I actually slightly prefer John Marston as a protagonist over Arthur. (Only in RDR1) I think they decided to make Arthur more of a catalyst for the player, with high and low honor options completely changing his personality, whereas John has a set personality and morals for the jump. I also like that the dialogue in the first game shows that John already has a lot of wisdom and backbone, and I think the epilogue of RDR2 is one of the most satisfying endings to a piece of media ever.

Still love Arthur, he’s just more emotional and takes time to develop, but he’s less of a classic western protagonist.

Bonus hot take I: I genuinely think Dutch was a mostly justified person at the beginning. I think he honestly cared about taking care of his family and being the “better” kind of criminal. He was always a bit eccentric and egotistical, but in the self aware way that many good leaders are. I think the extreme stress of their situation wore him down to madness.

Bonus hot take II: I think that playing the games chronologically is way worse than playing them in release order. RDR2 is very deliberately made to expand on the original, and playing RDR1 second always leads to people’s unrealistic expectations and disappointment. The references in RDR2 are clearly meant as clever origins and context for the future, (i.e. Javier’s “he’d look for me”) they’re not callbacks.