I think I just realized why Jack is so abusive to his horse with his comments. Remember the last mission with John? In the last, brief segment of it, you control Jack as he rides a horse as fast as he can back to the ranch for John. He's too late, as John's dead. Also, a couple of missions earlier, when you save Jack from the bear, if you explore the area, you'll find Jack's horse lying dead and disembowled by the bear. Think about it: Two times, we've seen horses fail Jack. One fails him by not enabling him to flee for his life, forcing him to cower behind a rock; and another fails him by not enabling him in getting back to the ranch in time. That's why he's so pushy on his horses as an adult, because he feels that if he doesn't get the horse to hurry the hell up, then something really awful is going to happen. After all, it happened twice in a span of a week since John came home. Sure, it's annoying, but I think there was a point hidden behind it.
The song "Dead Man's Gun" refers to John Marston's last moments of life. Even though his last act may seem futile he is taking a stance of defiance against the tyranny that Ross has put the Marstons through.
Also the Mysterious Stranger who knows of John's past sins remarks that "many have" damned him: God Damn You!
Pay special attention to the location you meet him at for the final part of his side-quest. It's the hill where John is buried.
It is heavily implied that the reason why Jack is as good a gunslinger as his father in the three years between "The Last Enemy That Shall Be Destroyed" and his mother's death is because he was trained by Landon Ricketts. The final newspaper in the game has an article about how famous gunslinger Landon Ricketts moved back to the States three years ago (when John Marston died), and sometimes after killing someone Jack will proclaim "Landon Ricketts, eat your heart out!"
The Epilogue is FULL of this, particularly in the conversation with Ms. Ross and the fact that Edgar's Not So Different speech may not have just been empty posturing.
"Jack" is a nickname for "John." Jack is a Son of a Whore like his father. When Jack inherits player character status, he gets John's Fame and Honor stats because he is "John Marston".
Muller being in Mexico becomes much funnier when you remember the Zimmerman Telegram.
Mexicans speaking english. Actually, John's just picking up more spanish as he spends time in Mexico. For example, when John first wanders into Chuparosa and tangles with the locals, he can barely understand a word they say (Eh, Gringo, hablas Espanol?) Whereas by the time the rebels take over Chuparosa, John understands a lot more, so Translation Convention means that Reyes' speech to the rebels comes out in english. Put simply, where you hear spanish spoken, John doesn't understand it. When you hear english, it's actually still spanish, but he understands what's being said.
Remember that scene of Col. Allende puking out his drink? There was a reason for this. Waaaaay back in the beginning, when John learnt to break horses with the Mc Farlanes, John says this during the ride, "Power is like a drink. The more they take it, the more they want it and there's only a few that can hold it in." That's why Allende's puking, because he can't hold in his liquor, just like he can't hold in his power. Like a drunk who wants more and more liquor, Allende wants more and more power. This was symbolic.
I've always just thought that he was throwing up seeing De Sanata and the waiter hanging all over each other.
Dutch: "I can't fight against my own nature..." He has a point about that. No one in the game, not even Ross can fight their own nature, even if they tried.
Treasure #4 is hidden in the basement of the mansion in Tumbleweed Seth's map may have been off by two floors
In the opening of the game, John looks absolutely pissed while the two ladies in the seats behind him are talking about how the injustices committed against the Native Americans are justified because it allowed them to be converted to Christianity. Given the game's Deliberate Values Dissonance, John's implied disagreement with this idea seems like an out of place attempt to make the game's protagonist more likable, until Dutch, the man who raised John, is introduced way later and is shown to have Native American companions.
Edgar Ross sending the army against John and killing him could be justified that John REALLY is to dangerous to be let alive. John is not at all a bad person, but he only fights and kills people for a good cause, in the story he does all the things to save his family. When he rode in the gang with Dutch he thought they did all the things they did for a greater good. So give John a good enough reason to kill and he will kill. Have in mind that John have rather casually spoke out saying it is the government that is making him do their dirty work to almost everyone he met. It is no secret that John is trying to save his family. A common thieve gets the idea that he can get John to do some work for him by kidnapping his family, hiding them somewhere treating that if John kills him they will die. John would be forced to do the work of some thieve, and being John Marston he is a nearly unstoppable killing machine. The only reason he let himself die at the hands of the army was to save his family giving them enough time to escape, he could easily have toppled them if not having to worry about the safety of his family. So John would for his family's safety, and Ross knows that.
This one's a maybe. In the side-quest called Flowers for a Lady, in which John has to search for flowers for an old man named Billy so he can give the mto his wife Annabel for their fiftieth anniversary. However when you give Billy the flowers and he invites you inside to meet his Annabel she is a rotted dead corpse sitting in a rocking chair. You leave and if you come back inside and bump into the rocking chair or the shelves by it, Annabel's head will fall off. The next day, you'll see Billy and the rocking chair outside, but Annabel's body is gone. This troper thinks that he wanted to put flowers on her grave, but was too old to do it himself, so he waited until someone passed by to help him.
Why was Billy acting like Annabel was still alive? Maybe it's because he was in denial (or had just gone crazy) or maybe he not trying to scare the person who helped him. Not that John would get scared or anything, but Billy didn't really know John so he really couldn't say, 'Hey, I keeping my wife's rotted corpse in my house because I don't wanna bury her until I get her favorite flowers to put on her grave. Can ya help me out?' He perhaps had gone crazy enough to invite John inside to 'meet' his wife, but deep down he knew she was dead, but just wanted to show John how far his love for his wife went. He already had the flowers, so it really didn't matter if he scared John or not.
The final duel between Jack Marston and Edgar Ross is definitely anti-climactic and not much different from any other gunfight. But that's exactly the point. It goes to show that Jack's quest for vengeance is empty and in the end, there is no catharsis, for Jack or the player. Afterward, he feels no different and there is pretty much nothing he can do to feel better about it, which doubles as Fridge Horror.
Killing that corrupt asshole Edgar Ross was quite cathartic wasn't it? Well it is until you realize Jack has become what John feared the most, a vengeance seeking gunslinger. Once that is made apparent it just go to shows how deeply bleak and depressing the entire game truly is.
In Red Dead Redemption'sBitter Sweet Ending, corrupt bureau agent Edgar Ross murders protagonist John Marston, but in the epilogue, he gets his just desserts from John's son, Jack. Not a 100% happy ending, but it's not entirely a downer... until you realize that Jack, being forced to become a jaded bounty hunter that is most likely on the law's shit list, was exactly what John had been trying to prevent the whole game.
When you take into consideration the games overarching theme of the progress of civilization, John and Jack's conversation before the last mission about airplanes being machines that can "turn men into angels" takes a much darker tone when you realize that airplanes aren't the only machines mentioned in the game that make men into angels. Guns do too.
Logic
Fridge Logic: If Marston's ranch is in Beecher's Hope, a spot of land further inland than Blackwater, then why does the game open with Marston arriving in Blackwater by boat? They make a case of John being made to come out to this land in order to pursue the goals given to him by the agents looking over him, but he actually lives in the area. It's even explicitly mentioned early in the game that the ranch was left in 'Uncle's' care while he was away, and sure enough this same character is seen at the ranch later on. Is there any explanation at all for this?
Though nothing hints at it, it's quite possible Williamson was not the first of the old gang John was sent to take care of. Someone could've fled northward or overseas after Dutch disbanded them. Doesn't explain how he landed in New Austin with only his revolver for a weapon, but little else makes sense, you're right.
Odds are, if John was busy hunting the lesser members of Dutch's old gang before getting to the Big Three(Escuella, Bill, and Dutch himself), he really didn't need much more than his revolver.
Perhaps John had been taken to Washington or something similar?
I had a similar thought. John and his family were taken out of the state and to the Capital, John was handed his mission and then brought back with Ross.
Broken Bridge: In the opening, Marston takes a train from Blackwater to Armadillo. However, during the first and second chapters, the player will find that all the rail (and road) bridges between New Austin and West Elizabeth are under construction. So how was it possible to get there? A better approach would have been to show Marston arriving in Thieves Landing by boat, then getting to Armadillo by stagecoach.
