Strange Man

"This is a nice spot."

- The Strange Man standing on a hill in Beecher's Hope.

The Strange Man is a minor character and stranger featured in Red Dead Redemption.

A mysterious and metaphysical character, there are several interpretations of the character's strange behavior and apparent supernatural abilities. None have been confirmed, although much of the evidence points to him being a sort of God. For example, when John says "Damn you!," the Strange Man replies "Many Have," perhaps referencing the phrase "God dammit." Moreover, he seems to have a vast array of knowledge and mentions he has a son, who could possibly be Jesus Christ.

Background
The Strange Man reveals a detailed knowledge of John Marston's history. And that is everything. He is impeccably dressed in a three piece suit with a large top hat. The man appears to be calm and collected, even in the arid wilderness. He is also able to identify John Marston whenever Marston approaches him, without actually looking at him. When questioned, he claims to be "an accountant... in a way," but also claims he cannot remember his own name.

In passing he mentions that he has a son.

Interactions
The Strange Man is the focus of the stranger side mission I Know You, which is only available for John Marston. Marston meets the Strange Man at the edge of a long ridge. He says hello to John and John asks if he has seen him before. Strangely, the Strange Man asks John if he remembers Heidi McCort, a girl that Dutch van der Linde shot in a robbery years ago. The Strange Man does not reveal his identity to John, nor reveal how he strangely knows John. The Strange Man tells John that a friend of his in Thieve's Landing is as "drunk as a skunk" and is about to cheat on his wife. The Strange Man does not tell John to stop his friend, but just tells John to procede how he sees best. The player can either have John encourage the man to cheat on his wife or to stop him.

The next time, John mysteriously finds the Strange Man in Mexico. The Strange Man has set up camp and there is a mule by his side. Once again, the Strange Man does not tell his identity. If John chose to stop the Strange Man's friend from cheating on his wife, the Strange Man ponders on how John has such an evil past but still has the moral compass to stop a man from cheating on his wife. Even more mysteriously, the Strange Man tells John that he wants his son to be "just like you." Now, the Strange Man once again gives John a task. In a church by Mexico, a nun is asking for donations to the poor. John can go donate or just rob her himself. What John does now is left up to the player.

And finally, John Marston meets the Strange Man by his own ranch in Beecher's Hope. The Strange Man is overlooking the barn and house from a ridge, his arms folded. He is standing on the same spot that John will be buried with Abigail and Uncle on in the future when John is assassinated by Edgar Ross and government agents. John meets the Strange Man and asks him what his name is. The Strange Man tells John that he forgets, and John begins to lose temper, demanding to know his name, or he will not "be responsible for his actions." The Strange Man looks at John fearlessly and starts to walk forward slowly, telling John "oh, but you will be responsible." The Strange Man tells John that he will "see him around." John unholsters his pistol and yells "damn you!" The Strange Man walks away, saying "many have."

John completely loses his temper and raises his pistol and fires three shots at the Strange Man. Rather than hitting him, the Strange Man is mysteriously unaffected and keeps on walking. John looks down at his gun, which has jammed. When John looks up, the Strange Man has dissapeared.

Interpretations
No formal explanation is given for the strange man, leaving players to form their own conclusions about his nature. The Strange Man's apparent invulnerability to bullets, his bizarre calm in the wilderness, and his unusual knowledge of both Marston's own criminal past and the nature of Marston's victims seem out of place. Additionally, the Strange Man seems to foreshadow the location of their final encounter as a "nice spot."

Supernatural

 * Some of the things the Strange Man says are related to the 10 Commandments. It is possible that he wants to prevent them from being broken. In his first appearance, he wants John to prevent his friend from cheating on his wife. The "friend" is found seducing a prostitute (Commandment - Thou shall not commit adultery) at Thieves Landing. It is ALSO possible that he WANTS them broken.
 * Several popular interpretations include the strange man being a moral or religious deity, or powerful supernatural agent. In this interpretation, the strange man is testing Marston's supposed redemption from his crimes.
 * The Strange Man to most is a supreme being, or as some would say a god. He is always very calm collected and seems to understand everything he does, as if he has a bigger picture of the Red Dead universe. He never seems to care what John Marston's choices are as his response is the same if you perform a good or bad deed. The Strange Man only cares to see that John Marston has to experience these situations he creates. The Devil in this case would be trying to manipulate the player into a bad deed, an Angel or Jesus Christ would be trying to help the player make the right choice, where as the Strange Man is the creator of the situation as a whole.
 * Some players have insisted that when he claims to have had a son, it is a reference to the son of Lucifer, Damien, or to the son of God, Jesus


 * When the Strange Man responds to John's curse of "Damn you!" with the retort of "Yes, many have", this could allude to a number of colloquial blasphemous profanities involving the damnation of deities throughout numerous religions.
 * It has also been suggested that the Strange Man is a personification of Death; as only John interacts with him during the crucial events leading up to his death, and is neutral in his requests as opposed to a good or evil deity. The idea that the Strange Man is Death can be aligned to his claim to have had a son through Milton's, Paradise Lost, in Paradise Lost Death is the grandson of Satan and he rapes his mother (Sin), begetting dogs that torment her. Also note that many men at that time Cursed Death, or Damned it, which would be an ironic foreshadow of John's death. Also, the final location where you meet the Strange Man, who remarks "This is a nice spot", is the same spot John is buried in the final cutscene.
 * In the final encounter with the Strange Man, Marston attempts to shoot him as he walks away. However, the bullets do not harm him, and Marston looks at his gun as if something was wrong. This suggests that the bullets went right through him.
 * Despite this, it is possible to kill the Strange Man before this final encounter. He is rather resistant to bullets, however, taking several shots to the head to finally bring him down. Even if you kill him, however, you are still able to complete the series of quests as he comes back to life for the next meeting.
 * It has been noticed that he looks like the doctor that goes to work for the devil in the movie that plays in Armadillo, which would explain why he was an "accountant", weighing John's good deeds and bad to decide if he goes to heaven or hell.
 * It is also possible he is like Randall Flagg from Stephen King's novel, "The Stand". Randall Flagg is a supernatural, evil wanderer who has been around for a very long time that stretches back to the Civil War. He usually sees people and can "look into their soul" and find out all they want, what their goals are, and what they have done wrong. Also, the Strange Man tells John that he wants his son to be just like John. Randall Flagg, as revealed in King's epic The Stand, wants a son to continue his legacy.
 * The Strange Man is very reminiscent of the character Mephistopheles from the novel Faust and numerous other works throughout literature, including Shakespeare. Mephistopheles is described in many ways but is seen as an agent for the Devil who recruits individuals for the purpose of collecting souls of the already damned. He appears only to souls that are in danger of being damned, and regularly challenges Faust with tests of morality. He also seems reluctant in most cases to do so, as he originally warns Faust about the repercussions of selling his soul to the devil.
 * John Marston fires three shots at the Strange Man, which the Strange Man is not affected by mysteriously. Jack Marston, John's son, loses three people. Uncle, Abigail Marston, and finally, John Marston. Although it is possible that John simply stopped firing after the third shot, it is possible that his revolver jammed. This would mean that his revolver jammed and saved Jack's life. For every shot, Jack lost somebody.
 * One more clue that the Strange Man may be the Christian God is when, during the visit to the nun after the second encounter, if John helps the nun with $10, she replies that "the Lord must have sent you to help me"
 * Though Rockstar are huge funs of irony; which runs rampant throughout their games. This is more than likely another case.

Personal

 * Another explanation puts the strange man as a manifestation of John's own conscience, as though Marston is hallucinating. This is somewhat supported by the fact that when John questions him for his name for a first time, he brings up the tragic story of a girl presumably killed by John during a robbery in John's former life. This explanation seems to conflict with the fact that when the Strange Man issues John a task, he has intimate knowledge of this situation; knowledge that Marston alone could not possess. This, however, is potentially explained by saying that John had already observed the people involved in the tasks while passing through, since the Strange Man does not appear until after John has taken several missions, which could place him near those people. A fact that may back this theory up is that when played as Jack this stranger mission is unplayable, as though the man doesn't exist in Jack's mind but he does in John's.
 * As an inside joke, Rockstar may have based the Strange Man on Jiminy Cricket, Pinocchio's conscience in the film "Pinocchio". This is supported by the fact that the Strange Man and Jiminy Cricket are dressed in an almost identical three piece suit with a top hat. This also supports the fact that he may be John's conscience.
 * He may be John Marston's father's ghost who was revealed to be a wealthy accountant.Source? This would explain the pictures in the ranch and his interest in John. It also explains why Jack cannot pursue the "I know you" stranger mission. Another piece of evidence is that he tells Marston he hopes his son would be like him, which this theory says could be John. However, John's father was Scottish, and the Strange Man neither looks nor sounds like a Scotsman. Also, John should know what his father looks like and should recognize him; if not from memory, then at least from the picture.Marston also says his father was illiterate, and the strange man is very clearly not illiterate.
 * The picture of him above the bed in beechers hope is probably an easter egg, filler material or coincidence, as the evidence that the man is Johns father is outweighed by the evidence he is not.
 * He could be a friend or a familiar ghost of John Marston. Which would explain why he is so interested in him.
 * He can also be a person´s ghost who was killed in the past by John Marston when he was in Dutch´s gang. This would explain why he says to Marston that he would be responsible for his actions. He could have been seeking for revenge. This is believed because he tells John about a bank robbery and about a girl he knew who's "...eyeball was hanging out of her eye socket and her brains plastered over the wall..."
 * In the paper purchased after And the Truth will Set You Free, it mentions that the bank manager, Mr. Harmon Weinstein, was found dead near Broken Tree (the meeting place) and "will be missed by some." No confirmation if this is always there.The strange man could bee Mr. Weinstein's ghost, because the strange man says he is an accountant. However, as he says "an accountant of sorts", and claims to be "doing my accounts" at Beacher's Hope, this is unlikely.

Themes

 * Supernatural intervention has been a theme in several classic western films including High Plains Drifter (1973) and Pale Rider (1985).
 * The Strange Man bears a thematic resemblance to the satanic character Judge Holden from Cormac McCarthy's Blood Meridian; a novel about genocide in the Western part of the continent during the mid-19th century. Like Holden, the Strange Man imparts crucial information about the character as an antagonist and makes claims regarding the judgment of morality.
 * The Strange Man may be a homage to Randall Flagg, a prominent character from Stephen King's Dark Tower novel series.
 * The Strange Man's ambiguous intentions and apparent supernatural abilities are theme mirrored by the G-Man from the Half-Life video game series.
 * The character may be a reference to the Mysterious Stranger by Mark Twain.
 * There is a small chance Rockstar Games somewhat derived the idea for "I Know You" from an episode of Andy Griffith, where a strange man enters Mayberry and seems to know everyone's names and details about them, acting as though he's known them for a quite some time. It is later revealed in the episode that he only knew someone that lived in Mayberry, and was enthralled by tales of the town, thus leading him to subscribe to their newspaper which taught him a lot about the town and residents living there.

Trivia

 * An early rumor circulated just after the games release suggested that the Strange Man is present in the mob that appears during the mission The Last Enemy That Shall Be Destroyed. This has since proven to be false.
 * It is actually possible to kill the Strange Man. Just shoot him before triggering the cut scene. Doing so, however, will fail the mission. (You can however, kill him after the mission is over, this can be however be counted as a bug and non canon due to him being a simple NPC and in the cutscene he appears invincible.)
 * Also before your first encounter with the Strange Man, he is standing at the edge of a cliff in West Austin, and can be pushed off this cliff which kills him instantly
 * If you point a gun at him, he can pull out a Cattleman Revolver and shoot and kill the player. Or he may run away while yelling at John.
 * He looks similar to Clark Gable.
 * There is what appears to be a picture of him hanging above John and Abigail's bed at Beecher's Hope, as well as directly over Jack's bed. Using a sniper rifle or the binoculars allows for a closer examination.
 * Coincidentally, in the last encounter John shoots the strange man three times, and at the end of the game three people are buried at the location, Abigail, Uncle, and John himself. This might mean that the strange man was not only foreshadowing John's death but his family as well. On the other hand, John's gun seems to jam after the third shot, which could signify that the life of his son, Jack Marston, is spared. This could signify yet another death, the death of Edgar Ross and the 'crimes and sins' that he has committed, under the hands of Jack Marston.
 * Also, after your first encounter with him you can point a gun at him and he will start to run. You can lasso and hogtie him but he will continue to talk. He also keeps talking as if the situation were normal (as if he were still standing at the edge of the cliff perfectly fine) However pointing a gun at him is considered a crime and civilians will attempt to alert law enforcement.
 * People have sometimes reported that it takes over 20 shots to kill the Strange Man.

Quotes
"Damn you!"

- John Marston

"Yes, many have"

- The Strange Man