Nah cuz way too much of that can be explained away as it happened off screen. But that mission with skinning the elk and the other missions you do with Jack as John would just be a cop out by Rockstar to say “oh yea that’s how he was taught and he got better practicing Josey Wales style”.
Red Dead is successful for simply being one of the very few good and solid Westerns in gaming. The only other off the top of my head was Gun back in the day. But Red Dead’s theme is the “Taming of the West” cuz all Arthur talks about to a lot of people is how the world became too civilized, but no better. Even John dying was a way of showing the death of the Wild West, the old way going in favor of the new. So to play as Jack would be cool, but the game would be more GTA and significantly less Red Dead. I feel like if the Jack idea was known to make money, then RDR”2” would not have been a prequel.
Plus both games were about the “redemption” of the protagonist’s soul. Both John and Arthur believed themselves to be bad men, yet they do some heroic shit throughout their game and are revered by those they helped.
I think a good sequel needs to be set during the onset of the California gold rush with the protagonist being Civil War vet. I don’t prefer Confederate or Union for the character because the opportunities for organic characters can exist on both sides (lookin at you Josey). So make a game about said individual making their fortune while addressing sins of the past.
Thank you for reading of you took the time :)