#LONEPRARIRIES. / headcanon.

[mutuallyassured]

some john marston braindump:

was born to an ashkenazi jewish mother & father in new york - his mother died during childbirth which left himself and his father to their own devices. he was born in new york but his father emigrated to chicago due to transient railroad work.

john's name at birth was jonathan markowski, but his father started going by marston once they moved to chicago for the sake of finding work. after his father died in a bar fight on their tenement floor when he was 8, john simply started going by john and the records at the orphanage he lived in for several years (from when he was 8 until he was 12, aka when he ran away) have him down as john marston.

john wouldn't be in touch with his jewish identity until being taken in by dutch, who helped/encouraged him to celebrate high holidays as much as they could. that fell off as the years went on until beecher's hope.

john and arthur are the epitome of the golden child/scapegoat (respectively), until john became dutch's scapegoat. john's never been academically inclined but has always been cunning and skeptical. have lots of thoughts but i do definitely think that the stark age difference between dutch and john (dutch is 30-ish when he takes john in vs being only mid-20s when arthur is taken in) + the fact that dutch is quite literally the only father john has ever known makes this even more apparent. dutch is arthur's father-figure but he's always had hosea; while john has always had hosea as a father-figure, there's always been an intrinsic bond between john and dutch. dutch taught everything john he knows about gunslinging and hunting and fishing, areas where john excels compared to arthur.

as for high/low honor, my john is probably medium, teetering very close to low honor. while i think arthur's story and arc is about redemption, john's has always been about survival. he's never quite believed he's had a choice. some trees flourish, others die. and he's done whatever it takes for his family, whether it's the van der linde gang, arthur, or abigail and jack, to live and thrive even if it's all been in vain, and even if it's involved doing the worst things a person can do. also a habit he's learned from dutch, lmao.

speaking of which - so many of the toxic, manipulative habits and tendencies he's taken on as a father are learned from dutch and somewhat unlearned in beecher's hope with jack. will elaborate more l8r.

also -- my john is blind in his left eye, with some light perception, and by 1911 regularly wears an eyepatch to aid in gunslinging and hunting. the visual impairment occurred as a result of being attacked by wolves in 1899; it also means he has no depth perception and is susceptible to being ambushed by those who know about it (looking at javier for throwing that box on top of him in rdr1, lmao).