Red Dead Redemption 2includes dozens of documents ranging from notes, personal letters, and photographs to treasure maps. While some are useful, many are just there to flesh out the world that players are experiencing. Please note that this article will have someSPOILERSforRed Dead Redemption 2.
Interestingly, one implies that John Marston inRed Dead Redemption 2is much more linguistically talented than players might suspect. It appears that despite claiming himself “semi-illiterate” in the first game, John can read Classical Chinese, according to a recent Reddit post.
RELATED:Red Dead Redemption 2 Fan Shares Amazing Drawing Of Arthur Morgan
Players take the role of John Marston inRed Dead Redemption 2’splayable epilogue. During the epilogue, they can find the corpse of Zhou Yiat Cholla Springs in New Austin, and his unique Chinese Skull Cap hat. Searching Zhou Yi’s body reveals a letter written in Chinese. As with every other letter in the game, hitting the read button displays the text in English, implying John knows how to read Chinese characters.
The letter itself is a letter from a man in Shanghai named Zhou Wei to his nephew Zhou Yi. The latter came to America searching for his cousin Ming. This is mostly likely the given name of Zhou, the opium-addicted slaughterhouse worker from aside quest inRed Dead Redemption. But, unfortunately, it seems Yi came to an unfortunate end before completing his search.
It is worth noting that this is not the only non-English letter inRed Dead Redemption 2. The game translates those into English as well. The interface doesn’t necessarily reflect the character’s capabilities. However, it does seem like John and Arthur are actually reading the documents players inspect. One Reddit user also points out that there an untranslated Norwegian newspaper clipping in Tall Trees, implying John can’t read it. Either way, this is likely more of an amusing implied detail than a true character revelation.
It’s also funny considering the languages that John canonically doesn’t know. Attempting to interact with mostMexican NPCs inRed Dead Redemptionreveals he doesn’t speak Spanish, despite spending most of his life not far from the border. There was some conversation in the Reddit thread about how and where John might have learned Chinese. The best guess was that he picked it up from Chinese railroad workers. Another commenter pointed out that John grew up poor, so he might have regularly interacted with immigrant communities before becoming an outlaw.
The thread also reveals that the letter itself is in Classical Chinese script, which fits the time period. While most Chinese and Taiwanese people could probably still read it, that version of the language is apparently much more challenging for non-native speakers. Again, while far from one ofthe weirdest things inRed Dead Redemption 2,it’s still impressive not bad for a “semi-illiterate” outlaw.
Red Dead Redemption 2is available now for PC, PS4, Stadia, and Xbox One.
