#rdr2 joe

[nthspecialll]

Hiii! I love your red dead analyses sm, you're so big brained. What do you think the dynamics were like within Micah's gang? I saw people say Joe was his right hand man but I don't recall seeing it stated anywhere? How did he go from "wanting a tight crew of 5-6 good guns" (paraphrasing here) to such a huge gang of desperadoes? Do you think Cleet was telling the truth about being disgusted by their actions? Thanks!

I have talked about some of this actually! I will link those posts at the end of this answer, but also thank you!!

What do I think the dynamic within Micah's gang was? I think that it was very professional. Unlike with the Van Der Linde gang, Micah's gang was not a family, it was very strictly a formal and professional thing, and I think that a lot of it is based on respect and fear for Micah.

Many of the newspapers report about Micah being very well know, very feared but also very sucessful, which to a regular person sounds extremely bad, but for a carrerr criminal you couldn't find someone better. Already by being part of Micah' gang you have asserted yourself in a position of power over civillians, law and other minor criminals.

That said, I don't think Micah cared a lot about his gang members, I think this rise of fresh meat is new, it is recent, that is what one of the posts is about, but basically the newspapers report that Micah is feeling desperate and I think that desperation is what leads Micah to accept more people into his gang because despite his dream, numbers is power. Micah's desperation is what leads him to break away from his ideal in order to try to protect himself. He doesn't care about all these people, about their lives, about what havic they make in his name, about anything. Likely he just kind of floated above them liek a symbol they could use.

About Joe being is right hand man, I don't particually remember anything directly stating it, but I do think it is correct due to the relation between Micah, Joe and Cleet.

Micah is the leader of these three, and while both Joe and Cleet do what Micah says, Joe is way more into it. If Micah says jump Joe will jump down on someone's head to bring that extra gore into the game, I don't think he is doing it to please Micah, I just think he does it for fun. Cleet however is just kinda following along, he does the crimes needed, he does what is told but he doesn't really make it anything big and fancy, which also brings me to, do I think Cleet was disgusted with Micah?

Yes, I do think he was digusted, I think he has morals, I think he has bounteries and I think in the end Micah crossed them.

[hangingdogranch]

I actually need him so bad?? Why is he so underrated.

[reddeadreference]

Various face angles of Joe [no last name] for reference (+ bonus tattoo photo).

-If asked I will add photos from RDO but he looks the same, it's only a year difference-

(If you think I should add more variations please let me know via reply or ask. For example: if you need a certain lighting or expression that is not shown above. Keep in mind these were taken with the PS4 version of the game's Photo Mode therefore there is a limit to what I can do. There are no mods on ps4 to help me.)

[adalidposts]

Joe!

[the99thfanboy]

I reset my Red Dead Online and I totally forgot Joe was there in his little cabin and I had to take a second

[abovesn4kes]

Sadie and some bad folk

[abeliophyllum]

I'm posting this to archive the comment emotes from the Red Dead Redemption Korean fan community that I drew. There are a lot of Korean memes on emote, but honestly I can't translate them into English lol.

I love that RDR Korean fan community.

[rvstyartstar]

Hey, if there is still an empty space in your 6 cowboys meme draw, I would love to see Lemonade Joe (from the movie Lemonda Joe from 1964) with all of them. He's just so silly and goofy, I think he'd have a great time with the whole gang

The gangs all here The silles!!+ the bisexual cowboys !! :D

[shenzi-art-town]

spoiler page of upcoming answer in ask

[ilovecats-07]

my new wedded husband 💗

[08melancholie]

Hello! As the Micah Bell HQ and CEO do u have any hcs/analysis on his dynamic & backstory with cleet + joe? How they met, their interactions, reaction to cleet running off, etc. Have a nice day xoxo

Joe, Cleet and Micah.

As the Micah Bell HQ and CEO, I have a few ideas and headcannons about them and the relationship between Micah, Cleet and Joe and their backstory.

And of course, a warning; spoilers for RDR2 and RDR1.

1. Meeting.

2. Backstory.

3. "Joseph" Joe and Cleet

4. Micah's gang

5. Epilogue.

6. Headcannons and Thoughts.

I'll also add information about the topics I talk about, so you can actually use this as another info post like my 'writing Micah' one.

First things first; my analysis and sum of the canon information.

1. Meeting.

We meet Cleet and Joe in the final chapter as Arthur, which is Chapter 6: "Beaver Hollow" at the start of the mission "My Last Boy".

Around Dutch's tent are Micah, Joe, Cleet and Dutch himself when Arthur interrupts, asking who the two men are. In response, Micah say that "We need guns for what's coming", that Cleet and Joe know how to fight and how "it's lucky Micah bumped into 'em". Arthur's response to this is asking Dutch what's going on and what's happening to them; what's happening to Dutch himself. Micah asks Arthur to "show Dutch some respect", and before things can escalate, Eagle Flies interrupts the conversation to ask Arthur, Dutch and anyone that would like to join in to ride with him into their war—which starts the mission gameplay and ends the cutscene.

We don't find out anything about these two men when we meet them, other than their names and skills with firearms, and that they're needed "for whats coming".

2. Backstory.

Per Micah's word, he only came affiliated with Joe and Cleet recently in Chapter 6, having 'bumped into them' and deemed them good enough to help out with whatever next was coming for the gang. Joe and Cleet however, don't seem very close to Micah at all. They don't talk to Micah in camp, seemingly just doing their own thing and practically ignoring the other man. I think that's a very interesting and overlooked detail, seeing as they're supposed to be at least kind-of close to each other if there really is trust between Micah, enough to invite the two men into the gang, but maybe not.

3. "Joseph" Joe and Cleet.

Joe, full name Joseph, is recruited by Micah for the US army train robbery, like Cleet. Joe was definitely more loyal to Micah in comparison to Cleet, seeing as he stayed with Micah until his end; being shot down by John while he was climbing up Mount Hagen to get to Micah. I don't have much more information, as the two of them are very minimal characters in the game.

Cleet wasn't as loyal as Joe and he had more empathy than Joe did, seeing as he left Micah after the killings of that one family with the little girl he had tried saving. If his whole story about that is true, then we know that Cleet was a lot more 'human' than his companion Joe.

With that out of the way, a small fun-fact to fill a gap;

Cleet and Joe each have a tattoo on their chest which says "tout me fait rire", French for "Everything makes me laugh". Cleets' tattoo is a bit more hidden by his neckerchief, but Joe's is more open. This is very interesting and it actually gives us a bit more about their characters; Joe seems more proud of it whereas Cleet hides it, which makes me think it was the formers' idea to get those, and it also shows that they had a strong enough bond for a matching tattoo. Also, they might know French! So that's really cool tbh...

4. Micah's gang.

After the fall-out of the Van der Linde gang, Micah starts up his own gang which includes Cleet—for a while—and Joe. They commit a mass of crime in their path like robbery and murder, which sometimes included dismemberment. Micah himself has taken a massive amount of lives, estimated to be up to two dozen people. His gang becomes very feared by that time, and you can find newspaper talking about it; saying that Micah's horrid actions "rival that of Van der Linde himself".

Cleet fell out of Micah's gang when he killed an entire family during an attack on a homestead at some point between 1899 and 1907. Upon trying to murder a little girl in that assault, Cleet attempted to save her; to which Micah responded by attempting to kill Cleet himself, before Cleet got away.

At some point around 1907, Dutch Van der Linde joined hands with Micah once more to retrieve the money in Blackwater from the botched ferry robbery in 1899.

5. Epilogue

After finding out about Cleet's whereabouts, Sadie visits John at Beechers Hope and gets him to go with her to finish Micah off. Sadie leads Charles and John to the town of Strawberry to find Cleet, who they interrogate while threatening with the rope. He's made to talk by John and Sadie as they stand close-by the level which leads to Cleet's death, if the player chooses to go down that path. He tells us that Micah is up on Mount Hagen, and how he's got a whole gang now. Cleet pleads his case by telling us he tried to stop Micah murdering a family containing a little girl which let to Micah attempting to murder Cleet, before he 'luckily' got away.

Depending on the player's choice, Cleet either gets hanged in front of a small crowd of Valentine residents, or is shot by Sadie.

With the information from Cleet, Sadie, Charles and John set out to into the snow and mountains once more, where the events of RDR2 start. They ride to Mount Hagen when Sadie and Charles get injured, which then leaves John—the player—to fight off Micah's gang on his own. John is almost immediately confronted by Joe and two unknown gang members. After a short talk, John shoots all three down before continuing his way towards Micah. John climbs up the mountain, shooting down any and all of Micah's gang members in the process until he finds Micah at the top before a cabin, and the two quickly get into a shootout where Sadie manages to surprise Micah from behind and holds him at gunpoint. Micah holsters his guns in surrender, but before anything else can happen, Dutch exits the nearby cabin to reveal himself, and aims his revolvers at Sadie and John. In a moment of surprise, Sadie is overpowered by Micah, and the only thing that 'saves' them is Dutch's betrayal of Micah by fatally shooting him in the torso to which Micah says his infamous line: "You shot me pretty good", before being finished off by the player/John.

By the end of the mission, Micah is shot to his death by the mutual effort of Dutch and John, with the former leaving the scene alive until the events of RDR1 transpire.

6. Headcannons and Thoughts.

Finally, what you've been waiting to hear; my thoughts.

First, I want to start at the background—I have a hard time believing Micah didn't know Cleet and Joe prior to events of Beaver Hollow. It's hard for me to even imagine Micah so freely and carelessly introducing two random men he just met into the gang; which is why I'm even more surprised by Dutch who allowed it. It feels very uncharacteristically stupid and risky for Micah's persona, which is why I feel like he already knew Cleet and Joe, but for some reason kept everyone in the dark about it. Maybe he didn't want to be accused of 'doing things behind Dutch's back' like he did for Arthur once Eagle Flies said so during "My Last Boy".

As far as the backstory between the two men and Micah goes, I think there was a lot more to it than randomly stumbling into them one day in 1899—I personally think Cleet and Joe were somewhat similar to what Norman, known as 'Skinny', was to Micah; old acquaintances he used to run with. The only difference was that Micah knew they wouldn't rat on him like Norman did, and so he probably got them in on his entire plan with Dutch and the rest of the gang, maybe even paid them because he knew that, in the end, things would have gone his way, regardless of what happened in-between or as result of his choices of action.

Another detail, one I already mentioned; Cleet and Joe aren't around Micah much inside camp. As I said in my second point, "Backstory", Joe and Cleet spend little to no free time with Micah like you'd expect them to be. That's another part which confuses me. If my previous theory were true, of them knowing one-another beforehand, then I'd expect them to actually be talking to each other and not doing their own stuff. So, why does it seem as if they're ignoring each other? That's where I wish Cleet and Joe weren't minimal characters, because I'm very curious about them and how their relation to Micah was in the game and story.

As far as Cleet running off and leaving Micah's gang goes, I don't think it bothered Micah too much. His gang was full of strong, capable men—just like he's always envisioned for himself. Losing one member over murdering one person, albeit an innocent little girl, just showed Micah that Cleet was more 'weak-minded', and I think that that was actually a positive in Micah's head; it showed him who was too 'weak' in his gang. You could almost call the action a small test. Again, they didn't seem to be so close to Micah, so both Joe and Cleet running off/dying likely didn't mean so much to Micah, at least not after he knew he had the backs and lives of an entire gang in his hands.

Thank you for the lovely ask, anon! I had a lot of fun with gathering all the information and with sharing my own thoughts about Cleet, Joe and their relations to Micah. It's been a pleasure answering, as always.

Sources <3

Joe and Cleet — Villains Wiki

Joe — Separate Wiki

Cleet — Separate Wiki

"My Last Boy" Mission

[senirr]

Joe's little cabin looks so pretty with that snow...

[jihef03]

The Virgin Dutch Van Der Linde Gang (rdr2) versus the chad Dalton Gang (Lucky Luke)

[miguel-owhora]

I can’t remember where I saw it but I saw someone recently post about how loyal and protective Joe is over Micah and is basically his guard dog as he’s so big, strong and brutish.

Tbh, I just wanna see Micah get pounded by someone he projects his daddy issues onto and I think Joe is kinda perfect for that.

god...... I'm tempted to just wing it and write this.

[abeliophyllum]

Joe's appearance in Chapter 6 of the RDR story is completely different from his appearance in RDO.

I honestly didn't expect him to be such a talkative person lol

-

Given the characterization in RDO that Joe doesn't have many friends, it's possible that he's more of a loner who just doesn't want to talk to the Van Der Linde gang, which is why he didn't talk to Arthur much in Chapter 6, and why he didn't tell Dutch about John falling off the train.

However, the portrayal in my drawing is slightly exaggerated for the sake of the joke. In fact, when Arthur antagonizes him, Joe sometimes responds with “You don't look so good”. It's just my opinion, but if he had been in the van der Linde gang with Micah in the first place, he might have had a chance to get to know Bill, Javier, and Arthur...

He also has an extreme aversion to betrayal, and since he doesn't know much about the Van der Lind gang, he can't help but think that Arthur and John are trying to betray Boss Dutch and his friend Micah.

Add to that the fact that he refers to himself as “Old Joe” and the wrinkles on his face and hands suggest that his actual age is probably considerably older than Micah's. Maybe he's actually about the same age as Dutch.

Joe's old age and his long experience as a Hired gun for various factions, including the Italian Mafia, it's my Headcanon that Arthur and John's actions that put them at odds with Dutch might have been viewed by Joe as simply younger gang members “rebelling” against their boss...

[mischievouskitty]

Some of you would genuinely believe Micah's manipulation and lies.