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West Elizabeth
Blackwater
Edgar Ross
Edgar Ross
"Everyone will eventually pay for what they have done."
Click here to see him in Red Dead Redemption 2
"Enjoy your fishing, kid...while you still can."- Voiced by: Jim Bentley
A federal agent forcing Marston to go after his former gang members. He's holding Marston's wife and son hostage, until he finishes the job... and even then, Ross still has something up his sleeve. In some ways he means well, but his snide personality, black-and-white moral code and underhanded nature make him a very unpleasant man.
In the prequel Red Dead Redemption II (set in 1899), a younger Ross is seen as the apprentice to head Pinkerton detective Andrew Milton.
- Adaptation Origin Connection: II establishes that Ross has been a foe of the Marstons since their days in the Van Der Linde Gang and even has it out personally for them due to Abigail killing his partner Milton.
- Arch-Enemy: To the Marstons in the first game. He’s holding Abigail and Jack against their will to force John to capture or kill his former gang members. He eventually becomes Jack Marston's archenemy after killing John directly and causing Uncle’s and Abigail’s deaths.
- Asshole Victim: While Jack hunting down and killing Ross made him the polar opposite of what his parents wanted him to be, Ross really had it coming.
- Beware the Quiet Ones: He barely speaks in his few appearances in II, but once Milton kicks the bucket, Ross descends on the gang with an army of Pinkertons, yelling threats through a megaphone. At this point, he's clearly fed up and just wants the gang dead. And while he's more talkative in I, the beware part is still very much present.
- Big Bad Ensemble: He's the main villain of Red Dead Redemption along with Dutch van der Linde, as the one forcing John to go after the members of his old gang by holding his family hostage. His threat to John increases after Dutch dies, as he ultimately has John killed.
- Book Ends: In Red Dead Redemption the last time he meets Jack Marston, he's duck hunting by a river before he's gunned down. In Red Dead Redemption II, it's revealed the first time they met was when Jack was four and fishing with Arthur Morgan.
- Bullying a Dragon: Ross constantly insults and belittles John, a very dangerous man who hates his guts, with the excuse that he's got John under his thumb and knows he can get away with it. The same can't be said for Jack - granted, Ross was armed too, but insulting and threatening the clearly angry, vengeful, and heavily armed son of the man he had killed was not a wise move.
- Child Hater: Just to show how much of an asshole this guy is, Ross's very first scene in the game (the opening scene in fact) Establishing Character Moment has him pushing a paper boy instead of simply going around him. When he first met Jack Marston when he was just a 4 year old boy, Ross rudely tells him to "enjoy his fishing while he still can". Probably its a good thing he died without siring a child first.
- Cornered Rattlesnake: Ross prefers to stay on the sidelines and send others to do his dirty work, and doesn't seem much of a threat on his own. But when a vengeful Jack Marston confronts him for his role in John's death and isn't driven off by threats, Ross stands his ground and engages Jack in a duel. He loses.
- Create Your Own Villain: Him killing John makes Jack a revenge-driven outlaw.
- Cycle of Revenge: Abigail killing Ross' superior, Milton, is what setup a long conflict between Ross and the Marston Family, leading Ross to blackmail John by kidnapping his family and killing him after he had done his dirty work. This leads to Jack killing Ross once he grows up.
- Dastardly Dapper Derby: He's almost always seen in the standard agent getup of a nice suit and derby hat, and despite having a few good points, is a pretty nasty piece of work.
- Deadpan Snarker: He always has a snide comment ready for John or Fordham.
- The Determinator: A determinator among determinators. Perhaps one of his few good qualities. He's diligent at his job, never seems to give up pursuit, and ultimately manages to track down the most infamous remnants of the Van der Linde gang. This is accomplished over the course of many years.
- Dirty Cop: He's not above kidnapping someone's family to make them hunt down outlaws that he should be hunting down.
- Dirty Coward: He does participate in a few firefights, including the assault on Beecher's Hope, and when an older Jack Marston confronts him in the epilogue, he does at least agree to a fair duel rather than trying something underhanded or running away. But none of this quite makes up for the fact that he spends the whole game forcing John, by kidnapping his innocent family, to risk life and limb hunting down Dutch's gang instead of doing it himself. One mission has a pretty glaring moment where he sends both John and Fordham to investigate a derelict riverboat that is obviously a trap, showing that he views everyone "on the job" aside from himself as expendable.
- The Dragon: He's one to Agent Milton in the prequel, standing by his side and acting as muscle as Milton does the talking.
- Dragon Ascendant: After Milton's death, he takes over at the very last mission of Chapter 6 to lead the Pinkerton attack on Beaver Hollow, and in the epilogue of II, kickstarting the events of the first game.
- Establishing Character Moment: The very first thing we see Ross do is rudely shove a paper boy out of his way as he's escorting John to the train. And if that wasn't enough to let us know that he's hardly a pleasant guy, the next time we see him, he tells John that Abigail "sends her regards" and gives a snide little chuckle. In Red Dead Redemption II (which also acts as his first appearance chronologically), he snidely tells little Jack Marston to enjoy his fishing "while he still can" before chuckling, showing that he's always been a jerk.
- Even Evil Has Loved Ones: He's by no means a pleasant person, but his interactions with his family seem to imply that he's not at all the same horrible person to those in his company.
- Evil Has a Bad Sense of Humor: Ross is prone to snarky remarks, but his sense of humor is so dark and snide that he's clearly the only one who finds them amusing.
- Best demonstrated after John's done with his mission - Ross "jokes" that Abigail was killed during a prison riot, only nearly avoiding a bullet to his head.
- Fake Ultimate Hero: At the game's end, the "official" story is that Ross was a great hero who brought down the remaining members of the Van der Linde Gang, bringing these murderers and thieves to justice. Almost no one knows that the true story had Ross force one of the gang's former members — who was desperately trying to go straight and live a normal life — to do his dirty work for him, only to stab him in the back after promising to leave him and his family alone.
- Faux Affably Evil: He often acts calm and polite towards John while kidnapping his family to do his dirty work for him, even making dark jokes about it.
- FBI Agent: An early 20th-century example (which technically makes him a Bureau of Investigation Agent). II reveals that he's the director of the Bureau in this setting.
- Final Boss: The main storyline concludes with a duel between him and Jack Marston, at the bank of the San Luis river.
- Foil: To Dutch van der Linde. Both are fighting for what they believe to be best for society, Ross for civilization and Dutch for anarchy, and both display a complete willingness to Shoot the Dog if that's what it takes to get there. But the game shows that both of them are hypocrites and neither of their plans are without flaws anyway. The only real difference is that in the end, Ross is remembered as the hero and Dutch as the vicious outlaw, but then the game points out that had more to do with civilization ultimately triumphing and history being Written by the Winners then any real moral superiority of one over the other.
- Good Smoking, Evil Smoking: Lights up a cigar as he watches John take his last breaths, satisfied that Dutch's Gang has been completely wiped out.
- Glory Hound: As much as Ross harps on about morality and how everyone must pay for their misdeeds, when it comes to wiping out Dutch's gang, it's heavily implied at one point that he's also in it for the medals. And according to his brother, he was awarded a "chestful" of them after taking care of John, fully eliminating the gang. He'd be a mere Glory Seeker if his methods weren't so underhanded.
- Hate Sink: Downplayed. Despite ultimately being the main antagonist, Ross is a lawman who, despite his underhanded methods, does have at least a few good points, and it's hard to fault someone who's trying to clean up the crime-ridden, dangerous world that is the old west. However, he's such an underhanded, snide asshole who's also clearly in it for personal glory that despite these good points, we're able to sympathize with John and not take Ross' side in the matter, hating him as much as John does. Indeed, he's ultimately one of, if not the most despised characters in the game, and for a very good reason. The one upside is that the very final mission is Jack getting to pump him full of lead.
- Hero Antagonist: At his core, he wants to bring about law, order and civilization, and eliminate all those who seek to destroy it. He's an asshole for sure, and his means of accomplishing this end are often underhanded to say the least, but it's hard to fault his basic goals. One can argue he stopped being this when he backstabs John, who's trying to go straight, after he did exactly what he wanted him to do.
- He Who Fights Monsters: Ross is genuinely just trying to bring some law and order to a violent region, but he's such a revolting asshole about it that he comes off as little better than the outlaws.
- History Repeats: In the final mission before the Epilogue in the first and second game, Ross leads an army of government men to kill members of the Van der Linde gang at their hideout/home. In the first game, it's the U.S. Army attacking Beecher's Hope, and in the second it's Pinkertons attacking Beaver Hollow.
- Hoist by His Own Petard: Since Jack wasn't present to see just who killed John, he would have no idea who to go after for revenge... but Ross just had to go and boast about it on the news. Him taking all the credit for the deed may have been the worst decision he could've taken.
- Holier Than Thou: Though centered on morality rather than religion.
- Hypocrite: He claims that what he does is morally right by bringing peace and order to the frontier, but nothing changes the fact that kidnapping a man's (partly innocent) family note is pretty barbaric way to go about doing so. The best part is that he's also absolutely aware of this, and seems to believe the ends justify the means.Marston: My side ain't chosen! My side was given. I'd kill you a hundred times before I killed Dutch, if it was an option.Ross: Hallelujah! I think we're finally reaching an understanding Mr. Marston!
- He also talks about the need for the rule of law, yet brings in the Army to serve as a police force against Dutch's gang, something that was and is illegal to do. Of course, considering how powerful Dutch's gang had become, he has a point.
- Regardless of whatever sanctimony he endlessly shoots John's way, it becomes clear by the end he's a much worse person than a high honor John ever was. John was driven into being an outlaw, but even then doesn't make excuses for his misdeeds in life and is simply trying to be a better man for his wife and son. Ross is a Holier Than Thou asshat who threatens John's family to get him to do his own job for him and then treacherously murders him even after he's done it just for some extra glory.
- Inspector Javert: To John Marston's Valjean; he continues to rage against Marston's supposed monstrousness and in the process becomes quite monstrous himself.
- I Have Your Wife: He's holding Abigail and Jack hostage, which is how he gets John under his thumb.
- It's Personal: Implied. Despite Milton's best attempts, the gang keeps humiliating them by managing to escape every time they try to capture them. Once Ross assumes control, he is clearly fed up and just launches a massive attack on the gang. His treatment of John in the first game is very likely payback for not only the constant humiliation Dutch's gang caused him and his former partner, but for the piles of dead Pinkerton agents they left in their wake.
- Jerkass: While Fordham at least shows gratitude and even respect occasionally towards John and others, Ross is disdainful towards everyone he runs into - not just John - and considers himself nobler and morally above pretty much the entire West by default. He constantly refers to the people he protects as savages, fools and scum that should be lucky to have his assistance, and is just in general very unlikable. He is even disrespectful to those working for him, like Fordham (who he is constantly putting down) and Nastas (who he refers to as a savage). It’s this constant need to belittle or insult others which is what gets him killed in 1914.
- Jerkass Has a Point: II reveals just how much death, destruction and damage the gang actually caused when they were active...especially to law enforcement, the U.S Army, and the Pinkertons. Even if he later changed his ways, John was completely willing to cause it back in the day. He's still a treacherous dick, but his treatment of John is completely understandable given his hatred of the gang. His Shut Up, Kirk! to Jack at the end of the first game, while dripping with assholish contempt, is also pretty accurate, with the exception of his refusal to acknowledge his own treachery.Jack: You killed my father!Ross: Your father killed himself with the life he lived.Ross: You keep saying that...
- Karma Houdini Warranty: He commands a platoon to kill John, the last member of Dutch's gang, and comes out of it unscathed and smoking a cigar. He's seen far and wide as a hero, and the man who took out Javier Escuella, Bill Williamson and Dutch as well, stealing all of John's merits. Jack makes sure to subvert the trope by finding Edgar and killing him in a duel three years later. The jury's still out on whether John gets
Vindicated by History by the "Red Dead" book you can find in Grand Theft Auto V, which was likely written by Jack. - Kick the Dog: He seems to love making snide, insensitive remarks about John's family. And one of the first things we see him do is rudely shove a little boy selling newspapers out of his way.
- Three years after John is killed and Jack confronts him, Edgar laughs as he recalls killing Jack's father, and tells him to get lost before he kills him, too. He doesn't get the chance to.
- There's the entire fact that he has John murdered even after he gives him everything he wanted. This is really the point in the game when he stops seeming like an unlikable Hero Antagonist and just reveals himself to be a full blown villain.
- Knight Templar: He's aiming to bring law and order to the West and wipe out the gangs, by any means necessary.
- Laser-Guided Karma: He forces John to hunt down and kill his old gang members against his will and constantly mocks John for thinking he could just walk away from his past without some sort of punishment to the point where he later feels justified in killing John despite him having walked away from a life of crime. Later Ross tries to walk away from his own career of underhanded actions but is constantly pulled back into work by his own government and eventually killed by one of the people he crossed who wanted to make sure Ross wasn't a Karma Houdini himself. Essentially Ross never realized that his speeches to John about the past catching up with you could apply to himself as well.
- Let's Get Dangerous!: In II, Ross spends most of the game as Milton's mostly silent apprentice. After Milton is killed, a newly promoted Ross strikes back with a vengeance and assaults the Van Der Linde gang's hideout at Beaver Hollow with a small army of Pinkertons.
- Mean Boss: He usually treats his apprentice Fordham like crap.
- Metaphorgotten: Goes on a long, increasingly bizarre monologue about Dutch's anarchy at the beginning of the mission "And You Shall Know The Truth...". The central idea behind it seems to be that people who want civilization and order (or as he puts it, people who don't like flowers) should be able to have it without those who favor nature and chaos (people who do like flowers) interfering with it. When Marston demands he stop rambling, Ross drops the philosophizing and just reminds him he doesn't have a choice about helping or not.
- Multiple Gunshot Death: Thanks to Jack Marston.
- Mirror Character: For John. Neither of them can escape their past. John can't escape his past life of crime, while Ross can't get away from his life as a government employee, constantly being pulled back in to work. They even die similarly: Someone of their past catches up to them and pumps them full of lead. It's also hinted that, beneath all his talk of civilizing the west, he's secretly just as resentful of modern civilization as Dutch and the gang; after his retirement, Jack finds him leaving a semi-secluded life in the middle of nowhere, dressing just like the cowpokes he spent his life hunting and looking down on.
- Misplaced Retribution: Downplayed. He is after the Van Der Linde gang (and later the Marston family specifically) for personal reasons, but he doesn't seem to know that Abigail killed his former partner, likely assuming that Arthur did it.
- The Napoleon: He's rather short (at least in the first game), and is very smug and self-righteous.
- Out of Focus: He's the Big Bad of the first game, but in the second, even though he's Agent Milton's Dragon, Ross mostly lurks in the background and rarely speaks. Even after Milton's death, he is not seen but only heard barking orders during the Beaver Hollow attack. Despite all this however, he gets the mantle of being the last character seen in the final closing shot of "II".
- Pet the Dog:
- When you're hunting him down as Jack, you talk to his wife and brother... and what they say hints that he has sympathetic traits, and while his brother admits that he's got a fierce temper, his wife says he's actually a very sensitive man. But if anything, it only makes said players hate him even more, feeling like it only gives him extra hypocrite points regarding all of his horrible treatment toward John's own innocent family.
- Also, he has Nigel West Dickens pardoned after John tells him that West Dickens helped him capture Bill Williamson.
- He shows genuine concern for the safety of the innocent bank workers during Dutch's raid on Blackwater.
- Pinkerton Detective: II shows that he was a Pinkerton before becoming a government agent and that he pursued the Van der Linde gang even back then.
- Politically Incorrect Villain: Judging by his derogatory comments towards Native Americans.
- Pragmatic Villainy: This is presumably why the Van der Linde Gang members who avert Doomed by Canon by the end of II survive: Due to them being either not notable outlaws whose deaths wouldn't gain him renown (Pearson, Mary-Beth, etc.) or moving far from the US (Sadie, Charles) they're either Not Worth Killing as far as he's concerned or out of his jurisdiction.
- Punch-Clock Villain: Played with and ultimately subverted. He forces John to hunt down his old comrades and is a Jerkass when working alongside John, but he claims it's because someone needs to civilize the West. Once Dutch is dealt with, Ross then honors their agreement and returns John's family to their farm. He then has the Army and Bureau hunt John down at the end to finish the job. Off the job, Ross has a wife who clearly loves him and a brother who he appears close with. However, even retired, Ross is an ass to Jack without even knowing who he is and taunts him about killing John.
- Too Dumb to Live: Saying John got what he deserved plus insulting and threatening Jack was the worst decision Ross ever made in his entire life. He went from having a low chance of living after Jack confronted him (assuming he explained himself and showed remorse for John’s death) to zero chance of not being pumped full of lead.
- "Joking" about Abigail being killed during her imprisonment, right after John finished his mission, having risked his entire life, and taken countless lives of his own to get his family back. It's a sheer miracle that John kept himself from killing him long enough that he could admit he was joking.
- The Quiet One: In Red Dead Redemption II, he usually stays silent while his superior Milton does the talking. It's a sharp contrast from his frequent lectures and remarks in the first game, and makes his one notable line ("Enjoy your fishing, kid... while you still can") even more noteworthy. After Milton's death, Ross steps out of this and can be heard shouting orders during the Pinkertons' assault on Beaver Hollow.
- "The Reason You Suck" Speech: Fond of giving long, flowing speeches about how he and the law are right and just, and how everything Dutch stood for and every fiber of John's being is morally bankrupt - usually in response to John calling him out on using extortion and kidnapping to further his own ends. Ross - who cannot accept that John could possibly be a changed man - never lets an opportunity pass to pontificate, often hypocritically, on how lacking in character John is.
- Reckless Gun Usage:
- He gives John the high-powered pistol by shoving it barrel-first into John's stomach. But then again, he's not too concerned about John's well-being.
- After taking John's gun to put a bullet in Dutch's corpse so it'll "look better on the report", he gives it back by tossing it to him.
- Red Oni, Blue Oni: Cold, calculating Blue to Fordham's hot-headed, aggressive Red.
- Resignations Not Accepted: His wife tells Jack that while he tried to retire, the government keeps pulling him back in. Becomes ironic as that's exactly what he did to John.
- Retired Monster: At the end of the game, Jack finds out that Ross has retired to spend his twilight years with his family. Well, he's tried to retire, but the Bureau keeps dragging him back to work. Whether Ross is truly evil or not is debatable, but there's no denying that Ross did some truly underhanded things during his career, and when Jack catches up with him, it's clear that he has zero regrets for what he did to John.
- The Napoleon: In the first game.
- Treacherous Quest Giver: Considering he both controls the main plot and kills John at the end anyway.
- Troll: After John has fulfilled his end of the deal and asks about his family, Ross falsely tells him that Abigail was killed in a prison riot the previous week, just to mess around with him. He's lucky that John didn't shoot him right then and there, which he was ready to do before Ross revealed that he was "just joking".
- Vocal Evolution: Ross's voice in the prequel sounds significantly deeper and more gruff compared to his speaking tone in the first game.
- Virtuous Character Copy: Downplayed He's basically a white, Wild West counterpart of Frank Tenpenny, with a similar looking mustache to boot. Much like Tenpenny, Ross is a corrupt law enforcement official with an irritatingly smug personality who forces the protagonist to do his dirty work by holding family hostage, claims to be doing what he does for the greater good, and decides to kill the protagonist after they've done everything he asked. However, Ross genuinely believes he is the force of law and order and has a few Pet the Dog moments, while Tenpenny is ultimately self-serving, is not above killing fellow cops, and has no redeeming qualities. As such, Ross ends up retiring peacefully while being remembered as a hero, not losing his good reputation even after being killed in an epilogue, while Tenpenny is Hated by All, with no one mourning his death.
- Well-Intentioned Extremist: Pretty obviously a villain, who does very, very little to endear himself to either players or in-game characters. However, his nasty personality can make it easy to forget that everyone he goes against in both games (with the exception of Jack) really is a criminal entirely guilty of everything Ross accuses them of. Furthermore, his rationalization to clean up The Wild West is emphasized in the prequel, even if you put aside the fact that the Van der Lindes murdered Milton. Considering how incredibly depraved some criminals really are (such as the O'Driscolls, Murfree Brood and Skinner Brothers), it's hard to blame someone who is trying to clean up such a violent place as The Wild West.
- You Have Outlived Your Usefulness: After John completes his mission, Ross sends the army after the Marstons to deal with them and to finally take down Dutch's gang.
- Younger Than They Look: He's 50 by the start of 1 and 53 by the epilogue, but looks at least 10 years older than that. Possibly justified due to the stresses of his job and living in The Wild West. The prequel shows Ross used to look significantly younger from 1899 to at least 1907, which may bear credence for that justification.
- Your Size May Vary: Is noticeably short in the first game, but average height in the second game.
Archer Fordham
Archer Fordham
"Marston, you're a public menace; we should have had you killed."
- Voiced by: David Wilson Barnes
Ross' ambitious, eager and aggressive apprentice, who follows his orders no matter what.
- Big Guy, Little Guy: He's the same height or perhaps even a little taller than John (who's fairly tall himself), and almost a head taller than the noticeably short Ross.
- The Cameo: He appears in the credits sequence of II alongside Ross.
- Character Development: He slowly warms up to Marston over the course of the Bureau missions. When he's first met he is just as rude to him as Ross, but he seems to respect John after the Cochinay assault and he doesn't even participate in the Beecher's Hope massacre; the reason for this is unclear, and many players believe he simply refused to take part in John's death. II makes this even more apparent as while Ross knows John's blood-covered history and treats him as a criminal because of it, Archer has only second-hand accounts of John's crimes and gets to see John's devotion to his family and Hidden Heart of Gold instead.
- The Dragon: To Ross.
- FBI Agent: Another example of the early Bureau of Investigation.
- Good Is Not Nice: He's quite the Jerkass, but he's also dedicated to taking down Dutch's gang and bringing order and peace to the West.
- It's Personal: Retroactively. It's implied that his mother was a victim of the Blackwater massacre in 1899, which II establishes to have been caused by the Van Der Linde gang. His mother Maybelle is buried in the Blackwater cemetery after dying in 1900. There's NPC dialog stating "I hear that Bureau fella's never been the same since his mother got shot in the massacre." If so, that would perfectly explain his hatred for the gang. Even more telling is when he responded quite angrily to John when he believed he called Fordham a "son a whore".
- I Want Them Alive!: Played with. He and Ross ask John to hunt down his former friends and bring them to the authorities to see them hang; it doesn't matter if they are brought in dead or alive, but Fordham appreciates it if the gang members are brought in alive. An example is that if John captures Javier and brings him in alive, Fordham thanks the former and says that the latter "needs to see how far the hand of justice can reach". If John kills Javier instead in a zig-zagged example, Fordham calls him off on this, but John responds to him that the authorities "should be glad to have [Javier] at all"; Fordham then tells him to "just remember your obligations to the government" before John tosses the corpse to the backseat of the car.
- Jerkass: He's not much nicer to John than Ross is, saying they should have had him killed and calling his wife a whore.
- Jerk with a Heart of Gold: That said, he does thank John if he gets Javier alive. And he even congratulates John after Dutch is taken care of. He also doesn't seem to show up when Ross kills John, possibly due to the respect he gained for him.
- He also appears to actually show some respect and concern for Nastas; this is in contrast to Ross who calls him a savage and asks if he can even speak English.
- As well, John is a wanted outlaw who has murdered many people and been involved in plenty of criminal activity, so saying that they should have killed him instead of kidnapping his family and forcing him to do their dirty work isn't exactly the worst thing in the world, especially once you see how much destruction the gang caused in II.
- Karma Houdini: Unlike Ross, Archer faces no repercussions for his actions, as he was not involved in John's death.
- Lantern Jaw of Justice: He's got one and is a lawman, and while he is the crooked Ross' lackey, he seems a little less underhanded than his superior.
- Red Oni, Blue Oni: Hot-headed and aggressive Red to Ross' cold, calculating Blue.
- Servile Snarker: He makes a few jabs at Ross' expense, who at one point even tells Fordham not to get snarky with him.
- Smug Snake: Though not quite as much as Ross is.
- What Happened to the Mouse?: It is debatable whether he appears in the final attack. If not, he is never seen or mentioned again after Dutch's death.
- What the Hell, Hero?: Calls John off on this for bringing in Javier's corpse to the authorities (if the player kills Javier), saying that he expected Javier to be "looking very... healthy".
Harold MacDougal
Harold MacDougal
"The savage heart cannot be conventionally civilized! I was right all along!"
Voiced by: Joe Ochman
A "researcher" of Native Americans, MacDougal is a perfect representation of science of his time.
- Absent-Minded Professor: To quote Rick James - Cocaine is a hell of a drug.
- Ax-Crazy: Gets kicked out of Yale after beating a colleague over the head with a croquet mallet and climbing up to the roof completely naked, in what is described as a "savage" attack, likely after a bad trip.
- Boomerang Bigot: When he first meets John, he asks him if he's from "Nordic stock", and is disappointed to hear that John has Scottish ancestry. His name is MacDougal.
- Cloud Cuckoo Lander: Completely off his rocker. His "research" is already batshit crazy to begin with, without bringing the massive amounts of cocaine and heroin he takes into the mix.
- Genre Blind: In Undead Nightmare, he gets about two lines. The first is him stating that he doesn't have a clue of what's going on, and the second is one of the most Genre Blind lines ever said: "I'm just gonna wander down that lonely, deserted street, and get my bag." He even sounds unsure of himself saying it.
- Innocent Bigot: Unlike Herbert Moon, who hates practically everybody, MacDougal is for the most part an Upper-Class Twit who believes in crackpot theories and idiotic science and doesn't seem to really bear the natives any ill will. He also constantly espouses his White Man's Burden beliefs to Nastas, acting what he sees as friendly while denigrating him and natives in general as savages at the core in need of being civilized.
- When the player first meets him, he is apparently comparing blood samples under a microscope. He tells John that those of a Native American seems to be exactly alike in composition to that of a white man, but he seems to be rather pleasantly surprised by the revelation rather than insulted as would be expected by other racists.
- He also seems genuinely saddened by Nastas' death, and even posts a paragraph in the Blackwater Ledger paying his respects.
- Pet the Dog: An extremely downplayed one and mostly visible through hindsight: Harold is actually one of the few white men who wants to find a peaceful settlement with the Native Americans in the area. He's just so grossly incompetent it leads to Nastas's death instead.
- Politically Incorrect Hero: A friendly enough guy, but also extremely racist, though it's more a genuine lack of understanding, compared with the primitive science of the time, and how society at large worked behind it, rather than any ill intent.
- The Load: Does nothing but make more trouble for you.
- Man Hug: Gives one to John as he goes back to Yale.
- Know-Nothing Know-It-All: His scientific ideas in general make him this, as it becomes clear after a while that he has no idea what he's talking about. When Nastas tries to explain to him that buffalo are going extinct due to overhunting, he counters that "extinction is a myth", according to Darwin. Darwin never said this, and it seems that MacDougal doesn't understand how natural selection works. Then there's his ideas on race.
- Screw This, I'm Outta Here: After nearly getting killed, he decides to leave Blackwater, decrying the Wild West as a complete Crapsack World and the people, savages and settlers alike, there as just savages who like to shoot each other.
- The Stoner: Almost always tweaked out on cocaine. The rest of the time he's on heroin.
Other Residents of West Elizabeth
Nastas
Nastas
"There is no respect for the land anymore."
Voiced by: Benjamin Byron Davis
A local Indian who was hired by Edgar Ross to help John hunt Dutch down.
- Badass Native: Certainly no pushover when it comes to combat.
- Nature Lover: In his words, "There is no respect for the land anymore." He's very concerned about the future of the forests, what with the West becoming more "civilized", and laments the overhunting of the buffalo. He'll even call you a bastard if he sees you kill an animal during the mission "At Home With Dutch".
- Never Heard That One Before: His reaction to Prof. MacDougal's attempt to communicate with him has a hint of this.
- Nice Guy: Easily one of the most decent and pleasant people John meets in the game.
- Only Sane Man: Along with John. In fact, he's one of the most decent people he works with.
- We Hardly Knew Ye: Sadly, he only appears in three missions, the last of which has him taking a bullet to the face. Then, in Undead Nightmare, he's zombified before you even have a chance to meet him.
Rufus
Rufus
The Marston family dog.- Absent Animal Companion: Rufus aids John and Jack in a few hunting missions before disappearing once the army attacks the farm.
- Canine Companion: It serves as a hunting companion in a few missions with John and Jack.
- Heroes Love Dogs: The Marstons greatly adore Rufus.
- Uncertain Doom: Rufus is last seen running away when the army attack Beecher's Hope and is nowhere to be seen once Jack is playable. Dialogue from Jack when he killed the dog implies that Rufus died, whether during the attack or due to other reasons in between 1911 and 1914. Regardless, Rufus's implied death only serves to fuel Jack's worsening despair and grief. The same goes for Undead Nightmare where he disappears after the first mission.
