How to Die Like an Idiot in Red Dead Redemption 2 (and Other Failures)

I'm still riding and shooting my way through the massive Red Dead Redemption 2.  My focus has finally shifted over to advancing the story (something that I should've done earlier) and Arthur has transitioned to the culturally jarring world of Saint Denis.  Arthur isn't made for the big city and riding through its narrow, dirty streets is unpleasant when compared with the open plains and forests of the earlier zones.  The big city has offered several very memorable shootouts though--notably one involving a high speed chase on a trolley.  When I'm not busy guiding Arthur through the story missions, I've been really good at guiding him (and several times, his poor, amazing horse) into stupidly apparent traps and obvious areas where death is implied (mostly through my own dumbness).

The Night Folk are super creepy.

I've made it my mission to mold Arthur into an honorable thief--I will stop when a stranger asks for help (and most of the time helping people does pay off--I've managed to get several free items as a reward).  Unfortunately, having these "good guy" instincts can yield negative results thanks to the deviousness of the other inhabitants of the RDR2 world.  The creepiest death (so far....) of poor Arthur occurred at the hands of a group known as the Night Folks--denizens of the swampy Bayou Nwa region who enjoy silence, creepy skeletal face paint, and slaughtering people.  The situation was an obvious setup--a woman was crying for help in a very remote area.  I trotted Arthur over to the lady, twice asked her what was wrong (to which she wouldn't reply.....derp), and rather than just ride off and ignore the death trap, I figured that Arthur could fend off any stray attackers.  I armed Arthur with the big guns and prepared for whatever was going to jump out of the bushes.  My preparations weren't good enough though and the Night Folk don't mess around with normal weapons--poor Arthur was promptly hacked to death with a tomahawk (yeah, you really want to kill any Night Folk at range because melee weapons are a guaranteed one-shot).

In case you're wondering, there are other very obvious traps that you should avoid.  Poor Arthur also died at a location in the far Northern area around Annesburg when I stupidly stopped to inspect an oddly positioned hanging corpse (I can't resist looting a good corpse).  Upon shooting down the corpse, Arthur was ambushed by the hill people known as the Murfree Brood and died at the hands of a knife wielding redneck.

Arthur has also had a number of tragic run-ins with wildlife--namely cougars.  Cougars are probably the trickiest animals to track (that I've encountered so far).  Every time my HUD lights up with enemy movement I always try to figure out exactly what's causing it (a snake?  A bear?) but you don't have the time to pause when it comes to cougars and they're difficult to detect with Eagle Eye.  At one point I dumbly got Arthur killed in an area where I knew there was a cougar only to have him respawn and then promptly get killed again!  It was crushingly stupid.  I would also partially attribute the deaths of Arthur at the hands of cougars to a challenge that requires killing five cougars with a bow and arrows--I never have the bow equipped and taking the time to cycle through numerous weapons to find it generally results in the gnawing doom of the cougar.  I have developed a healthy desire to slay all the cougars in revenge for Arthur's numerous deaths.

Keeping Arthur alive has obvious financial benefits--it seems to cost an increasing amount of money every time that Arthur dies--but keeping his horse alive has been an overriding focus for me.  Thanks to my obsessive desire to fish and hunt all the legendary animals early on, I stumbled across a very excellent horse--a white Arabian that spawns in the snowy region of Lake Isabelle.  Even though I anticipated that taming this horse would be difficult (because I hadn't encountered another Arabian horse, so I knew it was rare), I managed to help Arthur wrangle it and tame it.  The white Arabian is an amazing horse--great speed and handling!  The only downside that I've encountered is that it does seem extremely skittish and tends to buck you off rather easily at the first sign of trouble.

A majestic beauty.

The real tragedy of the white Arabian is the fact that if it is somehow killed, I have to trudge Arthur all the way back into the mountains and re-break it (and then spend the time increasing its bonding).  Sadly, I've had several versions of the white Arabian thanks to similar stupid death situations as previously described.  The first time I lost it was when I thought that I could possibly gallop quickly across the region of West Elizabeth (an area that is currently completely off limits thanks to the bounty on Arthur's head) to reach an area I wanted to fish--the short answer is no, you cannot do that.  An army of bounty hunters armed with devastating weaponry made quick work of Arthur...and unfortunately, his horse too.

So, I trekked him back up into the mountains to re-break the white Arabian version 2.0.  This horse lasted much longer, but fell victim to the stupidest death at my hands.  One of the survivalist challenges requires you to catch fish from some unconventional and dangerous areas--one fish must be caught by boat from the alligator infested waters of Bayou Nwa and the other must be caught from the railroad bridge close to Saint Denis.  It goes without saying that fishing from railroad tracks is an obvious ploy to force you into a ridiculously dangerous situation.  I was prepared for this situation and dismounted my horse well back and well clear of the railroad bridge...just in case.  I had Arthur hop off and make his way to the (very dangerous) middle of the bridge and was prepared to listen intently for any signs of oncoming trains and to be ready to dive Arthur off the edge.  Well....planning is all well and good until real life distracts you!  I had just started fishing when I got distracted by a text message and lost my attention on potential oncoming trains.  Fast forward to a few minutes later, I completely forget about the train and start fishing.  I catch a very large fish and hear the ominous toot, tooting of the train whistle!  The situation becomes doubly tragic when my horse automatically runs from its safe position at the end of the tracks right onto the middle of the bridge to help facilitate transporting the large fish.  I could do nothing but watch as first Arthur was rammed by the train, dragged up the tracks, and then his poor, beautiful horse was launched into the river.  I actually laughed at this death because it was particularly dumb (and caused by my distraction).

There was nothing left, but to swallow my pride and trek Arthur back into the mountains to track down version 3.0 of the white Arabian.  (Horse #3 is still going strong!)

The moral of the story--distraction kills; ignore your text messages while dangerously fishing on railroad tracks.