Editorial | Micah Bell: Sadistic, evil and a snake. (spoilers for RDR2) .

By Sam Coles:

Writing intentionally unlikeable characters can be a hard task, as most of the time they can fall into typical archetypes where they are a moustache twirling villain. Red Dead Redemption II has one of the most unlikeable characters in any Rockstart game produced, and that character is Micha Bell. Rockstar have written one of the most unlikable characters in this game and I want to talk about his character, and why we hate him. There will be spoilers for Red Dead Redemption II.

The first time we see Micha is at the start of the game in a chilling blizzard, rather fitting given his personality but I digress. When we see that sneering grin from him we know from the start that there is something not right about him, but we just think that he is a bit of a loose cannon and nothing else. That is until the first firefight with the O'Driscolls in the cover of darkness is where he shows his true nature, after the bloodshed he is chasing a woman around the cabin hoping to get his way with her. Dutch being the calm and collective person (at this point) tells him to stop, where they then take her in and look after her. It’s this moment we see that Micha has no remorse for his actions, he does not care for human life and won’t flinch shooting someone in a brutal fashion.

Even after the events that transpire in the mountains you still see Micah as a reliable but a madman, as he generally has a good plan and can hit the on switch of a lamp from 500 yards away with his duel revolvers.  However it’s one moment where we see him for his true colours, where we see the monster unleash and it’s at this point where we and the main protagonist Arthur Morgan start to question his tendencies.

Near the start of the game when you are slowly moving out of the mountains into a warmer location, Dutch sends Micah and Lenny off to scout ahead. This sounds fine and normal for the time being, however Micah gets arrested and capture in the town of Strawberry. Arthur is tasked with rescuing him and things go to plan, until Micah flips out and massacres 90 percent of the town, where he also butchers a woman all in the name of getting back his guns. Arthur by this point wonders what kind of man he is, well one can wonder if you can call Micah a man.

As the plot continues the player and Arthur start to see Micha’s manipulative and snake like personality crawling into Dutch’s mind, this is one of the contributing factors of Dutch’s decent into madness. We see a man who is unflinching with his approach, where he will doing anything to get rich no matter the cost, he starts to gun down people without hesitation and sell out his friends to the law.

Near the end of the game Arthur has to save John Marston’s partner from Agent Milton, it’s here that he finds out that Micah was the one telling the Pinkerton’s about their heists and robberies. Arthur being extremely angry finally puts the pieces together and rides angrily to confront the traitorous snake. When confronted he of course denies it, but Arthur trying to convince Dutch of Micah’s betrayal is unsuccessful as Dutch is clouded by madness as Micah has crawled into his subconscious. When Arthur and Micah have a confrontation fist to fist, when talking about talking to Agent Milton he says he is merely a “Survivor”. At this point the player and Arthur want to unload every bullet they have into Micah and eventually one will, but alas it is not Arthur to perform the task.

When confronted by John Marston years later back where it all began, on top of a frost laden mountain. Dutch has his trepidation about the situation; however he assesses everything and then turns his gun on Micha and puts a bullet swiftly into his stomach. It’s here where we get the satisfaction of unloading everything we got, where he then staggers and then finally that sadistic maniac dies in a brutal fashion.

Micah Bell is an interesting case of a character, yes he is an unlikable character but he is written so well as that character he doesn’t fall into typical archetypes of the “hateable” character. He is a sadistic, evil and a snake, who wants nothing more than to get rich and he doesn’t care who he hurts or murders in the process. We slowly grow this hatred throughout the plot, and it is so satisfying when he finally gets his comeuppance at the end of the game.