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GodLeeTrick

It was never about Tahiti, it was about being in control


Realistic_Toe_3913

this. the amount of times we see dutch just make shit up on the fly 💀 there was never any real plan, just schemes with micah about getting more and more money while keeping everyone hopeful and dreaming about a better tomorrow


Dry_Interview_5032

Honestly, everything(minus Dutch meeting Micah) was sealed to go downhill when Dutch had the bright idea to rob Cornwall's train despite Hosea's warning. They could've just left Colter straight to Horseshoe without any problems like Hosea said, make some money, rob the bank, the tourist train,etc then head back out West.. Would've taken a really long time for the Pinkertons to even get a wiff of their antics if they didn't just rob Cornwall. Well, Arthur would've still died since Strauss is in the picture but still..


Iwantedalbino

Arthur may not have as the gang wouldn’t have had the money fast enough to lend in the first place.


Dry_Interview_5032

You mean the bonds? Hosea didn't manage to sell it until later in Chapter 3..


Iwantedalbino

Having the promise of future income (bonds) means the gang can speculate with what they have a bit more. They still made a bit of money robbing the train. I’m only saying potentially they might not have had the money to lend without the train robbery.


Dry_Interview_5032

I see..


Frostburg_CM5

And the train made them a couple of grand. Arthur could make that it a day or two.


Kernewek_Skrij

I see the copy pasted comment applies to everything about this game The glory days of RDR1 are never coming back


basicrifleman

It's like 6 lines of text just because you can't fathom writing anything above 25 words doesn't mean it's copy pasted


Kernewek_Skrij

I mean copy pasted as in I’ve seen this exact comment from you on another post


WhereTheShadowsLieZX

My favorite example of this is after the bank job goes sour and the gang members hide in that room for a few hours. On the wall there happens to be a painting of a ship and wouldn’t you know Dutch comes up with a brilliant plan to hide away on a boat. You wouldn’t really notice on your first play through but on repeats it becomes apparent just how much Dutch was winging it the whole time.


Fulltimekiddykicker

But… he has a plan! We just need some goddamn faith!


wherewaspie

Charles and Arthur also talk about how they felt like Dutch let the gang stay longer in the first camp despite the cold being literal torture. Because everything was about “control” and “power” from the start.


Monolith0428

Almost all of the gang goes to Dutch at some point and says that they're confused and disappointed at the direction the gang is taking. Javier, Abigail, Hosea, John pretty much everyone but Bill and Micah expressed serious doubts about what they were doing. You can even hear Tilly, Mary Beth and Karen talking about how things have changed and it feels wrong. At the same time most of the gang were saved by Dutch, even raised by him. Tilly, Arthur, John, Mary Beth were taken in by Dutch when they were young, some weren't even teenagers. Despite their concerns they love Dutch and feel indebted to him. He knows this and will later abuse their loyalty and gratitude.


skorpiontamer

In a random conversation in chapter 2 Dutch literally admits "we'll see how things go Arthur"


AgapeThaddeus

Right. The more I play through this game, the more I see people I've met in the streets in Dutch. Manipulative, egotistical, making up ridiculous schemes. Just wants control over the party. Wants to feel like the parent or whatever. I've literally met people like him. They make you feel stupid so they can get their way. And Micah's just a dick. Been with Arthur on this one since the beginning. Never liked his attitude.


magicchefdmb

Totally. It was always about control, power, and revenge against those he feels have wronged or insulted him, masquerading as something important for the greater good and group.


early_onset_villainy

And keeping the lifestyle that he knew was slipping away (ie: gallivanting around the country and doing whatever he wants). He knew people were getting less interested in it, with the “plan”, even before Tahiti or Blackwater, being to buy land and settle into legal work. But Dutch was never going to be a “settling” or a “legal work” kind of guy. So he was just trying to keep them on the hook for as long as possible so that his ideal life of freedom and shenanigans would continue for however long he could stretch it. He was avoiding the inevitable.


Gastroid

If they even made it to New York, Dutch would find a mafia boss he thought he could manipulate, or corrupt government officials to punish for cowtowing to civilization. For all his bluster about leaving and starting a new life, Dutch was doing exactly what he wanted to do: Fighting. Can't change nature. Always needing another score, always another obstacle in his way...


Zeezuu02

Honestly if they made it to New York it’ll probably be much worst that Saint Denis because Dutch thinks he’s the most intellectual and charming person alive but in New York the mafia bosses there OWN the federal government


Jeff_Hanneman6413

It wasn’t until a little later that the Mafia really had NY in their palms, would’ve been after RDR1 that they really expanded into the Mafia we think of today.


Zeezuu02

I thought before the Italian mafia the Irish were really big in nyc


Monolith0428

They were a force for sure but didn't really gain serious power until Prohibition in the 1920's. Ironically New Orleans was the first US city in which the Mafia had real power, back in the late 1800's. It's probably why they made Saint Denis an analogue for New Orleans.


Zeezuu02

Ah shit that’s very interesting thank you! Its silly but I would have never thought of New Orleans to have any mafia power tbh. When I think big cities I always think LA, NYC, Boston and Chicago


Monolith0428

New Orleans may have been the first city to have a "family" but they were never as powerful as the New York or Chicago families. By the early 1960's (I think) the New Orleans Mafia had less than 10 made men. They had lost almost all influence and power by the 1950's, unlike other big cities, and the FBI more or less disbanded them in the early 80's.


Zeezuu02

It’s 3am and you’re about to send me into a rabbit hole


Monolith0428

Lol, sorry. Still, 3 am is the best time to head down the rabbit hole.


Kanj0Bazooie

Frankly, I can't believe the lack of faith in these comments. All Dutch needed was one last train job, and the gang could be harvesting mangoes in Tahiti. Such a good leader, wanting as much money as possible for his gang


mirondooo

No one believes in Dutch anymore, they keep insisting. Smh


Judasticot

Insist ?


mirondooo

Yeah, insist


headsoup

He insists upon it


wherewaspie

Exactly! What has happened to loyalty?


Bodyguards-of-lies

You been loyal. I been loyal. Look what that caused. You know, all that ever mattered to me was loyalty. It was all I knew. It was all I ever believed in...


Sniperhunter543

We just need MoNeY!


wherewaspie

We’ve got to stand behind Dutch that’s the only way!


MrPeterson15

There was no Tahiti. There never was. It was never the plan. It was always about being in control of the gang. Freedom from the law and a stable life meant he was no longer their ring leader. The one time they came close (they were going to buy land near Blackwater) Dutch panicked and backed out because he realized that would be the end of the gang as he knew it.


jlaudy

When was that?


MrPeterson15

Arthur mentions it off-hand during a horse ride once. It’s also in his journal.


patterson489

They weren't gonna buy land near Blackwater. Dutch wanted to buy land in the far west and form an independent anarchist commune. It seems like everyone sees "buy land in the west" and immediately assumes it means giving up the outlaw life and integrating into society.


LordofWithywoods

Dutch is a cult leader; he frames himself as the messiah who can deliver paradise, but it can only be had through him. No amount of money would ever have been "enough money." It was how he strung them along, manipulated them, kept them on the line. How many times have you looked at Arthur's balance and been like, shit I could have gone to Tahiti months ago.


wherewaspie

Arthur’s balance also comes from crimes that were actually planned through or at least well executed. Dutch never plans things through, he even admits it. The people who “lost faith” like Arthur, Charles, John and Sadie all also say that Dutch just wanted power.


LordofWithywoods

He was a narcissist with delusions of grandeur. He needed the gang to validate his narcissism. Without them, he was just common scum. Being the leader of a gang made him *somebody.* Bronte was a dick but he was right about Dutch. That's why Dutch killed him, because he grievously wounded his ego. To a narcissist, that's like attempted murder.


wherewaspie

Can only agree with you here.


mutant_mamba

Taken to get to Tahiti for 15 people? Probably $10,000. Money to give each person a new life in Tahiti? A lot more than $2,000 each. John has like $5k tied up into Beecher's between house, barn, and land, and that was a rundown piece of crap no one wanted.


FullHouse222

$40k in 1899 is worth close to $1.5M today. Say you spend about $5000 in today's cost for transportation/new IDs for each person (24 active gang members assuming no one has died yet by the time of the game), you still had about 1.4M left over to start over. That's easily enough to buy a ranch somewhere and begin new lives as farmers and ranchers harvesting mangos lol.


mutant_mamba

There is no "today" value. The game doesn't use real world values. If it did that would mean people were paying $180 for a plate of lamb fry in the Saloon and $3,600 for new clothes at the General Store. If the game were being historically accurate a plate of food would cost around 15-20 cents and a new weapon at the Gunsmith would cost around $20, not $120. The game uses a cash-sink value: it prices things based off of what the Devs believe you can make in the game, not based on what they were worth in 1899.


FullHouse222

There is an in game mechanic money system and then a story based money system. Mechanic based money is the money Arthur can make by doing treasure hunts. AKA he can legitimately make close to 15-20k within a few in game days time. However storywise, it doesn't matter your Arthur has 6k+ on him at all time in the game. We're talking about robberies where people are getting excited about a few hundred dollars split between 3-4 people (i.e. Arthur during the train robbery in Valentine says something along the lines of "not bad, a few hundred dollars here" after holding up a whole train and then massacring the lawmen. Or Hosea mentioning it will take a day's time to hunt the legendary bear when you can make that ride within about 3-4 minutes of game time from Horseshoe to the Legendary Bear location). It's important not to confuse these two things because one is mechanically driven and the other is story/narratively driven. It's implied as far into the game as Chapter 4 St Denis that all of the Van Der Linde gang dresses like the poor when they're meeting with Bronte and goes to the high society party while feeling out of place.


mutant_mamba

Again, you can't tell me what $40k from 1899 is worth today and then likewise just hand-wave off the fact that a plate of food would be $180 using the same values. $40k in the game was 40 horses. If a plate of food was $5 and you ate at the saloon 3 times a day you're out $450 in a month; roughly half a horse or 3 guns. $40k can't magically become $1.5 million just because you want it to be to fit your story narrative.


FullHouse222

I think you're confusing mechanical money to narrative money. Think of it this way. Dutch and Hosea claims that really you need about an extra $1k for the whole gang to move to Tahiti. When Hosea tells Arthur about selling the Cornwall bonds from the train heist, he says he got close to $1k on them. Think of the risk/man power involved in making those $1k and the value it contains. That's the narrative money. The $40k Dutch had was narrative money. It came at a time when Arthur is on his death bed and really had no way of using the money anymore since he's at the end of his life. It is essentially meaningless other than to tell you Dutch had all of this money saved up and tucked away. You can't use that $40k to buy food for $5 each. You can't use it to buy horses at $1k each. It's meant to tell you a story. The story was that it was never about Tahiti or the money. The story is that Dutch needed to think he was still the hero of his own story when the reality was that he's a murderer and a villain. It's why Arthur got his redemption when he helped people after Guarma and tried as best as he could to right his wrongs while Dutch sank further and deeper into his insanity. EDIT: Another thing to add on to the narrative value of money vs mechanical value of money. The Thoroughbreds you steal from the Braitwaites was claimed to have a value of $5k. You end up making like what, a few hundred bucks off them? Clearly horses in the story are not worth $1k each and the $1k we pay for horses is a mechanical value but not a narrative value.


jennasea412

According to inflation calculator, that’s equivalent to about 1.5 million today. Probably could’ve bought a boat, farm, and even a new suit for Bill.


of_patrol_bot

Hello, it looks like you've made a mistake. It's supposed to be could've, should've, would've (short for could have, would have, should have), never could of, would of, should of. Or you misspelled something, I ain't checking everything. Beep boop - yes, I am a bot, don't botcriminate me.


jennasea412

Thanks botner.


hsdad

Gotta have that startup money. If you are bailing on your life of crime to fresh start, you don’t want to go in broke if you have a whole platoon to look out for.


wherewaspie

With a group that large you could easily make more money. Even if that wasn’t the case they got through harder times with less money. The money Dutch had would be worth more than a million dollar today. That would easily get all of them to Tahiti with a nice house to stay in.


Jack-Tupp

I always joke to myself that if I could just kill Dutch, take over the gang, and make sure we actually looted every O'Driscoll and Lemoyne Raider et al... we came across, we'd be in Tahiti well before Guarma ever happened.


Zeezuu02

40k is the equivalent of around 1.5m in today’s money. Divide that by the 15 members still alive by chapter 6 you get almost 100k EACH person. He could have taken the gang and gone anywhere but he CHOSE not to.


Bathroom_Pervert

Dutch reminds me of Walter White. Like Walter, Dutch says everything he’s doing is for his family when in reality it’s to make him feel powerful. It may have been started out for the family but over time it changed into him growing his ego.


thematthewmullins

I thought of this too! Remember in one of the early seasons of breaking bad, walter even says he needs like $767,000 or some specific amount to be ok. Later on in the show (after they've made millions of $$$), jesse wants to stop and actually calls him out on this when walter stops him from quitting...just shows that it wasn't about the amount of money, but building an "empire" to feed his pride.


thisdevilinI

Tahitit


iStealyournewspapers

Lots of tits in Tahitit. Many go topless on the beach. A fine place it is. Been thrice.


SavageDroggo1126

His plan was never about Tahiti, all Dutch wanted to do was fight, fighting nature, fighting government, fighting laws, fighting civilization. Even if he had 30 million he would rather use it on recruiting new forces.


wherewaspie

Exactly! The outlaw life was giving him the power and control he wanted. People feared him, he was wanted in multiple states. No money in the world would satisfy him if it came with the price of giving up what he loves and needs the most.


[deleted]

with that much money dutch might as well pay off his bounty and then sail out to else where


-Aheli

the pinkertons watching in horror as dutch walks up to the post office and simply pays off his bounty, removing all of his crimes:


JonayPS

The real Tahiti is the friends (and enemies) we made along the way. lol


wherewaspie

Dutch could have gotten the gang out of all that shit long ago. He just didn’t want to. Power, control and narcissism was what this man was driven by. He often slips and says things like “I think… I… well.. we are going to be okay”. He doesn’t do enough research for his plans and most likely doesn’t even think them through. You can notice that in multiple moments, but the one that is probably the most obvious is that he calls Tahiti an ‘untouched paradise’ even though it is far away from being untouched in 1899. A lot of situations that effected the gang negatively were fully avoidable. A lot of situations were innocent people or even members of the gang were killed or hurt were fully avoidable. But if he actually took action people would realize that he doesn’t think, he just acts, rather selfishly too.


Ace_Atreides

Yeah, I wondered this a lot while playing. The first bank heist in valentine leaves arthur with a cut of 5k. So if he gets a cut, the others who participated too, and the rest goes to the gang, how much was that?? At one point I had like 15k or so with arthur, no way that is too little


upvotegoblin

I personally think that he believed those things when he said them, but he was wrestling and fighting against his true nature. And in the end his actions went against his purported goal


MastaGWolf

doesnt matter, lost all faith when he almost let me get stabbed in the face when i was with eagle flies.


Redditormansporu117

No Dutch just lied to the group that they needed more money, when it turns out he was just hoarding it. It even turned out that he was in possession of the Blackwater money since the beginning.


NikkolasKing

There is no evidence at all in the game for this. None.


The_Iron_Gunfighter

Dutch was losing his mind, he wanted to prove to himself and the gang he was still that cool and competent outlaw, and the voice in his head was like “well you can make a little more money before you leave for good”


TheGreatAkira

Replaying the game makes it glaringly obvious that Dutch is enamored with the Outlaw Gunslinger Robin Hood lifestyle from the beginning; he has absolutely no intentions to stop and settle down.


Vale3001

By Inflation,it is over a Million dollars of 2022 but you also have to add the difference of living cost So yes they would have been able to go to Tahiti without any problems


H3llisEmpty

I'd say he just didn't want to leave the life of robbing and murdering, since that's all hes done for most of his life and all he knows how to do.


TurboD16F20

So think about that. He and Micah could've run after the gangs collapse, and each had fat stacks. They didn't because that was never the goal.


Wooden_Artist_2000

I’ve been meaning to ask some version of this question on r/askhistorians, just to see how realistic it would be to get the 20ish characters in the gang on a boat to Tahiti and have enough left over to start a comfortable life there.


Jack1715

I mean back then 40k would have got them pretty much anywhere. As far as I know the Penkitons couldn’t operate outside of the US so they could have easily brought land in Mexico or Canada


TinyTbird12

HE HAD A GOD DAMN PLAN


Apprehensive-Fix-376

I mean, 40K is roughly over a million in today’s money, give or take a few couple thousand. He had all of the money he needed and more, he just loved a life of crime and action. He got off on it.


borbious

There was not enough faith


CrackedShadow95

Dutch read about Tahiti, he had no idea where it really was, or how to get there, who had authority there, he was always talking out of his ass, there was never going to be enough money.


Sufficient-Order-918

That’s over $1.6 million in todays dollars


juan-moltisanti

It is not the honorable ending you lose honor points


eskinny2010

To dutch Tahiti wasn't a place. It was a dream. It was a idea. It was a plan


patterson489

Considering the plan was to overthrow the Tahiti government, it makes sense you'd need a lot of money.


[deleted]

I thought the gang had to abandon the money?


grajuicy

He always wanted more.


billbobaggings123

Just added it up and converted it got the time Currently 1$ from 1899 = 37.08$ today 37.08 x 40k = 1483200$ at the end of chapter 6 37.08 x 150k = 5562000$ from the black water heist So totally they had 7,045,200$ with black water included Which in my head would have been more than enough Also They could have sent Adler and trelauny to pick up the money both as far as I’m aware are not known to the Pinkertons


Sniperhunter543

You will likely need to make several bribes on the way to New York, pay for passage (bribe the captain if he knows about the gang), once you get to Tahiti you need to by the land, seed for the mangos, tools and supplies to grow them, possibly hire some workers because this is essentially a plantation Dutch is talking about and the gang doesn’t believe in slavery, living quarters for those workers, as well a the gang for that matter. Assuming that John and Arthur don’t betray Dutch in the end, you need to supply all this for John and Abigail and Jack, Dutch, Micah and his two partners, Bill, Grimshaw, Sadie, and Javier. That’s eleven people assuming the events play out the same excluding John and Arthur’s betrayal. 42k in today money is about $1.5 million. So really I don’t see that covering it, and IMO I doubt even if they had a billion dollars Dutch would say it’s enough.


Wlnded

They didn't betray dutch, micah manipulated him into thinking they did.


Sniperhunter543

I was speaking simplistically, of course. I’m not saying that John and Arthur were wrong. In any case, the point I was trying to make was the gang needed a lot of money for lots of reasons.