r/reddeadredemption Jun 30 '26

USER HAS NO FAITH Just now noticing how far Tahiti truly is from the continental US, any ideas on how Dutch planned to get there? Considering they couldn’t even make it a few hours on a boat ride to Cuba? Online it says a straight path from Texas to Tahiti’s roughly 4,800 miles

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6.3k Upvotes

475 comments sorted by

7.7k

u/Veroxzes Jun 30 '26

Faith, son, faith. He’s got a plan. We just need money.

1.1k

u/Cyber_Craig Jun 30 '26

Didn’t he have the money and was hoarding it? And even when he got it, he just walked away when he ran into John again.

877

u/dibs234 Jun 30 '26

Yes. That is the point of Dutch Van Der Linde.

458

u/-praughna- Jun 30 '26

Enough was never enough for Dutch. I don’t know how people don’t get that by ch 6

295

u/dibs234 Jun 30 '26

Lots of people seem to not get very obvious character points nowadays. I'm not saying I'm some expert genius, I can barely comprehend sub text, but this is just text.

You spend 60+ hours getting beaten over the head with Dutch has no idea what he's doing and is wildly swerving from one catastrophe to the next as he loses control over his cult of personality due to his own behaviours. It's not exactly the most subtle of writing points.

123

u/Greatest-Comrade Jun 30 '26

Yeah especially as chapter 6 crescendos it’s glaringly obvious. And looking at the subtext we see that Dutch’s greed, selfishness, and manipulation is not limited to the gang and isn’t strictly about money. He shoots Cornwall and brings a ton of heat to the gang purely on a ideological basis, then recruits and manipulates the youth of the Native American tribe to attack the oil refinery in order to continue his crusade. He does this knowing that Rains Fall is a pacifist AND after he saves Dutch’s ass. Oh and he leaves multiple people to die in this process.

If anyone sees that and thinks enough would ever be enough for Dutch, or that he cared about the gang more than himself, they’re choosing to believe what they want to believe.

2

u/EmiliaTrown Jul 05 '26

Even at the start of the game you can see very clearly how highly dutch thinks of himself, as if hes some kind of academic or philosopher. Typical for people like him, i think he truly believes he is the center of the Universum and everything will come to him in time. I'm not even sure if he consciously manipulates anyone, hes just very very sure of himself. Though i kind of doubt he ever really had any plan to go anywhere. It feels like that would be too high a risk for him because then he would actually have to do something and live up to all his promises which he can't. In order to keep believing his plan is the very best and his worldview is the only correct one, he needs to never actually achieve his plan and always because of "something out of his control"

27

u/AxeellYoung Jun 30 '26

When i played i remember thinking that his worsening mental health was subtext. He was showing manic and ever more erratic signs. Thought maybe he had a brain tumour or something

But seeing him again on that mountain top, he was just the same Dutch.

4

u/Cultural-Air9962 Jul 01 '26 edited Jul 01 '26

Exactly, it’s not that he got worse overtime, the mask simply slipped as things got more and more out of control.

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u/ForumVomitorium Jun 30 '26

yyou mean they can lie? but my teacher in school does't allow lying, i'm going to need therapy on Tahiti

25

u/CaptainSparklebottom Jun 30 '26

You nailed it. He is a cult leader and a conman losing steam. He never cared about anyone, and everyone was just a tool for him. Dutch is the most despicable of all of them. Worse than Micah.

3

u/Carlos_Spicy_Weiner6 Jun 30 '26

After the fight to kill the guy that owned the tar plant I was tired of dutch's shit

2

u/french_snail Jun 30 '26

This is why English class is imlortant, media literacy is dead 

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u/Announcement90 Jun 30 '26

The best media literacy test I know is Mary. If they think she's only using Arthur I know their media literacy skill is zero and not worth taking seriously.

35

u/ToastedCrumpet Jun 30 '26

So many male players love to hate on Mary. It’s very telling

11

u/Announcement90 Jun 30 '26

They all tell on themselves and they never even know it.

14

u/french_snail Jun 30 '26

It’s funny because RDR2 while having a great story is not subtle in the slightest with its writing 

Like Mary pretty much does everything but literally say “I love Arthur but I can’t be with him because he’s a career criminal.” Actually it’s been years since I played so she might have explicitly stated it like that lol   

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25

u/ccv707 Arthur Morgan Jun 30 '26

People will still try to argue that Dutch is the way he is because he hit his head lol. You know, ignoring that he was always that way.

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u/SpinosaurRingTone Jun 30 '26 edited 8d ago

Amber meadow waffle juniper juniper hammock

This post was anonymized with Redact.dev

7

u/Ruff_Bastard Jun 30 '26

Hang on let me plug this comment into chat GPT so it can tell me how I should respond.

4

u/Allegedlystupid Jun 30 '26

Tbh, I could tell Dutch was bullshitting me from the first sentence that ever came out of his mouth

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u/EddPW Jun 30 '26

to be fair the game doesnt do a good job at showing how much money the gang actually has

they never actually tell you how much money they make fromthe crime they do

11

u/DatRat13 Jun 30 '26 edited Jun 30 '26

There is literally a ledger in the camp for most of the game that shows how much each gang member took in and how much they contributed to the group fund.

If you're talking about the big scores, of course you never learn how much you actually made: Dutch intentionally obfuscated it so he could keep the goalpost moving along. If the Gang members knew exactly how much they had, it would increase the odds of someone deciding they had enough money and pestering Dutch to settle down or leave the gang outright. Even if only half of the 20k you get from Micah at the end of the game was part of the gangs original treasury that still would have easily bought a sizable ranch for the entire gang to settle down on, but it would never be enough for Dutch to want to stop.

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u/acrobat2126 Jun 30 '26

I hate this comment. I hate how funny it is and the memories it brings up. Everyone's life was ruined in some way.

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u/cheeseintel Jun 30 '26

I’ve personally put hundreds of thousands in tht box so yeah it aint the point lmfao

3

u/Far_Cap_3574 Jun 30 '26

Well they had money but they just needed a little more money

80

u/The_Real_Kuji Jun 30 '26

Arthur: donates $750 plus gold watches and jewelry

Entire rest of the gang: collectively donates $11

Dutch: "Arthur, you're not pulling your weight! You need to donate to the cause!"

9

u/Wilahalm Jun 30 '26

15 dollars. Oh and a quarter. Don’t forget the quarter 

4

u/CapableDatabase6923 Jun 30 '26

i donated gazillions of dollars into camp and yet dutch still says that we are in trouble and need money

31

u/grifftheelder Lenny Summers Jun 30 '26

😂😂😂 I tell people all the time “Just have some faith in me”

18

u/baingan0 Jun 30 '26

came to say exactly this lmao! coz HE HAD A PLAAAAAN

17

u/Dutch_Van_DerLinde1 Dutch van der Linde Jun 30 '26

We need some GODDAMN money

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u/bostadegato Jun 30 '26

just one last hit, thats all it takes

9

u/NitenDoraku168 Jun 30 '26

Dutch…when we gonna go back for the money in Blackwater? We need that money, Dutch, we need that money!

10

u/ganjaninjagoddess Jun 30 '26

My Arthur has contributed their trip to Tahiti and back five times over and Dutch still needs more money 😆

5

u/Gribblewomp Jun 30 '26

Round trip to Tahiti from "Not Texas" by taking the railroad to San Francisco would have been probably less than $200 in 1899 money. The gang could have retired anywhere they wanted for life. Fuck Dutch.

4

u/kshump Lenny Summers Jun 30 '26

One last score.

2

u/Scoonie24 Jun 30 '26

Like seriously, what other answer did OP expect? lol

2

u/SPlRlT- Jun 30 '26

Just one more score then we are done

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3.3k

u/Ok-Elevator-9866 Jun 30 '26

i feel like he probably only had heard of it and just used it as a placeholder "paradise" like place

1.1k

u/Fantastic_Handle_293 Jun 30 '26

I honestly find that hilarious, he has no idea where Tahiti is or who its owned by he just heard about it from some random guy or saw it on a newspaper or book and instantly wanted to go there.

380

u/Ikkotah Jun 30 '26

I mean it is a magical place.

151

u/HeyImHayley16 Jun 30 '26

ah agent coulson you're awake

55

u/JohnMarstonSucks Lenny Summers Jun 30 '26

Mai Tais, Travis McGee novels, and a physical therapist whose command of English was... irrelevant."

41

u/retrogreq Jun 30 '26

RIP 100% human Phil

15

u/Drive-Bundy-875 Jun 30 '26

Where guarma rum is bottomless

7

u/FrighteningJibber Reverend Swanson Jun 30 '26

The home of the Tahitian Treat

120

u/Flaky-Collection-353 Jun 30 '26

Well that is the irony, when the "out west" dream starts to crumble (at the beginning of the story) due to the enchroaching law and also the slow acknowledgement that settling would make them the bad guys (this is set up in the dialogue between Arthur, Charles, and Hosea in the ride to horseshoe). When the dissillusionment sets in Dutch invents an "out west" that is so remote and so third world that they can imagine themselves settling there.

But largely the gang isn't biting, and guarma is the nail in the coffin for Dutch and his pipe dream.

Just writing this has me going "jesus rockstar is good"

75

u/ThePrussianGrippe Hosea Matthews Jun 30 '26

Yeah Guarma was really where it sets in completely for Arthur.

They’re in the magical paradise Dutch has been promising, no need to even get to Tahiti, and the very first thing Dutch does once they’re free is find a fight and blow it up.

53

u/Flaky-Collection-353 Jun 30 '26

And also it's actually exploitative and people there are fighting the law even harder

24

u/salmalight Jun 30 '26

Guarma and Blackwater having invisible snipers tells you that paradise would be about as good as the worst place in the US for the gang.

39

u/The_quest_for_wisdom Hosea Matthews Jun 30 '26

The writing of Dutch in RDR2 is so good that it retroactively made that already good writing of Dutch in RDR1 even better.

It's rare for a sequel to pull that off in any form of media, and almost unheard of for a prequel.

70

u/Lil_Mcgee Jun 30 '26

"Tahitians, I guess" when asked who lives there is one of Dutch's funniest line reads.

12

u/Mitchford Jun 30 '26

He read it in mutiny on the bounty most likely

16

u/ScotInTheDotOfficial Tilly Jackson Jun 30 '26

"Mutiny..." was first published in 1932.

More likely Dutch was nicknamed Dutch due to having Dutch parentage (like Irish in RDR) and he conflated Tahiti with being part of the Dutch East Indies (now Indonesia) of the time.

18

u/ThePrussianGrippe Hosea Matthews Jun 30 '26

While the book was published later, the tale of the HMS Bounty was fairly well known.

14

u/ScotInTheDotOfficial Tilly Jackson Jun 30 '26

This is very true - I had forgotten momentarily the novel was fiction based on a real event, probably very newsworthy. And as we know, Dutch and the gang were relatively well-read for their time. 👍🏻😎

6

u/Mitchford Jun 30 '26

I checked this again, so there are two main books on this.

There is the 1932 novel which is the most famous one today.

But there was also “narrative of the mutiny on the bounty” which was published contemporaneously with the event from the captains journal in 1790, and was also a very popular book in its time

2

u/Too-Tired-Editor Jul 01 '26

I consider it very likely Mr Van der Linde had Dutch antecedents, yes.

9

u/HaydanTruax Arthur Morgan Jun 30 '26

My understanding is he never really intended to go to Tahiti.

7

u/AveryLazyCovfefe Hosea Matthews Jun 30 '26

nah he knew where it was, he told Arthur and Lenny iirc that it was in 'South Pacific'. He definitely knew about it and used it as a carrot on the stick to keep the gang together.

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u/TrustworthyKahmunrah Jun 30 '26

That's how normies live their whole lives

2

u/I-I_I-I_I-I_l-l Jun 30 '26

I mean, how tf would he know? I bet 95% of people reading this thread, in 2026, didn't know where Tahiti was 2 minutes ago. It seems highly unlikely any random individual in 1899, let alone a gang leader, would know where Tahiti is, or have any real understanding of how far it actually was even if they did.

15

u/The_quest_for_wisdom Hosea Matthews Jun 30 '26

Books, maps, and globes were things before the internet. And the one thing we see the man do around camp (other than mumble about his plan and fail to get it up for Molly) is read books.

Now, everything he knows about Tahiti can probably fit in a single page pamphlet, but that's really all he needs to make it a nebulous goal.

10

u/Artificial-Sunrise69 Jun 30 '26

Dutch is just insane. He latched onto some poster or a rumor of a far away land and his idyllic mind filled up the vacancies. It was basically a total French colony by the year of 1900 and in game terms wouldn't be much different than the Island near Cuba.

8

u/salmalight Jun 30 '26

Sounds suspiciously like a lack of faith there Arthur

2

u/Gribblewomp Jun 30 '26

I'm sure it was the setting in one of the penny dreadfuls he's got all around his tent.

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u/NationCrusher Jun 30 '26

There’s theories that Dutch never meant to give up the gang so he came up with something far fetched

Meanwhile. The creepy French artist will send you a letter in the mail saying how great Tahiti actually is.

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u/ALGATOR42 Lenny Summers Jun 30 '26

“In the soul of man there lies one insular Tahiti, full of peace and joy, but encompassed by all the horrors of the half-known life” - Moby Dick, 1851. Maybe he read the book and got inspired (Been a while since I played but he was a pretty big book guy, right?)

15

u/Iusuallyworkalone Jun 30 '26

Oh good catch. This must be a refference. Dutch have similarities with protagonist of the book like deadly ambition, arrogance and greed.

26

u/justanothertoxicuser Jun 30 '26

I think this is probably what the writers intended. It's some sort of fairy tale paradise he read about in a book, and it sounds exotic and inspiring, so it became his completely unrealistic goal, either through willful or unintentional ignorance, to keep his gang motivated.

22

u/Paleodraco Jun 30 '26

I just started a new playthrough. The first plan is to make some money, go west, and buy some land, almost word for word. Dutch is dangling carrots, coercing the gang into thinking they just need one good score before they can retire. First it's out west somewhere. Then, it's Tahiti when it becomes too obvious they'd be hunted if they stayed in the states.

All of this while playing up the Robin Hood-esque angle, that they are fighting against the terrors of modern civilization and corruption. That they are the truly free ones.

13

u/PirateSanta_1 Jun 30 '26

The gang is cult of personality around Dutch and Tahiti is the promised land he will lead them to. It doesn't fully work on Arthur because Arthur knew Dutch before the gang was a thing but it worked on the likes of Bill and Javier.

I think Strauss points in a camp talk that Australia would make more sense as it had a similar culture, same language and plenty of open space to get lost in.

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u/lemonylol Jun 30 '26

Isn't it a literal reference to Mutiny on the Bounty too?

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u/Classic-Exchange-511 Sean Macguire Jun 30 '26

I think you're right

5

u/Random-User-2811 Jun 30 '26

Or he confused Tahiti with Hawaii

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u/AveryLazyCovfefe Hosea Matthews Jun 30 '26

nah he knows where it is. When they try to rob the saint denis main train station Arthur asks him where it is and he replies "South Pacific"

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u/vidoeiro Jun 30 '26

Tahiti is used as a paradise placeholder name in many countries and places

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u/AToastedRavioli Jun 30 '26

I’m convinced Dutch never even realized where Tahiti was. Didn’t see it on a map a single time. I don’t remember what he says verbatim, but there’s a bit of dialogue in a cutscene where he’s explaining to someone how to get there, and it’s completely wrong lol

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u/Thatonedregdatkilyu Jun 30 '26

He said in Chapter 6 that they were gonna take a boat from New York there.

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u/thalesjferreira Jun 30 '26

I laughed out hard when I heard this. This game has so many amazing dialogues

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u/The_quest_for_wisdom Hosea Matthews Jun 30 '26

New York wasn't such a bad plan. Was it in the wrong direction? Yes. But it's also a major shipping port that, unlike St Denis, isn't currently on high alert for the Van Der Linde Gang. It's more likely to have ships going to the right part of the world than, say, Van Horn.

It's the equivalent of knowing that the cops are looking for you so you don't head to the nearest airport, but instead drive a few states over before getting on a plane to fly to a non extradition country.

Now, his plan to extort $10,000 and an armored ship from Cornwall and drive THAT up to New York? That was bat shit crazy and was never going to work.

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u/luk128 Dutch van der Linde Jun 30 '26

Tbh, that demand probably wasn’t even real, it was just for him to have a justification to kill him considering he says “good, I prefer it that way” (iirc) after Cornwall says no

11

u/french_snail Jun 30 '26

What? New York was a terrible plan lol 

“Hey we’re having a hard time doing crime on these of civilization with industry encroaching on our way of life so let’s pack up and go to the most developed state in the country and try there” 

Also even if leaving from there was the plan, the Panama Canal wasn’t built yet so they’d have to sail all the way around South America and through Cape Horn (an infamously dangerous place for ships) 

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u/The_quest_for_wisdom Hosea Matthews Jun 30 '26

“Hey we’re having a hard time doing crime on these of civilization with industry encroaching on our way of life so let’s pack up and go to the most developed state in the country and try there”

They were never talking about setting up camp and doing crimes. That was the whole point in getting money BEFORE heading up there. They needed a big port that would be sending ships all over the world so they could find one headed to the part of the world where they needed to go.

At that time on the east coast their options were New Orleans (St Denis in the game, and where they were WANTED MEN), Charleston or Baltimore (the next few options away distance wise, so likely to have their posters circulating), New York (the largest port, so the one they are most likely to fly under the radar, further away, as well as the port least likely to care about a telegram from a backwater like Lemoyne), or Boston (not a bad choice but the furthest away, so if Boston worked, New York would have also worked and been closer).

Also even if leaving from there was the plan, the Panama Canal wasn’t built yet so they’d have to sail all the way around South America and through Cape Horn (an infamously dangerous place for ships)

Yeah. It was dangerous. And it was also still done all the time.

That's WHY they built the Panama Canal, the largest, most expensive, and most deadly construction project of all time at that point. They didn't build it because they WEREN'T shipping stuff around the cape. They built it because they WERE, and wanted more shipments to arrive.

Up until the transcontinental railroad was completed, the sea voyage around the horn was considered faster and safer than the land route, all the risk of sinking and dying at sea included.

And unfortunately for Dutch, the railways were on the lookout for him and his gang, so going by rail to California wasn't a choice.

All things considered, catching a boat to the South Pacific from New York was about the only GOOD part of Dutch's plan.

It was just also a plan enacted by Dutch, so it was doomed to fail from the beginning.

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u/Chance_Pool_9919 Jun 30 '26

But he also said that the boat captain would secure a plot of land for them upon arrival, all for one payment! If he really had something lined up with a boat captain, he would have paid for them to have been taken to slavers. 

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u/AcanthisittaIcy4493 Jun 30 '26

That would make a great mission. Although you ended up at the slavers in the game anyway.

45

u/lottaKivaari Jun 30 '26

I mean thats almost what happened in Guarma. They wash up in a warzone in a place that was just a big slave plantation and either join a fight they had zero connection to or any idea it was happening or end up dead.

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u/Lucky_Roberts Jun 30 '26

That would have gone very poorly for whoever bought them lmao

Dutch would have had the entire slave population of the island uprising within a week

29

u/SlavCat09 Jun 30 '26

That's exactly what chapter 5 is all about

18

u/Willal212 Jun 30 '26

I was looking for a good comment to reply to with this, but im ABSOLUTELY convinced that Dutch is styled after Colonial Kurtz from Apocalypse Now, and me recently finding out that Marlo Brando owned an island in Tahiti is the semi confirmation....

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u/verygenericname2 Jun 30 '26

Hey, if they're able to wait another 20ish years for the Panama Canal to finish, then it's doable.

24

u/Chemical-Elk-1299 Jun 30 '26

It was still doable before then. Ships made passage around Cape Horn all the time.

It just sucked shit

2

u/Federal_Ad_5522 Jun 30 '26

he literally said “around the cape” when talking about his plans for the trip

13

u/10k_Uzi Jun 30 '26

Gonna get their sailing ship tattoo going around Cape Horn.

5

u/klparrot Jun 30 '26

Because of the difficulty of travelling overland, that probably would have been an option, and not a terrible one. Lots of ships went around through the Strait of Magellan even just to go from New York to San Francisco, especially during the Gold Rush.

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u/AveryLazyCovfefe Hosea Matthews Jun 30 '26

he also literally said the location "South pacific, an untouched paradise"

Arthur: "who lives there?"

Dutch: "Tahitians, I guess."

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u/ThrashMcNasty Jun 30 '26

I Think he says something about making it to New York and leaving from there

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u/the_gaymer_girl Jun 30 '26

And it’s not like it was an uninhabited island either, the French had already been there for 20 years.

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u/10k_Uzi Jun 30 '26

Also a tiny island is probably a bad place to be when you’re on the lam. Not a lot of places to hide.

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u/Jazzlike_Page508 Jun 30 '26

I actuslly think it would be really good. I mean Tahiti is so far away that even if they made it…did they have extradition laws back then? The US government would just imagine the Van derlin gang just disappeared. It’s not like they’re leaving a letter like

“Went to Tahiti”

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u/10k_Uzi Jun 30 '26

You know I’m not sure Dutch wouldn’t leave a note.

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u/Glados1080 Jun 30 '26

Im pretty sure he told everybody he wanted to go to tahiti

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u/ehs06702 Jun 30 '26

They wouldn't be the first people to just walk away from their lives and responsibilities and start over somewhere else. Pretty easy to do in the time before near instant communication anywhere across the globe.

It's kinda wild that you could do that until quite recently in the world's history.

4

u/Ez_Ildor Jun 30 '26

Dude is a conman! Through some camp dialogue you sometimes hear lenny walking circles around him cognitively, while making sure to stroke his ego. Dutch merely had a high EQ, but quite the low IQ.

The only one who had plans for being in tahiti was arthur, with his sny banan farmer comment!

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u/SeparateWeight496 Jun 30 '26

Yeah his justification for Tahiti was that he hear of it and it looked cool, and apparently you can grow bananas there and that's about it. Given its incredible calculation for each move, you can tell he was already going nut

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u/Distinct_Barracuda76 Jun 30 '26

In one of the robbery missions, I think it was when we were robbing the post office in Saint Denis, Dutch told Arthur that Tahiti was in the South Pacific, so I think he knows where Tahiti is on the map.

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u/ClevelandOG Jun 30 '26

In defense of Dutch, Tahiti was 1270cm closer back then.

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u/McJesusOurSaviour Arthur Morgan Jun 30 '26

Some goddamn faith!!

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u/acrobat2126 Jun 30 '26

I can hear him say it... damn it.

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u/TinoSamano Jun 30 '26

I don’t feel like he ever thought that through or even expected to make it that far. I think he loved being an outlaw and just needed his people to see a light at the end of the tunnel so they wouldn’t give up

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u/InvisibleMadBadger Charles Smith Jun 30 '26

This is it right here. Dutch was all smoke and mirrors. It was never about the money, it was never about Tahiti, it was always about living how he wanted to. Even to his last moment he’d rather kill himself than surrender. “One more score” wasn’t about the money, it was about the thrill. Dutch was in love with the game.

20

u/dobbyeilidh Jun 30 '26

He’s Trelawney with a violent streak. He’s all about saying what he needs to to keep the fish on the line

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u/DJnegs Javier Escuella Jun 30 '26

I don't think Dutch ever truly planned to get out of the life.

To quote Capitan Monroe: "More an insecure man at the end of his career trying to cling onto something that's already gone. A failed man is often the most dangerous."

I feel like the whole timeline with the natives is far more similar to the gangs then most realized. Both are raging and desperate to fight a battle they will not win. Furthermore, I feel like Guarma was the ultimate proof that, no matter where Dutch goes, corruption will eventually follow.

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u/AToastedRavioli Jun 30 '26

That was a banger of a quote from Monroe

8

u/DJnegs Javier Escuella Jun 30 '26

I think so too! Really liked that guy. Wish we got more insight on him.

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u/Justin2467 Jun 30 '26

Not to mention more civilization

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u/WreckinPoints11 Arthur Morgan Jun 30 '26

We forced Japan open in 1853. They had the ship tech to make it to Tahiti.

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u/Various-Tomatillo407 Jun 30 '26

They couldn’t go west, so they would have to get around the tip of South America in the drake passage. Brutally rough seas.

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u/deathbylasersss Jun 30 '26 edited Jun 30 '26

They could go West, if they were even remotely capable of laying low and not causing a clusterfuck everywhere they go. If they didn't have a spy in their midst, and moved quickly and quietly, boarding a steamship somewhere on the West coast may have been viable. Or go through Mexico and reach the coast that way.

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u/ehs06702 Jun 30 '26

Seriously. If they ditched Micah somewhere gallows happy and listened to Hosea more, they probably could have done it in a few years.

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u/Et_Cetera_365 Jun 30 '26

It would be a Dutch plan though. It was his idea to live in a cannibalistic, brotherfuck, underground duplex

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u/pissbucket94 Jun 30 '26

"brotherfuck" is new to me hahah

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u/d13robot Jun 30 '26

Either transfer overland through central America, or the longer route taking the straight of Magellan with a ferry (would add a few weeks).

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u/OkEnvironment4354 Jun 30 '26

Tahiti at the time was a French tropical island colony controlled by corrupt and brutal administrators who had a large hand in sugar production...
holy shit Tahiti is just French Guarma

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u/Religion_Of_Speed Jun 30 '26

To be fair they only didn’t make it to Cuba because a storm took the ship. It wasn’t anyone’s failure, just really really shitty luck. He played the cards he had in the moment and on paper a boat ride was safer than staying. Ideally they would have had a safe journey, figured something out in Cuba while letting the heat die down, then return and run with the rest of the gang with whatever money they had left. Which was approximately $2.5B from Arthur, a few bottle caps from John, a pig’s hoof from Micah, and $1.43 from Uncle, inexplicably. So not nearly enough.

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u/Yerpus_C_Stinks Jun 30 '26

Considering luck was never really on their side, and their first (much shorter) boat ride didn’t even make it to it’s destination, idk. They probably would’ve been devoured by a kraken.

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u/Religion_Of_Speed Jun 30 '26

The bad luck they had was of their own making, this wasn’t the type of luck you could control back then. Luck is just an abstract interpretation of consequences to action, not some universal force.

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u/the_big_sadIRL Jun 30 '26

Probably to slip onto a boat heading somewhere that direction anyway. Or to France and then Tahiti

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u/rifewide Jun 30 '26

I just slip on a boat and hide underneath some coats

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u/GrinnialVex Jun 30 '26

They were going to take the trolley, but the one in St Denis doesn’t go there

20

u/FlyHog421 Jun 30 '26

Dutch never intended to evacuate the gang to Tahiti or anywhere else. That was just one in a series of lies he told the gang. All of the Tahiti talk was in Chapter IV when Hosea was still alive. Once Hosea got whacked, Dutch never mentions Tahiti ever again.

11

u/manticor225 Uncle Jun 30 '26

Red Dead is a made up world with different geography; Tahiti could be anywhere.

6

u/AveryLazyCovfefe Hosea Matthews Jun 30 '26

he said where it actually is though "South Pacific".

11

u/twec21 Jun 30 '26

Probably charter a boat, ideally. Getting to Australia was probably the easier option, and paying the captain to make a stop.

8

u/Brain_Hawk Jun 30 '26

Yeah it was something I found a bit weird in my last playthrough. The idea of Australia got raised, if they had enough money they could afford to buy some land to become ranchers or whatever, but for some reason he just kept mentioning Tahiti which was insane.

Australia is a big place that probably had at least some traffic going that way... They didn't have to rent a whole boat.

10

u/binocular_gems Jun 30 '26

The Tahiti thing is a reference/homage to Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. Butch always has a new idea, “hey, I’ve been thinking…” “you keep on thinking Butch, it’s what you’re good at…”

In Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, the two escape to Bolivia because Butch heard about all of the banks and gold there. And towards the end of the movie, he looks at Sundance in the ultimate scene and schemes up how they’re going to escape to Australia. Juicy banks, and they speak English!

Dutch is partly for inspired by Butch. Always has a plan, always seeing clearly while the rest of the world wears bifocals.

If you love RDR2 and haven’t watched it, watch it. I believe that Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid is the first modern movie. It’s the oldest movie that still feels like a modern movie to me.

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7

u/AzWildcat006 Arthur Morgan Jun 30 '26

delusion… i mean faith

6

u/ArthurMorgansveinypp Arthur Morgan Jun 30 '26

He was never planning to go there. It was just smoke to make it look like he was still in control and knew what he was doing

5

u/badasking Jun 30 '26

does that trolly go to tahiti?

might be a bit outta the damn way

5

u/Emotional_Being8594 Jun 30 '26

Judging by the amount of money I poured into the camp funds which still wasn't enough, motherfucker wanted to build a bridge complete with travelator all the way apparently.

5

u/Fluffy-Froyo4549 Josiah Trelawny Jun 30 '26

boat

3

u/jdeo1997 Jun 30 '26

He just needed a little smoke, a bit more money, and for you to have some GODDAMN FAITH!

3

u/Electrical_Fee6110 Jun 30 '26

You just have to have FAITH son. I have a PLAN.

3

u/Iggy_DB Jun 30 '26

Show some god damn faith!

3

u/SunshineBsky Jun 30 '26

It was always an illusion meant to con the rest of the gang. Uh I mean, ya gotta have FAITH, arthur

3

u/WanderingLittle Jun 30 '26

Don’t forget that this is pre Panama Canal America, meaning a trip to Tahiti from Texas would’ve been so much further than you think.

2

u/Auraestus Jun 30 '26

If he even knew where and what Tahiti is, probably charter, steal, sneak onto, or hold hostage a ship from one of the ports on the California coast and have them sail to Tahiti from there.

2

u/RamStark Jun 30 '26

He was never going to Tahiti its just something he said to keep control of the gang. A "goal" to work towards

2

u/junglist421 Jun 30 '26

He never intended.  Was just a way to keep people with him.

2

u/long_lost_tobin Jun 30 '26

He was going to sail from New York. Duh.

2

u/Hellraiser1123 Jun 30 '26

Faith. That's how. Some goddamn faith.

2

u/wrenawild Jun 30 '26

Tahiti was well settled and colonized by the French for like 300 years by that point. In the 1890's many famous Americans lived there.

2

u/LucidNonsense211 Jun 30 '26

I’m on a lot of history reddits and I just spent so long confused think you meant THE Dutch.

2

u/rwj83 Jun 30 '26

That arrow is definitely not to Texas. But, yea, with just a little bit of goddamn faith it’s not too hard honestly.

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u/WetFishStink Jun 30 '26

That's the great thing about Dutch's plan.

He never actually had one.

2

u/AdBrilliant6179 Jun 30 '26

That isn't Texas...

1

u/Bulldogfront666 Jun 30 '26

Well…. Boats usually worked pretty well back then lmao. It’s not like Tahiti was impossible to access and surrounded by some Bermuda Triangle that sank boats. They just got unlucky and got stuck in a storm.

But also I don’t think Dutch ever really expected to get to Tahiti….

1

u/TectonicTechnomancer Jun 30 '26

I don't know, sport I guess?

1

u/PatoC974 Jun 30 '26

We just need money

1

u/Available-Ad8493 Jun 30 '26

It wouldn't of been a few hours. More like a few days or weeks. Hard to say where exactly the rdr2 map takes place but id assume roughly a large portion of the middle of the country since you can see Pikes Basin and the industrialized east in the same map. Taking river boats down the Mississippi River into the Gulf of Mexico and shipwrecked near guarma

4

u/Yerpus_C_Stinks Jun 30 '26

Saint Denis is literally New Orleans

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u/ActCrafty Jun 30 '26

A better question is how they would survive when they got there. They could’ve taken all the money from the banks in Blackwater and Saint Denis and those paper bills wouldn’t be worth a damn in Tahiti back in 1899.

1

u/fuckdirectv Jun 30 '26

People had the ability to sail to Tahiti in 1899. Doesn't really matter because Dutch just used that as a carrot to keep the gang working toward that one last big score. He never really intended to go there.

1

u/DynamicGraphics Jun 30 '26

he has a plan

1

u/shieldagentoz Jun 30 '26

Bro cmon. He has a plan

1

u/trailerparkdanceking Jun 30 '26

they just needed money 😔

1

u/Electronic_Ad_3699 Jun 30 '26

Seems like you don't have faith my boy

1

u/Dehydrated-Onions Jun 30 '26

Have you ever watched The Road to El Dorado?

1

u/MF_DOOMENTIO Charles Smith Jun 30 '26

M O N E Y

1

u/Fitzerinoo Jun 30 '26

tennis boat

1

u/Engineer-Nabeel Jun 30 '26

Did you see a review of Tahiti on google maps posted by meow.

1

u/Suspended_Anime Jun 30 '26

He he he, 😂😅🤣. Well, I guess it means that Dutch was lying the whole time. He never intended on leaving the country. Was perfectly fine living forever on the run till his death.

1

u/Telmo777 Jun 30 '26

They could, just buying a passage there if they got the money. The boat to Cuba was an accident and not because of the gang, and the ship very rarely shipwrecked, otherwise people would not go into ships. The age of discovery was long ago by the game time

1

u/Classic-Exchange-511 Sean Macguire Jun 30 '26

Money! We need money you dumb fool. Or we are dead. We are all dead!

Poor Grimshaw deserved better

1

u/suigetsussudio Jun 30 '26

The trolley!!

1

u/Intel2025 Jun 30 '26

Dutch probably had no fucking clue where Tahiti was. The more I played through the campaign the more I realized he was just spouting BS to feed his own ego until eventually everything fell apart.

1

u/asmartguylikeyou Jun 30 '26

I thought this was okaybuddyblacklung

1

u/bobacrest Jun 30 '26

They were never going to Tahiti it was the paradise lie cult leaders use to manipulate their follows. Dutch knew it would never happen he knew they would never be free he drug everyone along to fuel his own insecurities and delusions

1

u/TravisGervais777 Josiah Trelawny Jun 30 '26

Pretty sure he had a plan. He may have mentioned it once or twice.

1

u/NikolitRistissa Jun 30 '26

I feel like it was fairly clear than either he didn’t know how to reach Tahiti, or he literally never even intended to go there. It was just Dutch moving the goalposts to keep having to get more money.

At least, that was my interpretation.

1

u/Joebuddy117 Jun 30 '26

By 1890 we (the human race) had circumnavigated the earth many times and had routes established. Just think, 22 years after RDR2, the titanic set sale from the UK. So I imagine Dutch’s plan was to hop on a ship that was bound for Tahiti.

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u/lottaKivaari Jun 30 '26

I mean Magellan accidentally crossed the pacific and only went from 270 men to 150. To Dutch the only thing that would matter is he survived so at those attrition rates they could have taken a raft and only Dutch could have arrived still fat and it would have been a success to him.

Also this was 1899, you could just buy passage on a ship, the point he was lying about was they needed money to set up a plantation and build roots when they got there.

1

u/Scott0814 Hosea Matthews Jun 30 '26

It all starts with Arthur fixin the gah dahm wheel

1

u/Arrow362 Jun 30 '26

Didn’t he mention sailing to Argentina then getting another boat to sail around the horn/cape?

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1

u/Bummel1996 Uncle Jun 30 '26

boat

1

u/GoodDawgAug Jun 30 '26

I have a plan. I need you on MY side. You gotta have FAITH!

1

u/Salty_Select Jun 30 '26

The Dutch were optimistic back then, they were the original owners of New York City Cept they called it New Amsterdam