Finishing our journey through the intertwined Eden and Hell of RDR2.
As I began to discuss last week, the writers of RDR2 create a taut juxtaposition in the game by presenting the uncolonized natural world as Eden — but also basing each of the gang’s camps on a different aspect of hell, as imagined by Dante Alighieri in The Inferno.
Eden, in Red Dead Redemption 2, is the natural, unindustrialized world. However, the writers create a stark juxtaposition by using Dante’s Inferno — meaning “Hell” — to define and describe the Van der Linde gang’s journey through this Edenic world. No matter how beautiful their surroundings, their circumstances make their environments punishing. As Milton’s Satan says, “Which way I fly is hell; myself am hell” (IV.75). The gang brings their misery with them.
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.
Paradise Lost is one of the most celebrated literary works of all time. Paradise Regained, John Milton's followup to the epic, is less so. The second poem tells the story of the Son (Christ) wandering in the desert, where, after 40 days and 40 nights, Satan accosts him and tries to tempt him to break his obedience to God. It is, quite frankly, not very interesting: there's no suspense at all. Satan losing is foregone conclusion. The Son is totally unbothered.
One of the ways Red Dead Redemption 2 often makes literary allusions is in prophetic statements from special NPCs. Blind Man Cassidy gives Arthur Morgan one that alludes to Paradise Lost and that appears, at first blush, to be about Dutch Van der Linde and Micah Bell: “Your father is seduced by the one with the forked tongue. It's no use hoping.” However, that isn't the truest reading of this prophecy. Dutch is also Satan/Eve (as we’ve seen, these characters combine in Dutch) to Hosea Matthews’s Adam. It's Hosea who is Arthur's truest father.
