Highlights
- The characters in Red Dead Redemption 2 have complex backgrounds that provide context for their actions in the game.
- Many members of the Van der Linde gang joined at a young age due to a lack of family support or the loss of their families.
- The role of family is a central theme in the story, leading to both compassion and stress among the gang members and ultimately causing the gang's downfall.
Aside from its immensely detailed gameplay, Red Dead Redemption 2 wowed players with its level of complex characters and storytelling. Despite featuring many of the same characters that players were familiar with from the game’s 2010 predecessor, they were smartly shown in a new light that offered much more context to long-term fans.
The members of the Van der Linde gang are the central characters of Red Dead Redemption 2 as well as the original title, with a huge wealth of information being told about the backgrounds of these figures over the course of both releases. When considering the backgrounds of most Van der Linde gang members, there is a hugely important factor that many of them share and are fueled by.
The Family Backgrounds of the Van der Linde Gang
Many members of the Van der Linde gang were brought into the fold at a young age, having nowhere else to turn and falling into a life of outlaw gun-slinging and robbery. These vulnerabilities more often than not stemmed from gang members not having a familial support network, having never known their families, or having lost them during childhood or adolescence.
This is the case for beloved Red Dead protagonists John Marston and Arthur Morgan, who both confirm that they lost their parents at a young age due to a range of unfortunate issues. The poor socio-economic backgrounds of these characters often explain their loss of family, only further contextualizing why so many Van der Linde members fell into a life of crime.
Even Dutch, the founder of the Van der Linde gang, lost his father at a young age during the American Civil War, going on to leave home at the age of 15. Most if not all the Van der Linde gang are bound in this way, with each of them having their own baggage and desires to experience a family life that they were robbed of in their youth.
The Sad Family Cycle of the Van Der Linde Gang
Although not overtly obvious, the role of family is a central theme within the story of the Van der Linde gang and is one that would ultimately lead to the group’s downfall. It is clear that longstanding members of the gang consider each other family, with John famously calling Arthur his brother, and Dutch calling Arthur his son.
With the tense nature of the gang’s day-to-day lives, this close bond serves to cause as much stress as it does compassion among the Van der Linde members. As most of the gang come from broken homes, there is immense psychological baggage that surfaces at times of tension, with members becoming aggravated with one another over current events as well as over a misguided hatred for their original broken families. The Van der Linde gang eventually collapses under its own weight, with the patriarchal figure of Dutch becoming swayed by others who many characters would consider to be undeserving of recognition as a family member, such as Micah Bell.
In this way, it seems the downfall of the Van der Linde gang was completely inevitable, simply due to the shared family backgrounds of most of its members. With the gang finding such an easily corruptible and illicit family within one another, the pitfalls of their broken biological homes were doomed to repeat themselves in later life.
Red Dead Redemption 2 is available on PC, PS4, and Xbox One.
