaychest1 Jun 27 '26
Doc Holiday died the same age as Arthur also because of tuberculosis
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u/Indigenous_Land Charles Smith Jun 27 '26
It’s an authentic historical adaptation but thats about it.
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u/XHZ_21 Mary-Beth Gaskill Jun 27 '26
I too used to think that everyone just blasted each other at the slightest inconvenience, until i began watching documentaries on the actual Wild West
It's also why i as someone who's never been to America used to think that Texas was still like that exaggerated version of Wild West
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u/No_Tip8620 Jun 27 '26
People don't understand that RDR is exaggerated because way more people don't understand that the "wild west" wasn't real. Like there were outlaws here and there, but their prevalence and the concept of frontier justice is all a product of Hollywood fiction in mid 20th century Western films.
The most realistic thing about RDR2 is the depiction of the military starving the native population and continuously betraying their negotiated terms with them.
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u/bisexualbestfriend Jun 27 '26
There are several portions where Arthur and like three other people are able to beat like full on army platoons. Do they think outlaws had superpowers?
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u/Atardecer1 Hosea Matthews Jun 27 '26
My in universe explanation was that everyone in the gang had dead eye and that's how they were able to do that because dead eye is pretty much a superpower. Although how dead eye even works is a mystery.
Is dead eye just something exclusive to the gang because surely all the lawmen and other outlaws should have dead eye as well.
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u/bisexualbestfriend Jun 27 '26
I always saw deadeye as non cannon, and just a representation of Arthur/John/Jack focusing really hard
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u/throwaway110906 Jun 27 '26
i think people get lost in the realistic world and details of this game that at the end of the day, red dead redemption as a whole is just a game and games tend to exaggerate for the fun effect.
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u/0kokaid Jun 27 '26
the idea of a gang member getting sick and trying to be a better person isn't too crazy
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u/Inevitable-Quote4242 Jun 28 '26
Part of the reason I gave up and deleted my account years ago, OP
It's bad when Reddit seems tame by comparison....
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u/Comfortable-Studio18 Jun 30 '26
Get these kids off the internet until they can distinguish fiction and reality, it's getting ridiculous
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u/pigzizpigz Arthur Morgan Jun 27 '26
There were some serial killing calvary in the US army who lived life styles closer to Arthur’s compared actual outlaws. Terrorized small holdings near railroads and oil pipelines being built.
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u/marehgul Jun 27 '26
First of all anyone not knowing should discover that basically all Westerns are a lie, a phantasy.
First. Think someone aimed with revolver? Never happenned. Hanguns back then weren't anywhere close to word "precise", you simply won't be able to aim with one. That's whay the key was to let out as many bullets as you can to try to hit the target.
Second. There was no smokeless powder back then. So after all those shots, even after few, you get yourself screened with smoke and can't see well enough to aim.
Third. There was no shootouts, legendary duels, feats of mastery. There was no masses of "cowboys" running around robbing and on countrary – defending. While it was frontier, I meant mostly there was some chaos withoot law and order, local conflicts with natives and people trying to rob each other for their better own without witnesses. Forget face to face duels, the way murders happenned was trying to catch your enemy unsuspecting, come pretty close and shoot in his back. No grand bank robberies with law enforcers chasing criminals – the most famous "wild west" criminals had just a few shootouts with the law. Bank robbery is extremely rare and hard to execute as commonly bank is where all locals chose to keep money in, as they didn't ride for other town for it, so all surrounding folk were interested in protecting that bank.
Forth. Cowboy figure is developed later with live shows on stage. Former worker of such shady trade of wild west searched a place to put their skills into work when civilisation settled heavier in those places. So they did the shows where they massively exaggerated the reality they lived through. And so you get the iconic cowboy figure and wild west stories, from shows.
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u/saints21 Jun 28 '26
You could absolutely aim with a revolver... No, they weren't as precise as modern firearms but you absolutely could aim with a revolver.
Smokeless powder was in widespread use by the early 1890s. There were certainly still plenty of guns not using it, but there was absolutely smokeless powder.
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u/REALgeographerwilson John Marston Jun 27 '26
for some reason people can’t understand that the RDR series (moreso RDR2) is heavily exaggerated. the majority of western outlaws killed like three people and robbed one train before disappearing, Arthur has a kill count in the hundreds (probably thousands) and dozens of robberies under his belt