Red Dead Redemption 2 is an amazingly realistic depiction of the life of an outlaw in the late 1800’s. From the saloons, bathhouses, open pastures, and lawmen the game seems all too real. However, the lifestyle of members’ from the Van Der Linde gang Arthur is apart of.
The lives of Black members’ of the gang are poorly spotlighted or not mentioned at all. The black characters themselves are not very fleshed out as there to be plot devices or as many black characters “muscle.”
Charles Smith
Charles Smith is the essential black character of Red Dead Redemption 2. Due to his usefulness, Charles is apart of every vital mission in the storyline. Charles can track, hunt, shoot, fix wagons, knows the terrain, and stake out dangerous gang outs. However, he does not have any real motivations. Charles joined the gang six months before the events of the game occur but, there is no given reason why.
Charles is part Native American. This part of his heritage is a plot device in multiple side missions and a small part of the main story near the end of the game with a Native American tribe. Charles’ African American heritage is not used at all even when the gang is in America for most of the game. Charles does not have a relationship with Lenny or Tilly. His only interaction with Lenny, Charles gave Lenny the cold shoulder.
Lenny Summers
Lenny Summers is the young gun of the Van Der Linde gang. Lenny had not been with gang long before Blackwater. He murdered two men for killing his father. Lenny came to the gang a teenage fugitive in 1898. Lenny is a very talented shooter, growing to be a respected member of the gang during the story.
Lenny has a strong backstory but, no motivations. His backstory seems to be for shock value to his demise later in the game. His rise and fall built tension and relived tension in the story. Lenny does not have any interaction with Tilly.
Tilly Jackson
Tilly Jackson is only a supporting character. She rarely leaves camp during the primary campaign, and she is only usually working in the camp. You could talk to her and gauge the temperature of the gang from chapter to chapter. Tilly has a history with a group of black outlaws she ran with before the Van Der Linde gang.
Rockstar Games missed a great opportunity to portray great characters in pressures faced by African Americans in this country. Lenny and Tilly both mention their reservation about the American South. Aside from Arthur Morgan’s run-in with the Ku Klux Clan, the reasons why are not well represented. After the civil war, the southern states implemented staunch race laws barring African Americans from social, economic, and civic rights. African Americans also had to fear racial violence during this time.
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“More than 3900 black people were killed in “racial terror lynchings” in a dozen Southern states between 1877 and 1950,” according to the Washington Post. There were also sundown towns in the South, where African Americans could not be outside in a town after sundown. Red Dead Redemption 2 does not bring these issues to the forefront; instead, given a silent group of African American killers called the “Night Folk” instead of reality-based southern horror. The gang should have encountered the KKK more than once. We have a game with large plantations and no interaction with African American characters with slavery ending less than 40 years ago.
African Americans had to communicate to survive, which is why Charles, Tilly, and Lenny seem unrealistic for the period. Tilly has no dialog with Charles or Lenny. As mentioned earlier, Charles and Lenny don’t have their own motivations as one of them would have dated Tilly as more rounded characters. Charles and Lenny are both undervalued as the “muscle” of the group. Micha and the original protagonist of the series John Marston are constantly liabilities for the group but, held in high esteem.
Charles is the most skilled person in the gang. However, he ends up street fighting in Saint-Denis after the gang disbands. The worst arc out of any living character at the stories ending. Red Dead Redemption 2 drops the ball on writing complex black characters during a time of social upheaval for African Americans.
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