Iām not sure if itās been said before because Iāve not had a lot to do w red dead lately, but watching āDeadwoodā is giving me my biannual cowboy renaissance:
So I was just thinking about the honor system and about how we kind of think itās flawed, and I was just thinking if maybe itās Arthurās self perception. Somebody made a point on one of my posts about why he thinks heās ugly, and they said it was how he felt about himself based on his actions.
Which when applying that to the honor system I think itās interesting, because thereās things you do, things that are more or less unavoidable for game play (fighting lawmen when running for you life or something similar) and you lose honor as a player it would frustrate me, because I felt upset about that. But it made me wary to kill lawmen or such as I continued my high honor play through, which I think would reflect Arthurās feelings. He knows he has to, of feels he has to to live, but it makes him feel dishonorable which I think is an interesting distinction from bad.*
But I feel it gives a more in depth look at his character and what he thinks is honorable or dishonorable. Like the fish, if you keep it, itās not dishonorable, but if you throw it back thatās high honor. So itās like he knows he will make good use of the fish if he keeps it, but if he throws it back heās like āyeahā¦ that was niceā¦ā or it just makes him feel good about himself.
Or the things like the debt collecting, not all of them but some of them they make you lose honor, and itās just like the other ones are ones he feels he has to do for the gang, but the ones he loses honor for are the ones he feels especially gross about, soiling his character. Or hunting deer vs hitting a horse, one is for survival and one is downright mean. You get honor for petting dogs, feeding the gang, donating to different things and people. Itās just like a window into how Arthur feels about his actions.
* Coming back to honorable/dishonorable vs good/bad: I think the distinction is important because you can have max high honor, and Arthur will still deny anyone who calls him a good man, and in fact insist heās a bad man. But. He is doing the honorable things. He doesnāt think heās good, but he thinks the choices he makes are honorable.
Honorable: āadherence to what is right or to a conventional standard of conductā
Heās not good, heās just doing what he thinks is the right thing in his stance as an outlaw, but kind hearted man.
