Arthur’s Age & Death references a famous real-life gangster

Rockstar’s modern masterpiece, Red Dead Redemption 2Do not be ashamed of tragedy. Historically accurate to an almost painful degree, Red Dead Redemption 2 Depicts the full harshness of the American West. Despite being romanticized by popular fiction, the 19th century American West was a brutal place to live, with death ever present. Nowhere is this uncomfortable truth clearer than with Arthur Morgan, whose tragic fate mirrors that of an iconic real-world gangster.

[Warning: Spoilers for Red Dead Redemption 2’s story.]Over the course of Read Dead Redemption 2Arthur finds, as the name suggests, redemption, and comes to see the hidden beauty of the world, but his heroic journey costs him his life. Near the start of the game, Arthur contracts tuberculosis and slowly diesBecoming more and more sick as the game progresses. by RDR2Finally, Arthur is a shell of his formal muscular self, with sunken, red eyes and an emaciated frame. His death is tragic because of his young age and kind heart, something he finally embraces before his death. The player mourns the loss of Arthur but nothing can be done, and regardless of player action, Arthur must die at the end of Red Dead Redemption 2Because tuberculosis was a death sentence in the 19th century.

Around the time Arthur died (1899) A famous shooter also died of the same deadly disease in real life. In 1887, gambler, gunslinger, and dentist Doc Holliday succumbed to tuberculosis and died at the age of 36, the same age as Arthur Morgan. Doc Holliday is an icon of the American West and his tragic trajectory likely helped shape Arthur’s character in Red Dead Redemption 2.

Why Doc Holliday is an icon in American history

Gunfight in the good corral & hunting the cowboys

Born in Georgia, Doc Holliday was the son of a dual veteran of the Mexican-American and Civil Wars. At the age of 19, he moved to Philadelphia, where he studied dentistry at what is now the University of Pennsylvania. After receiving his Doctor of Dental Surgery degree, Holliday started a dental practice in Atlanta. Only a couple of years later, at 23, Holliday was diagnosed with tuberculosis. He was told, much like Arthur Morgan, that there was no cure for his diseaseBut the move to a warm, dry place could slow his transformation and prolong his life.

Holliday took that advice and moved to Dallas, Texas, where he started work at a new dental practice. He and his partner would go on to win several awards for the quality of their false teeth, but Holliday’s health continued to decline. When the coughing spells started interrupting his procedures, Doc Holliday knew he couldn’t continue. Gambling soon became his only source of incomeAnd when he was fined for the crime, he left for greener pastures in Denver, Colorado.

His penchant for gambling often got Holliday into trouble, with Holliday often engaging in gunfights with creative bouncers and bartenders who got in the way of his winnings. He later followed the gold rush to Wyoming, III He met the famous lawman Wyatt Earp. Earp was investigating the robbery of a Santa Fe railroad construction site in Kansas, perpetrated by gangster “Dirty” Dave Rudaba. Holliday had previously played a game of cards with Rudabaugh, and suggested to Earp that Rudabaugh had left for Kansas. This turned out to be true; Rudabaugh was soon arrested outside Kinsley, Kansas.

But Doc Holliday is most famous for his involvement in the shootout at the OK Corral in Tombstone, Arizona. Doc Holliday eventually became a friend of Wyatt Earp, another icon of the American West, and was deputized by Tombstone Marshal Virgil Earp, Wyatt’s brother. Soon after, Doc Holliday was involved in the famous shootout when he, Wyatt, Virgil, and others tried to arrest members of a gang known as the Cowboys. After the fight, the remaining cowboys retaliated, severely wounding Virgil Earp and killing Morgan Earp, Wyatt’s other brother.

In search of justice, Wyatt, a US marshal, sought the help of Doc Holliday, and together they hunted down the rest of the cowboy gang. These events made Doc and Wyatt icons, and they are both lionized in pop-culture through many stories, including 1993’s. tombstoneWhere Val Kilmer portrayed Doc Holliday. While the events of the OK Corral made Doc Holliday a legend, they also made him an outlaw. Holliday avoided capture, however, and died just a few years later of his tuberculosisJust like Red Dead Redemption 2’s Arthur Morgan did.

Doc Holliday represents the same idealized West and gray morality as Arthur Morgan

Life imitating art

Although the two figures are very different, Doc Holliday and Arthur Morgan represent the same idealized vision of the American West This is a common theme in RDR2. Both have become the stuff of legends, contributing to the archetype of the noble gunslinger by dealing frontier justice to outlaws. In film, television and pulp fiction, Holliday is often (though not always) portrayed uncritically as a hero, a brave vigilante who took matters of justice into his own hands.

RDR2 takes this concept to workChallenging Dutch (and to a lesser extent, Arthur’s) perception of the Old West as a bygone utopia and his own band as the last bastion of American freedom, while the encroachment of big government gradually erodes the viability of their lifestyle. In reality, though, Dutch and his gang are thieves and killers – just like the ruthless capitalists they so despise. They’re not all Robin Hoods, either; Strauss targets the poor and downtrodden as much as Dutch targets the rich, and frankly, it often seems like all the Dutch care about is the size of the score. All that differs is who each of them is trying to protect.

Whether that makes them heroes or not is up for debate. Much like RDR2s sliding honor scale allows Arthur to be, Doc Holliday was a complex figure for whom morals were murky. He was educated, a doctor, but also a belligerent, a murderer. Eventually, his violent tendencies led him to become an outlaw, a man of the very profession he had once dedicated his life to fighting.

Doc Holliday is not a gangster in the same way as Arthur Morgan, however. He did not participate in any crimes outside of Wyatt’s quest for revenge, and is only believed to have killed a few people. However, Doc Holliday is an icon whose exploits have shaped many fables of the American West, with his untimely death serving as a harsh reminder of the brutal realities of life inherent at the time. In emulating Doc Holliday’s grandeur and tragic death, while also finding his own sense of meaning, Red Dead Redemption 2Arthur Morgan became an icon in his own right, depicting the potential of personal transcendence in a time of utter despair.