Dutch Van Der Linde analysis: Design and Theme

 

Im starting to spring into other areas of study on this page and wanting to push the understanding of design to be more story based, because the story of a character should echo through his design. On first impression Dutch has a very unassuming look outside of the subtle X shape on his body there is no obvious design decisions made in the structure of his face that scream out "Villian". This allows us to open up to him as a sympathetic character in the beginning putting us in the same place as the other characters in the games story. 

 In the book Anatomy of Story, John Truby says that in order to define who your protagonist is you must first set up your villian. In that way the hero becomes a reaction to the main antagonist of the story.  As he says in Chapter 3 : "All characters connect and define each other in four major ways: Story function, archetype, theme and opposition. "

  Defining both the hero and opponent at once can be traced back to the main theme or the premise line of the story. The two characters must be fighting over the same thing. The role Dutch plays is illustrated in his first action that we witness him making. Which is taking the group through a blizzard to a local house they come across while outrunning the law. The first introduction we get of him is that he exudes fatherly energy and charisma that points everyone in his camp in the right direction.

He loves the people around him and ends his talk with his voice cracking but still strong and confident " Stay warm. Stay Strong and Stay with me." This instantly boosts the morale of the company and puts people into action as John and Dutch step outside to meet Micha as they look for goods to feed their camp. The two are then distinguished as characters as they both define each other in how they react to one another and speak to one another. John sees Dutch as a leader and Dutch sees John as his right hand man in a time of crisis, the only other person who can help the rest of them stay strong. 

As we meet Micha we see the characters get defined in another situation where they come across another gang in a log cabin further along that was ramsacked by them. This illustrates the main characters as being fundamentally good, whereas we get a hint that the people Dutch has decided to surround himself with might not all be good when we see Micha chasing the woman who was kept hostage around the table. We get the sense from this and the previous conversation with Micha that Micha is a scumbag who only cares for himself. 

Again we see Dutch defined as the fatherly type of character as he provides worth for the woman and escorts her back to camp. We have seen now the setup for the character arc of a king father figure turning into a tyrant as we will see through a series of decisions that Dutch ends up making he will become the very thing he hates and bring misery to everyone in his camp. 

In Anatomy of Story John Truby provides an example breakdown of a characters characteristics and how they relate to other characters so Im going to fill this out to breakdown dutch the best I can from the impression I got for the remainder of this article. Note I'm currently watching all the cutscenes in the game to do this as a multi part series and this may be updated as I go. Each post will cover a different aspect of the story and how these characters relate. 

1) What is the central moral problem in the story?

I would say the central moral problem is how to live ones life in a changing world where things are becoming more centralized and less of a wild west.

What is Dutch's Weaknesses: His main weakness seems to be his need for undying loyalty from his crew, he burns bridges everywhere he goes, he has ultimate authority while also despising authority, wants to control the way others look at him. 

From here John Truby says that once you give a character a weakness you want to figure out what immoral actions might come naturally out of that  and then identify the deep seated moral weakness and need  that are the source of this action. 

When I think of what this might be for Dutch I'm reminded of his remarks close to the end of the first chapter when John says that "Revenge is a luxury we cant afford" and Dutch responds with "this is the right thing for us to do". 

So what would the natural consequences of a weakness like this be? This type of character may be subject to paranoia from other people, a quick temper, a lust for revenge at people who question his leadership, a ability to manipulate others for the higher "good" in his own eyes. 

Another thing john says is to take a virtue in a character and make him passionate about it to where he is oppressive or to come up with a value a character believes in and then find the negative value of that character. What we see here is that dutch is very passionate about saving people who are downtrodden and has assembled a band of them together that he considers to be like him as being outcasts from society. This passion towards this group becomes an obsessive hatred for the society he feels has alienated them and justifies his actions against larger society. 

Next post I'll be diving deeper into the story structure of Dutch.