Red Dead Redemption 2’s huge in-game world is known for its many mysteries, some of which fans have only just gotten to the bottom of years after the game’s release. Rockstar populates its Wild West with characters ranging from the comically bizarre to seriously creepy, sometimes bending the game’s genre as the player explores the map.
Despite how rich Red Dead Redemption 2 has been for players looking to solve every mystery in the game, some of its best moments remain unexplained. It’s these moments that help elevate the game to a level similar to other artforms. Here’s how Red Dead Redemption 2’s least explainable moments can work even better than its unfolding mysteries.
Red Dead Redemption 2's Many Mysteries
Red Dead Redemption, like Grand Theft Auto, is famous for the large cast of strange characters players can find in the world: From Tesla-inspired scientists, fortune tellers, serial killers, to deranged taxidermists, and more. The game’s stranger side missions don’t just leave these characters in as passing references, but give them a time in the spotlight. No matter how bizarre their requests are, strangers' side missions subvert the game’s genre to include elements from time travel to ghosts.
For years, players have been getting to the bottom of some of Red Dead 2’s strangest mysteries. The ghost who briefly appears in the Saint Denis graveyard has been explained as a reference to Sam Raimi’s Drag Me to Hell. The Cougar Man and Donkey Lady have been explained as references to bugs in the original Red Dead Redemption. Even the time travel journey that stranger Francis Sinclair is implied to have been serves as an elaborate reference to Grand Theft Auto’s Epsilon Program, which claims that descendants of 4th Paradigm Emperor Kraff will have birthmarks just like Francis.
The Strange Man
These elements greatly enrich the game, but some of Red Dead 2’s best moments are those which remain unexplained. The Strange Man, for example, is a character in both Red Dead Redemption games who has drawn a huge amount of speculation. Some have argued that he represents God, others that he’s a manifestation of the Grim Reaper or the devil.
In Red Dead Redemption 2, there are references which imply that the Strange Man may be related to the plagues in the town of Armadillo. The player can even find a cabin with a painting of the Strange Man which seems to complete itself, and he will appear briefly in the mirror behind John Marston, if the painting is complete.
It’s easy to say that the Strange Man is death himself in the Red Dead universe. In the first game the character comments on the “fine spot” which, unbeknownst to the player, will later become the location of John Marston’s grave. Ultimately, the character’s value doesn’t come from any explanation which can be found in-universe, but his role as a purely symbolic addition to the game.
Regardless of what conclusions individual players come to about the identity of the Strange Man in-universe, the character forces them to consider death itself on a purely symbolic level. This only works because, at the end of the day, the Strange Man has no in-universe explanation. He exists solely as a symbol in the game’s world, as much as he does when observing that world from the outside. This leads to some of the series’ most purely symbolic moments.
Near their final encounter in the first Red Dead Redemption, John attempts to shoot the strange man three times before his gun jams on his fourth bullet. This led some to theorize that the first three bullets represent the deaths of John, Uncle, and Abigail, all of whom are later buried in the spot the Strange Man mentions. The gun’s inability to fire a fourth bullet may symbolize Jack Martson’s escape from the cycle of violence that haunted his father, while also implying that Jack only survives because of luck. John firing the gun also implies that the acts of violence he has committed throughout his life are ultimately responsible for the death and tragedy around him.
Red Dead Redemption's Themes
In Red Dead Redemption 2, the fact that the Strange Man appears to John Marston in the mirror, long before his death, ties into another major theme in the game. Red Dead Redemption 2 consistently returns to a few key questions: whether it’s possible to be both a good and bad person within one lifetime, whether good deeds can erase bad ones, and ultimately what that all means when everyone’s journey ends in death anyway.
The first Epilogue mission “The Wheel” even makes references to Arthurian mythology, tying the mission's title to the "wheel of fortune," a recurring image in Sir Thomas Malory’s Le Morte D’Arthur. The idea of the wheel is that fate leads every person to do both good and bad on the way to their ultimate destiny. In Red Dead Redemption 2, the Strange Man returns as a representation of that ultimate destination itself.
It is the Strange Man’s lack of a clear explanation that encourages players to engage with the series’ themes as much as its literal story. Not every Red Dead Redemption mystery needs an in-universe explanation. Some elements were likely included by Rockstar specifically because their ambiguity forces players to consider why the storytellers would include those elements at all.
It’s this aspect of Red Dead Redemption 2 which elevates the game’s themes to a level that's subtle and often considered reserved for older mediums like books, TV, and film. Red Dead Redemption 2 shows the power of subtext in a medium sometimes considered comparatively unsubtle. The Strange Man is not alone in fulfilling this role, he's just the most famous example. Players can find as much value in the parts of the game that have no clear in-universe explanation, as they do in the mysteries which can be solved across Red Dead 2's huge open world.
Red Dead Redemption 2 is available now on PC, PS4, Stadia, and Xbox One.