Official: Fair citizens of Saint Denis, for as long as any of us can remember, it is justice that separates us from barbary. Yet justice itself can at times be barbaric. For sometimes a man is so savage, the only way to deal with him justly is by savagery. Colm O'Driscoll is one such man. He has murdered, tortured, robbed, stolen, raped, and abused for a decade across five states, seemingly with impunity. Today, justice catches up with him.
Colm O'Driscoll: (laughs) As well you may. I've been a bad man!
Even in the Crapsack World of The Wild West, the Red Dead games have several characters that reach a special level of evil.Colm O'Driscoll: (laughs) As well you may. I've been a bad man!
All spoilers are unmarked. You Have Been Warned!
Red Dead Revolver
- Governor Griffon is the Small-Town Tyrant of Brimstone, a man who slimed into his current position by betraying his best friend Nate Harlow and his entire family to the murderous General Diego. Griffon bankrolls Diego's bloody slavery operation in the gold mines of Bear Mountain so he can profit in turn, and incites a war between the Black Elk tribe and the Red Wolf tribe that sees the latter driven off their sacred land and almost exterminated. Griffon rules the town of Brimstone with an iron fist, employing scalp-collecting psychos and sending them to terrorize and murder whomever he can't bribe into service, as well as setting up an annual Battle Royale that he always rigs in favor of his chosen gunslinger Mr. Kelley. Griffon even murdered a barber once for the slight of nicking him with his razor. Responsible for the ruination of countless lives, when Nate's son Red finally corners Griffon seeking revenge for the death of his parents, Griffon merely mocks him: "I always regretted what happened on your daddy's farm, Red. I should have been there...to make sure you joined them!"
- General Javier Diego is a rogue Mexican military officer who has taken to a life of crime. Introduced slaughtering a small army of U.S. troops for trying to halt his smuggling outfit, Diego is tempted by the conniving Griffon to throw in together on a plot to mine the gold out of Bear Mountain. Murdering Griffon's former business partner and his wife, Diego begins a brutal mining operation on Bear Mountain in which he routinely kills off caravans of innocent people, then enslaves the few survivors to work hard labor lest they be executed. Diego further works with Griffon in arming the vicious Black Elk tribe so that they will wage bloody war on the peaceful Red Wolf tribe, leaving no one to stand in Diego's way of defiling the sacred ground of Bear Mountain and stripping it of all its resources.
- "The Cemetery" mission: Mr. N. Black is the creepy undertaker of the town of Tarnation, a Ghost Town whose entire population mysteriously vanished or abruptly died, including Jebid(i)ah Cole's sister. The truth is that Mr. Black and his gang wiped out Tarnation's population, using the town as a trap to bury alive unfortunate victims, unearthing them only after they expire so he can rob them of their valuables. Mr. Black has filled a graveyard with dozens of unfortunate stiffs, and he may even mow down his own men during his boss battle.
Red Dead Redemption duology
- First game: Colonel Agustin Allende is the cruel and corrupt governor of Nuevo Paraiso. Though Allende comes from peasant stock himself, once in power he becomes an oppressive dictator who brutalizes the common people he rules over, keeping them poor, starving and without hope. One of Allende's darker pleasures is frequently having women abducted and sent to his villa so that he can rape them. After John Marston arrives in Mexico while trying to hunt down two members of his old gang, Allende promises to help him in return for his services. Allende uses Marston as a tool in his war against the rebels opposing his rule, regularly sending a reluctant Marston out to kill them, including one instance where Marston has to burn down their village of Tesoro Azul. Unfortunately for John, Allende had not only never planned on upholding his end of the bargain, he had actually been harboring the outlaws John was hunting, and tries to have John executed once he's outlived his usefulness.
- Red Dead Redemption 2 prequel:
- Micah Bell III is a deranged but clever member of the Van der Linde gang and an informant for the Pinkerton Detective Agency. At first appearing to be nothing more than a cruel thug, he shows a glimpse of his true colors when arrested for murder in Strawberry; after being broken out, Micah forgoes a clean getaway to go on a killing spree, culminating in the murder of an old friend and the man's wife, all to get his favorite gun back, leaving half the town dead. Micah takes advantage of Dutch's eroding sanity to commit more immoral and destructive acts, and sells the gang out to the Pinkertons, nearly killing everyone in the gang, including the non-combatants. When exposed, Micah kills Miss Grimshaw and, depending on the player's actions, may personally murder Arthur Morgan as well. In the epilogue, Micah is running a gang of his own, and wanted for murdering an entire family. When confronted by John Marston, Micah threatens to go after John's family too. A bloodthirsty maniac who only cares about winning and living, Micah is every negative stereotype of the savagery of the Van der Linde gang given life.
- Colm O'Driscoll, head of the O'Driscoll gang, is a notorious criminal and the arch-foe of Dutch van der Linde. A sadist who relishes pain in others, Colm uses his many, many gang members as disposable Cannon Fodder while wreaking a trail of murder and rape across the West, engaging in much of it himself. When first encountered, his thugs have destroyed the Adler ranch, killing Sadie Adler's husband and raping her—a wholly unique practice for Colm and the O'Driscolls. When Kieran Duffy leaves the gang for the van der Lindes, Colm later gruesomely tortures and murders him. Responsible for the death of Dutch's beloved Annabelle in revenge for Dutch killing his brother, Colm flatly admits he never cared for his brother at all, gleefully summing himself up as "I've been a bad man!"
- Leviticus Cornwall is a corrupt businessman who embodies the worst excesses of American capitalism. Forcing his workers into nigh subhuman conditions, Cornwall has his fingers in almost every corrupt pie imaginable. Backing Alberto Fussar's horrid regime, Cornwall keeps the people of Guarma in torturous bondage to profit while laundering Fussar's reputation. Making a corrupt bargain with Colonel Henry Favours, Cornwall plots to see the Wapiti Tribe ethnically cleansed so he can claim their land. With countless dead in his quest for power, Cornwall is a man who not only kills and robs, but annihilates everything in his path.
- Chapter 5: Alberto Fussar is the dictator of Guarma who turns the entire little island nation into a sugar plantation to satisfy the robber barons and his own endless greed. Keeping his people enslaved, Fussar regularly works them to death and murders anyone who might even think of resisting or striking. With a dearth of workers, Fussar secretly brings in slaves from America or Haiti to work until their bodies give out.
- Chapter 6: Colonel Henry Favours is an elderly US Army commander facing retirement at the end of a long and completely undistinguished career. Seeking to erase his deserved reputation for cowardice and incompetence, Favours realizes a way to win glory. Stationed as the liaison to the Wapiti Lakota tribe, Favours begins to attempt to antagonize the tribe by having them assaulted, sending their children to reform schools, burning down their sacred shrines, and taking their horses so they cannot hunt, dooming them to starvation. Favours even withholds vital vaccines and medicine to kill their children and infirm, hoping to provoke them into a war so he can gain the "glory" of wiping them out and taking their supposedly oil-rich lands. Favours also provokes an attack at supposed peace talks and frames the good-hearted Captain Monroe for treason to execute him, willing to stop at nothing to murder an innocent tribe of natives simply to enjoy his undeserved glory.
- Bounty Hunting Blackwater missions: Otis Skinner is one of the leaders of the Skinner Brothers, their founder, and the epitome of their causeless Ax-Crazy sadism. Otis and his Skinners terrorize the Tall Trees region, capturing innocents to torture them to death in all manner of ways, then keeping their mutilated bodies as trophies mounted around their camps. If he's brought in alive, Otis will gloat nobody can stop what he started and vows a wave of slaughter in revenge, and cheerfully mocks the police chief of Blackwater over having tortured and castrated several of his previous deputies.
- "American Dreams" sidequest: Edmund Lowry Jr. is a fame-obsessed madman who is the most twisted Serial Killer in the West. Lowry has killed dozens of people over the years in various, heinous ways, often torturing and mutilating his victims before their deaths. In his quest for fame, Lowry begins displaying the bodies of his victims in public spaces, showing off his depraved sense of "artistry" and leaving taunting messages for the police. When Arthur or John find Lowry's lair, it is revealed to not only be full of butchered body parts, but also decorated in articles and other proof that attributes countless murders to Lowry, including that of the Blackwater Athletics team. Lowry tries to torture and kill Arthur or John for tracking him down, then feigns surrender only long enough to nearly stab his arresting officer to death.
- "Iniquities of History" sidequest: Jeremiah Compson is introduced as a pathetic, homeless drunk wallowing in sorrow for his lost "glory days." The horrifying truth is soon revealed that Jeremiah's "glory days" were his career as a sadistic slave catcher who would hunt down men, women, and children alike, chain them up, and whip them bloody before returning them to slavery. Jeremiah kept a ledger of his dozens of successful hunts, and even cruelly kept the journal of a slave he captured just to reread the man's experience and laugh at his suffering. Whether the player executes Jeremiah for his crimes or leaves him alive to suffer in self-pity, the player is awarded honor for exposing and humiliating a monster.
