MrNepathy's Blog

The following blog only covers the first hour of Red Dead Redemption so you can read this without worry of spoilers beyond that. The game starts with your character, John Marsters, going to a fort to confront his old friend Bill Williamson who isn’t the brightest star on the horizon. If I were Douglas Adams this is the point where I might write, “Before I continue, I should tell you that the worst that happens is that someone gets shot in the gut and also a shirt is ruined, but otherwise no one is harmed.” But I’ll just say Bill Williamson sleeps in his own bed that night and your unconscious body is picked up by two people traveling by. You wake up and meet Bonnie who paid fifteen dollars to the doctor to have you patched up. She’s a nice lady who runs a ranch and once you recover asks you to help out to earn your keep.

Up until now the only thing you’ve done as a player is make your character walk and then ride a horse. So Bonnie’s first mission is a tutorial of sorts. As you follow along you learn how to hitch your horse, where the stores are, and then she asks you to go on patrol with her. She gives you a rifle which your character remarks is a pretty good weapon. Now most games will have you shoot at defenseless targets during the tutorial. In Fallout 3 it’s targets and then irradiated roaches. In Modern Warfare 2 it’s cardboard bad guys. It seems Bonnie’s garden is being invaded… by rabbits. Rabbits. Bonnie wants you to shoot them.

Slow your roll there Bonnie.

I don’t shoot rabbits. While I realize that rabbits are of course impervious to harm in the real world and cannot be killed by any means (my friend Jenn, who is a veterinarian has verified this is true) and anyone who says otherwise is a low-down dirty liar, games are work of fiction and thus in games rabbits can be killed. Also people can fly, repaint their houses in a second, shoot fireballs, have to master cooking to become a Jedi and do other fantastic, unbelievable things. So suspend disbelief enough to say rabbits can die.

Still, I don’t shoot rabbits. In Fallout 3 I’m the guy that actually made the apocalypse worse. For the people of Megaton I even brought about Apocalypse 2.0. You can’t buy a rat-on-a-stick in Fallout 3 because I’ve killed all of the vendors, and all of the people that would buy rat-on-a-stick. In Just Cause 2 I tethered a woman to a barrel, then shot the barrel. Barrels, as we all learned in video games, always contain high explosives. “Roll Out the Barrel” is actually a polka about wreaking havoc upon one’s enemies. But, I don’t shoot bunnies.

So when tasked with this objective I stood there. My friend Steve watched, laughing, and waited to see what I would do. I drew my weapon, knowing what I had to do. Apparently if you point a gun at a “friendly” character, your reticle turns gray and you automatically lower your weapon. That’s right, I was going to shoot Bonnie. As that failed, I thought to take her horse hostage, as one is prone to do. Again, gray aiming dot and lowered weapon. The horse is protected. And so I stood, looking around at the world while Bonnie’s rifle rang out, smoke wafting from the barrel, the rabbits screaming.

In Knights of the Old Republic I convinced a mugger to throw himself down a shaft. Then I lied to a woman who was only trying to get a flight off planet for her and her child. She said a pilot agreed to take her for 400 credits. I told her I was the pilot, but the fee was 800. She paid me, then I told her, “Yeah, about that, I’m not a pilot.” Cha-ching, free money, impoverished woman, crying child. But I don’t shoot rabbits.

I suppose, if I had thought about it at the time, I would have perhaps tried to stab Bonnie. More shots, but not from my gun. My rifle stayed at my side. I was the Ralphie to Bonnie’s Black Bart. Bound by the mechanics of the game, I would have to stand there while Bonnie fired. She lowered her weapon at last and I thought that the mission had passed and I could move on to the next thing. But, that evil-hearted woman raised it once more. Smoke bled out into the blue horizon. Day stretched on into nights, and rabbits reached for the heavens, ripped from their bodies by hot metal as lead pierced innocence, and killed it.

My gun sat still at my character’s hip and I grew tense, wondering if I really would have to shoot the rabbits to advance. Her gun lowered again, she turned to me and said, “Thanks for the help, guess we scared them off.” We mounted our horses and rode off. Our next targets were coyotes chasing the chickens. I fired without hesitation.

Since then I have gone on in the game to shoot men, hawks, deer and even a horse or two (sorry Aunt Linda). The horses were accidental as I was firing while riding my own horse and I was trying to hit the bandits. I shot lawmen. Still, no rabbits.

Bonnie, if I ever get the chance, I will go Clyde on you. And no, I don’t mean the monkey from Every Which Way But Loose. The game hints at romance, but there will be no love. You will never know peace. For every rabbit you harm, you have earned another bullet. And justice will come from the rifle you gave me to use against the rabbits. I know what you did. You made me watch. Know the title Redemption does not refer to you. Some things don’t wash off of the soul.

I might get Dante’s Inferno just so I can travel the underworld, and stab you there as well.

Not the rabbits Bonnie, never the rabbits.

(Yes, this entire blog is true. I didn’t shoot the rabbits but I did try to shoot Bonnie.)