People still argue about who’s better. It’s been years since Red Dead Redemption 2 dropped, yet the debate between Arthur Morgan and John Marston feels as fresh as a cold morning in Colter. You’ve seen the threads. You’ve seen the TikTok edits. But honestly, comparing them isn't about who draws faster or who has the cooler hat. It's about how Rockstar Games managed to write two of the most complex protagonists in history, then forced us to watch them break each other's hearts in slow motion.
Arthur wasn't even a thought in our heads back in 2010. We were all obsessed with John, the gruff, scarred outlaw trying to buy his family’s freedom with government-sanctioned blood. When the prequel was announced, a lot of players were actually annoyed. "Who is this big guy?" we asked. "Where’s John?"
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Then we played it.
We saw the way Arthur looked at John—like a disappointed big brother dealing with a sibling who hasn't quite figured out how to tie his own shoes. It changed everything. Suddenly, John’s journey in the first game wasn't just a solo mission; it was a debt he was paying to a man who sacrificed everything to give him a chance at a "normal" life.
The messy brotherhood of Arthur Morgan and John Marston
They weren't friends. Not at first. If you go back and play those early chapters in Horseshoe Overlook, the tension is thick enough to cut with a hunting knife. Arthur is bitter. He’s been the loyal son to Dutch van der Linde for twenty years, while John—the golden boy—ran away for a year because he couldn't handle the idea of being a father to Jack.
Arthur’s loyalty is his greatest strength and his most pathetic flaw. He sees John’s desertion as a betrayal of the only family they’ve ever known. It’s interesting, right? Arthur is actually the more "civilized" of the two in terms of his internal life. He writes in a journal. He draws birds. He has this deep, soulful eye for the world that he hides behind a mask of "I’m just a hired gun."
John, especially the younger version of him, is a bit of a mess. He’s impulsive. He’s not particularly bright in those early years. He gets stuck on a mountain and eaten by wolves. That’s our introduction to the legendary John Marston in the prequel—bleeding out and needing a rescue.
What most people get wrong about their skills
There’s this weird obsession with who would win in a duel. Fans point to John’s legendary status in the first game, but if you look at the raw data of the world, Arthur is a powerhouse. He’s bigger. He’s stronger. He’s arguably a better shot because he was the gang’s lead enforcer during their prime.
But John has something Arthur never really had: a reason to live that existed outside of Dutch. Arthur’s world was a bubble. Once that bubble popped, he was just a dying man looking for a way to make his death mean something. John had Abigail and Jack. That gave him a different kind of edge—a desperate, survivor’s grit that eventually turned him into the man who hunted down the entire remnants of the Van der Linde gang.
The dynamic shifts during Chapter 4 and 5. You can see it in the way Arthur speaks to him. The resentment turns into a weird kind of protective urgency. Arthur knows he’s sick. He knows the gang is rotting from the inside out because Micah Bell is a parasite and Dutch is losing his mind.
"Don't look back," Arthur tells him. It’s the most important line in the entire franchise. He’s not just talking about the Pinkertons. He’s telling John to stop being an outlaw, to stop being like him.
The tragedy of the "Redemption" title
Does John actually find redemption? That’s the $64,000 question. Most players think so, but the ending of the first game is a brutal reminder that you can’t outrun your past. Arthur’s redemption was internal. He died knowing he did one good thing by helping John escape.
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John’s story is more of a tragedy of errors. He tries so hard to be a rancher. He builds Beecher’s Hope. He buys the pre-cut house from the catalog. He milks the cows. It’s almost painful to watch this man, who is so good at killing, try so hard to be "boring."
But the world won't let him. Edgar Ross and the Bureau of Investigation are the personification of the "civilized" world coming to kill the Wild West. And John, bless him, thinks that if he just does what they say, they’ll leave him alone. Arthur was cynical enough to know that was never going to happen.
Why Arthur’s journal is the secret weapon
If you want to understand the difference between these two, look at the journal. When you play as Arthur, the drawings are beautiful, detailed, and the writing is introspective. When you switch to John in the epilogue, the drawings are... well, they look like a toddler did them.
It’s funny, but it’s also a deep piece of characterization. John is trying to carry on Arthur’s legacy, but he’s doing it in his own clumsy way. He’s literally trying to see the world through Arthur’s eyes, and he can’t quite manage it. It’s one of the many ways Rockstar makes you feel the weight of Arthur’s absence. You aren't just playing a different character; you are playing a man who is actively mourning the person you just spent 60 hours being.
Breaking down the timeline: A quick refresher
It’s easy to get the dates mixed up since the games came out in reverse order. Here is the basic flow of how their lives collided:
- 1885-1895: Dutch finds Arthur, then John. They grow up as "brothers" under Dutch’s tutelage.
- 1899: The events of RDR2. The Blackwater ferry job goes south. The gang falls apart. Arthur dies, and John escapes.
- 1907: The Epilogue. John tracks down Micah, gets the money, and starts the ranch.
- 1911: The events of RDR1. The law finds John. He hunts Bill, Javier, and Dutch.
- 1911 (End): John is betrayed and killed by the Army at his ranch.
- 1914: Jack Marston takes revenge, becoming the very thing both men tried to prevent him from being.
That last bit is the real gut punch. Both Arthur and John died so Jack wouldn't have to pick up a gun. And in the end, in that dusty field in Mexico, Jack picks up the gun anyway. It makes the struggle between Arthur Morgan and John Marston feel even more desperate. They were fighting against a tide that was always going to wash them away.
The Micah Bell factor
We can’t talk about these two without talking about Micah. He’s the catalyst. Micah represents the worst parts of the outlaw life—the greed, the lack of honor, the "survive at all costs" mentality.
Arthur hates him because he sees what Micah is doing to Dutch. John hates him because, well, Micah is a snake. But the way they handle him is different. Arthur tries to manage the situation until he’s physically unable to. John, fueled by a decade of repressed anger, goes on a suicide mission up a mountain to finish him off.
Some fans argue John’s decision to kill Micah was his biggest mistake. It gave the Pinkertons the trail they needed to find him at Beecher’s Hope. If he had just stayed home, maybe he would have lived. But John Marston isn't built like that. He’s a man of action, often to his own detriment.
How to actually apply the lessons from their story
It sounds weird to take "life lessons" from a video game about cowpokes, but the writing here is better than most modern literature. There are three big takeaways that actually matter if you’re a fan of the series or just interested in good storytelling.
- Loyalty isn't a blank check. Arthur’s biggest mistake was staying with Dutch too long. He knew Dutch was changing as early as the first chapter, but he stayed out of a sense of obligation. In real life, knowing when to walk away from a toxic situation (or a "gang") is more important than blind loyalty.
- You can't "fix" the past, but you can change the future. John spent his whole life trying to erase his scars. He couldn't. What he could do was build a house and provide for his family. Focusing on what you can build today is always better than obsessing over the bridges you burned yesterday.
- The "Mask" we wear matters. Both characters had to learn to be vulnerable. Arthur through his journal and his relationship with Mary Linton, and John through his awkward attempts to be a husband. Being "tough" is easy; being honest is hard.
If you’re looking to dive deeper into the lore, I’d suggest doing a "high honor" run as Arthur and then paying close attention to the dialogue in the epilogue. There are dozens of tiny interactions where John mentions Arthur by name, and the weight of that relationship is what carries the emotional ending of the game.
Go visit the graves. All of them. There’s a specific achievement for it, but more than that, it gives you a sense of scale for the tragedy. Seeing Arthur’s grave overlooking the mountains compared to where the others fell puts the whole "brotherhood" into perspective.
Ultimately, Arthur Morgan and John Marston are two sides of the same coin. Arthur was the philosopher who realized the world didn't want him anymore. John was the pragmatist who tried to force the world to take him back. Neither one fully won, but the fact that we're still talking about them in 2026 says they didn't exactly lose, either.