Red Dead Redemption 2 players realise Dutch is not the age we expected

Red Dead Redemption 2 fans have finally figured out Dutch van der Linde’s age, and the revelation has put a bit of an odd spin on his relationship with Arthur Morgan.

In a recent Reddit post, user Kingshawn20341993 posted an infographic of the ages of all of the Van der Linde gang members and it’s caused a bit of confusion amongst the commenters.

As the image points out, in the year 1899 (when Red Dead Redemption 2 takes place) Dutch would have been 41 and Arthur would have been 36.

Arthur and Dutch are supposed to have a bit of a father-and-son dynamic going on, as Dutch picked Arthur up off of the streets when he was a young boy and raised/indoctrinated him before making him a part of the Van der Linde gang.

Take a look at some of our favourite Red Dead Redemption 2 wins and fails.

One commenter found this dynamic to be a little odd in retrospect, stating “Bro is five years older calling him his son”.

It’s somewhat unconfirmed, but it’s implied that Arthur was either 13 or 14 at this point. That would mean that Dutch was somewhere around 18 or 19, which is still enough of a gap in emotional maturity to potentially foster a relationship like this.

However, that would probably lead to more of a brotherly dynamic than a fatherly one, so it’s still justifiably odd regardless.

That being said, as a few other commenters pointed out, the ages stated in the post aren’t necessarily accurate.

The official Red Dead Redemption guidebook for the first game states that Dutch was actually born in 1855, which would put his age in 1899 at 44 – not 41.

This would mean that Dutch was actually somewhere around 22 or 23 when he first met Arthur, which does make a little more sense.

The confusion regarding everyone’s canon ages mostly likely comes from changes made between Red Dead Redemption and Red Dead Redemption 2, as one commenter noted.

“The GOTY guide for the first Redemption states that, as of 1911, Bill is 29 years old and Dutch is 45 years old (thus meaning that Bill would be 17 years old in RDR2 and Dutch would be 33),” they stated. “They glossed over all this and aged them up for RDR2.”

So, really, we don’t know for sure how old everyone is exactly.

Either way, the age gap is definitely smaller than most people assumed and does retrospectively alter Dutch and Arthur’s relationship for some, considering most people clearly assumed the gap was potentially decades apart.