#rdr oc

HIIII 💗

Sorry it took me so long to reply, I just haven't been feeling very motivated lately, and I also wasn't really sure how to develop my ideas, but now I finally know how!

I'll start by explaining how the whole concept of Catalina came to be :D

So, my first concept for her was that she would be an old acquaintance of John from his days with Dutch's gang. (She wasn't even called Catalina back then; she had another, more French-sounding name: Monett.)

She wanted to accompany John to Mexico of her own free will and because she cared about him. (It all went horribly because she was an idiot who couldn't shoot properly)

Later, after looking more deeply into the story of RDR, I decided to completely change her concept and make her the daughter of Colonel Allende. I've always liked the idea of giving the most infamous characters in fiction children and exploring just how far their horror and cruelty would extend when it comes to their own children, because based on Allende's personality, he isn't going to suddenly change just because he has a daughter.

With Catalina, I wanted to explore the other side of the coin. The game makes it explicitly clear that the army is cruel toward women, but what about Catalina? Why isn't she treated cruelly?

Simple: Catalina isn't respected because she is a woman, or because she is a person, a human life. She is respected solely because she carries the Allende name.

If she weren't Allende's daughter, she would have ended up just like the other poor victims.

Catalina has been raised by her father since she was five years old. (I still haven't fully decided what happened to Catalina's mother, but I'm thinking she was forced to give her daughter to Allende because of family pressure and some sort of arrangement between them. I'd also like to explore Allende's relationship with Elena Castilla, that brief "first affair" of his.)

Her upbringing is uncomfortable and tense because Allende doesn't know how to be a father to a daughter. That's the problem for him: his only child is a girl. But he can take advantage of that, turning her into an advantage, an emotional possession that constantly reinforces his status.

During Catalina's childhood, from around ages 5 to 10, she receives Allende's affection and adoration because of the innocence she has and the way she sees her father. Allende knows that if she remains innocent, she will always believe him; he will always be everything to her. But this begins to change when Catalina reaches around eleven years old.

Catalina notices that her father becomes disgusted with her and begins rejecting her, saying things like, "You're a young lady now." To him, this means that Catalina could eventually develop her own autonomy and opinions, as well as her own perspective on how she sees her father's actions.

The idea of fathers rejecting or distancing themselves emotionally from their daughters when they enter puberty and adolescence was something that inspired me, especially in cases where the daughters don't understand what they did "wrong" when all they were doing was growing up.

Because of this, during her adolescence, Allende continues molding and manipulating Catalina into being submissive and naive, nothing more than a pretty trophy. But this also confuses Catalina because Allende can be violent toward her and then suddenly treat her kindly or give her gifts.

Catalina eventually starts to think that maybe this is what love is like:

"If he treats me badly, it's probably because he's trying to correct me."

Of course, Catalina isn't only defined by being a trophy. She longs for autonomy, which is why she reads various books. She had the privilege of learning how to read and write, which was practically a privilege at the time. The more she read, the more she began thinking that she would like to become a teacher. She wanted to teach because, in her purest form of kindness, she saw it as one of the most beautiful things someone could do: teaching those who don't know something or who need help.

That idea was heavily repressed by Allende's upbringing of her. He reduced her to being a pretty face, a trophy, a symbol of status, and, at its most disturbing, a symbol of desire for those lustful men who know they could never have a woman like her.

I've also thought that, as mentioned in the game, sometime before 1911, Allende rises to power. During that period, he obviously becomes acquainted with various powerful men, and I can imagine Allende having his daughter beside him during those meetings, almost as if he were showing her off, without thinking about the consequences if one of those men tried to cross a line with her.

Catalina never had the opportunity to avoid those gatherings because Allende demanded that she stay by his side.

"If you were alone in a room full of men, what would you do?"

By the time of the game's canon, in 1911, Catalina is 22 years old. She believes that whatever her father says is law and truth, but she only believes it with a sense of discomfort. She feels that something is wrong, that her father is wrong, but because of the innocence that was imposed on her, she ignores those thoughts.

Yet the question always remains: why were women constantly being brought to her father? Why did he need so many "maids" or "servants"? That was the quick explanation Allende gave Catalina; he never told her the truth behind those women.

Her doubts only grew whenever Catalina saw how Allende treated those poor women. One part of her knew that something was wrong, while another part thought that maybe this was normal.

After all, what right did she have to complain when she was "just a woman"?

I also want to explore Catalina's self-perception and how she feels about being seen as an object by certain men, and how her worth is reduced to her beauty and sexuality.

Catalina also learned to seek validation from certain male figures that she never consistently received from her father. (I'm still unsure about whether to include this; I want to explore it more, and I definitely don't want it to fall into the whole "Oh, she likes older men because she has daddy issues" thing. It's not simply about that phrase. Since Catalina was exposed to Allende's social circle from adolescence onward, I think there could be consequences from that environment.)

All of this could eventually lead to possible anxious attachment due to how unpredictable Allende's affection toward her was. It was never stable.

The saddest part is that Catalina exists right in the middle of everything: the rebels hate her because she is Allende's daughter, while the soldiers only respect her because she is Allende's daughter.

Her entire worth is reduced to Allende by both sides. Neither of them takes her autonomy or her own wishes into consideration.

They don't take into account that she always tries to be a good person. In one of her most genuine acts of kindness, despite everything her father was, she cried when he died. She also cried when Captain Espinoza and Captain De Santa died.

She was aware, to some extent, that they had done terrible things and weren't good people, but she still mourned their deaths. She knew that sooner or later that moment would come, but she still grieved them.

I forgot to mention that she might well suffer a mental breakdown upon learning about the sexual abuse of women; the problem is that once she finds out, the entire Allende administration would come crashing down all at once. Mind you, Catalina is repulsed by it all, yet for all her emotional turmoil she still weeps for her father. It is not just out of affection, but also because of the pain caused by realizing what kind of monster he was; it is a complex mix of grief for the victims and the lingering love a daughter holds for her father.

I liken it to the stages of grief

//

These are some of the basic ideas I want to develop or possibly remove in some cases, because with Catalina I feel like I can explore a lot about the complexities of being a woman during that time period, and how being a woman could be her "only sin."

I love sharing my ideas with you guys <3

Mahí the family pet which actually helps get food too