| “ | You're fighting nature, Captain. Ask my friend here... my whole life I tried to fight change... it's a waste... I see that now... it's a waste. You can't fight nature, Captain... you can't fight change... you can't fight... gravity. | „ |
| —Dutch van der Linde |
Favoured Sons is a mission in Red Dead Redemption 2.
Mission Overview
In order to draw attention away from the gang and onto the Natives, Dutch convinces Eagle Flies to ambush an army patrol.
Story
Arthur speaks with Dutch, Eagle Flies and a group of Wapiti warriors on a clifftop in Cumberland Forest. Dutch tells him that they plan to use dynamite to take several trees down to trap a platoon of soldiers heading through the valley in order to humiliate them by tarring and feathering them.
Despite his objections, Arthur helps Dutch set up the dynamite, during which Dutch reveals his real intentions to Arthur; he plans to use the Natives to draw government attention away from the gang and onto the Natives, or in his own words "draw attention to one problem and a veil over the other". Arthur says that the Indians are good people whom Dutch is seemingly using for his own gain which Dutch denies. They head back up to the others and wait for the patrol to arrive. When it does, they blow down the trees before Dutch draws his gun and tells the trapped soldiers to just surrender, accept the humiliation and leave, but more soldiers appear and open fire, forcing Dutch, Arthur and the Indians to fight.
After killing the soldiers, they head down and search the bodies. Suddenly a cannon shot interrupts them as more soldiers attack. During the fight, Arthur deals with the cannon, and afterwards Eagle Flies goes to help a wounded Paytah. Arthur and Dutch have a brief argument on everything they are doing, but soon hear the sound of reinforcements coming from Fort Wallace and run to their horses, leaving Eagle Flies behind.
They try to escape through the rocky mountain pass while fending off their pursuers, but eventually run into a dead end and a broken bridge on a cliff, leaving them cornered. As the soldiers close in, Dutch delivers a speech to them about how "my whole life, all I ever did was fight" whilst he and Arthur back away towards the cliff edge, their hands raised. They then leap right off and into the river far below whilst being shot at by the soldiers, and swim to safety on the riverbank.
Dutch expresses his relief on their lucky escape and assumes that Eagle Flies was captured, if not killed. He decides to tell Charles back at camp to plan a rescue mission and leaves Arthur to rest, telling him to "have faith".
Gold Medal Objectives
- Kill the soldier on the cannon within 45 seconds.
- Get 35 headshots.
- Complete the mission without taking any health items.
Mission Failure
The mission will fail if the player:
- Assaults, kills, or abandons Dutch;
- Allows Dutch to be killed;
- Assaults, kills, or abandons Eagle Flies or Paytah;
- Allows Eagle Flies or Paytah to be killed;
- Fails to prepare the ambush in time;
- Gets arrested;
- Kills or abandons their horse;
- Dies.
Deaths
- Numerous US Army soldiers - Killed by Arthur Morgan, Dutch van der Linde and the Wapiti Indians during the ambush.
- Martin - Killed by Arthur, Dutch, or Wapiti Indians.
Video Walkthroughs
Trivia
- Before Arthur and Dutch jump down the river, Dutch tells the captain of how nature or gravity can’t be beaten on the cliffside. This is a foreshadowing of Dutch's last words in Red Dead Redemption before taking his own life by falling off of a cliff.
- The moment when Dutch and Arthur jump off the cliff is an homage to the famous scene of the film Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969), in which the titular protagonists likewise jump off a cliff into a river in order to escape authorities. Frame for frame, the camera angle and lighting of the jumps are nearly identical.
- If the player neglects to detonate the explosives at the right time, Dutch will do it instead.
- When Arthur is looting the corpses of the fallen soldiers, he mentions to Dutch that one of them is "...some poor fool from New Jersey". In real life, Arthur's actor Roger Clark was born in New Jersey.
- If the player attempts to kill all soldiers that are holding Arthur and Dutch at gunpoint, the camera's view will start spinning around and this will result in a one-hit-kill from an invincible sniper on a cliff. The only way to take out the sniper is to make them fall off the cliff.[1]