Off-Clock Musings

On Men

Boy. Man. Male. These three words practically have the same meaning.

As a female, I never wondered what makes a man, and what exactly a man's role in life is⁠-not as a teenager at least. As a teenager, I simply recall worrying about how cute boys were and no more. I have entered my 20s now, and my view on men has matured, curious to understand what a man is, and how he is different from a boy. I have come to learn it is important for me to know the difference not only as a young woman but even as a writer. How else could I write about great men who do great things?

Even though I have brothers, a present father, and a lot more uncles than aunts, I never asked them for the answer. It's funny, but I just didn't; it never crossed my mind to. I never bothered to search for the answer either, though I was slowly becoming more and more interested in understanding men and the role they play in society.

"Red Dead Redemption II" is a video game that I absolutely love and enjoy playing. It has about 20 hours of gameplay in story mode, a fact I dislike very much as it is simply not enough hours. I found myself finishing and completing it five times, craving more each time I completed story mode. The story plot is a work of art, but the characters are what truly caught my attention. Each character has a different personality from the other, and they are so well developed that they resemble real people (both graphically and trait wise). My favorite is surely Arthur Morgan, the protagonist and the man you play as in the game. The year is 1899, and you follow Arthur to his destiny as a gang member in the wild west. The game is fun, but I also learned a lot about American history, something I thoroughly enjoy as an American myself.

I first played RDR2 in March 2019. My sister-in-law purchased it as a gift to my brother, who plays lots of video games. I, too, like to play video games occasionally, but I am quite picky in what I give a try. When I heard my brother say the words "cowboy game," my eyes widened, and hearts emerged from them (think the emoji) as I was very much interested in cowboys at that time (still am), constantly yearning to find content about such sort of things. I gave it a try just a few days later, unaware that it would reveal a life lesson that would forever change my life. I won't go into detail (spoiler alert), but Arthur is orphaned as a teenager after his father passes away, a criminal he is not quite fond of, while his mother passed away when he was much younger⁠-she he loved but did not remember much of. At fifteen, two men years his senior pick him up and teach him the art of thievery. The gang starts with three, a fifteen-year-old being the third, and later grows to have more than twenty people and a physically strong and brave thirty-five-year-old Arthur. Said man can be vicious, violent, and disagreeable, but he can also love, be tender, and protect when he cares to. Quick side note⁠-I just realized I am actually going into detail when I said I won't; that's what Arthur has done to me.

Arthur isn't entirely good, but he isn't entirely bad either. He has taught me that everyone is like this (with very few exceptions in the human population), and after analyzing him for months, I concluded what he truly sought were freedom and a family. Nothing more, nothing less. He is taught to seek after these things in a criminal manner, robbing and harming others to get his way. He is impolite to those he wants to harm, but he is the most gentle of people towards the people he cares for. He tries to marry Mary, but her father refuses to offer his daughter to an outlaw. His first attempt to find family in a woman fails, so he continues on with the gang life, making a family out of his fellow gang members. Arthur puts himself in danger several times to provide for both the men and women in the gang, and he always looks out for them, constantly asking the women if they need anything, providing money to a young mother, and hunting big game to feed all 20+ people. Good old Hosea is a father-figure to him. His end goal is to settle down with a woman and children⁠-and the gang life is a way to get what he yearns for⁠-but because that never comes true, he seeks to protect and sacrifice himself for his fellow gang member, John Marston. John has young Jack as a son and Abigail as his woman, who he wishes to rid her from his life for a long time until Arthur tells him to be a man and to go to his family. This is after some gang members betray Arthur and John in a treacherous way in which Arthur, although nearing his death from T.B., sends Jack and Abigail to safety before returning to John and protecting him from their now new enemies. At one point, Arthur gives John his legendary leather black hat, telling him to haste to his family. Arthur stays behind to keep off the people who wish to end John's life. Arthur. . .well, Arthur passes away in the end to save John's life.