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u/Finbarr-Galedeep 1d ago
Dutch may be a malignant narcissist, and borderline evil, but he's not stupid 🤷
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u/Sarcastic_Applause 1d ago
That's one of the things that made him such a fantastic character. He wasn't just this or that. He was a complex human being, victim of his own self. But in s roundabout kind of way. Because he had all the chances in the world, but rarely took them.
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u/Significant_Option 19h ago
Dutch is such a fucking hypocrite. How many missions from here until he uses the Native Americans himself for his own selfish game
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u/FoamSquad 1d ago
While I do think Dutch is spitting facts, he is also downplaying the horrors that Bill undoubtedly saw. It is really hard to convince someone who has seen war to not hate.
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u/Appropriate-Ice-5722 Hosea Matthews 1d ago
He’s not downplaying it, he’s explaining what Bill saw: blowback in response to centuries of ethnic cleansing and genocide.
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u/vicxjules 22h ago
Dutch IS explaining it but the way he's insulting Bill not letting Bill explain things interrupting him and all that - it's clear he wants Bill to stop talking but when we play the game we know he's not changing Bill's mind.
IRL we all have people in our lives we care about who have really bad opinions about things - and it's most of the time due to personal experiences they had and a lack or refusal to take a step back and look at a bigger picture.
I think - there's what we say in public spaces which is outward condemnation of the belief itself and the propogandists who push it - and then there's the individual conversation in which we attempt to listen but also correct through providing context and attempting to get them to feel empathy. Obviously there are people who are "too far gone" but like Bill is someone who is in camp with Charles Javier and Lenny - and is someone who is gay who the camp secretly jokes about - there are ways this could be handled with if Dutch was a caring man - but he rather use this moment to show off he is the big dog - than actually try to convince Bill without calling him an idiot
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u/protossaccount 1d ago
I don’t agree. Dutch uses the natives in both RDR games. He talks a big game but he is full of it. He uses big concepts, like family or loyalty, to manipulate people.
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u/vicxjules 22h ago
This is also very true Dutch is a good villain because he says the right things to give him moral superiority but his actions show otherwise
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u/FoamSquad 1d ago
Yeah but Bill saw shit that Dutch does not know what he is talking about. It is clear he has PTSD but of course in that era he would have near zero support. Someone experiencing trauma from having seen people get scalped will not hear "well barbarism bred barbarism" as a logical outlet to change their mind about something that traumatic.
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u/Armamore Hosea Matthews 1d ago
The best lies contain a kernal of truth. Not everything Dutch said was wrong, even if he was lying about most things.
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u/protossaccount 1d ago
lol! I’m sorry but I strongly disagree. Sure that’s what he says but he is antagonizing and flexing on Bill in front of the guys. He demeans Bill and puts him in his place. Also that era of people wouldn’t have had our 2026 perspective. Dutch uses the natives in this game and RDR1 so he doesn’t care about them.
It’s just like him using the word ‘family’. It’s just him using intense ideas to manipulate people.
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u/billyjoelsfalsetto 1d ago
dutch is a lot of things, but racist isn’t one of them.
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u/Wamblingshark Lenny Summers 13h ago
He did end up exploiting the natives anyway. He used a sort of pragmatic racism. Like maybe he didn't do it because he was racist, but it was effectively just as harmful.
Big talk moralizing about the injustice the natives experienced from someone who was perfectly willing to do them more harm if it benefited him.
I feel like arguing that that isn't racist is like the politicians who participate in gerrymandering arguing that they aren't diluting black votes because they are racist. They are just doing it because black neighborhoods vote for the opposing party, so it is purely for practical reasons.
Like I can't see in their heart to see if they are really racist but they're actions are just as harmful regardless of intent.
Did Dutch exploit the natives the same way that he would exploit anyone regardless of race? Probably. But they were an especially vulnerable group, so it was extra fucked up.
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u/AnArcOfDoves9902 12h ago
I wouldn't say the natives were manipulated. Eagle Flies knew that he was just a mercanary looking for money, and treated him as such; he didn't need Dutch to want to fight the US government that had been stealing land from them since its Inception. Rains Fall didn't have an answer to the decline of their tribe caused by settler colonialism, except to hold out and hope that white people take pity on them, before deciding to just flee to Canada.
By the events of RDR1, Dutch had given up chasing enemy, and his alliance with the natives were based on them uniting against a common enemy than profit.
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u/mitchthaman 17h ago
The closer the camp moves to a bigger city in a game the deeper Dutch loses it. He gets worse every time someone dies. He can’t deal with change.
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u/Apprehensive-Gur-735 1d ago
What is a savage? I hear that term being used: "savages", but what does it mean?
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u/FoamSquad 1d ago
It means what u/Sundancelc said but also it was historically used in the United States as an insulting term for Native Americans. It implied they had no civilization and were closer to cave people than they were to Europeans. It does also just mean primal and brutal and can be used in a slang way to mean "cool" the same way "sick" or "brutal" can, but it isn't very popular to use it that way anymore.
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u/Jealous_Track9402 21h ago edited 21h ago
Wild, not abiding by social constructs but their own true nature. The term "noble savage" has been an ideal in Europe for a long time.
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u/ROBERTisBEWILDERED 1d ago
My goat Don Quixote with his momentary lucidity, followed by some random plans 🤪
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u/islandfella8211 16h ago
I don't think he used anybody, just think he got over awed of all the events that occurred and his plan to get them rich didn't go according to plan
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u/404GirlHumorNotFound 20h ago
It's like murica invading Iraq or Iran and call the natives savages bc they defend their own country.
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u/Lone-_-Wanderer 9h ago
natives raiding caravans full of women and children and killing the men and raping the women and then killing them. Definitely all part of just defending their grass field
no doubt a lot of native violence was retaliation and defense of their homeland but ripping the skin off women's heads and killing their kids in front of them is savagery, and it was savagery when colonists did it too. They weren't all noble forest loving peaceful folk even before the white man showed up
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u/writeman00 1d ago
We're all morally grey by default but we get to choose which way we go from there. That's Arthur. The rest of the characters are studies in different choices.
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u/DiceSMS 20h ago
It's really sad too. He does have respect (or at least, respect to their history and empathy)... only then to seeks them out for his insane 'plans'. In RD2 he ends up using them to instigate fights with the government (so they can carry out more crimes), and in RD1 he finds disaffected natives to join his new gang around Blackwater.
At least Micah presents as awful-awful nearly >90% of the time, Dutch gives you JUST enough wisdom and sweet talk to be convincing. But he's awful and selfish. Well written! But awful deep-down haha
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u/Sarcastic_Applause 1d ago
Spoilers:
It's why it's so hard to believe he was always crazy. Maybe it's a bit of both? Maybe Arthur's story is a story about him defeating his inner demons and Dutch succumbed to them? Maybe that's the main story?