Here is a 2002 word blog post on Dutch Van Der Linde‘s mental decline in Red Dead Redemption 2:
The Fall of Dutch Van Der Linde: How Betrayal and Madness Ended the Wild West
Dutch Van Der Linde was once the charismatic leader of a gang that embodied the romanticized ideals of the Wild West. Living as outlaws on the fringes of society, Dutch built the Van Der Linde gang around philosophical notions of freedom, loyalty, and escaping the shackles of civilization. He cultivated trust and respect among his followers through his revolutionary words and audacious plans. However, as the times changed and the gang faced external threats, Dutch’s mental state began to unravel in the face of paranoia and disillusion. Seduced by the cruel manipulations of his most ruthless devotee Micah Bell, Dutch descended further into madness, making decisions that would ultimately lead to the destruction of everything he built.
The Insidious Influence of Micah Bell
When ex-sergeant Micah Bell joined the Van Der Linde gang, Dutch was immediately taken with the man’s outward shows of loyalty. But underneath, Micah was devoid of the moral code that Dutch extolled, caring only for his own survival and taking a sadistic pleasure in violence. As the gang fled the botched Blackwater heist that marked their greatest test, Micah steadily gained Dutch’s ear, stoking his leader’s growing paranoia and distrust. At every turn, he pushed Dutch toward more extreme and reckless decisions that put the gang at risk.
This insidious influence only grew over time, enabling some of Dutch‘s most brutal actions. After a bloody shootout in Strawberry that Dutch blundered into on Micah’s advice, he praised the man’s lethal skill as they made their escape. When a desperate Mrs. Adler shot a Pinkerton agent taking her hostage, Dutch turned on her and demanded Adler’s widow leave the gang. With each event, Micah further supplanted those members of Dutch’s inner circle who had the sense to question the direction Dutch was leading them.
A Revolutionary Tumbling into Madness
As Dutch struggled to accept the gang‘s diminished prospects in a changing Wild West he felt slipping away, his revolutionary rhetoric took on an increasingly bitter, rambling bent. He swung wildly from insisting they must keep heading west to paradise to declaring they should rob and kill their way to Tahiti. Long-time confidantes like Hosea and Arthur Morgan grew concerned over Dutch’s refusal to acknowledge the impossibility of his plans, recognizing the bank job in Saint Denis as one insane scheme too far.
When Hosea died and Lenny was gunned down amid the chaos of that robbery, something seemed to snap in Dutch. As Pinkertons closed in during their escape on the rooftops, he shot and killed an elderly hotel maid without blinking before abandoning John Marston to prison. He slipped further into paranoia, ranting about traitors and doubters. When the O’Driscoll boys were offered up as peace offerings shortly after, Dutch murdered Kieran in a fit of rage, further fracturing the loyalty of his followers.
The choices he made under the grip of his growing insanity doomed those who placed their faith in him as days of hiding in caves bled into weeks. Insisting on one last big train robbery despite the gang’s protests, Dutch fatefully chose to again trust Micah Bell above all, leading his men into certain disaster once more. As Pinkertons awaited them, Dutch abandoned Arthur and John amid a torrent of bullets, leaving many more to die before vanishing with his money into the mountains to wait out the coming storm.
An Unwillingness to Change Seals Dutch’s Fate
When John tracked down Micah years later to avenge Arthur, Dutch emerged seemingly contrite, for a moment the old charismatic voice of revolution. But when Agent Milton revealed that Micah had betrayed the gang since returning to Dutch after Guarma, Dutch’s rage returned. His refusal to acknowledge that his own mental decline had been the true architect of the gang’s destruction remained absolute. Ultimately turning his guns on John and Arthur’s last survivor Sadie Adler, Dutch chose to aid Micah‘s escape, cementing his status as a pathetic shell of the dynamic revolutionary leader he once presented himself as.
In their final confrontation years later, John gave Dutch a choice – to return and answer for what he did or die having learned nothing, his revolution having poisoned Paradise itself. Remaining steadfast in his denial even with death before him, Dutch chose to fight, cementing his complete refusal to change as the Pinkertons closed in on them both. His body was found days later atop the mountain bearing his name; a fitting memorial to the maddened fall of Dutch Van Der Linde.
The tragedy of Dutch’s mental decline and betrayal by Micah Bell wiped away the last embers of the Wild West that Dutch so loved, and so adamantly railed against seeing die. But like all broken revolutionaries who cannot see the obsolescence of their moment in time, he belonged to the past. Unable to change, Dutch’s tale is one forewarning the futility of fighting the future when the present has already escaped our grasp. Clinging to old glories often poisons new hopes when we trust in the wrong messiahs. And like the era he embodied, Dutch vanished all-too shortly himself after one last glorious but doomed fight for days that will never return.