intense longing 4 nostalgia

He is charming, intelligent, cultured, charismatic, a right Messiah, and a right bastard all the same time.

But the thing that I believe people most remember about Dutch Van Der Linde is his romantic image. What I mean by this is the things he stood for and the things he wanted to change.

This makes Dutch have a positive image pretty quickly from the very start. In the first scene with him, he's encouraging people, rallying them up, and giving them hope in such an awful situation. He saves Sadie from a terrible fate and asks Hosea to send someone to bury her husband. Arthur and Charles talk fondly of him. He makes it clear in the train robbery that he despises the systems that keep men rich whilst most people starve.

Whether or not Dutch was always cracked, to the characters in the game, he was a great man because of his beliefs and because of his empathy/sympathy.

But what gets me is that a lot of people in this fandom misconstrue Dutch's character into being what we see today as a progressive. I see people saying things like "Bill shouldn't be racist, he's with Dutch's gang" or "why is Micah in the gang" and other similar things as to where people get confused as to why characters with immoral belief systems are respected and active heavy hitters in the gang.

This isn't saying that Dutch isn't progressive because he IS. For his time period, he was VERY progressive.

However, before I get into that, I want to establish some context in terms of the time period that we are talking about.

Theodore Roosevelt was the 26th president of the United States from 1901 to 1909. He once had dinner with African American leader Booker T. Washington. This one singular act of simply eating with one another as a white man and black man was so scandalous that it became an outrage to many politicians that the PRESIDENT, the literal face of America, was having dinner with a black American leader.

Teddy later put out this response: “The only wise and honorable and Christian thing to do is to treat each Black man and each white man strictly on his merits as a man, giving him no more and no less than he shows himself worthy to have."

A lot of people would take this event and try to say that Teddy Roosevelt was a progressive equivalent to our time when that is simply not true. Roosevelt was racist to many groups in his personal writings and he believed in the racial hierarchy, even though he had respect for any self made man.

Was Roosevelt a progressive? Yes. For his time, he was a progressive. He was pro union, anti monopoly, and created many government departments like the FDA. He also believed in the merits of a man. But the thing about historical progressives is that their standard of progression doesn't fit in with our criteria anymore.

Dutch is the same. Is he a progressive? Yeah, of course he is. But is he a true progressive in our standards? No. Not really.

This is why the gang allows racist gang members. That is also why the only repercussion to such racism is if the victim of it is willing to dish something out like Charles slamming Micah on the ground or Javier pulling a knife on Bill. It is also why the gang is pretty traditional and rigid in their gender roles. It's also why queer people (ie. Bill) are casually mocked within the gang too.

Another thing too- Dutch is a romantic. People misconstrue that with being a progressive when that really isn't the case. Romantacism is a philosophy that was a rejection of the realism of the Enlightment. It focused on Idealism. The thing with Romantacism, though, is that it was a super white-washed philosophy. It was made to mould into white cultures and belief systems specifically for white men. Dutch could say all men are equal and he may believe that, but it's clear that he doesn't see equality in the same way that we see equality today.

What I mean by this is that any man is equal but if told otherwise, that man is the one who has to prove them wrong. It's his business and he should be the one to deal with it. That's why other gang members don't back up Charles or Javier if they find themselves in a situation with another gang member who is racist. It's their responsibility to deal with their own beefs. It wouldn't be like today where we all publically shun racism.

Remember when Dutch, Arthur, and Micah come back from Sadie's cabin? Micah says something about not wanting to share a room with Bill and POC, to which Dutch can hear and doesn't say anything and Hosea only says "Get yourself to bed" instead of calling Micah on what he said. Same goes for Arthur too. He may condemn and do something about violent racism, like how when he helps the doctor in Rhodes get his wagon back, but he doesn't really say anything when Micah or Bill say racist things to Charles, Javier, or Lenny. That's their business, so to speak, and they should be the ones handling it.

Also note the poc's characters relationship with Dutch. Javier likes Dutch because of the revolutionary ideals that he believes in. Charles likes Dutch because he treats him fair. Lenny likes Dutch because Dutch is far more progressive than other white men, but he also calls out Dutch's romantic philosophy because it doesn't really include POC or their struggles. Dutch sympathizes with their struggles, but he cannot emphasize, which is the problem with his romantic philosophy. It's a culture that is a house to white people, but POC are only guests in it in terms of its European and American tradition. Yes, Dutch hates what the Europeans did to the natives, but given the context beforehand and the things he says, he hates less the violence and more the upheaval of the lifestyle that he wants, which is one that is connected to nature and earth. I also find it interesting how the only person Dutch kinda defends from racism is Lenny, the same boy who calls him out for reading too much into Miller and not into reality. It could very much be Dutch unconsciously trying to prove Lenny wrong.

And the thing with Dutch is that he isn't squeaky clean when it comes to racism either. He's racist too, but he's racist to groups that we don't see as marginalized anymore and this goes for Hosea as well. The biggest example of this is with Italians, who weren't considered white at the time, same with the Irish.

We have this conversation between him and Hosea:

"Have you ever met an Italian strongman before?"

"Not outside the circus."

I shouldn't have to explain that.

And there is also when Bronte set them up.

"That greasy son of a bitch, he set us up!"

It doesn't sound strange at first but context matters a lot. Though 'greaser' is a slur that we see thrown at Javier for being a Mexican multiple times in the gang, that slur was also used against Italians. So Dutch saying that is him still purposing that slur but in a different way.

Another thing that I noticed is that whenever Dutch wants to speak with someone who isn't white or wasn't deemed white at the time, he would dumb down or slow down his speech first before the person he's speaking to shows that they know English, in which then he talks normally. He doesn't automatically consider that hey, these are people who are intelligent and understand English.

Here are two examples:

This is Dutch to Bronte.

"Why do you take his son?"

"Excuse me?"

"I said why DID you take his son."

He fixes the way he talks as soon as he realizes that Bronte speaks english.

And then to Eagle Flies.

"How do you DO?" (In the game, he slows down his speech and emphasizes the do.)

"Not well, sir."

"I can see that."

This is such a subtle detail but it shows that even subconsciously, Dutch isn't as admirable as we sometimes like to make him out to be in terms of OUR time period and that we shouldn't be surprised when other gang members or Dutch himself do or say things that aren't cool.

And of course, there is the sexism of the gang and that Dutch is shown to be sexist multiple times in the game.

"There are two theories about arguing with women and neither of them work."

"Good Lord, a few more like her and we can take over the whole world." (This was a sarcastic dig at Sadie)

And given the rigidness of the gender roles in camp and that the girls are barely in any missions and are mostly just doing house work, Dutch supports this system because just like how political Romantacism wasn't really for POC, it wasn't really for women either.

He can also be religiously prejudiced as well, though this shows up only once in the game. When you get into Saint Denis, Dutch says this:

"Here we are in this strange land of Papists and rapists."

Papists is another word for Catholic and given how he connects them with rapists, it makes it quite clear that he doesn't like them all that much, which makes sense given that Dutch is some form of Protestant and the general disgust regarding Catholics at the time. There is also the fact that a lot of reasons why Italians, Irish, and Hispanic people dealt with discrimination is because of the Catholic background in many of their cultures.

Again, it's a small detail, but when you look at the time period he says that in, it opens up many doors to many other social issues that were there at the time and how Dutch, despite being better than many, is also still a man of his time and this idea that the gang is this beacon of prosperity and progression is generally overemphasized to something that it is not.

Again, I love Dutch's character and he was a progressive but it isn't surprising to see these negative equalities come out from him and from the gang as an extension. They all have their flaws, even if those flaws are especially jarring at points.

Historical people almost always have historical attitudes, guys. It's just the unfortunate truth.