Can John Get Sick Rdr2

There aren't a lot of good examples of what information technology's similar living with a last respiratory disease out in that location in the world.

I actually learned to avert characters I might relate to when I was growing up with cystic fibrosis, as they never seemed to exist as people. They were instead used as props, tragic plot points for the real hero to emote around. I had long given up on seeing anything close to an emotionally accurate representation of terminal illness in pop culture.

[Warning: The following contains major spoilers for Red Expressionless Redemption 2.]

I was just a few hours into Red Expressionless Redemption 2, Rockstar's Western epic, when I discovered how it would end: not with our hero, Arthur Morgan, riding into the sunset, just with his slow, agonizing demise, as the gruff outlaw succumbed to tuberculosis.

That obviously wasn't what I was expecting to discover when I turned to the internet to assistance effigy out how to trigger a money-lending mission.

I understood the grim verse of such an ending, of course; that it would exist both inevitable and ironic. I merely wasn't sure if I wanted to sit down through a game with that particular plot point, having nearly died from cystic fibrosis myself. More than once, even.

Information technology turned out my want to pretend to exist a cowboy, and revenge-murder every cougar I saw for what they did to my equus caballus in the first Red Dead Redemption, proved stronger than my fear of being triggered into a mail service-traumatic anxiety spiral. Besides, this was a video game. How "real" could its portrayal of a fatal bacterial illness really be?

Red Dead Redemption ii presents the most nuanced and accurate portrayal of life with a terminal illness that I've ever seen, in any medium.

The devil is in the details

The attention to item in Red Dead Redemption 2 borders on the implausible. Even a "quick" run-through of the game requires the role player to spend a solid sixty hours with Arthur and the residual of the Van der Linde gang; that's roughly the equivalent of twenty or more movies' worth of narrative. 60 hours is a lot of time to spend with a unmarried character, and that space allows for many small moments of realism; the sorts of things that would be glossed over in other games or stories.

And when it comes to a terminal illness — the reality of an ever-present affliction that reminds you of its existence daily — the devil is very much in the details.

Tuberculosis (TB) and cystic fibrosis (CF) are very similar symptomatically. In that location's abiding fatigue, a loss of appetite and inability to gain or even keep weight, difficulty breathing, persistent cough, the expectoration of both mucus and lung blood, and, of course, a two-letter abbreviation. Both diseases are progressive, which ways they will get worse over time.

They are also both fatal, if the disease progresses far plenty. The 2 diagnoses resemble i another and so much, in fact, that there's still some defoliation as to which i killed famed Polish pianist Frederic Chopin.

I am not dead, obviously, but I've come pretty damned close. I was about as sick as a human being could be without passing away. At ane signal, I merely had 12 percent of my optimal lung office, I was unable to move from my bed to the couch without aid, and I coughed upwards enough blood that it warranted an emergency surgery and a write-upward in a medical paper.

So I underwent a double lung transplant, and all that went away. So I may not know exactly how it felt to be a turn-of-the-century cowboy dying of consumption, but I'd argue that I've got a pretty solid idea of what it might take been like.

When you lot don't have the luxury of forgetting you're sick

The most striking thing about the portrayal of Arthur's disease in Red Dead Redemption ii was its constancy, and its utter messiness. Pop civilization portraits of the chronically sick tend to nowadays a romanticized and immaculate version of the experience.

Anybody's however Hollywood pretty, after all, and the vehement expulsions of fluids from their bodies are kept to a minimum, relegated to a scene here or there to remind the audition that this person is sick. Sometimes small amounts of blood are revealed in a handkerchief after someone coughs a scrap, and we're trained to understand this means that they are doomed.

Take Moulin Rouge!, for instance:

Ruby-red Dead Redemption 2, meanwhile, isn't above showing Arthur falling off his horse or ruining a coming together with his hacking until he's escorted abroad. But the real weight of his condition comes through his constant wheezing in later on chapters, and the way he'll simply sit and effort to catch his breath for a painfully long fourth dimension following certain missions. I'm not put in a place where I can forget his suffering.

The detail that striking the hardest, though, was one that tin can't be explored in any medium other than a video game: Arthur is unable to adequately replenish his cores during affiliate six, which is well-nigh the end of the game.

Cores are essentially Cherry-red Dead Redemption 2's version of hit points or power meters. Arthur's health core goes down when he takes damage, and he dies if it's fully depleted. Exertion, such as important deportment like running and fighting, drains his stamina cadre, and a depleted stamina core greatly limits what he tin practise in the game in general.

I know what this is like. I was eating mayhap a scattering of fish sticks a day when I was waiting for my surgery. I simply couldn't eat anything more; my torso didn't desire the food and couldn't metabolize it. The only way to replenish myself — as best I could, anyway — was to sleep. Errands became all but impossible, and I spent most of my days napping to try to get some of my energy back. It was the just thing I could do to aid myself, to effort and restore my failing body.

That, remarkably, is exactly how the game handles Arthur'southward illness. The actual quantity of food and drink allowed is all of a sudden express in that latter chapter, as is its restorative impact. Arthur has to sleep to regain his cores. There is no other way. I'm forced to make up one's mind what'due south worth my time if I attempt to do anything beyond the story missions. Obligations become oppressing, and maxim yes to one thing ways saying no to everything else for the rest of the virtual 24-hour interval.

I besides notice that other characters comment on Arthur's illness as information technology progresses, and not ever in a nice way. Rockstar understands that relationships alter after this kind of diagnosis, and some people might start to treat the affected individuals with either sympathy, scorn, or a combination of the two. That is, if they don't react with outright fear. And other people may not exist that interested in concealing those reactions.

I hid my affliction as much equally I could when I was growing upwardly, back when hiding my disease was still a possibility. I never knew how someone was going to react. A harsh cough could make strangers wince and draw abroad, or they might rush over and inquire if I was all right, always in the same coddling tone. Some people would become angry if I coughed too much, and tell me direct that I should have stayed home.

Perhaps they thought cystic fibrosis, a genetic, noninfectious disease, was contagious. Perchance they thought I should have resigned myself to bedrest and giving upwardly. Or maybe they idea I had something else and was being devil-may-care. What they rarely did was enquire, or try to larn the reality of the situation earlier rushing to some kind of judgment.

Strangers weren't the simply ones who reacted poorly, either, which is something else that Red Expressionless Redemption two gets right.

Arthur'southward swain gang members change their behavior as Arthur became noticeably ill. Some mean well, similar Tilly, but fifty-fifty she still seems to arraign me for my condition. She will state that she's concerned nearly my health when I tried to speak with her in camp, but she's also upset that I'grand not taking better care of myself.

Gang member Micah Bell, meanwhile, becomes more outwardly hostile toward me and throws out the nickname "Blackness Lung" at every opportunity. He views Arthur'due south tuberculosis as a weakness, and Arthur as weak for contracting it. Gang member Javier Escuella all of a sudden becomes dismissive also, telling me to stay out of the gang's affairs and "just worry 'tour that cough."

While there are obviously other plot points in play during this part of the game, information technology's worth noting that both Micah and Javier turn on Arthur most aggressively later on his diagnosis. These characters announce their turn to full villainy by reducing Arthur to goose egg more than his disease.

The affliction is a part of yous, not the other way effectually

And that, really, is the crux of all of this: Ruby Dead Redemption 2 never defines Arthur Morgan by his tuberculosis. He is shown to exist more than his illness, despite the omnipresence of his symptoms and the fully realized world reacting to his e'er-worsening illness. He has power over his own life, and his personality doesn't begin and cease with his illness.

Arthur is allowed to be angry, even in the about egregiously, transparently "sick" moment of the game. Arthur stumbles into a doctor's office at the end of chapter five and is told, in no uncertain terms, that he has tuberculosis. He curses the medico, and information technology becomes clear that'due south he'due south still Arthur. He still needs to practice what needs to be done. His disease makes it harder, merely information technology doesn't define who he is or what he has to practice.

Red Dead Redemption 2 - Arthur sits by his wagon, contemplating what he has done

Arthur'due south narrative does non specifically hinge on his tuberculosis. He evolves from Dutch's faithful lieutenant to his wayward rival over time, and that story could even so exist even if in that location was some way for Arthur to avoid contracting the disease. Arthur's tuberculosis is a item in the story, not the story itself.

And that is the part that near other representations of chronic illness get wrong. A person doesn't lose their bureau considering of a diagnosis of a terminal illness, and being forced to focus on your wellness doesn't mean that the balance of your problems go away, or even give you a break.

Because as devastating as tuberculosis or cystic fibrosis tin can be, as much equally taking care of yourself seems to take precedence, the earth doesn't actually finish simply considering you're not feeling well. Most of us do the best we tin in situations that are oft out of our control. Our lives keep.

I worked with less than 40 percentage lung capacity for years, sitting at a desk and answering phones until I literally couldn't speak anymore. Arthur doesn't get to take a twenty-four hours off either. There are still people that need saving, squirrels that demand hunting, bridges that need exploding, and stagecoaches that need robbing. Arthur spends his last moments getting into a fistfight, buying time to assistance his friend escape. He's nevertheless looking out at the world and thinking about what he tin can practise in it instead of focusing inward on his own limitations.

I finished Red Dead Redemption two a few weeks agone, and I left Arthur on that mountaintop, bloody and broken. Merely Arthur Morgan is still with me. Me, a scrawny kid from the suburbs of New York City, saw myself in him, a weary, cantankerous cowboy, in means I've never seen myself in anyone before.

Arthur will always be at that place to remind me that I am more than my disease. That at that place are still things left to do. That, while I may not always be here, I am for now, and that means there's still time to get to work.