Red Dead Redemption Players Learn Why John Never Mentioned Arthur

Red Dead Redemption players learn why John Marston never mentioned Aurther Morgan, and fans provide the best reasons.

To put it bluntly, each of the two Red Dead Redemption games has strong claims to be the best video games of all time. After all, they are not only beloved by millions of fans across the world, but they also have impressive scores of 95 and 97, respectively, on the aggregate website, Metacritic.

Originally released in 2010 on PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 before arriving on other platforms, Rockstar Games’ Red Dead Redemption stars John Marston, a family man who is desperately trying to live a law-abiding life after attempting to leave his clan of outlaws, collectively known as the Dutch van der Linde gang.

Despite having the number two in the title, 2018’s Red Dead Redemption 2 is a prequel to the 2010 game and stars Arthur Morgan, a leading member of the aforementioned gang. The prequel also features John Marston as a supporting character.

However, despite taking place roughly 12 years after the events of Red Dead Redemption 2, there is no mention of Arthur Morgan whatsoever in the 2010 game, despite him being essentially Dutch’s second in charge.

“Why do you think John didn't mention Arthur in Red Dead Redemption?” asked Redditor Defiant-Chair-6631.

The obvious answer is that the original game was developed nearly a decade earlier than the prequel, so Arthur wasn't even created, as mentioned by Defiant-Chair-6631. But members of the Reddit thread have much better fan theory reasoning.

“The answer is simple, obvious, and you touched on it in your post. But also, he never really had a reason to explain who Arthur was to anyone else because he was dead already,” suggested theedonnmegga.

“John doesn't bring him up because it's too painful,” said Mental_Freedom_1648.

“I like to think that John doesn't want to talk about Arthur out of grief,” replied TrayusV, adding to the conversation. “Men generally have a hard time expressing their emotions these days, so I can only imagine how rough it would be in the early 1900s, before all of our social progress.”

“It’s too painful. Simple as that. All these ‘he forgot Arthur’ theories are s***. No one's forgetting Arthur Morgan,” exclaimed Western_Body_2141.

Red Dead Redemption is out now on PC, PlayStation, Xbox and Nintendo Switch. While Red Dead Redemption 2 is out on all of the above, other than Nintendo’s hybrid console.