#lif2

You can esaily break the endings down in two categories : either you both agree, or your disagree with your brother. So, I’ll analyze them that way too. Starting with the worst possible one, and I think it’s quite unanimous :

Lone wolf

Sean wanted to surrender. Daniel did not. He wanted freedom, and he wanted to be together. Sean didn’t have a choice in the matter this time ; it doesn’t matter what he wanted anyway, because he’s dead. He doesn’t get anything he wanted. Daniel didn’t get anything he wanted -freedom, added to the guilt of causing hos brother’s death, didn’t mean much in the end. If you force your choice on people, you might lose everything, and that’s it. If anyone thinks this is even remotely a good ending, hit me up, I want to hear about your opinion. Enlighten me.

Then, you get the other “disagreement” ending :

Parting ways.

It’s very different, so I wouldn’t say that disagreeing necessarily leads to 100% bad consequences -but only because Daniel did get to make his own choice too, and his choice was to stay. Sean gets the short end of the stick : he valued being with his brother and his own freedom, and only got the latter. Daniel wanted his brother to be safe, but also to be a “good, rightful person”, and he got them both.

Would Sean have gotten to Puerto Lobos knowing Daniel wasn’t coming ? Maybe, maybe not. We’ll never know that for sure.  But remember that, in this run, Sean also insisted that he wanted his brother to have a good, normal life, be a good person, stay true to himself, go to school -and is that really what he would have had in Puerto Lobos had he gone through with the plan ? Probably not.

So they both get what they wanted, but only partially : Daniel became the person Sean wanted him to be, Daniel gets to know his brother is happy and free as he wanted him to be, and that’s what they respectively valued over years together. Bittersweet, yes. My heart broke -not because it was a bad ending, but because it was sad and at the same time so beautiful.

On the endings they both agree to do things, well. I’ll strart with this one :

Blood Wolves

They do get together but, unlike what I stated above, forget about the “good kids, normal life” Esteban would have wanted for his sons, and that his sons also longed for in a way. Will they live together and be happy ? Probably. And that’s what they wanted most, for better or for worse -and here, it might be for the worse quite often. Not my favorite ending since I’m a sucker for bittersweet stuff, but the ending I wanted and needed.

And now my second-least-favorite-one :

Redemption

They surrender. They both get to make their own choice. Daniel will live his life, and he’ll see his brother sometimes. Once again though, Sean gets the short end of this goddamn stick (I hate this stick). As a quick reminder, 15 years is almost as long as Sean’s lived before he went to jail. Half of his life to the point he gets out. For things he either didn’t do, or did for good reasons. But what he valued most, and what Daniel valued most as well, was to be good persons. And being together came second. Being free came... Well, last. Free from guilt though.

Tl;dr : it all depends on what you value most.

In Lone Wolf, Daniel valued being with his brother over everything else, and he didn’t get that.

In Parting Ways, Sean valued being free living a normal life and with his brother more than the rest, and he got half of it, while Daniel valued his brother being safe and being a good person above being together, and he got it (at a great, great cost but he knew the reward was worth it).

In Redemption, both valued their integrity and a normal life (as normal as 15 years in jail can be considered) and got it (at a great cost once again).

And in Blood Brothers, they both valued being together and free and got it, at the cost of a normal, righteous life.

A funny thing to me is that I watched my older brother play, while being very vocal when I disagreed with some of the things he did. He got Parting Ways, and I would have gotten Blood Brothers. I can see why. I put those two brothers’ relationship far, far above them not being outlaws with low morality. THEY were the important thing. I’d steal for Daniel. I’d let Daniel kill that beast. I’d let him kill people who threatened to separate us because damn, they tried to hurt us and would have done the same to us. And my brother insisted they remained good people all the way, more than being safe and together. The ending you like best, as much as your choices, say a lot about you too.