The remaining allusions to King Arthur in RDR2 that didn’t fit into essays elsewhere: what's up with Kieran's beheading, why Arthur sees a deer in his honor visions, Pleasance, and much more.
Many characters from the legends surrounding the Knights of the Round Table inspired counterparts in Red Dead Redemption 2. This post discusses Molly O'Shea, Susan Grimshaw, Kieran Duffy, and more.
In Arthurian legend, during the quest for the grail, the knights often have dreams, visions, or strange adventures that they relate to religious figures, who then interpret their meanings (which is not dissimilar to the way Sister Calderón gives Arthur guidance). In one instance in Sir Thomas Malory's Morte Darthur, Sir Bors tells an abbot about odd events that have befallen him. The abbot’s explanation of what they symbolized illuminates an aspect of Red Dead Redemption 2:
At the same time as a version of the fall of King Arthur’s court unfolds, another allegory plays out in Red Dead Redemption 2: the quest for the grail. More than King Arthur, perhaps even more than Lancelot, Arthur Morgan resembles another character: Perceval, the grail knight.
It wouldn’t be much of an exaggeration to say that everyone in the English-speaking world, and much of the rest of the world besides, has heard of King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table. But this statement is more vexed than it first appears. Which version of King Arthur have people heard of, and which versions of the knights?
