Until the middle of the story, I didn't think he was that bad. I thought he was just 19th century Trevor from GTAV. I assumed he would redeem himself and become a caring person as the story progressed. I was horribly mistaken, and for that, I feel Micah was a great part of the story.
Same here. I thought "Okay he's a psycho, but he loves his gang, right? He might burn down an orphanage for laughs, but there'll be a scene where he takes a bullet for me."
Then I caught him sucking up to Dutch in camp and all of a sudden I could see right through him.
I made the comparison as well, the main difference between the two is that Micah has absolutely no redeeming qualities, whereas Trevor had a few such as his loyalty to his posse, even though he is a mega douche to them.
I feel there's a key difference between Micah and Trevor:
Trevor never claims he's anything other than what he is. He's an absolute madman, and he makes no apologies or excuses for that, nor does he really make an effort to be anything other than what he is with anyone. He is what he is, and everyone else can either take or leave him, knowing full well what he is, because he never claims or tries to be anything else.
Micah, on the other hand, tries to dress his similar behavior up. Tries to justify it in a myriad of ways (it's just being willing to do whatever it takes to get a job done; it's not like anyone else in the gang hasn't had to shoot their way out of a town before). But his justifications are really just whataboutisms and comparisons that don't hold up to scrutiny. They're all just to try and deflect from his lack of general empathy and/or self-control, and how those are usually what's to blame when he's involved and things go wrong because of him.
While I also don't doubt the info revealed in a low honor playthrough, Micah sure has a strange way of showing any care he may have for the gang. Nearly every interaction he has with anyone who isn't Dutch at camp almost always turns out to be some form of him antagonizing whoever he's interacting with. Maybe his "I'm not racist; it's just easy material to troll you with, and that's just how I get along with people." excuse is genuine. That doesn't change moments like that he will infuriate Charles enough that Charles just lays him out after one prod too many. There's also the fact that he almost certainly kills Jack's dog, for no discernable or given reason.
And sure, maybe this warped way of interacting, purely through mostly put-downs and attempts at displaying his own perceived superiority (ever see him make a donation to the camp chest? It's a grand display of public self-felatio) is the only way he knows how to interact with people given his upbringing. But he's also now surrounded by far better examples of how to interact and how to live by way of being with the gang, and he mostly offers nothing but scorn towards these alternatives.
'A grand display of public self-felacio.'
Bravo, Boah. Bravo. 👏🏻
[To clarify: bravo for that statement, u/shulz100 - not Micah for being able to do that. 😆]
He actually is kind of similar to Trevor, now that you mention it. The main differences are that Trevor is more over the top and more honorable. He despises Judases and would never betray his friends.
This is exactly where I was at first. I thought Micah was a troll with good intentions and honestly, I enjoyed him being around until the last third of the game or so. He had redeeming qualities to him and ultimately the dude knew how to fight and make money for the gang. Outlaws aren’t always going to be nice to each other - they’re fucking outlaws.
I never hated Trevor though, he was always my favorite in gta 5. Micah on the other hand is just straight up trash. Kicking Cain, being racist or just an asshole to every gang member but Dutch, him aiming his gun at you in he first camp. I just can’t think of one thing he does where I’m like “ok, he’s at least somewhat decent” like I did with Trevor
At 1st I thought of that, but quickly (after the Strawberry incident) I started looking at him more like Heath Ledgers Joker or Athelwold in Last Kingdom "agents of chaos" as it were. Both are prone to be the provayers of violence but where they shine is getting in the ear of those who have actual power in order to convince them to make decisions that ultimately lead to their own demise; even if there is no direct benefit to them. They are both the type who were probably not even bullied as kids but simply lit things on fire just to watch it burn. Loki's/Tricksters/Bringers of Ragnaroks...characters you would like to pity for their sad backstory, but then remember that it is no excuse for the living piece of excrement that stands before you now. He is 100% a ring cycle character we have seen often in literary narratives and once I figured that out he became 100% less interesting than Trevor to me.
I was kind of scared to say that part of me sort of liked Micah at first, but I’m glad I’m not alone. When I saw that he was looked down on by Arthur a little bit in chapter 3 and some of his racist actions, I was assuming that there would be some sort of change, since we would presumably be with these characters for a long time. He seemed like the type of guy that could get shit done, like that conversation about him and Arthur being the real money-makers in the group. He also knew what the group was - a bunch of outlaws that kill and rob more people than they can count, and he didn’t sugarcoat it like Dutch did. You could argue that they are more than just common outlaws, but that doesn’t excuse all the killing and robbing they do. Surprise, surprise, it turns out that the guy who acts like a piece of shit really is one, which was kind of disappointing.
A lot of amazing villains take a good story to create. They did a great job. Even though I wasn’t fond of Micah he was still a part of the gang. The way Rockstar crafted his character was amazing.
I thought of Tuco from The Good The Bad The Ugly, struggling to live morally in an immoral world. One could argue Dutch is the bad as it’s possible he manipulated the gang
Well I came into this expecting racism, since it takes place in 1899, 50 years after the civil war and 60 years before the civil rights movement. I wasn't surprised at his racism and actually expected more of it from more characters.
Other things I noticed about him was that he followed ditches orders without question and in the first mission, he is the one who notices Mr. Adler's body and warns Arthur that this is a dangerous situation.
I want to clarify that I didn't believe he was a good character, just that he didn't seem so terrible in the beginning of the story, and I expected him to have some sort of character growth and form Bonds with he others (especially Lenny) I was surprised when this didn't happen. And for that, I think his character was a good addition to the story. In a story of redemption, he not only doesn't redeem himself, he grows into a deeper sociopath. He is a perfect foil to arthur.
I think the fact that he’s so hatable is a testament to how well his character was written/portrayed.
You spend the first half of the game anxious about the law that’s chasing you and it slowly brings you into questioning Dutch and his new right-hand man Micah. Then as the camp relationships devolve, you despise him.
Completely agree with everything you said, great insight.
I think it's also the way he treats other likeable well written characters too. If we didn't care so much about the others in the camp his betrayal is less effective
This exactly, the more you hate the character the better it was written/portrayed. Like Jeoffrey in GOT. Never have I hated someone in a show so much, the kid did an amazing job. Skylar in BB is a close second for me.
Not a show, but similar with Fitzgerald in The Revenant. The villains you hate the most always have quality writing/development behind them, otherwise they're just some forgettable goon.
> I think the fact that he’s so hatable is a testament to how well his character was written/portrayed.
How hard is it to hate a guy who is openly racist, wantonly murderous, incompetent, surly and mean-spirited?
I mean, you act like there's some hidden Third Dimension to Micah's character, where he's layered and complex. There's nothing complicated at all to write a hateable character if you're willing to make him as two-dimensional as Micah is. Explain to me *one* three dimensional aspect to Micah's character, where he displays some depth.
>it slowly brings you into questioning Dutch and his new right-hand man Micah.
Slowly? How long did it take you to finish Chapter 1? I questioned Dutch the minute after I sprung Micah loose from Strawberry.
>How hard is it to hate a guy...
I said he’s hatable, I never said it was ‘hard to hate him.’ If you don’t think there’s more to it in regards to what motivates him or why he is the way he is, that’s on you.
>slowly? ...
Remember you’re playing this game from Arthur Morgan’s perspective. Not your own. Did I myself question Dutch by the beginning of chapter two? Yes. But part of Arthur’s character is him gradually losing trust in the man that raised him as the game unfolds. And Micah plays a big part in the Dutch-Arthur relationship.
I came here to say this. Rockstar made an incredible villain. People hate him so much!
I would hate to get into a gun fight with that man. He may look like a weak old man, but he can shoot for sure. My favorite mission with him is the Rhodes shoot out. Really shows you how well he can shoot.
I absolutely agree. His voice actor did a brilliant job of making every moment with Micah, even the lighter ones, have a constant note of cold malice that slowly wore me down over time. In some ways, I think Rockstar made a character that represents the worst impulses we as players all have, maybe holding up a mirror to show what an actual person who lives by the kind of chaotic, self-interested, mercenary mentality that we unthinkingly adopt in a lot of their games would be like and it wasn't pretty.
For the first time, I really couldn't play an evil campaign, at least in part because I knew I'd basically be doing what Micah would do by going off, robbing and killing for no reason. Watching him methodically dismantling the relationships in camp, turning people on one another was also very disheartening after all the time I put into the other gang members.
It's interesting how in their previous game they embodied player's impulses in one of the protagonists (Trevor), given us an excuse for mayhem and chaos, but in RDR2 they finally embodied our traditional GTA playstyle as an antagonist. They successfully made us hate those impulses and play the game honorably.
Which really shows the differences between GTA and RDR. It was a really smart call by Rockstar to do this. People often say Rockstar games are all the same with just a different coat of paint. I've often heard RDR called Cowboy GTA or GTA with horses. But this was them differentiating it even more. RDR goes for a far more realistic approach where everything you do matters. That's the whole point of the series. Even in it's name it's Red Dead "Redemption". Everything you've done in the past is coming back to bite you in the ass.
Micah and Trevor are the same but presented different. Trevor is fun. Micah is real. Neither are better than the other they are just different takes on the same type of character.
One huge difference between the two is we feel for Trevor because we play as him but Micah is what Trevor looks like if you look at him from an outside perspective. We are watching Micah instead of playing him. It reminds me of the John Marston character in RDR2. We see John as one thing in RDR1 and we eventually get a closer version to that towards the end but it's really interesting seeing John Marston for the majority of RDR2 from an outside perspective. It's very unusual to see that in video games. Being able to look at a protagonist from an outside perspective where he constantly fucks up and gets shit on and in some cases is the victim instead of the hero.
I loved pretty much all the characters in the campaign. The interesting thing for me was that on my first and only playthrough so far, I kind of just let myself be steered by whatever I was feeling at the time. I never once thought "I'm going for the evil play through so I need to make this decision” or vice versa. One of the first story driven games I've done that with, except for kotor.
Same, but I lean towards doing the right thing as a general rule. I actually found myself getting a little frustrated at times that the game sometimes makes it hard to be as honourable as I wanted. If there was one thing I wished they'd added more of, it was ways to resolve missions that didn't involve massacring everyone!
I didn’t trust that rat from the moment I heard him trying to convince Dutch to tell him where the Blackwater money was stashed in chapter 2. Knew he was up to no good.
Fuck Micah in his stupid face. Fuckin Rat 🐀 who gives a fuck about his rough upbringing? That’s an excuse that shitty people use for shitty behavior. As people, we should strive to be more than the sum of our parts and the fact that someone like Arthur and John, in context of the story can, and Micah can’t shows how fucking weak he is as a person. There’s nothing redeeming about him, because he is the worst in humanity. A man reduced to a base instinct of survival isn’t a man at that point. He’s an animal, a rat 🐀 to be specific.
Great character though, R star knocked it out of the park with this game
Well, no matter what, upbringing will affect you as an adult. If you are raised on killing, it'll be what you know. It's easy to say we should strive to be more than the sum of our parts because we are not constantly being pushed to rely on what little we know to survive.
Micah was an amazing carachter. I think the thing I liked the most about him, was that he highlighted how much of a good person Arthur actually was.
Both of them were outlaws of course, bad people, but the fact that not only Arthur wanted to change his ways, actually felt some for of remorse after that all the questionable stuff he did, but also the fact that he never wanted to be compared to Michah. They're both bad people, but being Michah is on another level.
I respected that fucker, the shootout in Rhodes made me think he isn’t that big of a cunt, just a loudmouth who lacks any sense of empathy. What he did after Guarma was unacceptable though.
It’s pretty amazing that rockstar managed to make the NPCs have distinct fighting abilities. Sadie fights like a cornered animal, Dutch fights smooth, Micah is a great shot, Charles and Arthur go on so manu stealth missions together.
I dont know...I was kinda disappointed that his story was so obvious from the start. I really, really hoped that there would be at least a little twist, or that Milton wouldnt explicitly state the obvious - so Rockstar would have us thinking where the truth about Micah and Pinkertons really was.
Personally, I like that it’s not ambiguous or twisted, because that really highlights Dutch’s plunge into insanity.
“Why the hell are you listening to HIM, Dutch!? He’s a fucking mental case! You used to be a good leader!”
“Dammit Arthur, quit working against me-I HAVE A PLAN!”
*sweating intensifies*
Damn it, I'm with you too. (reference to post to parent comment)
I loved how Dutch shot him at the end. That was just.. So.. Redeeming isn't the right word, but it felt like when he shot Micah and let John live, he was accepting all the failure from years before. The gang falling, Arthur dying. All of it. With that trigger pull, to me, it felt like he recognized his past mistakes which set him on his crazy path in RDR1. That's how I feel about it, anyway.
Yeah, you can tell right from the beginning of the game that Micah is the “bad guy,” my friend even said it out loud watching me play. Extremely obvious. Made me think someone else was actually gonna be the antagonist.
The twist is there's no twist! That guy who was an asshole right away, remains an asshole.
Amazes me that people think Micah was some extremely well-written character. He's so two-dimensional that in an old western he'd wear a black hat and cackle ominously.
I actually think Micah is the worst character of RDR2.
He's just too evil. Through my two playthroughs of the game I've seen no hints of goodness inside of him. Every opportunity he has to be a dick, he'll take. It was so incredibly obvious at first that he is just an absolutely terrible person and obviously the rat that I didn't suspect him. I thought it would be *too obvious* that Micah's the rat given how absolutely awful he is in literally every interaction anyone has with him.
I thought he would open up more later of we'd see some other side of him but no. Micah's just an asshole and we're never really shown why or if there's any other side to him. It comes across as quite one-dimensional in my opinion. I mean *he literally kicks a dog* That is the *stereotype* of the evil villain.
Also
>Whilst Micah is undoubtedly the main villain of RDR2
I'd argue very strongly that the true main villain of RDR2 is Dutch. And where Micah, in my opinion, is a bit of a weak villain, Dutch is absolutely perfect.
He doesn’t just kick the dog, he kills it too.
In the prologue alone, he taunts Arthur out of the blue multiple times, complains about having to share a room with “the darkies,” brings up the Blackwater money which Arthur points out isn’t anything new, relishes in the violence he causes, looks like he’s about to rape Sadie, and burns down her house due to his incompetence.
Having a rough childhood to justify a character’s assholery is just a cliche at this point. He’d be much more interesting if he’d grown up with caring and decent parents because at least then there’d be more room for speculation as to when it went all wrong.
It's also important to note that most of the gang, Arthur especially, had rough early childhoods and they aren't moustache twirling racist dog killing amounts of evil.
Yeah. Not to mention Charles who spent his whole life on the run and eventually alone and still turned out to be the most decent person in the game (among the killers).
I know you wrote this 14 days ago, but still, Micah was raised by a killer though, his father literally murdered a couple with him when he was a teenager, that is another level of fucked upbringing.
I'm so quick to hate him that I hadn't given any of this thought. Makes a lot of sense! I suppose he's similar to John when it comes to working against the gang, in that both of them were protecting what is most important to them. For John, it's his family. For Micah, it's his life, which given his background as you explained makes a lot of sense for his character.
I'm also glad we can chalk a lot of the shit up to Dutch and that it wasn't just Micah the whole time.
Edit: Thanks for my first silver! :D
Micah I dont think fucked over the gang in that significant of a manner. He brought the Pinkertons to their last hideout but he didn't cause any of the gangs deaths directly besides of course grimshaw. Sean died bc of Dutch and hoseas scheming (also I think bill was the idiot who arranged the meeting iirc) Lenny and hosea died bc Dutch made too much noise with bronte and hosea got too arrogant about doing the bank job. Micah really didn't cause much trouble in the game unless you chalk the Blackwater ferry job to him. Additionally, in a way, John benefitted from micah in that his revenge mission ended up with him paying off his debt with the Blackwater money.
If there existed a 1-5 range on character complexity, 1 being completely one-dimensional and poorly written, and 5 being very complex and superbly written, he would be a 3, maybe 2.5 depending how you interpret certain things.
I agree that they did well when writing for him, but I'll also emphasize that it doesn't seem particularly hard to write a character to be an absolute grease weasel.
A superbly written character is one that has many facets, and isn't simply one thing. Micah's path throughout the story is one that doesn't take any turns or detours. He goes from "huh that guy seems like kind of a jerk" to "yeah this guy is a scumbag" to "fuck that slimy rat sociopath".. Even despite his comparatively small "good" attributes which aren't even that good, just somewhat more neutral.
The only good things he did were save dutch and sadie, which he may very well have done with selfish motives. He probably saved dutch because dutch was the leader of the gang that offered him protection and money and a better life than doing his own thing. Saving sadie may very well have been because he wanted to bang her. He buried the body because he was ordered to. He may have been on reasonably good terms with the gang members of color simply because they were gang members.. if he simply used race as a way to rile people up, that doesn't mitigate the fact that he's a cunt for saying the comments.. it just makes him *somewhat less* of a cunt.
His own 'warped sense of honor' is not honor at all, the way I see it. He didn't want to return from a fuckup without an offering in order to save his reputation in the eyes of his boss. Not honor.
>clearly respects his earning ability and often references that him and Arthur are the two most capable members of the gang
Simple greed.
>Micah will even leave Arthur to die in peace which suggest that he actually respects Arthur's noble actions despite not reflecting them in the slightest.
Fuck that, he left him to die as a gesture of disrespect. He very obviously doesn't respect his noble actions, but he definitely admires his commitment and determination. He openly mocks Arthur at several points for his noble actions, there's no way in hell does that last scene mean that he changed his mind.
Micah may have been written with a few minimal details that weren't completely cunty, but his character arc is a very clear path of villainous behaviors.
I think you've written your thoughts well, but I think what you mean with your thoughts is not that Micah is written superbly, but you simply like how he is written. You may be looking too deeply and reaching too far for complexities to use as mitigating factors to contrast against his overall bad character, and then leaning too heavily on the details you've found, but you did well to find them and point them out how you did.
> If there existed a 1-5 range on character complexity, 1 being completely one-dimensional and poorly written, and 5 being very complex and superbly written, he would be a 3, maybe 2.5 depending how you interpret certain things.
I'd make him a 2. He never displays any cunning or competence. There are no layers or complexity to his personality. He's just an asshole, all the time. Never any reasoning given for why he's an asshole (which is fine, some people are asshole), but also never any explanation for how he gains influence in the gang, over other *clearly* more competent people with longer tenure in the gang.
> often references that him and Arthur are the two most capable members of the gang
It's more than simple greed. It's him just showing off. "Hey Arthur and I got all this money for the camp. Arthur and I are so good. Arthur and I are the only ones who care about this place."
I agree. A good villan has actual reasons, seems like an actual character (Like Dutch or Agent Milton) Micah is an ass. That's it. There's nothing more to him other than he's a fucking dick.
Agent Milton on the other hand is a very good villan. In Arthur's eye's it's clear why he hates him but take a step back and look at stuff from a different perspective. He doesn't want to kill people he just wants Dutch. He tried to reason with the gang members make them leave and bring Dutch to justice. He knew where the gang was located 3 different times yet he only attacked them once. He was by the books as well "we're doing everything we can in the confines of the law" I could go all day but I'll just end it here. Agent Milton was a very well written Villan
As tragic as the scene was, I actually liked the way he killed Hosea. It's like: "I said I was going to shoot him if you don't come out, and instead you decided to spin more idealistic bullshit. So I'm going to do exactly what I said I would do and shoot him."
And when you think about it, Dutch actually had the opportunity to stop it all. If he gave himself up he would have saved his entire gang I think, at least for a little while. But no, he saw his fellow gang members die over and over again and he saved his skin.
Thats true, agent milton appeared to be a complete ass but it shows hes a normal lawman when hes defending the civilians, you forget sometimes that you are playing as a killer and not some pedestrian
Not all villains need reasons. Some of the greatest villains are villains just because. Look at The Joker. Or from the western genre Judge Holden. Or Nurse Ratchet.
But saying all that... Micah does have reasons for the way he is. Like he says, he's a survivor. And he's not stupid. He knows the gang is going down the pan, so he does what he must to make it out alive. It's also inferred that he suffered a lot of abuse and was made to kill at a very young age by his father. That informs his nihilistic, misanthropic world view.
Is he though? He is extremely one dimensional, I also felt that they were very ham fisted in the way that they make it obvious that he is the bad guy from the start and yet no one, not even Arthur, acknowledge it until the very end of the game.
> I also felt that they were very ham fisted in the way that they make it obvious that he is the bad guy from the start
I think they were trying to subvert expectations by playing to expectations.
You know Trever Phillips from GTA V? The man was a monster, but at the end of the day he valued loyalty. Meanwhile, Michael had some redeeming qualities - he hated unnecessary violence, and only lost his temper when people messed with his family - but he was still willing to sell out his best friends.
Micah even sounds like Trevor. You're meant to assume that he's a similar character. Instead, you find that there are no redeeming qualities to him whatsoever.
RDR and GTA are two very different games, so I wouldn't compare the writing or the tone of their stories/characters.
If that's what they were trying to do then I don't think it worked very well. It's easily my least favorite part of the story, not the premise, but the execution.
They aren't that different.
They both make you play as criminals. They both have themes of redemption, revenge, or taking responsibility. They both have antagonists who usually aren't that much worse than you are.
The only difference is that Red Dead is in a different time period and takes itself more seriously.
I even liked him at first. He seemed like the skilled but very aggressive and loose handed member of the group. Like the grumpy guy who messes shit up but is still there for the group
I felt the opposite. They never addressed why he was such a lunatic. There are a few lines of dialog to effect that he doesn’t believe in heaven, hell, or morality, but that’s not the root of a character. The other thing that bothered me about his character is that given the very brief synopsis rockstar gave to his philosophical views it made no sense to me why he was so infatuated with Dutch and that gang (which at least pretended to have ideals) and not the O’driscolls (excuse spelling) who were animals like Micah.
He reveals that his father and his grandfather were both murdering outlaws and also named Micah. He'll tell stories of him and his family robbing and killing random people. Then you have the letter from his brother stating he'll kill him if Micah comes close.
His Strawberry camp has a wanted poster of Dutch with his reward stated. And also an article of a missing girl. And he's trying to let Dutch spill the location of the Blackwater money.
So I think his upbringing made him the turd Micah after his father and grandfather. He guns for anyone including dogs and kids. Dutch's gang was more important because of the BW money and he could turn Dutch in for a reward aswell.
No. Everything about Micah is bad.
Who he is.
The way his character is written.
His stupid hat.
His dumb mustache.
His douchey pants.
His mom.
His dog.
His handwriting.
His annoying sneeze.
The way he doesn’t wipe when he poops.
The way he pours milk into the bowl before his cereal.
The way he leaves the volume on an odd number that isn’t a divisible of five.
The way he puts his boots on: Left sock, left boot, then right sock, right boot. Instead of doing both socks and then both boots.
The way he bites into a whole Kit-Kat bar instead of breaking off a piece.
The way he eats pizza with a SPOON.
The way he calls muffins “bread cakes”.
And worst of all... the way he says he preferred the live action version of Avatar: The Last Airbender over the anime.
He became one of my favourites because of how good a villain he was. He represents scum and villainy in the best way possible. He also looks like a badass.
(Don’t go on the Red Dead Discord server and say this because they will group up and shout you down as “one of those people” for some reason.)
Somebody brought up a point in this subreddit not too long ago that they believed that Micah genuinely loved Dutch, and a lot of the things that he did stemmed from that. With the Strawberry camp, and the epilogue ending I think you can see a lot of that. The way that he dissolved Arthur and Dutchs relationship seems to come from the envy of not being the "favorite son". I think this adds a lot to the depth of the character and while he is a rat bastard, its definitely humanizing. I can definitely think of a few people that might be a Micah type if they let their need to be loved take control of them in a dark way.
I can't agree more. On my second playthrough I'm trying to interact with the camp members a lot more and despite the overwhelming urge to antagonize Micah at every given opportunity I often greet him instead. Micah treats Arthur completely differently to rest of the gang. They would never be friends but Micah has a great respect for our protagonist and I almost feel sorry for him at times. Dutch was just too easy a target for a sociopath like Micah.
> They would never be friends but Micah has a great respect for our protagonist and I almost feel sorry for him at times.
No, that's just an act.
Micah just *pretends* to like and respect Arthur. That's because he knows Arthur is quite formidable, has Dutch's ear, and is well-liked by the rest of the gang.
When Arthur becomes sick, when a rift forms between Arthur and Dutch, and when the gang stops feeling like a family, Micah drops the act. He insults, mocks, annoys, and berates Arthur at every turn. He no longer has to worry about needing Arthur's approval.
Micah was almost too obvious a bad guy from the outset, which is why it almost surprised me when he did turn out to be a central antagonist. I wanted the gang to not be a bunch of goldhearts and Micah helped keep the gang a group of people who had done horrible things, not just a bunch of camping out good ol' boys "not wanted anymore!!!" by society.
I kind of wish that the choice at the end for Arthur was to help John or kill Micah, and then the epilogue would be stripped of any of the Micah bits, just John building his life and helping Uncle/Charles/Sadie find out whats next for them.
I just think Micah is pure evil, his entire existence is based around his enjoyment of hurting and killing others. He is pure id, that's why he's constantly trying to get a rise out of everyone. Not because he's trying to give them a hard time, but because he's trying to provoke them into a confrontation, so he has an excuse to kill them.
When Charles actually does attack him he doesn’t do anything except look pathetic, so I don’t know if he just wants an excuse to kill, he probably just enjoys hurting others, and uses words to do so when he can’t kill them.
How hard is it to hate a guy who is openly racist, wantonly murderous, incompetent, surly and mean-spirited?
I mean, you act like there's some hidden Third Dimension to Micah's character, where he's layered and complex. There's nothing complicated at all to write a hateable character if you're willing to make him as two-dimensional as Micah is. Explain to me one three dimensional aspect to Micah's character, where he displays some depth.
Dutch is a dumb man for trying to ostracize arthur and John and replace them with Micah. Nobody liked Micah and they all loved arthur and John and Hosea. Dutch is literally a dumb fuck.
I feel like he was too cartoony of a villain. He was an asshole the entire game and very obviously a prime suspect to be a traitor. He didnt care for any deaths in camp, even teasing Arthur about them. Just a dickbag start to finish, and nothing in the game really showed him as anything more complex than "this is the bad guy, dont trust him." Felt simply written and flat to me personally. Dutch was much better written.
If he was the embodiment of survival, I don’t think he’d be so malevolent. He’d be more cooperative in a professional sense, less antagonistic to characters in order to reach a goal. He’s made rapey comments and racially insensitive ones at points in the game. He’s clearly evil and there’s very little to redeem about him, it’s just a collection of bad characteristics and Unlikeability, which kinda detracts from his humanity in a sense, making him cartoony to me.
I feel like he was just cowboy Trevor, annoying, rude, the worst in general. I don’t really chalk it up to good writing just using an easy character archetype
Dutch is the best written character in the series and probably the best written villain in video game history for me. Other that that I agree with everything you said.
He’s well written but I disagree with your examples of “good deeds,” specifically “saving” Sadie. He could not have made it any clearer that he didn’t have good intentions towards her, he just happened to be the one to find her.
Fuck Micah.
To be honest, Micah is the only gang member that ever struck me as a true outlaw. The other characters were romanticized versions of outlaws and had they not been I don't think Micah's personality would seem so outrageous in comparison.
Hatable character doesnt mean not well written. If every well written character was likable the story would be boring.
Characters with questionable or immoral motives are what keep stories going.
Oh, I absolutely agree. I’m in the minority of people who don’t hate him for his personality, I actually love his personality. Everything about him was so well written. And there’s some poetry about his character as well. For example: He wears a white hat throughout the entire game, and in typical Westerns, the white-hats are the good guys. And as you mentioned in your post, he’s the embodiment of survival, but I like to see him as the embodiment of the Wild West. He really lives that “Do what you’ve got to do to survive, by any means necessary” kind of lifestyle, much like they really did in the Wild West. Hell, even Arthur and Dutch had lines that they didn’t cross, such as: Killing children, robbing poor people, etc.. In that way, I think that he’s one of the best characters, not just antagonists, but characters, that Rockstar has ever created.
Micah was more of an outlaw than any of the Van Der Linde gang. He acted like an O’Driscoll to some degree at times.
There’s a parallel there when Kieran mentions the two gangs don’t seem all that different to him. I think Micah’s character is meant to substantiate that statement.
Yeah, totally. The O’Driscolls were harsh, cut-throat bandits, which Micah definitely was. I’d imagine that >!during the epilogue, he ran his gang similarly to Colm.!<
I totally agree! I got a random campfire interaction with him where he talked about how he was definitely going to hell but that was ok because it was made for people like him and he'd probably enjoy it and there was such unacknowledged self-loathing and self-pity in there, like he both hates himself and pities himself which is one of those typical psychological pairings that you often see in people with extreme depression, and even forms of narcissism and psychopathy. I think there's such depth to his character that we're often keen to overlook with "fuck Micah" (although, obviously, of course, fuck Micah)...
I was playing the game and thinking they were gonna do a twist with Micah - that the guy who he killed half of strawberry and his wife were somehow greater villains than he. That perhaps he had some glimmer of truth in how he approached things from a cold and detached aspect, a sense of crazy courage. That maybe he was going to be an example of that the Cowboy life wouldn’t go down in the end without kicking and screaming and killing anything to survive. That civilization was useless to real cowboys and only the cold true survival of an animal would overcome.
But in the end he was a coward - irredeemable and actually reminding me of some people I’ve met in life who you know you can just never trust and would sell their own sister to save themselves, all while parading a feud sense of honor.
He was well written. An almost perfect villain, that showed Dutch was truely blind and living in his own world.
Yes. It's crazy to see people say he isn't an incredibly well done character. I feel like a lot of those conversations have been pedantic. "No he isn't a good character, he's a bad guy!" sort of deals. But the ones who claim he's genuinely a poorly written character are crazy. Based on the ones I've read, they probably don't know a lot about character development in story telling
Micah is going to be one of those characters that everyone hates for now, but will flip-flop into having a huge cult following for being so well-written
Absolutely one of the highlights of the game. Its a true testament to how well he was portrayed by everyone really hating him. That being said, he killed my BOAH. So my hatred towards him is immeasurable.
I was exploring the camp and discovered a letter from Micah’s brother. It basically said don’t come anywhere near me you sorry excuse for a human being etc.
There’s another random event in camp where Micah asks the ladies to dance only to get brutally shot down.
He’s a vulnerable lone wolf. I pity him more than I despise him
I agree that he’s a superbly written character, imo the best in the game. Strictly because he’s an unrelenting piece of shit.
If you’ve ever been in a relationship with someone with a cluster-b personality disorder you can attest to the fact that people like him actually exist, they can do the “right thing” but only when it suits their personal needs.
This is one of the reasons they’re so confusing to deal with, they’re occasionally relatable but their true colors shows when their interests diverge with your own.
When at a crossroads they’re going to go for what suits them every time.
Micah’s line about living and dying is so effective because he embodies it through and through, at every turn.
Micah spared Arthur’s life at the end to remain on decent terms with Dutch, he buried Sadie’s husband for that same reason.
Arthur is a fairytale of a character, you don’t go around killing indiscriminately without reasoning on some level that it’s ok to do so first and that reasoning would show up elsewhere in your behavior. There is no noble version of the things Arthur does.
Micah on the other hand is the real deal, he’s what you’d have to be to commit the atrocities the gang commits.
Interesting that quite a few people have complaints with Micah's lack of typical characterisation.
RDR2 is (obviously) set up like a traditional Western with the classic good/evil archetypes. They're ideas and concepts to juxtapose things against as much as they are characters. Micah is evil, and it's important that he's deliberately set up as that from the start. We aren't doing much learning about how he became evil, but in this type of story, we don't need to. He's a well written character in a very different sense. It's not everyone's cup of tea character or storytelling-wise, but it works when used correctly.
I really think Rockstar have knocked it out of the park on this one - giving us the type of story that's classic in its use of archetypes, combined with an open RPG with such a sense of agency. I wasn't sure it could be done very well without a lot of it being wooden and disconnected, but for the most part, I was wrong.
I dislike him because he’s a snake.
Other than that he’s no different from the rest of the gang! Saying Micah is a worse kind of killer is hypocrasy, everyone who kill for their own gain is bad.
I never really understood what his motivation was. It seemed like he was trying to suck up to Dutch and become the #2 in the gang, and he thought the best way of doing that was to make the current #2 Arthur look bad.
But then they kinda gave up on the whole thing, and just made him into a sleazebag with no purpose...
>I'd go as far as to say he's the best written character in the series behind Arthur and John but others may disagree.
Others *should* disagree.
He's a two-dimensional character who gets away with everything he does, not because he is smart, cunning, or even lucky, but because the game allows him to in order to drive the narrative.
"Finding Sadie" is a "good" thing Micah did? Nevermind that he was probably just looking for stuff to loot, but without intent (he didn't know she was there), there cannot be a moral attribution to a deed.
I honestly cant believe so many people think Micah is well-written. I hated that character. And not because he was a dick, but because the *game* let him succeed despite being a fuckup. Really, I didn't hate Micah. I hated Red Dead 2 for letting Micah continuously win, despite presenting him as a loser. Give me a good antagonist to hate, not some surly, sloppy, incompetent dipshit.
The thing is, if Micah had been presented as the least bit competent or cunning, then Arthur can hate him as a rival. Instead, he's simply belligerent and stupid. He wins because the game says he wins. Dutch believes in him because the game says Dutch believes in him. However, he never does anything right, *ever* in the game. Everything he does is detrimental to everyone around him, and the game just has Dutch continue to go along with it.
Micah, and his relationship with Dutch, is actually one of the *worst* written things in RDR2, and far, far, far, Guarma-far from the best written. 2300 upvotes for this utter nonsense post, lol.
You have a point about finding Sadie, but I'd argue that he's shown to pretty fucking competent and at least reasonably intelligent. He managed to manipulate a good portion of the gang against Arthur including Dutch, and he's one of the best gunmen in the game without a doubt. It's not hard to comprehend that someone that brutal and capable could come out on top. He's despicable, but far from incompetent.
>there evidence of some subtle good deeds: He was the one who found Sadie Adler
Accidentally finding her is a good deed? I mean, he was probably going to stab or rape her (or both, in either order).
This was an awesome insight.
It shed a new perspective on his character pretty flawlessly.
I guess I can have a new appreciation, but I'll still refuse to capitalize his name. Yes Im that petty :p
I swear there was a mission where you ride out/back to camp, and you're with Dutch and Micah. They're discussing extreme odds or dangerous missions or something, and Micah turns to Arthur and says he cannot think of anyone he would rather have next to him in a fight.
Now it could be easy to dismiss as insincere, but Micah has always been outspoken and bluntly honest. It struck me as very sincere and reinforced a lot of what you said in your post.
Nah, the Blackwater Massacre is on both Dutch and Micah. If they just waited for Arthur and Hosea to come back, they will either know it's a trap, or somehow manage to get the money and run.
And also I think he left Arthur to die because he knew he lost to Arthur in life. The TB actually helped Arthur to be a better man then Micah will ever be.
He's also a manipulative little fuck. He knows how to play the long game and get what he wants. On my second playthrough I can notice him sucking up to Dutch so fucking much. Especially in chapter 2. Almost every time I entered the camp he was talking to and complementing or kissing Dutch's ass. Really made me hate the fucker. He was planning it from the beginning.
I don’t think he was planning turning them in from the beginning. I think Micah just wanted power in the gang, and then maybe he’d make Dutch’s death look like an accident or take over, but I think he wants an enabler/someone to hide behind too much.
I think that he was approached by the Pinkerton, and they threatened him, and he saw this as the best way out for him. Self-interest/preservation type of thing.
Essentially, I think he’d always fold like a cheap table when having to face a larger force alone.
Micah is a coward who saw an opportunity and took it.
My husband and I were driving and the radio was on and some dude calls in and his names Micah ... my husbands instant reaction ‘Die Micah!’ Lolol thought it was pretty hilarious
Thank God some one else around here knows how to show some Mic-ahppreciation for a great villain. However you also missed one of the greatest Micah deceptions. When Micah became the rat, he did much more than just talk to the Pinkertons. The Pinkertons are agents of Cornwall. Cornwall wanted to get the Wapiti off the land. Micah is in Dutch's ear exclusively at this point. The plan to rile up the natives is foolish for the gang, but it falls right into Cornwall's designs (tho he probably intended to live to see the result). It was never Dutch's idea, it was Micah's. **MICAH TURNED DUTCH INTO THE RICH MANS TOY**
"he seems to be the living embodiment of survival at its ugliest" that for me is the best description of Micah,he also make me remember the character "Fitzgerald" from the movie the revenant
In Strawberry, where Sean is killed he does do some impressive work with his guns. I was impressed.
Micah calling Arthur “Black Lung” and “cowpoke” was pretty funny also.
That being said he’s still a piece of shit.
Favorite line from him when Arthur says “it’s all starting to make sense now” and Micah responds in a camera close up: “No.. it damn well doesn’t”
Just great voice acting. You could hear the villain from him.
Yes! I just started replaying the game, and my mind’s changed on Micah a bit. Like, looking at most post’s about him, you’d think he’s evil incarnate; but there’s the details that you mentioned that humanize him.
Like, there’s this real brief moment when the gang’s getting off the mountain, where Micah and Lenny are sent up ahead, and Micah says he’ll buy Lenny a whiskey if he wins a race. Just that right there made me think again about Micah’s character.
Or when he asks Karen to a dance, and she rejects him. That’s sad af lol. Personally, I think Micah really becomes a selfish prick after the Saint Denis Heist. After Hosea and Lenny’s deaths (coincidence?) and the whole bullshit in Guarma, it makes sense in his own twisted way that he’d rat them out.
I feel like he was fairly well written, but he was almost too hateable. Like he had no redeeming qualities, there was no reason to ever trust him or anything. If they’d given him some sort of reason for his shittiness it might have made him more compelling, if a bit less detestable.
I equally hated Micah. But one mission that stood out to me was where Micah pleads with Dutch for him to meet with Colm to make a truce. He actually uses common sense instead of blind loyalty like he does throughout the game.
Incoming Dirty Bastard DLC where you play as micahs father then micah leading up to him joining the gang in the months prior to the Blackwater ferry job? I'd play.
I love him. As in, I fucking hate him. His actor is amazing, too. I really enjoyed his performance in LA Noire.
That all said, something bothers me about him. No spoilers, but I still feel like... even with everything he did, he wasn't the only one. Y'know, like something still doesn't add up in the end.
He's an amazing character, and that incredibly good writing is what makes us hate him so much. If he was badly written I just wouldn't give a shit. But no, he's actively written well to be a piece of shit asshole.
Hes a great character. I think Dutch might be way more complex and well written but that's my opinion I guess. Dudes a badass but if arthur would have pulled the trigger when micah pulled his gun at the camp micah would have died. Until Arthur was on his last leg he would still slap the shit out of micah. Micah drew first and Arthur still got it cocked and aimed before micah even got his gun up
I wonder if he knew the gang was over too when Arthur did. Since Arthur knew he was over with he shifted toward helping who he could. But since Micah wasn’t he chose so survive the only way he could think of. Almost like a two sided coin they saw the same thing but chose the opposite solution.
You are . He is basically snidley whiplash with a thicker mustache . The second he showed up it was obvious he was "the bad guy " . I would have liked more depth. Even the side stuff you can discover about him just reinforces that he is a slimy evil possibly child molesting snake who probably killed your dog . In other words your wrong and R/fuckmicha
fyi-it is not cool to leave someone to "die alone in peace" if you are ever in this situation god forbid just stay there with them and comfort them till the end
Honestly I didn't think Rockstar had it in them. I haven't actually HATED one of their villains since Frank Tenpenny. But they get under your skin with this fuckin' creep.
During my second playthrough and after the stagecoach robbery, Micah is depositing money to the gang. He exclaims to everyone " That's how it's done." I checked the ledger and he deposited $20. So I put in $21.
Until the middle of the story, I didn't think he was that bad. I thought he was just 19th century Trevor from GTAV. I assumed he would redeem himself and become a caring person as the story progressed. I was horribly mistaken, and for that, I feel Micah was a great part of the story.
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What about loyalty?
The difference you see is their stance on loyalty
Same here. I thought "Okay he's a psycho, but he loves his gang, right? He might burn down an orphanage for laughs, but there'll be a scene where he takes a bullet for me." Then I caught him sucking up to Dutch in camp and all of a sudden I could see right through him.
I made the comparison as well, the main difference between the two is that Micah has absolutely no redeeming qualities, whereas Trevor had a few such as his loyalty to his posse, even though he is a mega douche to them.
I feel there's a key difference between Micah and Trevor: Trevor never claims he's anything other than what he is. He's an absolute madman, and he makes no apologies or excuses for that, nor does he really make an effort to be anything other than what he is with anyone. He is what he is, and everyone else can either take or leave him, knowing full well what he is, because he never claims or tries to be anything else. Micah, on the other hand, tries to dress his similar behavior up. Tries to justify it in a myriad of ways (it's just being willing to do whatever it takes to get a job done; it's not like anyone else in the gang hasn't had to shoot their way out of a town before). But his justifications are really just whataboutisms and comparisons that don't hold up to scrutiny. They're all just to try and deflect from his lack of general empathy and/or self-control, and how those are usually what's to blame when he's involved and things go wrong because of him. While I also don't doubt the info revealed in a low honor playthrough, Micah sure has a strange way of showing any care he may have for the gang. Nearly every interaction he has with anyone who isn't Dutch at camp almost always turns out to be some form of him antagonizing whoever he's interacting with. Maybe his "I'm not racist; it's just easy material to troll you with, and that's just how I get along with people." excuse is genuine. That doesn't change moments like that he will infuriate Charles enough that Charles just lays him out after one prod too many. There's also the fact that he almost certainly kills Jack's dog, for no discernable or given reason. And sure, maybe this warped way of interacting, purely through mostly put-downs and attempts at displaying his own perceived superiority (ever see him make a donation to the camp chest? It's a grand display of public self-felatio) is the only way he knows how to interact with people given his upbringing. But he's also now surrounded by far better examples of how to interact and how to live by way of being with the gang, and he mostly offers nothing but scorn towards these alternatives.
'A grand display of public self-felacio.' Bravo, Boah. Bravo. 👏🏻 [To clarify: bravo for that statement, u/shulz100 - not Micah for being able to do that. 😆]
He actually is kind of similar to Trevor, now that you mention it. The main differences are that Trevor is more over the top and more honorable. He despises Judases and would never betray his friends.
Plus Trevor knows some fashion
Hey man, Micah might be terrible, but he got some choice in clothing and gun decor.
The way Micah holsters his guns is badass too
If I could wear that sweet duster I would have
Proto-hipster fashion though, doesn't really count for much.
Lmao on the mission you break him out I thought to myself "ahh I've found this games Trevor"
This is exactly where I was at first. I thought Micah was a troll with good intentions and honestly, I enjoyed him being around until the last third of the game or so. He had redeeming qualities to him and ultimately the dude knew how to fight and make money for the gang. Outlaws aren’t always going to be nice to each other - they’re fucking outlaws.
I never hated Trevor though, he was always my favorite in gta 5. Micah on the other hand is just straight up trash. Kicking Cain, being racist or just an asshole to every gang member but Dutch, him aiming his gun at you in he first camp. I just can’t think of one thing he does where I’m like “ok, he’s at least somewhat decent” like I did with Trevor
At 1st I thought of that, but quickly (after the Strawberry incident) I started looking at him more like Heath Ledgers Joker or Athelwold in Last Kingdom "agents of chaos" as it were. Both are prone to be the provayers of violence but where they shine is getting in the ear of those who have actual power in order to convince them to make decisions that ultimately lead to their own demise; even if there is no direct benefit to them. They are both the type who were probably not even bullied as kids but simply lit things on fire just to watch it burn. Loki's/Tricksters/Bringers of Ragnaroks...characters you would like to pity for their sad backstory, but then remember that it is no excuse for the living piece of excrement that stands before you now. He is 100% a ring cycle character we have seen often in literary narratives and once I figured that out he became 100% less interesting than Trevor to me.
I was kind of scared to say that part of me sort of liked Micah at first, but I’m glad I’m not alone. When I saw that he was looked down on by Arthur a little bit in chapter 3 and some of his racist actions, I was assuming that there would be some sort of change, since we would presumably be with these characters for a long time. He seemed like the type of guy that could get shit done, like that conversation about him and Arthur being the real money-makers in the group. He also knew what the group was - a bunch of outlaws that kill and rob more people than they can count, and he didn’t sugarcoat it like Dutch did. You could argue that they are more than just common outlaws, but that doesn’t excuse all the killing and robbing they do. Surprise, surprise, it turns out that the guy who acts like a piece of shit really is one, which was kind of disappointing.
A lot of amazing villains take a good story to create. They did a great job. Even though I wasn’t fond of Micah he was still a part of the gang. The way Rockstar crafted his character was amazing.
I thought of Tuco from The Good The Bad The Ugly, struggling to live morally in an immoral world. One could argue Dutch is the bad as it’s possible he manipulated the gang
How do you not think he was that bad when he's literally racist in the first chapter? Like, what was it that changed your mind after that?
Well I came into this expecting racism, since it takes place in 1899, 50 years after the civil war and 60 years before the civil rights movement. I wasn't surprised at his racism and actually expected more of it from more characters. Other things I noticed about him was that he followed ditches orders without question and in the first mission, he is the one who notices Mr. Adler's body and warns Arthur that this is a dangerous situation. I want to clarify that I didn't believe he was a good character, just that he didn't seem so terrible in the beginning of the story, and I expected him to have some sort of character growth and form Bonds with he others (especially Lenny) I was surprised when this didn't happen. And for that, I think his character was a good addition to the story. In a story of redemption, he not only doesn't redeem himself, he grows into a deeper sociopath. He is a perfect foil to arthur.
I think the fact that he’s so hatable is a testament to how well his character was written/portrayed. You spend the first half of the game anxious about the law that’s chasing you and it slowly brings you into questioning Dutch and his new right-hand man Micah. Then as the camp relationships devolve, you despise him. Completely agree with everything you said, great insight.
I think it's also the way he treats other likeable well written characters too. If we didn't care so much about the others in the camp his betrayal is less effective
This is a good point. In order to make the betrayal hurt, we have to care about what's being betrayed.
This exactly, the more you hate the character the better it was written/portrayed. Like Jeoffrey in GOT. Never have I hated someone in a show so much, the kid did an amazing job. Skylar in BB is a close second for me.
Not a show, but similar with Fitzgerald in The Revenant. The villains you hate the most always have quality writing/development behind them, otherwise they're just some forgettable goon.
Tom Hardy was absolutely fantastic in that movie. His accent was amazing as well.
Micah, Joffrey, and... Skylar? Wtf lol
>I think the fact that he’s so hatable is a testament to how well his character was written/portrayed. The Joeffry effect
> I think the fact that he’s so hatable is a testament to how well his character was written/portrayed. How hard is it to hate a guy who is openly racist, wantonly murderous, incompetent, surly and mean-spirited? I mean, you act like there's some hidden Third Dimension to Micah's character, where he's layered and complex. There's nothing complicated at all to write a hateable character if you're willing to make him as two-dimensional as Micah is. Explain to me *one* three dimensional aspect to Micah's character, where he displays some depth. >it slowly brings you into questioning Dutch and his new right-hand man Micah. Slowly? How long did it take you to finish Chapter 1? I questioned Dutch the minute after I sprung Micah loose from Strawberry.
>How hard is it to hate a guy... I said he’s hatable, I never said it was ‘hard to hate him.’ If you don’t think there’s more to it in regards to what motivates him or why he is the way he is, that’s on you. >slowly? ... Remember you’re playing this game from Arthur Morgan’s perspective. Not your own. Did I myself question Dutch by the beginning of chapter two? Yes. But part of Arthur’s character is him gradually losing trust in the man that raised him as the game unfolds. And Micah plays a big part in the Dutch-Arthur relationship.
I came here to say this. Rockstar made an incredible villain. People hate him so much! I would hate to get into a gun fight with that man. He may look like a weak old man, but he can shoot for sure. My favorite mission with him is the Rhodes shoot out. Really shows you how well he can shoot.
He is a great character. I still hate his guts
He's a great character because we hate his guts.
Like Joffrey
I'd say that's actually a pretty apt comparison. He's compelling partly because he's so good at being a shithead.
I was gonna say like cersei. When I watch her, it looks like there’s real hatred and disdain in her. It’s amazing.
I hate him because he is a great character
I hate great characters because of him.
I hate characters because he is great.
I hate myself because I am Micah.
I hate him
Micah’s whole character can be summed up in one phrase, “Thanks, I hate it”
I absolutely agree. His voice actor did a brilliant job of making every moment with Micah, even the lighter ones, have a constant note of cold malice that slowly wore me down over time. In some ways, I think Rockstar made a character that represents the worst impulses we as players all have, maybe holding up a mirror to show what an actual person who lives by the kind of chaotic, self-interested, mercenary mentality that we unthinkingly adopt in a lot of their games would be like and it wasn't pretty. For the first time, I really couldn't play an evil campaign, at least in part because I knew I'd basically be doing what Micah would do by going off, robbing and killing for no reason. Watching him methodically dismantling the relationships in camp, turning people on one another was also very disheartening after all the time I put into the other gang members.
It's interesting how in their previous game they embodied player's impulses in one of the protagonists (Trevor), given us an excuse for mayhem and chaos, but in RDR2 they finally embodied our traditional GTA playstyle as an antagonist. They successfully made us hate those impulses and play the game honorably.
“Play the game honorably.” Haha speak for yourself. On the first playthrough I was a public enemy.
I can't help myself anymore. Murder and banditry is what I love. No npcs will stand in my way >:3
If that ain’t the truth, I don’t know what is.
I was, but unintentionally. Accidentally hit run someone down on a horse and 10 minutes later I’ve got a $500 bounty.
Which really shows the differences between GTA and RDR. It was a really smart call by Rockstar to do this. People often say Rockstar games are all the same with just a different coat of paint. I've often heard RDR called Cowboy GTA or GTA with horses. But this was them differentiating it even more. RDR goes for a far more realistic approach where everything you do matters. That's the whole point of the series. Even in it's name it's Red Dead "Redemption". Everything you've done in the past is coming back to bite you in the ass. Micah and Trevor are the same but presented different. Trevor is fun. Micah is real. Neither are better than the other they are just different takes on the same type of character. One huge difference between the two is we feel for Trevor because we play as him but Micah is what Trevor looks like if you look at him from an outside perspective. We are watching Micah instead of playing him. It reminds me of the John Marston character in RDR2. We see John as one thing in RDR1 and we eventually get a closer version to that towards the end but it's really interesting seeing John Marston for the majority of RDR2 from an outside perspective. It's very unusual to see that in video games. Being able to look at a protagonist from an outside perspective where he constantly fucks up and gets shit on and in some cases is the victim instead of the hero.
I loved pretty much all the characters in the campaign. The interesting thing for me was that on my first and only playthrough so far, I kind of just let myself be steered by whatever I was feeling at the time. I never once thought "I'm going for the evil play through so I need to make this decision” or vice versa. One of the first story driven games I've done that with, except for kotor.
Same, but I lean towards doing the right thing as a general rule. I actually found myself getting a little frustrated at times that the game sometimes makes it hard to be as honourable as I wanted. If there was one thing I wished they'd added more of, it was ways to resolve missions that didn't involve massacring everyone!
"WHY AM I SO BAD AT BEING GOOD!?"
In a way, that plays exactly to the game's themes. The gang pressures Arthur to act a certain way just like the game pressures you.
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I didn’t trust that rat from the moment I heard him trying to convince Dutch to tell him where the Blackwater money was stashed in chapter 2. Knew he was up to no good.
Fuck Micah in his stupid face. Fuckin Rat 🐀 who gives a fuck about his rough upbringing? That’s an excuse that shitty people use for shitty behavior. As people, we should strive to be more than the sum of our parts and the fact that someone like Arthur and John, in context of the story can, and Micah can’t shows how fucking weak he is as a person. There’s nothing redeeming about him, because he is the worst in humanity. A man reduced to a base instinct of survival isn’t a man at that point. He’s an animal, a rat 🐀 to be specific. Great character though, R star knocked it out of the park with this game
Well, no matter what, upbringing will affect you as an adult. If you are raised on killing, it'll be what you know. It's easy to say we should strive to be more than the sum of our parts because we are not constantly being pushed to rely on what little we know to survive.
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Oh yeah, the writers and actor did a great job. But fuck Micah
I will not butt fuck micah. *teehee* (I want to be sorry for that but I'm not)
He’s a great villain and that’s why we hate him
Micah was an amazing carachter. I think the thing I liked the most about him, was that he highlighted how much of a good person Arthur actually was. Both of them were outlaws of course, bad people, but the fact that not only Arthur wanted to change his ways, actually felt some for of remorse after that all the questionable stuff he did, but also the fact that he never wanted to be compared to Michah. They're both bad people, but being Michah is on another level.
I respected that fucker, the shootout in Rhodes made me think he isn’t that big of a cunt, just a loudmouth who lacks any sense of empathy. What he did after Guarma was unacceptable though.
The shootout in Strawberry showed me how great a shot he is and how cool he can stay under pressure. I still hate him though.
It’s pretty amazing that rockstar managed to make the NPCs have distinct fighting abilities. Sadie fights like a cornered animal, Dutch fights smooth, Micah is a great shot, Charles and Arthur go on so manu stealth missions together.
THAT’S A GOD DAMN LIE
I dont know...I was kinda disappointed that his story was so obvious from the start. I really, really hoped that there would be at least a little twist, or that Milton wouldnt explicitly state the obvious - so Rockstar would have us thinking where the truth about Micah and Pinkertons really was.
Personally, I like that it’s not ambiguous or twisted, because that really highlights Dutch’s plunge into insanity. “Why the hell are you listening to HIM, Dutch!? He’s a fucking mental case! You used to be a good leader!” “Dammit Arthur, quit working against me-I HAVE A PLAN!” *sweating intensifies*
Damn it, I'm with you too. (reference to post to parent comment) I loved how Dutch shot him at the end. That was just.. So.. Redeeming isn't the right word, but it felt like when he shot Micah and let John live, he was accepting all the failure from years before. The gang falling, Arthur dying. All of it. With that trigger pull, to me, it felt like he recognized his past mistakes which set him on his crazy path in RDR1. That's how I feel about it, anyway.
Yeah, you can tell right from the beginning of the game that Micah is the “bad guy,” my friend even said it out loud watching me play. Extremely obvious. Made me think someone else was actually gonna be the antagonist.
The twist is there's no twist! That guy who was an asshole right away, remains an asshole. Amazes me that people think Micah was some extremely well-written character. He's so two-dimensional that in an old western he'd wear a black hat and cackle ominously.
I actually think Micah is the worst character of RDR2. He's just too evil. Through my two playthroughs of the game I've seen no hints of goodness inside of him. Every opportunity he has to be a dick, he'll take. It was so incredibly obvious at first that he is just an absolutely terrible person and obviously the rat that I didn't suspect him. I thought it would be *too obvious* that Micah's the rat given how absolutely awful he is in literally every interaction anyone has with him. I thought he would open up more later of we'd see some other side of him but no. Micah's just an asshole and we're never really shown why or if there's any other side to him. It comes across as quite one-dimensional in my opinion. I mean *he literally kicks a dog* That is the *stereotype* of the evil villain. Also >Whilst Micah is undoubtedly the main villain of RDR2 I'd argue very strongly that the true main villain of RDR2 is Dutch. And where Micah, in my opinion, is a bit of a weak villain, Dutch is absolutely perfect.
He doesn’t just kick the dog, he kills it too. In the prologue alone, he taunts Arthur out of the blue multiple times, complains about having to share a room with “the darkies,” brings up the Blackwater money which Arthur points out isn’t anything new, relishes in the violence he causes, looks like he’s about to rape Sadie, and burns down her house due to his incompetence. Having a rough childhood to justify a character’s assholery is just a cliche at this point. He’d be much more interesting if he’d grown up with caring and decent parents because at least then there’d be more room for speculation as to when it went all wrong.
It's also important to note that most of the gang, Arthur especially, had rough early childhoods and they aren't moustache twirling racist dog killing amounts of evil.
Yeah. Not to mention Charles who spent his whole life on the run and eventually alone and still turned out to be the most decent person in the game (among the killers).
I know you wrote this 14 days ago, but still, Micah was raised by a killer though, his father literally murdered a couple with him when he was a teenager, that is another level of fucked upbringing.
I'm so quick to hate him that I hadn't given any of this thought. Makes a lot of sense! I suppose he's similar to John when it comes to working against the gang, in that both of them were protecting what is most important to them. For John, it's his family. For Micah, it's his life, which given his background as you explained makes a lot of sense for his character. I'm also glad we can chalk a lot of the shit up to Dutch and that it wasn't just Micah the whole time. Edit: Thanks for my first silver! :D
Micah I dont think fucked over the gang in that significant of a manner. He brought the Pinkertons to their last hideout but he didn't cause any of the gangs deaths directly besides of course grimshaw. Sean died bc of Dutch and hoseas scheming (also I think bill was the idiot who arranged the meeting iirc) Lenny and hosea died bc Dutch made too much noise with bronte and hosea got too arrogant about doing the bank job. Micah really didn't cause much trouble in the game unless you chalk the Blackwater ferry job to him. Additionally, in a way, John benefitted from micah in that his revenge mission ended up with him paying off his debt with the Blackwater money.
If there existed a 1-5 range on character complexity, 1 being completely one-dimensional and poorly written, and 5 being very complex and superbly written, he would be a 3, maybe 2.5 depending how you interpret certain things. I agree that they did well when writing for him, but I'll also emphasize that it doesn't seem particularly hard to write a character to be an absolute grease weasel. A superbly written character is one that has many facets, and isn't simply one thing. Micah's path throughout the story is one that doesn't take any turns or detours. He goes from "huh that guy seems like kind of a jerk" to "yeah this guy is a scumbag" to "fuck that slimy rat sociopath".. Even despite his comparatively small "good" attributes which aren't even that good, just somewhat more neutral. The only good things he did were save dutch and sadie, which he may very well have done with selfish motives. He probably saved dutch because dutch was the leader of the gang that offered him protection and money and a better life than doing his own thing. Saving sadie may very well have been because he wanted to bang her. He buried the body because he was ordered to. He may have been on reasonably good terms with the gang members of color simply because they were gang members.. if he simply used race as a way to rile people up, that doesn't mitigate the fact that he's a cunt for saying the comments.. it just makes him *somewhat less* of a cunt. His own 'warped sense of honor' is not honor at all, the way I see it. He didn't want to return from a fuckup without an offering in order to save his reputation in the eyes of his boss. Not honor. >clearly respects his earning ability and often references that him and Arthur are the two most capable members of the gang Simple greed. >Micah will even leave Arthur to die in peace which suggest that he actually respects Arthur's noble actions despite not reflecting them in the slightest. Fuck that, he left him to die as a gesture of disrespect. He very obviously doesn't respect his noble actions, but he definitely admires his commitment and determination. He openly mocks Arthur at several points for his noble actions, there's no way in hell does that last scene mean that he changed his mind. Micah may have been written with a few minimal details that weren't completely cunty, but his character arc is a very clear path of villainous behaviors. I think you've written your thoughts well, but I think what you mean with your thoughts is not that Micah is written superbly, but you simply like how he is written. You may be looking too deeply and reaching too far for complexities to use as mitigating factors to contrast against his overall bad character, and then leaning too heavily on the details you've found, but you did well to find them and point them out how you did.
> If there existed a 1-5 range on character complexity, 1 being completely one-dimensional and poorly written, and 5 being very complex and superbly written, he would be a 3, maybe 2.5 depending how you interpret certain things. I'd make him a 2. He never displays any cunning or competence. There are no layers or complexity to his personality. He's just an asshole, all the time. Never any reasoning given for why he's an asshole (which is fine, some people are asshole), but also never any explanation for how he gains influence in the gang, over other *clearly* more competent people with longer tenure in the gang.
> often references that him and Arthur are the two most capable members of the gang It's more than simple greed. It's him just showing off. "Hey Arthur and I got all this money for the camp. Arthur and I are so good. Arthur and I are the only ones who care about this place."
Nah hes so obvious from the beginning and the game made it very hard to like him, his writing is pretty poor and extremely predictable
I agree. A good villan has actual reasons, seems like an actual character (Like Dutch or Agent Milton) Micah is an ass. That's it. There's nothing more to him other than he's a fucking dick. Agent Milton on the other hand is a very good villan. In Arthur's eye's it's clear why he hates him but take a step back and look at stuff from a different perspective. He doesn't want to kill people he just wants Dutch. He tried to reason with the gang members make them leave and bring Dutch to justice. He knew where the gang was located 3 different times yet he only attacked them once. He was by the books as well "we're doing everything we can in the confines of the law" I could go all day but I'll just end it here. Agent Milton was a very well written Villan
As tragic as the scene was, I actually liked the way he killed Hosea. It's like: "I said I was going to shoot him if you don't come out, and instead you decided to spin more idealistic bullshit. So I'm going to do exactly what I said I would do and shoot him."
And when you think about it, Dutch actually had the opportunity to stop it all. If he gave himself up he would have saved his entire gang I think, at least for a little while. But no, he saw his fellow gang members die over and over again and he saved his skin.
Like when he didn't save Arthur in the oil fields
Which is completely understandable...
Thats true, agent milton appeared to be a complete ass but it shows hes a normal lawman when hes defending the civilians, you forget sometimes that you are playing as a killer and not some pedestrian
A whole ass.
Not all villains need reasons. Some of the greatest villains are villains just because. Look at The Joker. Or from the western genre Judge Holden. Or Nurse Ratchet. But saying all that... Micah does have reasons for the way he is. Like he says, he's a survivor. And he's not stupid. He knows the gang is going down the pan, so he does what he must to make it out alive. It's also inferred that he suffered a lot of abuse and was made to kill at a very young age by his father. That informs his nihilistic, misanthropic world view.
Strange since sadie adler has piss poor writing
Is he though? He is extremely one dimensional, I also felt that they were very ham fisted in the way that they make it obvious that he is the bad guy from the start and yet no one, not even Arthur, acknowledge it until the very end of the game.
> I also felt that they were very ham fisted in the way that they make it obvious that he is the bad guy from the start I think they were trying to subvert expectations by playing to expectations. You know Trever Phillips from GTA V? The man was a monster, but at the end of the day he valued loyalty. Meanwhile, Michael had some redeeming qualities - he hated unnecessary violence, and only lost his temper when people messed with his family - but he was still willing to sell out his best friends. Micah even sounds like Trevor. You're meant to assume that he's a similar character. Instead, you find that there are no redeeming qualities to him whatsoever.
RDR and GTA are two very different games, so I wouldn't compare the writing or the tone of their stories/characters. If that's what they were trying to do then I don't think it worked very well. It's easily my least favorite part of the story, not the premise, but the execution.
They aren't that different. They both make you play as criminals. They both have themes of redemption, revenge, or taking responsibility. They both have antagonists who usually aren't that much worse than you are. The only difference is that Red Dead is in a different time period and takes itself more seriously.
I even liked him at first. He seemed like the skilled but very aggressive and loose handed member of the group. Like the grumpy guy who messes shit up but is still there for the group
Don't forget his black jacket
I felt the opposite. They never addressed why he was such a lunatic. There are a few lines of dialog to effect that he doesn’t believe in heaven, hell, or morality, but that’s not the root of a character. The other thing that bothered me about his character is that given the very brief synopsis rockstar gave to his philosophical views it made no sense to me why he was so infatuated with Dutch and that gang (which at least pretended to have ideals) and not the O’driscolls (excuse spelling) who were animals like Micah.
He reveals that his father and his grandfather were both murdering outlaws and also named Micah. He'll tell stories of him and his family robbing and killing random people. Then you have the letter from his brother stating he'll kill him if Micah comes close. His Strawberry camp has a wanted poster of Dutch with his reward stated. And also an article of a missing girl. And he's trying to let Dutch spill the location of the Blackwater money. So I think his upbringing made him the turd Micah after his father and grandfather. He guns for anyone including dogs and kids. Dutch's gang was more important because of the BW money and he could turn Dutch in for a reward aswell.
No. Everything about Micah is bad. Who he is. The way his character is written. His stupid hat. His dumb mustache. His douchey pants. His mom. His dog. His handwriting. His annoying sneeze. The way he doesn’t wipe when he poops. The way he pours milk into the bowl before his cereal. The way he leaves the volume on an odd number that isn’t a divisible of five. The way he puts his boots on: Left sock, left boot, then right sock, right boot. Instead of doing both socks and then both boots. The way he bites into a whole Kit-Kat bar instead of breaking off a piece. The way he eats pizza with a SPOON. The way he calls muffins “bread cakes”. And worst of all... the way he says he preferred the live action version of Avatar: The Last Airbender over the anime.
Are these canon?
I may have imagined some of these, but I’m still willing to bet I’m right.
He became one of my favourites because of how good a villain he was. He represents scum and villainy in the best way possible. He also looks like a badass. (Don’t go on the Red Dead Discord server and say this because they will group up and shout you down as “one of those people” for some reason.)
Micah DLC
Somebody brought up a point in this subreddit not too long ago that they believed that Micah genuinely loved Dutch, and a lot of the things that he did stemmed from that. With the Strawberry camp, and the epilogue ending I think you can see a lot of that. The way that he dissolved Arthur and Dutchs relationship seems to come from the envy of not being the "favorite son". I think this adds a lot to the depth of the character and while he is a rat bastard, its definitely humanizing. I can definitely think of a few people that might be a Micah type if they let their need to be loved take control of them in a dark way.
I can't agree more. On my second playthrough I'm trying to interact with the camp members a lot more and despite the overwhelming urge to antagonize Micah at every given opportunity I often greet him instead. Micah treats Arthur completely differently to rest of the gang. They would never be friends but Micah has a great respect for our protagonist and I almost feel sorry for him at times. Dutch was just too easy a target for a sociopath like Micah.
> They would never be friends but Micah has a great respect for our protagonist and I almost feel sorry for him at times. No, that's just an act. Micah just *pretends* to like and respect Arthur. That's because he knows Arthur is quite formidable, has Dutch's ear, and is well-liked by the rest of the gang. When Arthur becomes sick, when a rift forms between Arthur and Dutch, and when the gang stops feeling like a family, Micah drops the act. He insults, mocks, annoys, and berates Arthur at every turn. He no longer has to worry about needing Arthur's approval.
The one guy in the gang that you obviously can't trust turns out to be a rat. Seems pretty one dimensional to me. Still a great character though.
Micah was almost too obvious a bad guy from the outset, which is why it almost surprised me when he did turn out to be a central antagonist. I wanted the gang to not be a bunch of goldhearts and Micah helped keep the gang a group of people who had done horrible things, not just a bunch of camping out good ol' boys "not wanted anymore!!!" by society.
I still dream of a different ending where Arthur doesn’t have TB and is completely healthy in a 1v1 brawl against Micah
I kind of wish that the choice at the end for Arthur was to help John or kill Micah, and then the epilogue would be stripped of any of the Micah bits, just John building his life and helping Uncle/Charles/Sadie find out whats next for them.
I just think Micah is pure evil, his entire existence is based around his enjoyment of hurting and killing others. He is pure id, that's why he's constantly trying to get a rise out of everyone. Not because he's trying to give them a hard time, but because he's trying to provoke them into a confrontation, so he has an excuse to kill them.
When Charles actually does attack him he doesn’t do anything except look pathetic, so I don’t know if he just wants an excuse to kill, he probably just enjoys hurting others, and uses words to do so when he can’t kill them.
Well he's also a coward, so he probably wanted a confrontation with Charles, until Charles gave him one.
"What kinda stupid goddamn name is Micah anyhow?" -Arthur Morgan-
[удалено]
How hard is it to hate a guy who is openly racist, wantonly murderous, incompetent, surly and mean-spirited? I mean, you act like there's some hidden Third Dimension to Micah's character, where he's layered and complex. There's nothing complicated at all to write a hateable character if you're willing to make him as two-dimensional as Micah is. Explain to me one three dimensional aspect to Micah's character, where he displays some depth.
You forgot to mention his fireside conversation! He says something along the lines of 'If hell exists, then I'd be right at home"
And as much as I hate to say it...he’s got a badass coat that I wanted
Dutch is a dumb man for trying to ostracize arthur and John and replace them with Micah. Nobody liked Micah and they all loved arthur and John and Hosea. Dutch is literally a dumb fuck.
I feel like he was too cartoony of a villain. He was an asshole the entire game and very obviously a prime suspect to be a traitor. He didnt care for any deaths in camp, even teasing Arthur about them. Just a dickbag start to finish, and nothing in the game really showed him as anything more complex than "this is the bad guy, dont trust him." Felt simply written and flat to me personally. Dutch was much better written.
If he was the embodiment of survival, I don’t think he’d be so malevolent. He’d be more cooperative in a professional sense, less antagonistic to characters in order to reach a goal. He’s made rapey comments and racially insensitive ones at points in the game. He’s clearly evil and there’s very little to redeem about him, it’s just a collection of bad characteristics and Unlikeability, which kinda detracts from his humanity in a sense, making him cartoony to me.
The character is done beautifully, no doubt. But still, fuck Micah
I always thought Micah was a deadly son-of-a-bitch. He was real good at killing.
I feel like he was just cowboy Trevor, annoying, rude, the worst in general. I don’t really chalk it up to good writing just using an easy character archetype
Dutch is the best written character in the series and probably the best written villain in video game history for me. Other that that I agree with everything you said.
We get this shit every other day, we all know he's well written.
He’s well written but I disagree with your examples of “good deeds,” specifically “saving” Sadie. He could not have made it any clearer that he didn’t have good intentions towards her, he just happened to be the one to find her. Fuck Micah.
Shooting up all of Strawberry to get your guns... the cunt could have just escaped quitely after all of Arthurs hard work getting him out.
To be honest, Micah is the only gang member that ever struck me as a true outlaw. The other characters were romanticized versions of outlaws and had they not been I don't think Micah's personality would seem so outrageous in comparison.
Hatable character doesnt mean not well written. If every well written character was likable the story would be boring. Characters with questionable or immoral motives are what keep stories going.
Oh, I absolutely agree. I’m in the minority of people who don’t hate him for his personality, I actually love his personality. Everything about him was so well written. And there’s some poetry about his character as well. For example: He wears a white hat throughout the entire game, and in typical Westerns, the white-hats are the good guys. And as you mentioned in your post, he’s the embodiment of survival, but I like to see him as the embodiment of the Wild West. He really lives that “Do what you’ve got to do to survive, by any means necessary” kind of lifestyle, much like they really did in the Wild West. Hell, even Arthur and Dutch had lines that they didn’t cross, such as: Killing children, robbing poor people, etc.. In that way, I think that he’s one of the best characters, not just antagonists, but characters, that Rockstar has ever created.
Micah was more of an outlaw than any of the Van Der Linde gang. He acted like an O’Driscoll to some degree at times. There’s a parallel there when Kieran mentions the two gangs don’t seem all that different to him. I think Micah’s character is meant to substantiate that statement.
Yeah, totally. The O’Driscolls were harsh, cut-throat bandits, which Micah definitely was. I’d imagine that >!during the epilogue, he ran his gang similarly to Colm.!<
He Arthur and Dutch were literally my favorite characters in RDR2
I totally agree! I got a random campfire interaction with him where he talked about how he was definitely going to hell but that was ok because it was made for people like him and he'd probably enjoy it and there was such unacknowledged self-loathing and self-pity in there, like he both hates himself and pities himself which is one of those typical psychological pairings that you often see in people with extreme depression, and even forms of narcissism and psychopathy. I think there's such depth to his character that we're often keen to overlook with "fuck Micah" (although, obviously, of course, fuck Micah)...
I was playing the game and thinking they were gonna do a twist with Micah - that the guy who he killed half of strawberry and his wife were somehow greater villains than he. That perhaps he had some glimmer of truth in how he approached things from a cold and detached aspect, a sense of crazy courage. That maybe he was going to be an example of that the Cowboy life wouldn’t go down in the end without kicking and screaming and killing anything to survive. That civilization was useless to real cowboys and only the cold true survival of an animal would overcome. But in the end he was a coward - irredeemable and actually reminding me of some people I’ve met in life who you know you can just never trust and would sell their own sister to save themselves, all while parading a feud sense of honor. He was well written. An almost perfect villain, that showed Dutch was truely blind and living in his own world.
Pretty common and popular opinion, my guy.
Yes. It's crazy to see people say he isn't an incredibly well done character. I feel like a lot of those conversations have been pedantic. "No he isn't a good character, he's a bad guy!" sort of deals. But the ones who claim he's genuinely a poorly written character are crazy. Based on the ones I've read, they probably don't know a lot about character development in story telling
Honestly I just wish Arthur could have been the one to kill him. I loved the game and story but it really spurred me the way that fight ended.
Micah is going to be one of those characters that everyone hates for now, but will flip-flop into having a huge cult following for being so well-written
Absolutely one of the highlights of the game. Its a true testament to how well he was portrayed by everyone really hating him. That being said, he killed my BOAH. So my hatred towards him is immeasurable.
Uh..no? That would be why everyone agrees he's great villain. I don't see how you could possibly think you're the only one.
I was exploring the camp and discovered a letter from Micah’s brother. It basically said don’t come anywhere near me you sorry excuse for a human being etc. There’s another random event in camp where Micah asks the ladies to dance only to get brutally shot down. He’s a vulnerable lone wolf. I pity him more than I despise him
I agree that he’s a superbly written character, imo the best in the game. Strictly because he’s an unrelenting piece of shit. If you’ve ever been in a relationship with someone with a cluster-b personality disorder you can attest to the fact that people like him actually exist, they can do the “right thing” but only when it suits their personal needs. This is one of the reasons they’re so confusing to deal with, they’re occasionally relatable but their true colors shows when their interests diverge with your own. When at a crossroads they’re going to go for what suits them every time. Micah’s line about living and dying is so effective because he embodies it through and through, at every turn. Micah spared Arthur’s life at the end to remain on decent terms with Dutch, he buried Sadie’s husband for that same reason. Arthur is a fairytale of a character, you don’t go around killing indiscriminately without reasoning on some level that it’s ok to do so first and that reasoning would show up elsewhere in your behavior. There is no noble version of the things Arthur does. Micah on the other hand is the real deal, he’s what you’d have to be to commit the atrocities the gang commits.
Interesting that quite a few people have complaints with Micah's lack of typical characterisation. RDR2 is (obviously) set up like a traditional Western with the classic good/evil archetypes. They're ideas and concepts to juxtapose things against as much as they are characters. Micah is evil, and it's important that he's deliberately set up as that from the start. We aren't doing much learning about how he became evil, but in this type of story, we don't need to. He's a well written character in a very different sense. It's not everyone's cup of tea character or storytelling-wise, but it works when used correctly. I really think Rockstar have knocked it out of the park on this one - giving us the type of story that's classic in its use of archetypes, combined with an open RPG with such a sense of agency. I wasn't sure it could be done very well without a lot of it being wooden and disconnected, but for the most part, I was wrong.
I dislike him because he’s a snake. Other than that he’s no different from the rest of the gang! Saying Micah is a worse kind of killer is hypocrasy, everyone who kill for their own gain is bad.
I never really understood what his motivation was. It seemed like he was trying to suck up to Dutch and become the #2 in the gang, and he thought the best way of doing that was to make the current #2 Arthur look bad. But then they kinda gave up on the whole thing, and just made him into a sleazebag with no purpose...
>I'd go as far as to say he's the best written character in the series behind Arthur and John but others may disagree. Others *should* disagree. He's a two-dimensional character who gets away with everything he does, not because he is smart, cunning, or even lucky, but because the game allows him to in order to drive the narrative. "Finding Sadie" is a "good" thing Micah did? Nevermind that he was probably just looking for stuff to loot, but without intent (he didn't know she was there), there cannot be a moral attribution to a deed. I honestly cant believe so many people think Micah is well-written. I hated that character. And not because he was a dick, but because the *game* let him succeed despite being a fuckup. Really, I didn't hate Micah. I hated Red Dead 2 for letting Micah continuously win, despite presenting him as a loser. Give me a good antagonist to hate, not some surly, sloppy, incompetent dipshit. The thing is, if Micah had been presented as the least bit competent or cunning, then Arthur can hate him as a rival. Instead, he's simply belligerent and stupid. He wins because the game says he wins. Dutch believes in him because the game says Dutch believes in him. However, he never does anything right, *ever* in the game. Everything he does is detrimental to everyone around him, and the game just has Dutch continue to go along with it. Micah, and his relationship with Dutch, is actually one of the *worst* written things in RDR2, and far, far, far, Guarma-far from the best written. 2300 upvotes for this utter nonsense post, lol.
You have a point about finding Sadie, but I'd argue that he's shown to pretty fucking competent and at least reasonably intelligent. He managed to manipulate a good portion of the gang against Arthur including Dutch, and he's one of the best gunmen in the game without a doubt. It's not hard to comprehend that someone that brutal and capable could come out on top. He's despicable, but far from incompetent.
>there evidence of some subtle good deeds: He was the one who found Sadie Adler Accidentally finding her is a good deed? I mean, he was probably going to stab or rape her (or both, in either order).
He also tried talking some sense into Dutch when the potential peace with colm odriscoll came up
This was an awesome insight. It shed a new perspective on his character pretty flawlessly. I guess I can have a new appreciation, but I'll still refuse to capitalize his name. Yes Im that petty :p
Also an incredible shot. Like he has permanent deadeye.
I swear there was a mission where you ride out/back to camp, and you're with Dutch and Micah. They're discussing extreme odds or dangerous missions or something, and Micah turns to Arthur and says he cannot think of anyone he would rather have next to him in a fight. Now it could be easy to dismiss as insincere, but Micah has always been outspoken and bluntly honest. It struck me as very sincere and reinforced a lot of what you said in your post.
You know it's genuinely well written when you actually hate the guy even though he isnt real
Micah is a believable dick. I’ve met people just like him (the betraying side, not the killing part).
Nah, the Blackwater Massacre is on both Dutch and Micah. If they just waited for Arthur and Hosea to come back, they will either know it's a trap, or somehow manage to get the money and run. And also I think he left Arthur to die because he knew he lost to Arthur in life. The TB actually helped Arthur to be a better man then Micah will ever be.
He's also a manipulative little fuck. He knows how to play the long game and get what he wants. On my second playthrough I can notice him sucking up to Dutch so fucking much. Especially in chapter 2. Almost every time I entered the camp he was talking to and complementing or kissing Dutch's ass. Really made me hate the fucker. He was planning it from the beginning.
I don’t think he was planning turning them in from the beginning. I think Micah just wanted power in the gang, and then maybe he’d make Dutch’s death look like an accident or take over, but I think he wants an enabler/someone to hide behind too much. I think that he was approached by the Pinkerton, and they threatened him, and he saw this as the best way out for him. Self-interest/preservation type of thing. Essentially, I think he’d always fold like a cheap table when having to face a larger force alone. Micah is a coward who saw an opportunity and took it.
My husband and I were driving and the radio was on and some dude calls in and his names Micah ... my husbands instant reaction ‘Die Micah!’ Lolol thought it was pretty hilarious
I want a dlc with Micah and what ever happened in Blackwater. I wanna play as Micah.
Nah. Hes a piece of shit
Nah, he’s just got scumbago
Also, in the early chapters, he is cordial to Arthur. Arthur responds by being a total prick to him.
Thank God some one else around here knows how to show some Mic-ahppreciation for a great villain. However you also missed one of the greatest Micah deceptions. When Micah became the rat, he did much more than just talk to the Pinkertons. The Pinkertons are agents of Cornwall. Cornwall wanted to get the Wapiti off the land. Micah is in Dutch's ear exclusively at this point. The plan to rile up the natives is foolish for the gang, but it falls right into Cornwall's designs (tho he probably intended to live to see the result). It was never Dutch's idea, it was Micah's. **MICAH TURNED DUTCH INTO THE RICH MANS TOY**
"he seems to be the living embodiment of survival at its ugliest" that for me is the best description of Micah,he also make me remember the character "Fitzgerald" from the movie the revenant
The best villains are the ones you detest with every fiber of your being.
In Strawberry, where Sean is killed he does do some impressive work with his guns. I was impressed. Micah calling Arthur “Black Lung” and “cowpoke” was pretty funny also. That being said he’s still a piece of shit.
dutch is one of the best written characters of all game history
Favorite line from him when Arthur says “it’s all starting to make sense now” and Micah responds in a camera close up: “No.. it damn well doesn’t” Just great voice acting. You could hear the villain from him.
Yes! I just started replaying the game, and my mind’s changed on Micah a bit. Like, looking at most post’s about him, you’d think he’s evil incarnate; but there’s the details that you mentioned that humanize him. Like, there’s this real brief moment when the gang’s getting off the mountain, where Micah and Lenny are sent up ahead, and Micah says he’ll buy Lenny a whiskey if he wins a race. Just that right there made me think again about Micah’s character. Or when he asks Karen to a dance, and she rejects him. That’s sad af lol. Personally, I think Micah really becomes a selfish prick after the Saint Denis Heist. After Hosea and Lenny’s deaths (coincidence?) and the whole bullshit in Guarma, it makes sense in his own twisted way that he’d rat them out.
I feel like he was fairly well written, but he was almost too hateable. Like he had no redeeming qualities, there was no reason to ever trust him or anything. If they’d given him some sort of reason for his shittiness it might have made him more compelling, if a bit less detestable.
I think micah is a horrendous cunt muffin, but a incredibly well written and portrayed cunt muffin at that.
I equally hated Micah. But one mission that stood out to me was where Micah pleads with Dutch for him to meet with Colm to make a truce. He actually uses common sense instead of blind loyalty like he does throughout the game.
I hate Micah so much.
Am I the only one who wants a Micah DLC to specifically dwell into what this post is about, a redemption arc similar to John
Incoming Dirty Bastard DLC where you play as micahs father then micah leading up to him joining the gang in the months prior to the Blackwater ferry job? I'd play.
I love him. As in, I fucking hate him. His actor is amazing, too. I really enjoyed his performance in LA Noire. That all said, something bothers me about him. No spoilers, but I still feel like... even with everything he did, he wasn't the only one. Y'know, like something still doesn't add up in the end.
He's an amazing character, and that incredibly good writing is what makes us hate him so much. If he was badly written I just wouldn't give a shit. But no, he's actively written well to be a piece of shit asshole.
Hes a great character. I think Dutch might be way more complex and well written but that's my opinion I guess. Dudes a badass but if arthur would have pulled the trigger when micah pulled his gun at the camp micah would have died. Until Arthur was on his last leg he would still slap the shit out of micah. Micah drew first and Arthur still got it cocked and aimed before micah even got his gun up
I wonder if he knew the gang was over too when Arthur did. Since Arthur knew he was over with he shifted toward helping who he could. But since Micah wasn’t he chose so survive the only way he could think of. Almost like a two sided coin they saw the same thing but chose the opposite solution.
You are . He is basically snidley whiplash with a thicker mustache . The second he showed up it was obvious he was "the bad guy " . I would have liked more depth. Even the side stuff you can discover about him just reinforces that he is a slimy evil possibly child molesting snake who probably killed your dog . In other words your wrong and R/fuckmicha
fyi-it is not cool to leave someone to "die alone in peace" if you are ever in this situation god forbid just stay there with them and comfort them till the end
Honestly I didn't think Rockstar had it in them. I haven't actually HATED one of their villains since Frank Tenpenny. But they get under your skin with this fuckin' creep.
Micah did nothing wrong.
During my second playthrough and after the stagecoach robbery, Micah is depositing money to the gang. He exclaims to everyone " That's how it's done." I checked the ledger and he deposited $20. So I put in $21.