#this is incomprehensible i apologize i'm just incredibly emotional over fictional cowboys today i guess!

[kenobihater]

thinking about how rdr2 is about redemption yes, but also about loyalty to what matters, love of family, and the consequences of both. arthur loved dutch, loved him enough to follow him to hell and back, but not enough to remain blindly loyal when dutch betrayed him and john. he put his love of his brother above the love of his father, because his father taught him well, taught him the importance of family. if not for dutch and hosea raising arthur to believe in the importance of loyalty to what's right, if they had just raised arthur as a mindless outlaw, if they hadn't instilled in him the meaing of family, he likely wouldn't have cared about john enough to betray the man who saved him. for example, bill and javier weren't raised by dutch and hosea like arthur was, but they were loyal to him all the same. they weren't treated like dutch's children like john and arthur were. because the values of family and of right and wrong weren't instilled in them alongside the value of loyalty, they sided with dutch despite his fall from grace and remained blindly devoted to a man who no longer deserved it. but because dutch and hosea taught arthur and john the importance of thinking for themselves and choosing what was truly right as well as the importance of family, they realized that dutch was going down the wrong path and causing senseless deaths with his recklessness, and arthur and john decided they had to leave. arthur knew he was never going to get out, but he at least wanted his little brother to have a semblance of a life away from the gang. he wanted him to have a chance because he loved him, because they were raised together, and because they were raised as a family. dutch had a huge hand in his sons betraying him, not only because he drove them away and betrayed them himself, but because he and hosea raised them right!!