I'm so glad I picked up Red Dead Redemption 2 during a time when I have some evenings to really focus on it. I've always loved Sergio Leone's work, and the cinematic nature and extreme detail of this game appealed to me. I love a good anti-hero protagonist, and I'm so happy with how Arthur Morgan is characterized in this series.
Spoilers ahead.
He's tender, gentle, and rough around the edges. He feels like he can't help but be violent, but he doesn't want to. He wants to please his boss (Dad), Dutch, and he wants to please his other boss (Dad), Hosea. He wants to help people at camp, and people outside of it. He keeps a jounral where he sketches all the animals you see. He wants to love, but he feels like he can't, lest he let someone get hurt in the process. He embodies the idea of the nameless cowboy, who has roiling and conflicted thoughts beneath his hardended gaze
This archetype was cemented by Sergio Leone's spaghetti westerns, which contrasted with the prior depictions of cowboys at the time. Before his films, they were often righteous colonizers who stole land, killed indigenous people, and did it all under the guise of exploring and ""taming"" a ""frontier."" While Leone's films certainly weren't absolved of this (or racism in general), they were different than their predecessors.
RDR2 continues this tradition. Non-white characters are present, and have a voice in the game. (They could be more numerous, and more central though.) The game engages in a version of the west that's more focused on being anti-state, and anti-police. The very concept of the wild west is imperfect, and steeped in colonialism on its own. But the allure of cowboys & saloons is something that's inevitably still present in American culture.
The most idealistic place you can be in the game is at camp, where all the needs of everyone there are met. People contribute what they can, and enjoy life together when they're not working. Things aren't perfect, and they get progressively worse as the game continues. It's 1899, and the west as they knew it is ending. But, the present anarchy is presented as bliss. The game isn't about taking land for yourself, or conquering it. It's about a group of individuals who are trying their best to survive outside of the system. They're taking what they need, stealing money, and fighting sheriffs.
While the player can obviously engage in all sorts of greedy, reckless, or pro-state behavior, it's clear that the narrative intends to guide you, and Arthur, towards being considerate more than it guides you towards being awful. When I DID uselessly kill animals in the game in search of a specific pelt I wanted (for…a hat), Arthur sat down with a friend, Karen, at camp, and told her that he was hurting creatures, and didn't know what possessed him to do so. He added on that he didn't want to be violent. He just wanted to help.
Arthur Morgan is the ideal of the free American west. He wants to live in freedom with his family, and he wants to be honorable. He so badly wants to keep his loved ones safe, and away from the oppression of the law. The main cowboy gang Arthur is a part of is scrambling to escape cops and bounty hunters, constantly. They are continually chased to new places to live, barely scraping by, and are aware that their lives as they knew them before are coming to a close.
If Arthur is the west, and that chapter is closing, then he must perish with it. Fittingly, he dies at the end of the game. And the west dies with him.