John Marston - Character Profile

rebeccaphillips-iad
Jan 29, 2015
2 min read

Game = Red Dead Redemption

Biography

John Marston was born in 1873. His father was an illiterate Scottish immigrant that was born on the boat into New York, while his mother was a prostitute who passed away during John's birth. John's father was once blinded in both eyes during a bar fight south of Chicago. His father loved to talk about Scotland and hated the English for what they did to his great-grandparents, who he never met.

In 1881, John's father (supposedly) died in a bar fight. John was only eight years old at the time and was sent to an orphanage where he lived his teenage years. Although the circumstances are unclear, he managed to escape the orphanage and fall into Dutch van der Linde's gang and met his future wife, Abigail. Dutch became a father figure to John, teaching him how to shoot, hunt, gather, read, and how to survive in the world.

Early career

John Marston was an outlaw gang member and gunslinger. He ran with Dutch van der Linde, Bill Williamson and Javier Escuella, committing robberies, raids, murders, kidnappings, and other crimes across the frontier. According to Marston, the gang stole and fought for a reason. In stealing from the rich, they in turn gave to the poor. They wanted to elicit change in the people of the West, although this might just be his own justification for their actions.

In 1906, after being shot in a failed robbery and left to die by his comrades in arms, Marston sought to retire from outlaw lifestyle. Putting his history behind him, he left his old life along with his wife Abigail, their young son Jack ,and his daughter (who is implied by Javier Escuella in The Gates of El Presidio to have still been alive at this time), and began a ranch in Beecher's Hope. Between his gang days and 1911, Marston's daughter died from an unknown cause.

Despite Marston's apparent reformation, he remains a masterful and experienced gunman, marksman, rider and hunter. Marston is a rugged survivalist and knows life as a fight for survival; he adheres to the old-fashioned West in a world rapidly experiencing the advancements of modernized American lifestyle.

Trivia

As of 1911, John is 37-38 years old.
John's height is 5'10
John is a Hebrew name meaning "God Is Gracious."
Marston resembles Red Harlow with his similar scars and hat.
A popular rumor suggests that John is blind in his left eye.
John doesn't know how to swim, and will drown in deep waters, similar to many of the protagonists of Rockstar's earlier Grand Theft Auto games. He admits this to Irish during the mission "We Shall Be Together in Paradise".
John appears to have a less broad sense of imagination than his son, Jack. Jack is frequently seen in Red Dead Redemption and Undead Nightmare reading a book, and John regarding how unrealistic his stories seem. However, some of them end up becoming true.
John is often associated with the city, even though he is a rancher.
John's parents' relationship with each other is left ambiguous. As his mother was a prostitute, John implied that his father was her pimp, but even then, he still struggled with what to label him.