Red Dead Redemption 2 takes place years before the first game, when John Marston and his family were still of the Van Der Linde gang. But even then, in 1899, the gang was far from its prime. The game opens as they flee into the icy mountains, several dead, dying, or captured, and while they achieve some success in heists during the first few chapters, the outlaws never regain their former strength. As much as players come to care for this gang, it is clear from the beginning that it's falling apart.

But who exactly is to blame for the Van Der Linde gang's downfall? Many of the gang have their own wildly different opinions on that subject, but as far as the player base is concerned, one specific character often takes all the blame. And while Micah Bell is an awful person who definitely quickens the gang's decline, is it really fair to say he caused it? Let's look at a few other candidates, and determine who really deserves the blame.

Micah Damaged The Gang, But Didn't Destroy It On His Own

Not The Sickness, Just A Symptom

It needs to be said up front that Micah caused the most direct damage to Arthur Moran specifically, killing him in some endings, and is generally the least liked character. The entire epilogue centers around both John and the player's desire to get vengeance on him, and killing him at his shack does feel like some kind of justice. But ultimately, the gang was doomed even without Micah.

As far as what Micah actually did to hurt the Van Der Linde gang, during the story, he shoots up the town of Strawberry and draws attention to their position, arranges several jobs that go very south or result in unnecessary death, constantly advises Dutch to make violent and rash decisions, and eventually becomes an informant for the Pinkerton detective agency. Some believe Micah was a double agent the entire time, given his involvement in the disastrous Blackwater heist before the story starts, though that is never proven.

Micah acts as a foil to Arthur Morgan for most of the game, a boastful man who treats the gang harshly but praises Dutch. Arthur tells Dutch when he disagrees with him, but Dutch constantly ignores Arthur's points and draws confidence from Micah's flattery.

Micah does a lot of bad stuff in the first four chapters, but so do many of the gang , and his actions aren't actually the reasons that the law catch up to the Van Der Lindes until Chapter 6, when most of the gang was already breaking apart or deceased, and by then, there wasn't really much that could save them. Micah causes a lot of damage and does ultimately betray the gang, but his ability to do so is actually reflective of a deeper problem, one that would have existed without him.

Outside Factors Like Milton And Cornwall Aren't Really To Blame

The Tightening Fist Of Civilization

The other people one could blame for the gang's destruction are outside forces, namely Agent Milton of the Pinkerton detective agency and Leviticus Cornwall, a railroad magnate. The law is an obvious problem for any group of outlaws, but these two forces are especially persistent, following Dutch and the gang across multiple states. Milton continually forces the gang to move on from safe spots, putting themselves at risk, and directly kills Hosea, the strongest voice of reason in Dutch's ear.

Cornwall, meanwhile, is the target of the gang's first big heist in RDR2, and he never lets it go that Dutch robbed him. He is the one that hires Milton and the Pinkertons to pursue the gang, and he becomes the target of Dutch's ire in Chapter 6, causing the gang's leader to make a great tactical error in pursuit of revenge, just as he does with Colm O'Driscoll and Angelo Bronte. But there, as many players have observed, lies the gang's real problem.

Dutch's Way Of Thinking Is What Put The Gang On The Road To Ruin

The Hypocritical Head Of The Snake

The great tragedy of Red Dead Redemption 2, aside from Arthur's progressing tuberculosis, is the deterioration of Dutch Van Der Linde's code of ethics and principles. We, as the players, start the game viewing Dutch as Arthur does: a good-hearted thief, who steals and murders to help his found family, and who truly believes in a better tomorrow. That image of Dutch is completely destroyed by the ending of the game, exposing the gang's leader as the vindictive, deceptive, and violent man we saw in the first game.

Some claim that a head injury Dutch suffered in act four contributed to his impaired decision making; in particular, his decision to kidnap and kill Angelo Bronte. But the signs of Dutch's deterioration were already there as early as act one, so if anything, this head injury just sped up the gang's demise.

Dutch was certainly influenced by Micah, but it would be giving the traitor too much credit to say he caused Dutch to change. After all, as Arthur continuously comments throughout the game, Dutch may have always been like this, his true nature hidden beneath a charismatic veneer. While Micah planned the Blackwater heist that went so wrong, it was apparently Dutch that shot an innocent woman on board, an action he repeats in front of Arthur on Guarma and again in the first Red Dead Redemption.

If anyone in the gang is to blame for its destruction, it is Dutch himself, who pulled everyone else down a path toward revenge and violence. No outside force or traitor could do more damage than the gang's own leader who, by the end of the game, leaves two of his most loyal friends for dead in order to preserve himself. Still, to blame any one person in the game for the Van Der Linde gang's downfall would be to ignore a key theme of the game.

The gang was doomed simply by the age of time, and the erosion of their way of life against an expanding and modernizing America. Both Arthur and the gang itself spent a lot of time fighting against an inevitable and ugly death, and the characters that managed to survive Red Dead Redemption 2 would never be the same afterward.