Replaying RDR and getting Psyched for RDR2

[YodaMan 3D]

This weekend I started playing RDR, hoping to get psyched for RDR2.  As I was playing somethings came to mind. 

How long was John out of the Gang? 

Did the others know he was alive?   Cause wouldn't the gang just come to Beechers Hope and try to recruit John back or use it as a hideout.

How did they not cross paths before John started hunting them?  John hunts in Tall Trees area all the time, at least when I played him he did.

Maybe I just didn't remember the story well, but I thought John got caught after being shot after the botched robbery where he got shot.  Was that correct?

So Bonnie saw John on the Train, assuming she got off at the stop at her ranch, what was Bonnie and Amos doing by the Fort when they found John?    Not much that I could see a rancher and her ranch hand would need out there and it would have been way out of her way to just be driving by. 

Why take him back to their ranch?  Wouldn't have been better just to drop him off at Armadillo on their way home.

Back then $15 dollars was quite a bit of money.  How exactly did John do to pay them back?  John rides round the ranch, kills a few rabbits and coyotes.  John helps them herd cattle a few times.  John then helps them capture some wild horses, (supposedly, I mean you look that there is a ranch nearby one time and Armadillo the next), just saying they may not have be wild.  Then Bonnie gives the keeper to John afterwards, ( which back then a good horse was worth killing over back then.)  Saves Drew from the barn fire and Bonnie after she was kidnapped.   I appreciate and respect that John has so much love and loyalty to his family, but most people would have figured Bonnie is here, I can tap that and the wife would never know. 

[Archbell]

2 hours ago, YodaMan 3D said:

How long was John out of the Gang? 

The botched robbery occurred in 1906 so he was out of the gang for 5 years.

2 hours ago, YodaMan 3D said:

Did the others know he was alive?   Cause wouldn't the gang just come to Beechers Hope and try to recruit John back or use it as a hideout.

They might of assumed he was dead at first but after hearing no reports of his death or capture they probably knew he'd survived but I doubt they knew where he had decided to settle down unless they were told by Abigail, Jack or Uncle.

3 hours ago, YodaMan 3D said:

How did they not cross paths before John started hunting them?  John hunts in Tall Trees area all the time, at least when I played him he did.

After you capture or kill Javier, Edgar Ross and Archer Fordham tell you to make your way to West Elizabeth because they've received reports that Dutch van der Linde is in the area and some of their dialogue later on implies that Dutch has been recruiting and has only recently been spotted in the area.

3 hours ago, YodaMan 3D said:

Maybe I just didn't remember the story well, but I thought John got caught after being shot after the botched robbery where he got shot.  Was that correct?

John states that he was left to die by his fellow gang members after being shot but he never mentions being captured, Edgar Ross and Archer Fordham track John down by unknown means prior to the beginning of Red Dead Redemption and threaten to kill his family if he doesn't hunt down his former brothers in arms.

3 hours ago, YodaMan 3D said:

So Bonnie saw John on the Train, assuming she got off at the stop at her ranch, what was Bonnie and Amos doing by the Fort when they found John?    Not much that I could see a rancher and her ranch hand would need out there and it would have been way out of her way to just be driving by. 

The train went past MacFarlane's Ranch but didn't stop there, after John got off the train it head South West so maybe Bonnie was meeting Amos in the South West region of New Austin to drive supplies back to MacFarlane's Ranch.

3 hours ago, YodaMan 3D said:

Why take him back to their ranch?  Wouldn't have been better just to drop him off at Armadillo on their way home.

Bonnie states that the Doctor in Armadillo is the one that saved his life so they obviously took John there first, when John first gains consciousness she tells him that the bullet was taken out a few days ago so maybe they took John back to MacFarlane's Ranch because they knew he was probably gonna be unconscious for a couple days and would need a safe place to rest.

3 hours ago, YodaMan 3D said:

Back then $15 dollars was quite a bit of money.  How exactly did John do to pay them back?  John rides round the ranch, kills a few rabbits and coyotes.  John helps them herd cattle a few times.  John then helps them capture some wild horses, (supposedly, I mean you look that there is a ranch nearby one time and Armadillo the next), just saying they may not have be wild.  Then Bonnie gives the keeper to John afterwards, ( which back then a good horse was worth killing over back then.)  Saves Drew from the barn fire and Bonnie after she was kidnapped.

Although Bonnie appears to sceptical and wary of John, his actions and how he came to be shot in the first place I believe after spending some time with John she eventually came to have a fair amount of admiration for him. I also believe that after John opens up to Bonnie about his family, troubled past and his current predicament she feels genuinely sorry for him and probably didn't see the $15 or the horse as a major loss, especially after John had saved Drew, saved her and saved several horses from the barn fire.

4 hours ago, YodaMan 3D said:

I appreciate and respect that John has so much love and loyalty to his family, but most people would have figured Bonnie is here, I can tap that and the wife would never know. 

True, being a 21 year old male I can't comprehend the restraint John must have. I guess that could be considered a plot hole of sorts although I wouldn't share that opinion with your wife Yoda, she might not let you leave the house.

[YodaMan 3D]

11 minutes ago, Archbell said:

The botched robbery occurred in 1906 so he was out of the gang for 5 years.

They might of assumed he was dead at first but after hearing no reports of his death or capture they probably knew he'd survived but I doubt they knew where he had decided to settle down unless they were told by Abigail, Jack or Uncle.

After you capture or kill Javier, Edgar Ross and Archer Fordham tell you to make your way to West Elizabeth because they've received reports that Dutch van der Linde is in the area and some of their dialogue later on implies that Dutch has been recruiting and has only recently been spotted in the area.

John states that he was left to die by his fellow gang members after being shot but he never mentions being captured, Edgar Ross and Archer Fordham track John down by unknown means prior to the beginning of Red Dead Redemption and threaten to kill his family if he doesn't hunt down his former brothers in arms.

The train went past MacFarlane's Ranch but didn't stop there, after John got off the train it head South West so maybe Bonnie was meeting Amos in the South West region of New Austin to drive supplies back to MacFarlane's Ranch.

Bonnie states that the Doctor in Armadillo is the one that saved his life so they obviously took John there first, when John first gains consciousness she tells him that the bullet was taken out a few days ago so maybe they took John back to MacFarlane's Ranch because they knew he was probably gonna be unconscious for a couple days and would need a safe place to rest.

Although Bonnie appears to sceptical and wary of John, his actions and how he came to be shot in the first place I believe after spending some time with John she eventually came to have a fair amount of admiration for him. I also believe that after John opens up to Bonnie about his family, troubled past and his current predicament she feels genuinely sorry for him and probably didn't see the $15 or the horse as a major loss, especially after John had saved Drew, saved her and saved several horses from the barn fire.

True, being a 21 year old male I can't comprehend the restraint John must have. I guess that could be considered a plot hole of sorts although I wouldn't share that opinion with your wife Yoda, she might not let you leave the house.

Thanks for the answers.  I knew most of them already.  Now during the train ride at one point Bonnie gets up and walks past John.  I assumed she got off the train at that point, at her ranch.

[elmZ]

I have a feeling John was raised a good guy and had his own morals prior to joining the gang. I think he may have been desperate for money or in the wrong place at the wrong time and got roped in with them. You can't just be an upstanding dude and family man at his age without having some kind of foundation from your youth. 

[Archbell]

5 hours ago, elmZ said:

I have a feeling John was raised a good guy and had his own morals prior to joining the gang. I think he may have been desperate for money or in the wrong place at the wrong time and got roped in with them. You can't just be an upstanding dude and family man at his age without having some kind of foundation from your youth. 

I don't think he was raised to be a good guy.

John's mother was a prostitute who died giving birth to him, his father was an illiterate and later blind Scottish immigrant heavily implied to have been his mother's pimp who died when John was 8 years old.

John was sent to an orphanage, he later ran away from the orphanage and fell in with Dutch van der Linde's Gang.

[YodaMan 3D]

With some people you can give them the right answers to every problem and they won't be able to see it or learn from it.   Sometimes seeing the problem in yourself or in someone else allows them to deal with it 1st hand and then they have seen and/or learned from it.

Maybe at some point he realized that Dutch or the other gang members were going down the wrong path, maybe getting shot and left by the gang  / his family at that time,  maybe coming close to death and realizing how much Abigail and his kids really meant, or a combination of all of them made him realize that where he was in life wasn't where he wanted to be.  So he changed.

I know people from my youth that was juvenile delinquents and figured that they would spend most of there lives either in prison or dead.   One became a cop and one the became a minister.  They both turn their lives around, each for his own reasons, but they went from always making wrong choices to making right choices and helping others.

In conversation with the cop, he told me it could have went either way.  He met his wife and at the time she lived in a bad neighborhood.  He wanted to protect her, so he became a cop and changed his life.  The minister stated he went down some dark roads of life and realized that all his friends at the time were in prison or dead from some kind of overdose.  Decided that wasn't who he was and went seeking help and now he helps others.

[Cokeyskunk]

23 hours ago, YodaMan 3D said:

Back then $15 dollars was quite a bit of money.

Eh, not really. I just looked it up. It's roughly the equivalent of $375 in today's dollars. Sure, nice to have. But noting worth dying over.

[Benjo]

18 hours ago, Cokeyskunk said:

Eh, not really. I just looked it up. It's roughly the equivalent of $375 in today's dollars. Sure, nice to have. But noting worth dying over.

It's actually more like $600 - 1000.

[Kean_1]

I thought about replaying RDR but I can't use those PS3 controllers anymore after getting used to the PS4. 

[Glopez]

On 7/17/2018 at 6:39 AM, Archbell said:

John's mother was a prostitute who died giving birth to him, his father was an illiterate and later blind Scottish immigrant heavily implied to have been his mother's pimp who died when John was 8 years old.

John was sent to an orphanage, he later ran away from the orphanage and fell in with Dutch van der Linde's Gang.

I think a lot of people forget his background. It is pretty raw and sad when you think about it. Has a shite start at life but knowing this and seeing how he makes a turn around is all the more reason to love the character.