Right, let’s be clear - John Marston is not a good father, or at least not when we technically first meet him in Red Dead Redemption 2. He’s absent, afraid of his responsibilities and probably one gunfight away from abandoning his wife and child altogether. For most of the game, we see main protagonist Arthur Morgan act almost like a surrogate father to Jack, but things finally change when the child is abducted by the Braithwaites.
John snaps, and finally realises what’s at stake. He spends the rest of the game plotting his escape from Dutch’s gang with his family in tow, and - spoilers! - once it happens, pretty much the remaining epilogue is him trying to win his family back.
Marston’s late realisation of what his family means to him is what makes his eventual death in Red Dead Redemption so dang tragic. He sacrifices it all for his wife and child, and they all befall a fate perhaps even more heartbreaking. A tragic testament to the harsh realities of the old west and the nonsensical cycle of violence that has plagued its most iconic depictions.
WhatCulture's very own resident movie guy, Ewan has been working in the content creation biz for over 10 years now, having started as a freelance contributor to WhatCulture Gaming all the way back in 2015. After graduating with a First-Class Honours in History from Northumbria University in 2017 (where he won a prize for a totally killer dissertation on the Watergate years), Ewan took on the role of Comics Editor at WhatCulture and quickly developed WhatCulture Comics into one of the biggest superhero-focused channels on YouTube. He followed this with a brief hiatus at Screen Rant in 2021, where he worked across the Gaming and Film sections as a writer and editor, before returning to WhatCulture as a Senior Content Producer / Presenter in 2023. He started his own podcast, We Love Dad Movies, in 2022, and has contributed several written pieces to the Eisner-nominated comics website Shelfdust as well.
In his current role, Ewan incorporates his love of cinema, comic books, and history into written pieces and video essays for WhatCulture's Film & TV channel, as well as WhatCulture Gaming and WhatCulture Horror, with a particular focus on nineties-era Dad Movies, old school Westerns, and Golden Age Hollywood Noir. John Carpenter is his fave, and he thinks Batman Beyond should never have been cancelled. If that's your vibe, you'll probably like his stuff.
