Just finished âThe Fine Art Of Conversationâ in chapter 6 of rdr2 where reverend swanson leaves at the end and I have some thoughts Iâd like to share. Most posts/comments I see online about reverend Swanson are usually just ripping on him for being useless or not serving any purpose in the plot of the game (and Iâll admit for a while I thought he was just drunken idiot weakling) but after a while I completely disagree.
At the beginning of the game, we meet Reverend as a sort of spineless do-gooder. Someone whose only real purpose in the group is to boost morale but even then we only ever feel as though heâs (literally) preaching from a soapbox pedestal. Chapters 2-4 heâs basically just the town drunk high on opiate all the time and making a general clown of himself
Chapter 6 (and off-screen in chapter 5) we see his character take a drastic shift into a more serious, almost respectable tone. Most of this is pretty obvious to the player but hereâs my more personal take on his character;
Reverend was always supposed to embody the realist. Reverend was right about everything from the start to the point even he didnât realize it. His substance abuse was most certainly being driven by his subconscious (or unconscious) mind being unable to cope with knowing the fact that the gang was doomed from the start. He also couldnât live with the gravity of his own choices in being there in the first place. This is evidenced by the fact that he got himself together and cleaned up his act while the gang was falling apart. He saw the truth manifest as he watched his leaders turn rancid from paranoia and delusion and his mentors die (Dutch, Hosea) and the innocent perish (Lenny). You could even pull some biblical reference with Micah being the serpent in the garden.
While all this was crumbling around him his repressed fears and guilt surrounding his condition were all finally validated and out in the open. Him realizing this even led to him attempting to shepherd those around him to safety (the women and others in the camp) to no avail. He made the hardest choice there is to leave all that you know and venture into the unknown with nothing but the broken self to carry him along. Reverend was the good guy all along. This serves as an incredibly important plot point because it shows how Reverend was the penultimate expression of reality that the entire group scoffed at and belittled the entire time only for him to serve as a form of acceptance in the end. He rose to fortune while the gang withered. He was the expression of reality the gang was running from all along, not Milton & Ross, not the Pinkertons, not Cornwall, not the army, not civilization, but the reality of a life being what it is for the common man; sweet, simple, humility.
Reverend wasnât weak, he just couldnât buy into the delusion the rest of the gang held onto for so long. He tried, the fact he even stayed with the gang for as long as he did is a testament to the fact that he wanted to believe in the vision but just couldnât get past all the lying, killing, stealing, and robbing, not to mention the total unrealistic expectation that you can make so many big and powerful enemies and expect to come out on top whilst living in the mud and tolling around in the dirt.
In the end Reverend sees his instincts validated and his reality come to life by making the choice to accept defeat and leave. He embraces change, progress, evolution, and even imperfection. He knew others wouldnât take him seriously, he knew he was no perfect leader or grizzled gunman, he knew his resolve and convictions in life were all fluid and conditional (as they should be) and he was willing to embrace the present with dignity.
Thereâs more I could say about all this but for now Iâd love to hear outside opinions on the matter. Let me know what you guys think!
P.s. I also have similar thoughts on Trelawny being an expression of what outlaws would become in the future (con artists, silver tongue salesmen, almost political in nature businessmen, etc.) but Iâll save that for another take