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ā€œ The amount of hell we've raised, we're owed some back, you know? ā€ž
~ Charles Smith.
ā€œ We lived a very bad path... ā€ž
~ Charles lamenting on his time with the Van der Linde gang.

Charles Smith is one of the two tritagonists (alongside Sadie Adler) of the 2018 video game Red Dead Redemption II.

A survivalist that joined the Van der Linde gang, Charles would act as the group's hunter and support in performing bank robberies to keep them afloat.

He was voiced by Noshir Dalal, who also voiced Vice Admiral Rampart in Star Wars: The Bad Batch.

His Evil Ranking[]

His Villainous Deeds[]

  • Even though he is the most moral member of the gang, he nevertheless acts as a hardened criminal who helps the gang rob banks, damage property in public and kill people.
  • Despite having standards against poaching, he got so angry at one poacher that he killed him in a violent fit of rage, though he deserved it for unnecessarily killing several bison and incriminating Native Americans as killers.
  • He encouraged Arthur to kill a poacher, despite knowing that said poacher potentially has a family, and whether Arthur spares the poacher or kills him is up to the player's choice.
  • He threw a spear at a bounty hunter and killed him, though this was done to save Arthur.
  • Even if it was to save John's son Jack, Charles joined the attack on Braithwaite Manor, helping all the partakers to endanger everyone at the mansion to come to Jack's rescue.
  • He participated in the assault on the Cornwall refinery, though it was with good intentions.
  • He and John attempted to kill all the members of the Skinner's gang, though he only wanted to save Uncle.
  • He helped John to kill Micah Bell, even if he undoubtedly deserved it.
  • Even after leaving the Van der Linde gang, he became a street fighter eight years later, making bets and fighting several people in tournaments.
  • Despite his redemption, his ultimate fate is uncertain and not brightened enough whether he actually managed to completely abandon the outlaw life and start a family in Canada as he intends.
  • Thanks to having lower resources when compared to John Marston, Bill Williamson and Edgar Ross, he manages to out-heinous all three of them despite killing less people than the former two (with John killing thousands of people and Bill killing hundreds of people).

Why Doesn't He Stand Out?[]

  • While he has committed numerous crimes and thus passes the baseline, he fails the high heinous standard of the franchise, being a merely generic gangster with eight murders to his name. It also doesn't help that only three of his kills are direct while five of them are indirect. In contrast, Arthur Morgan, Micah Bell and Dutch van der Linde did far worse, with the aforementioned three villains having comparable resources, higher kill counts between the double digits and triple digits and way more despicable acts under their belts.
  • He fails the heinous standard to Edmund Lowry Jr., who brutally tortured and killed 51 people with even fewer resources and less screentime given he is a simple criminal who has almost nothing at his disposal other than some murder methods whereas Charles is far less despicable despite having more resources as a gang member. He also fails the standard to Alfredo Montez, who murdered an innocent family and ordered the shooting of Valentine Town with lower resources.
  • He is generally a deeply sympathetic character, preventing him from being PE or NPE for the following reasons:
    • He is incredibly tragic due to his mother being killed by US soldiers and his father falling into a deep depression and becoming a drunkard, causing Charles to leave home at the age of 13. Even after running away from his house, he took part in a bank robbery that turned out disastrous, forcing him to flee into the snowy mountains and join the Van der Linde gang, but not without suffering from PTSD. Although he aided an attempted bank robbery after experiencing his tragedy, his crimes aren't nearly as heinous as what Arthur and Dutch have done and unlike both of them, Charles did admit his mistakes.
    • He is pretty insecure, as he lamented on his life in the Van der Linde gang and hated himself for it after achieving redemption and abandoning the criminal lifestyle upon growing to despise it and wanting to start a new life with a family of his own.
    • He is an obvious scapegoat as the narrative treats his suffering with a ton of sympathy and it's overall made clear that he never deserved any of the bad things that happened to him.
  • He is genuinely affable and the most moral and compassionate member of the gang, as he always remained a decent and honest man who is respected by the gang, and had never been overzealous to the criminal lifestyle, even committing a multitude of heroic deeds such as giving proper burials to his fellow gang members, attempting to sacrifice himself by distracting Pinkertons to assist his fellow gang members in their plan to escape, helping Wapiti Indians in their war against the US Army and ordering them to flee to Canada for safety and playing a huge role in Micah's well-deserved assassination.
  • He is a well-intentioned extremist and can also be considered a chaotic neutral anti-villain, as the only reason he joined the gang was because he found some empathy with the gang's moral code, showing that he believes in seeing the good and positive in his friends.
  • He greatly cares for the members of his gang, especially Arthur, John and Dutch. He also helped John to rescue his son and willingly allowed him to take down Micah Bell and end his reign of terror. On top of that, despite Micah being a horrifically irredeemable man, Charles is mostly patient and understanding towards him, and the only time he expresses genuine anger at Micah is when he betrays and manipulates the gang, and Charles kept trying to find something good about Micah's personality only to later decide that he is a threat who must be killed.
  • He has firm standards against animal cruelty and poaching, as he was horrified at seeing the corpses of dead and rotting bison that were needlessly killed by poachers who tried to frame native Americans for their murders and paint them as killers. Plus, his victims are restricted to people who deserve it. He also has a particularly soft spot for children and would never, under any circumstances, harm one, as he was enraged when John's son Jack was abducted and brought to Braithwaite Manor and he only endangered the place with multiple other people merely so he could save Jack's life before he could undergo any kind of torture or near death experience.
  • Even before his redemption, he already showed remorse for a great deal of his crimes and displayed a rigid code of honor on numerous occasions. Two good examples of this is when he didn't want to stay in the gang after being more and more disturbed by their violence and cruelty, and as a street fighter, he is honorable and makes bets with his opponents before fighting them.
    • By extension, he has multiple Pet the Dog moments throughout the game. For example, he took pity on Hosea Matthews, Lenny Summers, Susan Grimshaw and Arthur Morgan after their respective deaths, and gave them peaceful and polite burials to say one last goodbye to them.
  • He ultimately redeems himself near the end of the game, as he reasonably leaves the Van der Linde gang when they start to resort to murder and violence to solve problems and he declined his cut money from the refinery attack, instead opting to stay with the Wapiti Indians at the reservation for helping them to flee to Canada in order to escape the US Army.
    • To celebrate his redemption, he abandoned the outlaw life and seeks redemption after killing Micah Bell. He also strives to start a new life in Canada, and he is even willing to have a family after moving on from his career of villainy.

External Links[]

Navigation[]

           RockstarGames Villainous Benchmarks

Bully
Students
Jimmy Hopkins | Derby Harrington | Johnny Vincent | Earnest Jones
Teachers
Mr. Burton

Grand Theft Auto
Protagonists
Claude | Huang Lee
Antagonists
Devin Weston

Red Dead
Protagonists
John Marston
Antagonists
Bill Williamson | Andrew Milton | Edgar Ross

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