View source for The Last Enemy That Shall Be Destroyed

{{infobox quest
|game = Red Dead Redemption
|image = Image:Rdr_last_enemy.jpg
|start = [[Beecher's Hope]]
|end = Beecher's Hope
|giver = [[Jack Marston]]
|location = Beecher's Hope
|mo = *Kill the first group of [[U.S. Military|soldiers]] that attacks the ranch.
*Defend the [[Beecher's Hope|ranch]] house.
*Protect his [[Marston family|family]] as they run to the barn.
*Join his family in the barn.
|rewards = *Ability to play as [[Jack Marston]]
*[[Lusitano]]
*[[US Army Uniform]] scrap becomes available for purchase at [[Tailor]] in [[Blackwater]]
*+50 [[Fame]] (for getting Gold Medal)
|dialogues = [[The Last Enemy That Shall Be Destroyed/dialogues]]
|previous = [[Missions in Redemption#Jack Marston|Jack Marston<br />mission strand:]]<br />"[[Spare The Love, Spoil The Child]]"<br />'''and'''<br />[[Missions in Redemption#Abigail Marston|Abigail Marston<br />mission strand:]]<br />"[[Old Friends, New Problems]]"<br />'''and'''<br />[[Missions in Redemption#Uncle|Uncle<br />mission strand:]]<br />"[[A Continual Feast]]"
|next = [[Strangers|Stranger]] [[Missions in Redemption#Stranger Side-missions|side-mission:]]<br />"[[Remember My Family]]"
|prereqs = [[Spare The Love, Spoil The Child]]
}}
{{Quote|Well, old man, looks like things are about to get settled once and for all.|[[John Marston]]}}
{{Quote|So it seems.|[[Uncle]]}}

'''The Last Enemy That Shall Be Destroyed''' is the fifty-seventh and final story [[Missions in Redemption|mission]] in ''[[Red Dead Redemption]]''. It is also the final mission where the player controls the primary protagonist, [[John Marston]].

To view the mission tree, see:

{{main|Missions in Redemption/Tree}}

==Plot==
===Scene 1===
As the mission begins, [[John Marston]] walks into the workhouse to find his son working. He and [[Jack Marston|Jack]] begin to speak optimistically of their future as ranchers and as a family, as well as an airplane demonstration due to come to the county next year. All seems well in [[Beecher's Hope]] until [[Uncle]] yells for John from outside. 

It is not yet clear to the player what the issue is, but John knows that the [[United States Army]], ordered by [[Edgar Ross]], is here to kill him after all, despite him keeping his end of the bargain by putting an end to [[Javier Escuella]], [[Bill Williamson]], and [[Dutch van der Linde]]. John immediately tells Jack to run into the house and lock all the doors and windows, and not to come out "no matter what".

===Scene 2===
After John and [[Uncle]] defeat the first wave of soldiers attacking from the west, John runs into the house to check on his wife and son. He again tells Jack to stay in the house. This time Jack doesn't listen. Jack grabs a rifle and follows his father outside. The three men fight the onslaught, soldier by soldier. Uncle is fatally shot, but John and Jack continue the fight.

===Scene 3===
Another wave held off, John gets [[Abigail Marston|Abigail]] and tells her and Jack to get to the barn. He will hold off the next imminent wave of soldiers. This time they will come from the plains to the south. You may choose to hold them off from the ground or on top of the silo.

===Scene 4===
The [[Marston family]] hold off yet another wave of soldiers attacking their land. John runs into the barn, where he knows Jack and Abigail will be waiting. They are panicking, confused and think they should all run away. John knows that's not possible. He knows he can't escape his past. John puts his wife and son on a horse and tells them they need to ride and not stop. It's the only way they will have a chance. Reluctantly, Abigail kisses her husband goodbye. Jack and Abigail ride out the back of the barn, leaving John to face the fate from which he has tried so hard to escape.

John turns, peering between the barn doors at the last faces he will ever see. He stops, drops his head, and takes a long, deep breath. Then he looks up and pushes the doors wide open, revealing more than twenty soldiers all armed and aiming in his direction. In cinematic fashion, the camera switches to the [[Dead Eye Targeting]] mode, as the player takes control of John Marston in his last stand. John takes a few of the assassins down, but ultimately is not strong enough. He is mowed down, bullet after bullet, as his clothes become drenched with his blood. He falls onto his knees, spitting out blood, taking several winded gasps of breath, staring at the remaining Army members and bureau men. John falls backwards onto his back, takes his last breath, and, staring up into the sky, dies. He has sacrificed himself for his family, knowing that after his death, the government will no longer chase them and they will finally live peacefully. He has finally achieved his redemption.

Amidst the group of men is Edgar Ross, smoking a cigar as he coldly looks over Marston's body, a vague look of satisfaction on his face. With a final, disdainful shake of his head, he signals the accompanying army and bureau men and they slowly walk away in silence.

===Scene 5===
Abigail hears the shots coming from the ranch and tells her son to go back. The player takes control of sixteen-year-old Jack as he rides back to the ranch, allowing him to spur the horse continuously without being bucked off. Jack and Abigail arrive to find John's body in a pool of blood. Abigail embraces her dead husband and weeps in bitter sadness for her fallen love and the life they never had.

Jack and Abigail bury John on the property alongside Uncle. The camera zooms in to John's grave, his epitaph reading "Blessed are the peacemakers." A quick fade reveals the same shot in a downpour, the wooden cross with John's name looking worn down with age, as it's soon revealed an unknown man is paying his respects to Marston. The man looks down at the burial site, thinking, and he puts Marston's hat on and turns, revealing himself to be a nineteen year old Jack Marston, now with a striking resemblance to John, and as he leaves the shot pans out from John's grave and shows the recently buried Abigail's right beside it, revealing she had died three years after her husband's death. With his family dead, and Beecher's Hope in decline, Jack finally decides to [[Remember My Family|go after the person responsible for the death of his father]].   

==Walkthrough==
===Mission Prerequisites===
Before this mission becomes available, the player must complete:
*[[Missions in Redemption#Jack Marston|Jack Marston mission:]] "[[Spare The Love, Spoil The Child]]";
*[[Missions in Redemption#Abigail Marston|Abigail Marston mission:]] "[[Old Friends, New Problems]]"; and
*[[Missions in Redemption#Uncle|Uncle mission:]] "[[A Continual Feast]]".

===Mission Details===
When the mission begins, the player must kill the first set of soldiers with [[Uncle]]. While the cart is the focal point when players first gain control, it is not very good cover as the Army can easily flank around and kill Marston. Instead, players should look to the right and take cover behind the cluster of boulders in front of the farmhouse.

After killing the first squad, Uncle instructs John to go check on his family, and a cutscene will begin when the player gets to their house, showing Jack coming out onto the porch. Players should then take cover behind the porch railing in front and kill the soldiers, taking cover and making sure their health is okay. Once Jack shoots one of their horses, that is a prime time to take them out as they are disoriented from the fall.

After killing a few soldiers, Uncle inevitably will get shot in the chest. Players should still focus on killing the rest of the soldiers. Some will begin to come from the north but stay on the south porch to catch them by surprise, and a cutscene will begin where Uncle advises John to get [[Abigail Marston|Abigail]] and [[Jack Marston|Jack]] evacuated. He then coughs and dies. There is now a big lull before more soldiers arrive. Players should use it to gather ammo; rifle ammo can easily be acquired, as the U.S. Army soldiers mostly use [[Bolt Action Rifle|Bolt Action Rifles]].

John will herd his remaining family out toward the barn, but as they cross the road, more soldiers will arrive. The player should stay close to their family and protect them by taking out every enemy who comes near. Finally, the player will get to a cutscene where John sends Abigail and Jack away and is left to face a firing squad of U.S. Army troops headed by [[Edgar Ross]]. The player will immediately enter Dead Eye, although they should be careful not to press the Dead Eye button after this, as it will cause players to exit it. After the player fires a few shots with Dead Eye, the firing squad will gun John down. After this, the player will be in control of Jack, and they must ride back to the ranch to find John's corpse in a pool of blood riddled with bullet holes. Jack and Abigail mourn the death of John, and they bury his body on top of the hill overlooking the ranch, next to Uncle. 

A cutscene then shows an older Jack Marston overlooking the graves of John, Uncle, and now Abigail, who died of unknown causes. The year is 1914, and Jack, who is now nineteen-years-old, decides to hunt down his father's killer.

===Mission Dialogues===
{{main|The Last Enemy That Shall Be Destroyed/dialogues}}

===Mission Failure===
When playing as John Marston, the mission will fail if the player:
*Assaults or kills [[Abigail Marston|Abigail]], [[Jack Marston|Jack]], [[Uncle]], or [[Rufus]].
*Allows [[Abigail]] or [[Jack]] to be killed.
*Abandons his family.
*Assaults or kills livestock.
*Commits vandalism.
*Dies.

When playing as Jack Marston, the mission will fail if the player:
*Does not return to [[Beecher's Hope]].
*Assaults, kills or abandons Abigail.
*Assaults or kills Jack's horse.
*Strays too far from the mission location.
*Breaks the law.
*Kills a dog.
*Commits vandalism.
*Assaults or kills townsfolk.
*Dies.

===Gold Medal Objectives===
*Fastest Time: 5:29
*Shot Accuracy: 85%
*Number of Headshots: 15

===Casualties===
For the sake of correctness, the following casualties are organized into two groups: confirmed casualties and potential casualties. Confirmed casualties are casualties that are required in order for the mission to continue, and occur before [[John Marston|John]] is held at gunpoint in the barn, with the exception of John himself. Potential casualties are casualties that are not necessary in order to complete the mission and occur during the final [[Dead-Eye]] session of the game.

====Confirmed casualties====
*[[John Marston]] - <small>Killed by a large firing squad consisting of U.S. Army soldiers, Lawmen and Edgar Ross himself in order to save his family and finally achieve redemption.</small>
*[[Uncle]] - <small>Killed by a fatal gunshot to the chest while protecting the Marston family.</small>
*41 [[United States Army|U.S. Army troops]] and [[U.S. Marshals|marshals]]

====Potential casualties====
*[[Archer Fordham]] - <small>Can be killed by John Marston during the last [[Dead Eye Targeting|Dead Eye]] sequence, although disappears following regardless or not if he is shot.</small>
*[[American Army Captain]] - <small>Can be killed by John Marston during the last Dead Eye sequence, although his model (sometimes multiple models of him) can be seen fighting beforehand.</small>
*Up to six additional [[U.S. Marshals|marshals]] during the last Dead Eye sequence.

===Mission Complete Unlockables===
*"[[Remember My Family]]" [[Strangers|Stranger]] [[Missions in Redemption#Stranger Side-missions|side-mission]]
*Ability to play as Jack Marston
*The final scrap of the [[U.S. Army Uniform]]
*Discovery of the [[U.S. Marshal Outfit]]

== Tips and Tricks ==

* After complete the final mission, [[John Marston]] will be no longer playable. if the player wants to play as him again in free roam, make sure to create a save game file after finishing "[[And The Truth Will Set You Free]]", and the player can now play as John for the rest of the game, with his outfits to change in any [[Safehouses|safehouse]] or [[Camps|camp]].

==Glitches==
::''Main article: [[Glitches|Glitches in Red Dead Redemption]]''

*Sometimes, after Jack and Abigail have ridden off, before the turn to the barn door, a second Jack can be seen hiding against the front wall of the barn.
*Sometimes, when the first cutscene ends, the game will freeze with the upper part of the last frame is cut and John and Uncle frozen in place and John infinitely spawn, if you look at the map the location at the player will be at the very top of the map. This can happen mostly on PS3 as seen [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D6h9Rs6ztGw&t=192s here] at 3:12.
*When Jack and Abigail return to John's body, sometimes his body will still be animated causing John to still be alive (even with the bullet holes in him)! When the cutscene starts, John won't be on the floor when Abigail goes over to him; instead he will be about a foot off the ground. However, when the second cutscene climaxes, he is nowhere to be seen.
*{{PS3}} Sometimes, when Jack and Abigail are riding back to John's body, Abigail will be standing on top of the horse.
*After Abigail has died and Jack has finished looking at his fallen family, a younger Jack will still be there as if he is still holding Abigail although his eyes follow the older Jack.
*Also adding on to the last point, Abigail or Uncle may be standing on their graves, which means that they're actually underneath their graves.
*{{XBOX}} If the player owns the [[Bandana]], an older Jack will walk away from his family's graves, and will have the bandana equipped, even if it wasn't equipped before. If the bandana is taken off, then Jack will reveal a second bandana underneath. That bandana will be removed normally. This bug seems to have been patched in the Game Of The Year Edition.
*Regardless of the console the game is being played on or the effect of any patches, when John hits the ground after being killed, his hat does not fall off his head, but when Jack and Abigail discover his body his hat will be on the ground about a foot away from his head.
*Sometimes, [[Jack Marston|Jack]] will not speak [[The Last Enemy That Shall Be Destroyed/dialogues|the scripted dialogue]] during gameplay, although the subtitles will appear on-screen.
*After Jack and Abigail leave on the horse where Jack will be standing next to the desk next to the table he started near in the beginning of the mission. All he does is watch John, though.

==Trivia==
*The mission's name is a reference to a line in the fifteenth chapter of the ''First Epistle of Paul to the Corinthians'': "[https://www.kingjamesbibleonline.org/1-Corinthians-15-26/ The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death]."
*Given that John Marston was the last known surviving member of the [[Van der Linde gang]], he is symbolically the last enemy to be destroyed by the [[Bureau of Investigation]] in their goal of disbanding organized outlaw groups across [[West Elizabeth]]. Dutch himself predicted this would happen.
*During John's last stand, shooting any of the firing squad somewhere which is typically non-lethal such as the leg will still kill them instantly.
**However, [[Edgar Ross]] is invincible, assuring that the story can progress even if the player somehow kills every other member of the firing squad.
**[[Archer Fordham]] can be spotted before this sequence, when John is observing the Army through the barn's doors<ref>[https://youtu.be/G51ERfCjoSg?feature=shared Did Archer Fordham Betray John Marston? Was He At Beecher's Hope? - Red Dead Redemption Lore Explained]</ref>. Fordham is present also during the Dead Eye sequence and can be killed<ref>[[:File:AF_TLETSBD.png]]</ref>. However, he may disappear in the following cutscene regardless of whether or not he is shot.
*Regardless of which sidearm the player has equipped when facing the firing squad, John will be seen holding his [[Cattleman Revolver]] in his death cutscene.
*With mods, it is possible to kill every soldier and agent in the firing squad except Ross. However, they will all be shown alive again in the pre-rendered cutscene of John’s death.<ref>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=04KAzUsRoM0</ref>
*While returning in the final sequence of the mission, Jack's [[Horses|horse]] will not lose stamina.
*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 cut scene.
*Sometimes before starting this mission, if you go to the silo you can see Uncle fixing the ladder steps on it. Before this mission is started there are three missing steps on the ladder, making it impossible for the player to reach the top of the silo before this point in the game.
*If the player returns to the spot where John died at night, during stormy weather, the blood from his body will still be there, on the ground. However, this may be a glitch.
*While fighting off the army, John has unique dialogue. He may yell things such as "I did what you asked!" and "I won't let you take them again!", lamenting his betrayal by Ross.
*The dialogue John and Jack were having before Uncle calls John outside was about airplanes (a new thing by the time of this game), the same subject [[Jenny]] and the [[Preacher]] were [[Exodus in America/dialogues|discussing in]] their [[Exodus in America]]'s train ride, making it so that airplanes are discussed at the start and at the (almost) end of the game.
**John is probably talking about it with Jack because he overheard said conversation between Jenny and the preacher on the train.
*In the beginning, John and Jack muse about "The day John Marston stopped shooting", ironically foreshadowing his death occuring moments later.
*While riding back to the farm as teenage Jack, the player is able to get off the horse and have limited ability to play as him; he is unable to obtain weapons unless cheats are used, though Jack's model will be deformed when aiming and firing weapons. He is also able to loot the bodies of the soldiers and use any consumables that he comes across including moonshine and chewing tobacco (while looting, he will use voice lines from his adult self). However, the player cannot abandon the vincinity of the farm, Abigail, or the horse while on foot otherwise the mission will fail.
*In "[[A Really Big Bastard]]", John's death can be foreshadowed when Abigail mentions having to bury him several times, which John denies, saying that she is never burying him. This is proven to be wrong as Abigail buries him in this mission.
*When John tells Abigail and Jack to find a place to hide and not look back before leaving the barn, this is similar to what [[Arthur Morgan|Arthur]] gave to John in "[[Red Dead Redemption (mission)|Red Dead Redemption]]".
*John's last stand is very similar to Zack Fair's last stand from [[Wikipedia:Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII|''Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII'' and ''Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII Reunion'']], in which both of them are surrounded by dozens of soldiers with guns, and despite their best efforts, they are both gunned down.
*John's final stand is very similar to how Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid had their last stand in 1969's ''[[Wikipedia:Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid|Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid]]''. However, unlike John's death being clearly depicted, Butch and Sundance Kid's fates are left ambiguous. 

==Gallery==
<gallery widths="200" spacing="small" position="center" captionalign="center" hideaddbutton="center">

John Marston's death.png|John in his final moments after being overwhelmed by gunfire
File:Rdr johndead.jpg|The fate of John Marston
Nooooooo!.JPG|John lies dead covered in blood
Sad Moment.JPG|Jack and Abigail embrace weepingly over John's death
JohnGrave.jpg|Jack and Abigail mourn their departed loved one
Rdr john marston grave.png|John's grave

</gallery>

==Video Walkthroughs==
{{#ev:youtube|XL4Os0K-XQU|300px|center|'''Original Gold Medal Version'''}}
{{#ev:youtube|CH9TncZQzXQ|300px|center|'''Xbox One Version'''}}
{{#ev:youtube|AF3foAK5gbc|300px|center|'''PS5 Version'''}}

==References==
<references />

==Achievements/Trophies==
Completion of this mission contributes toward acquisition of the following [[Trophies/Achievements]]:

{{Achievement
|Image = Intothesunset.jpg
|Title = Into the Sunset
|Score = 100
|Trophy = <font COLOR="#CD7F32">Bronze</font>
|Desc  = Complete '''"The Last Enemy That Shall Be Destroyed"'''.
}}
----

{{Achievement
|Image  = Redeemed.png
|Title  = Redeemed
|Score  = 100
|Trophy = <font COLOR="#D4AF37">Gold</font>
|Desc   = Attain 100% List in the singleplayer game completion list.
}}

==Related Content==
{{Related Content}}
{{Marston Ranch Missions}}
[[de:Der letzte Feind, der entmachtet wird]] 
[[es:El último enemigo que debe ser destruido]]
[[fr:Le dernier ennemi à abattre]]
[[Category:Redemption Missions]]
[[Category:Walkthrough]]
[[Category:Single Player]]