the gunslinger's lament

As a gamer girl who (obviously) adores RDR, I…have some issues with this article. Because yeah, these are all true points, and it’s possible they do say something about the programmers. But honestly I see this game as one of the better ones where female characters are concerned—yes, you’re not going to run into a lot of random women doing good deeds, but you won’t run into a lot of men doing that either. The women trying to trick you into an ambush were theoretically forced to, and from what I remember, the only horse thieves posing as escort missions were men. Men and women both steal and are stolen from. In fact, I’m pretty sure the only legit escort missions in the main game (Undead Nightmare is the exception to this) are…women. In like one section of the map. Women in Mexico are pretty horrifically treated, but that’s how it’s presented—I wish Marston would’ve tried to do more about it (I have issues with Nuevo Paraiso in general), but I get why he felt he couldn’t, and at least he makes his disgust pretty obvious. That and the treatment of prostitutes is, I imagine, fairly reasonable as historical accuracy goes, because…for most of American history, being a woman was a good way to get abused. And let’s not forget the fact that a person who does all the things the writer talks about is probably playing with pretty low honor to begin with. You can choose to actively save hookers from their murderers, just as much as you can choose to actively kill them. Yeah, I’ll admit I find the Dastardly achievement a little creepy because someone had to put in the time to think of it and create it…but it’s also a pretty clear reference to traditional pulp Westerns.

And the major, named female characters? Here’s where I really have to disagree, because they’re some of the most strongly characterized female characters I’ve ever seen in a game…and Marston’s response to them is pretty telling too. I mean, Luisa’s just about the only decent person in Mexico and the only person he ends up caring about—say what you will about her missions, but they’re the only plot missions Marston does that don’t directly lead to his goal of capturing Bill Williamson. Bonnie…I will admit to getting annoyed at Bonnie during her herding missions, but the fact is that happens whenever an NPC is carping on me to hurry up or whatever, and outside those, both Marston and I think she’s pretty great. (And, okay, the way she goes back and forth in her conversations with Marston all “You killed people and you suck! You’re awesome for helping us! You rationalize what you did and you suck!” is pretty weird, but the fact is all the conversations outside of cutscenes go like that. Landon Ricketts and Jack, anyone?)  “A woman in a man’s world” is an accurate assessment, all things considered, and a high compliment to her toughness and strong-mindedness seeing how most of the game’s less-important female characters end up being victimized. And Abigail? Look, I love Abigail. She’s snarky and prickly and she’s not a proper lady at all and I just adore her—especially the way she and Marston so clearly fit together. Come on, do you really think he’d do everything he did to get back to her if he was just a henpecked husband who didn’t really love her? Or that she’s somehow making him do stuff he wouldn’t want to do anyway in the service of taking care of his ranch? I know a lot of people don’t like the Beecher’s Hope missions, and that’s fine, but if you’re seeing it as part of Marston’s story, if nothing else it should make sense. This is exactly what he’s wanted, after all, what he spent the entire game trying to get back, even if the player thinks it’s boring.

Plus it’s not like female characters in games who exist for anything more than their boobs are in really great supply. Even if some of this other stuff is a little weird, I’m grateful to the game’s writers just for giving us the distinct, nonsexualized women they did, all of whom are people in their own right just as much as the men instead of being poorly drawn caricatures.

tl;dr I have a lot of feelings about this. This game, in particular, and the women in it, and feminism, and all that fun stuff.