r/reddeadmysteries • u/kaellcb • Nov 29 '20
Theory Dutch made a pact with The Strange Man
Hello everybody! I was playing and this theory came up to my mind. We don't know in details what really happened before the game but some tips we can find in Arthur's Journal and hearing the other members made me think about this.
The gang was an ordinary gang from the beginning (1870s) until 1877 when something happened: Dutch and Hosea were arrested and by unknown means they escaped their cell. So my guess is that Dutch made a pact with The Strange Man to set them free and to be happy.
After that the gang became a family, with Arthur, John, Mrs Grimshawn and etc. And until the game starts they rob 37 banks. So the gang went from zero to hero in 10 years. Dutch was happy living his "dream".
Then the fire happenend (the one Arthur mentions in the beginning his journal) burning everything they have thus forcing them to flee. In my opinion this is the time the Strange man came to collect the debts and Dutch probably do not want to pay. So they started to flee and even after a while Dutch still want them to move. They were going to California and all of a sudden Dutch decided to go to Black Water. Even after finding some land to buy he still wanted to move.
Dutch had a lead for some land we were going to buy [...] or he got spooked we were beign watched by the law and that somebody knew who he was.
Then after a while on Black water camp Arthur says that he heard about someone who looks like Trewlany, i remember reading about how similar both look like. Coincidentally after that Dutch started to talk about moving again. The ferry heist was fucke* up because of the Strange Man, and it is the beginning of the end. Pretty much like what happened to Herbert Moon. His daughter married, was happy, but he was sad. Dutch got what he asked: fame, fortune, but he lost everything else on the way: family, love, even his mind...
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u/imover9thousand Nov 29 '20
This is a pretty interesting theory. I've never really considered that it was the Strange Man who actually set them up in Blackwater. Similar to how he predicted things would happen with John in RDR1 (ex: so and so is about to cheat on his wife) he could've tipped off a lawman in Blackwater that the ferry boat was about to be robbed.
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u/Radirondacks Nov 29 '20
Also interesting is that the Strange Man basically starts off his conversation with John in RDR1 by reminding him of the Blackwater incident.
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u/kaellcb Nov 29 '20
Or he knew the ferry was heavy guarded and gave the tip to Micah, who told Dutch. There is another thing to add to the theory that i remember now: the fire on the boat to guarma. It was like he could never leave the US.
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u/Lance-Uppercut666 Nov 29 '20
Yoooooo, I love this theory. I can’t remember but was there anything odd at Micahs camp in RDR2?
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u/TooToughTimmy Nov 29 '20
Just newspaper clippings of the murders him and his father committed as well as a bounty for Dutch
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u/Benderman68 Nov 29 '20
Well there’s a frozen body in a toilet
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u/Saturn-Valley-Stevil Feb 11 '21
that’s there before Micah camps in the mountains. Probably just a lost hiker who went for shelter and died around 1898/1899
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u/eatincrayons Nov 29 '20
What I think I like most about this theory is that it also coincides with John killing Dutch in RDR1. John ends up being the debt collector for the Strange Man, and in turn is redeemed by his family being freed by the Law. And of course Johns own debt is then collected upon by the Lawmen as well.
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u/skizwald Nov 29 '20
Theres also a line early in the journal that mentions Dutch going to meet a man that sounds like Trelawney. When you first meet Trelawney in Valentine, he mentions that he went looking for you in Blackeater but couldnt find you.
Trelawney and the Strange Man dress quite similar. Did Dutch meet up with him before the Blackwater Massacre maybe.
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Nov 29 '20
It could be that Dutch realized his mistake and went to make amends with the Strange Man, but a deal is a deal, and once it is broken it cannot be amended.
Dutch came to the conclusion from the meeting that the Strange Man would never forgive him for breaking the deal, so Dutch becomes obsessed with making “one more score” and fleeing somewhere so as to avoid placing the gang in a situation that could result in their capture or deaths.
But the Strange Man is pretty strange and knows or somehow controls all, so every one of their “last scores” becomes a dumpster fire and they are forced to flee again and again. Each time, Dutch is faced with the question of free will, and always thinks about his deal with the Strange Man. Being an avid reader of Evelyn Miller, Dutch cannot reconcile his ideals of self determination with the events before him and rapidly loses his mind as he fights with the reality that none of them have any free will.
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u/skizwald Nov 29 '20
I messaged before months back about this. My theory was along the lines of Offering Dutch the world freedom that he wants. But the ironic twist is the law will be on him forever. Lots of the Strangemans doings always seem to have an ironic twist. Like letting Herbert Moon remain well is a sick town to sell his goods, but everyone else is to sick to buy anything.
Also his last meeting with john is a beeches hope not far away. So we know he at least is in the area at some point in the stories
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u/Metrodomes Nov 29 '20
I like that this theory isn't anything too crazy. Themes of selling yourself for fortune and glory, only to then run and fall from grace when it's time to pay your dues is pretty common and always fun. Quite easy to see how this theory neatly fits into the arc of the dutch's story. I haven't been following the strange man stuff too much, but I like how this conceptualises him as something that we all know of and understand from other stories.
Could also expand it to why the money doesn't mean much ultimately to Dutch anymore. Partly because he's losing it mentally, but I guess you could argue that it would only turn to ruin as he continues to try and flee from the inevitable.
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u/Snoopyshiznit Nov 29 '20
I apologize for my ignorance, but who is the strange man? I haven’t played rdr1 in years and it’s been a little bit since I’ve played through rdr2 as well
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u/TheNerd669 Nov 29 '20
The guy with the top hat and black coat. You go on a couple of missions for him in RDR 1 and he says some weird stuff. If it helps, the theory about death being an NPC is about him
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u/Mister_Crowly Nov 29 '20
Specifically, he seems to know exactly where John is going to be buried. Furthermore, when John gets so mad he tries to shoot the dude, he gets off three shots before his gun jams, at fairly close range. And.... nothing happens. The strange man isn't affected in any way and then vanishes shortly after. So it's clear he's not a person like he seems to be.
In RDR2 you can find a scrap that seems to suggest that he's done some kind of Needful Things deal with herbert moooooon, with the price possibly being the cholera outbreak that is mentioned.
So it almost seems like he might be one of those tricksy bargain type demons like in Needful Things or the dude from Heart of Stone DLC from Witcher 3. But he never offers John any kind of bargain. Instead, his quests for John seem aimed to question John's morality. So its not totally clear what is up. He's definitely not human though.
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u/coolmanranger25 Nov 30 '20
He’s most likely some sort of incarnation of death in the R* universe. I personally think he’s the devil but I’ve seen people classify him as the grim reaper or even god himself.
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u/Atiggerx33 Feb 11 '21
Why do you think he's the Devil? He mentions he's "an accountant of sorts", which I assume to mean he weighs people's souls as good or bad. He offers deals, but he doesn't seem to do direct harm to people, he just gives them a choice and makes them live with it.
For example, with Moon, I don't think he gives the town cholera. I think he was just aware the cholera outbreak was about to occur (probably dumping their shit to close to the water supply) so he gave Herbert Moon a choice "happiness or two generations" Moon picked two generations. Then his daughter goes off and marries a Jewish man and Mr. Moon's anti-Semitic self disowns her but he's immune to the cholera outbreak. He got his two generations (or he will when his daughter has her first child) but he's miserable. Who knows what would have happened had he picked happiness. Maybe he would have died in the outbreak but been happy until then.
I don't think the Strange Man is evil, I just think he lets people make choices and then they have to live with that choice. He doesn't seem to try to collect a debt from Moon either, just force him to live with his choices.
If he offered Dutch a choice it may have been similar to the one Arthur mentioned early in the story in a side quest (the famous gunslingers one) "freedom or glory". Freedom would mean Dutch got to live out his life in peace, but be a nobody. Glory is what he chose and we saw the results; he's a famous outlaw. Dutch couldn't settle down anywhere with the gang whether it be out west or Tahiti, he choose glory which means freedom is now unattainable. It's why drama follows him (and the rest of the gang) everywhere, without drama there's no glory.
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u/coolmanranger25 Feb 11 '21
Well I believe the accountant quip holds merit to the fact that he is the devil, accounting for the souls of the damned. Though I can understand why people may perceive this as being a characteristic of a grim reaper.
Another more credible source would be his appearance. To an outsider looking in, his garb would look typically of a man of the 19th-20th century. Though the devil has been portrayed many times in media as a sharply dressed, well-groomed man with a top hat and moustache in black. The most recent example I can think of is the devil from Rick and Morty.
In my opinion the most damning piece of evidence derives from another quip of his (during the second encounter) where he states that he hopes his boy turns out just like John. Though there’s nothing stating how the grim reaper/death has an offspring, it does for the devil. In Christianity, it tells that the devil has a son, the antichrist, who will grow up to fight Jesus and his heavenly army on Earth during the rapture. The fact that the strange man’s son isn’t an adult yet but a mere boy is even more proof of this since the rapture has yet to come.
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u/No-Scallion-6108 May 09 '22
Please don’t cite Rick and morty as evidence 😂
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u/coolmanranger25 May 09 '22
Just the first thing that came to mind lmao better evidence could’ve been used, you’re not wrong
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u/ColeTheDankMemer Nov 29 '20
This is the first one on this sub I’m saving for more than 3 months. It’s great and an actual mystery.
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u/neatsqueefs Nov 29 '20
What debt would the Strange Man go to collect from Dutch?
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u/BakedBean89 Nov 29 '20
Mangos prolly
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u/starsearcher48 Nov 29 '20
This is the only part of this theory I can agree with. Dutch has the mangoes
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u/TheNerd669 Nov 29 '20
Realistically, money. But if he's the reaper like many think he could be it might be their souls. It may have only been Dutch that made a pact so when he refused to give his soul the Strange Man probably made life a living hell for him until ultimately at the end Dutch gives in. That seems much more far fetched so I'm gonna stick with money
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u/kittyBonana Nov 29 '20
Him coming to collect actual souls would really make sense with how incredibly unhinged Dutch became as the story went on. He had become addicted to the glory days that the gang had, hung up on the scores, and was realizing his “deal” ultimately was going to fuck everyone over, so he became convinced that everyone was against him and spying on him.
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u/Colearth918 Dec 01 '20
This is actually a good point (ignore the fact that I'm 2 days late)
Even way back in Horseshoe Overlook sometimes when speaking to Dutch he will blurt out "I suspect you will betray be in the end" and a few different variations of it. As you go on, he doubts others' loyalty, like during a conversation with Javier at the Rhodes camp, if you interact with Dutch after the interaction Arthur says "you don't have to question Javier's loyalty" and Dutch just replies with "I'm not sure I can rely on anybody's loyalty anymore" (or something like that) and then you keep seeing similar interactions all throughout the remainder of the game.
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u/kittyBonana Dec 02 '20
I mean, it could apply even if he wasn’t paranoid about literal death coming to collect his soul, but he obviously experiences a severe mental collapse, and I doubt that would happen to someone who heads a gang that occasionally does shady stuff living in that time period when they could all be apprehended/killed at any time.
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u/No-Scallion-6108 May 09 '22
Dutch hit his head really hard on the train robbery. It’s thought that Dutch was always kind of crazy but the traumatic brain injury just kicked it into hyperdrive
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u/Papageno_Kilmister Nov 29 '20
Dutch as a faustian character is certainly a very interesting and fitting theory
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u/starkiller685 Nov 29 '20
Could that theoretically mean that because Dutch didn’t pay his debt that maybe the strange man would collect from those under Dutch? And maybe the reason Dutch got in with the Native Americans was to do with their spirituality and rituals to ward off harmful spirits?
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u/DisneyLandCarpetRide Nov 30 '20
I’m fairly sure both instances of him working with them were to get what he wanted from easily manipulated, angry people
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Nov 29 '20
Midas touch, he reminded me of that story. So wrapped in getting more money ultimately he ended up losing everyone close to him. King Midas all he touched turned to gold even his family. Dying alone in the end having no one. Consumed by greed.
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u/OliverAOT20 Xbox One Nov 30 '20
I really like this theory and find it interesting. But I like to think that Dutch was just a good man who became too powerful (Probably had a God Complex), which lead to him becoming overconfident. With all the pressure put on him and having Micah always in his ear and getting in his head; he was lost. Confused and overwhelmed, the gang was counting on him but he didn’t know what to do. So he tried to act as if nothing was wrong and decided to stay ignorant...until he fell into madness.
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Feb 08 '21
My god, this makes so much sense. Nine out of ten interpretations make me cringe but this actually seems bang on. I never read much into the pre-game journal entries because I figured they were just there for context. Re-reading that bit about Dutch getting spooked about being watched gave me chills though, damn. I think you’ve cracked something huge here.
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u/MaximilianusZ Feb 10 '21
This also ties in with Blind Man Cassidy saying " Be warned, sir, be warned. Surrounded by fields of fire and flesh, the devil will make his sacrifice."
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u/Sweet_Taurus0728 Nov 29 '20
It seems like you just listed things that happened and then stuck Strange Man in the middle of it.
"Dutch wanted to turn left, but went right. The Strange Man was responsible because of a deal they made at some point."
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u/LordRuby Nov 29 '20
The house with the strange man painting and the map pointing to Herbert Moon also says something like "Out of the snow and into the cave" on the walls
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u/DisneyLandCarpetRide Nov 30 '20
Yea it seems wild to just say “they escaped from jail. How? The strange man” when there’s not really anything to go off of.
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u/Shikamaru117 Nov 29 '20
Where did it say they were in jail?
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u/Radirondacks Nov 30 '20
I believe there's a newspaper/clipping you can read that talks about it, maybe in one of the camps at some point. Or maybe Hosea mentioned it? Idk it's been too long since I played the story tbh
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u/2hatchance Dec 01 '20
Is the strange man the blind man
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u/SkatePunkBanana Dec 01 '20
No, but they're both possibly supernatural beings. The blind man can see the future, he warns Arthur of his death. The Strange Man is possibly death incarnate. He can't be killed by John even though he shot him point blank and is a very experienced gunslinger.
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u/NozakiMufasa Dec 03 '20
This theory turns Dutch van der Linde and the story of Red Dead Redemption 2 into Captain Jack Sparrow and Pirates of the Caribbean. Which makes the Strange Man the Davy Jones of the Wild West.
r/CaptainSparrowmemes how ya'll feel bout this?
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Dec 15 '21
I killed strange man on first encounter with him in RDR1 bcuz i had heard he's an arsehole
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u/[deleted] Nov 29 '20
[deleted]