#owch

Part 2/6+????????

(co-write w/ scrtkpr ao3)

-🕊️

From what I gather, most of the rdr2 community finds Crash of Worlds the most heart-wrenching song on the soundtrack (and for good reason), but honestly every time the first few notes of That's The Way It Is play I get this physical pain in my chest that I don't get with the others.

That may be because the final ride back to camp hits me harder than Arthur's actual passing—because that's when he's making peace and reconciling with all of it. His past choices, his present responsibility and how little remains of his future.

Arthur's already considered himself a dead man when he confronts Dutch. When Arthur rides back to meet/confront his family for the last time, he thinks John is dead or damned at the hands of the law.

The act that Arthur had assigned to be his last (and only, in his mind) truly good deed—getting John, Abigail and Jack out of this life alive—is now impossible at worst and fractured at best. So instead of leaning on a singular act to redeem him, Arthur is forced to turn over his life like a rock that's been sitting facedown for years, exposing both decay and life tangled underneath. And that's what we hear in the quotes that play over the song's runtime; whether you're low-honor or high-honor the idea is the same. Arthur's last ride is the second and last time we see him being fully and consciously honest with himself about his life's moral weight.

He confronts Dutch not because he wants to watch him burn or because he thinks that doing so will save his soul, but because he wants to expose the poison Micah's been actively dripping in his ear—in all of their ears—in the hope that doing so will lance the boil that is Dutch's delusions.

I doubt Arthur believes there's a chance the gang can continue as a broken family, but he can at least call to light the blind loyalty that's been plaguing the remaining members of the Van der Linde gang, and maybe even encourage the goodness in those few to win over their own folly.

Even the last few stanzas of That's The Way It Is seems to refer to this idea—encouraging Arthur to "Shine light into darkness", which can have a double meaning of being a guiding light of sorts in a desperate situation, or it could be referring to exposing that which is hidden.

Along that tangent, it's interesting that within Van Horn, where Arthur learns of Micah's treachery, the saloon literally has a motto over the door alluding to what happens here.

"LET LIGHT SHINE OUT OF DARKNESS"

In-game the motto is no doubt a simple nod to the lighthouse and its role in the town's culture, but it's a clever use of environment to lay some foreshadowing.

Anyway TLDR Arthur's last ride hurts real bad </3