Arthur's death and the collapse of the gang: How did it impact Charles?
Time for sad(ish) rambles!
Content warning for mentions of alcoholism and death.
A while ago I saw a post on this app from someone who said that Charles grieved Arthur longer than he knew him and while I was aware that that was the case, seeing it so bluntly stated has forever altered my brain chemistry and I have not emotionally recovered since. So now I’m going to go on a ramble and make you guys bear the brunt of that pain with me! (Including you @the-bi-space-ace )
Now as a big Charles fan, I always get excited seeing him again in the epilogue, but there’s always been a part of that story that has stood out to me, and that’s the fact that out of everyone in the gang, one of the people who is hit the hardest by it’s collapse is Charles, a man who had only been a part of it for several months. And in my attempts to understand why, it has always taken me down an interesting exploration of Charles as a character, one that I want to share my ramblings on. Welcome to my TedTalk on the story of Charles Smith.
Charles’ Background
We're gonna start near the beginning because it's important. Charles has not had the best life: his mum was taken when he was young, he lost his mother's tribe which he used to be a part of (and now has no idea if it even still exists), his father turned to drink, and Charles ran away as a young teen, subsequently spending much of his life alone. For over half of his life he's been running as a lone ranger, living as a black Indigenous man in the late 1800s, a time that was far from accepting. He lost everything and as a result, has never really fit in anywhere.
And all of this is the basis for why Charles was hit so hard by the events of the game. It underpins his entire story arc.
We don't know the full details of Charles’ past, but he certainly never had it easy. He's spent his entire life on the end of racist abuse, will have been no stranger to what people thought of him as an afroindegnous man, and has likely experienced many of the awful things that happened to people of colour at the time (and while there's never any confirmation in the game, it isn't entirely out of the realm of possibility that Charles ended up in a reform school at some point in his life).
He would have been treated as an outcast. And part of this plays into why he's so reserved. Charles has to be incredibly careful about who he opens up to and about who he trusts. Even within the gang there are people who view him negatively because of his heritage and so he has to be incredibly careful within the group as well. He lives in a society that deems him as someone that has no place and it is one of the key things that underpins Charles’ struggle to find a sense of belonging.
Charles’ Struggles with Finding a Place in the World
Charles himself admits that he struggles to understand what his purpose is: where he's supposed to be what he's supposed to do. He finds it really difficult to find a place where he fits in. And honestly, it's to be totally expected.
This is a man who has had everything taken from him. His family, his home, his childhood. Charles lost everything. He's someone who had to grow up too quickly in a world that stripped him of every part of his life that gave him any sense of belonging. He has no family, no friends, he's an outcast in society, he can't open up to people out of fear for his own safety. How can a man who lives in a world like that feel like he belongs there?
Charles on the outside seems like someone whose incredibly competent and confident, someone who won't back down in a fight, who will help those who need helping, who isn't afraid to defend those who need defending, and can stay calm in the face of it all. And he is all of those things. But he's also someone who is incredibly lost.
He's incredibly competent, but likely doubts his ability to protect people because of how many people he has lost. He appears confident on the outside and yet he has lived a life where he always has to be looking over his shoulder and be very wary of everyone. He won't back down in a fight but he carries the emotional weight of those choices and actions deep within him. He will always help those who need helping, but likely feels he can never help enough, that there's so much suffering that is entirely out of his control to fix. He'll defend those who need defending but has also found himself defending people he realises he probably never should have (Dutch for example). And he's not calm all the time, he's angry and frustrated and has a short temper but works to keep those emotions under control as much as he can because letting those emotions burst free rarely results in good outcomes.
I've never understood the argument that Charles is emotionless or stoic. He's far from it. He's a man I believe feels very deeply and very strongly, who holds the weight of the world on his shoulders in a way that's far heavier than I think any of us will ever truly understand. He's reserved, keeps many feelings close to his chest. He doesn't wear his heart on his sleeve, but as mentioned earlier, why would he? In a world that has driven him to loneliness, why would he be so open with people?
Finding the Gang
So where does the gang (and in a more focused sense, Arthur) fit in to all of this?
Well, for Charles, this is the first time in many years where he's felt a sense of belonging. No, not everyone welcomed him in with open arms, and he does tend to keep many at arms length with his walls kept firmly up, but he has a purpose, and a group of people who have (to a certain extent) taken him in. The gang is the closest thing Charles has had to a family in a very long time and it likely felt like things were starting to fall into place a little bit. I don't think he ever felt completely comfortable and at home, but it was somewhere for him to belong after spending most of his life being cast out by society. They're a group of people who exist in a world that doesn't want them, and part of that resonates with him because that's what his life has been for so long.
(SIDE NOTE: That's not to say that they're all treated the same way by society. Charles does not share the privileges that many of the other gang members have and as a result has to he more cautious about things than some of the others. For example, Charles is fully aware that Arthur is more likely to be able to have some influence over what happens to the Wapiti Tribe on the basis that he is white and far more likely to be listened to. It will never be an even playing field, no matter how understanding members of the gang may be).
And among all of those is Arthur. I've rambled before about how much these two trust each other and how insane it is in some ways. Arthur became someone Charles trusted enough that he was willing to share his concerns about Dutch with a man who had been raised by him and stood loyal to him for over twenty years. Charles went to Arthur about the Wapiti Tribe because he was the person he trusted most to help. They had each other's backs through incredibly tough times.
“Charles, will you ride with me?”
“Always.”
Despite spending most of his life pushed out by society and living for many years alone, Charles not only had a family, but a close friend he could trust. There were others he grew to care about too: Lenny, Hosea, Sadie, John, Abigail, Jack, just to name a few. Yes he was closer to some than others, but they were still his family in a way. But Arthur was the closest Charles had been to anyone in a long time (as far as we know) and one of the people he had the strongest connection with (in whichever way you view it because I'm not going to try and put labels on it).
Not only was Arthur someone Charles could trust, but he made sure to let Charles know that he was appreciated: letting him know how much the gang needed him, telling him he was glad to have him around, expressing his thanks about Charles having is back. Arthur always made it clear that Charles had a place with them and that was something Charles had not had for much of his life. For someone who has always struggled to work out where he's supposed to be in the world and whether he's even supposed to belong, having someone say “I'm glad you're here and I don't know where we'd be without you” is so important. Through all of it's messes, the gang was Charles’ home.
Which is why it's such a tragedy that it didn't last.
The Collapse of the Gang and a Loss of a Best Friend
Charles, a man struggling to find his place in the world, finds a home ans a family, somewhere where he might finally belong.
And then he loses it all.
Charles’ whole life has felt like the universe telling him he doesn't belong. He lost his mother, his tribe, his father, his home, all by the time he was just thirteen years old. He was alone for years, in a world that never wanted him. And then when be finally finds a place to belong, all of that is taken from him too.
I always wondered why Charles was one of the people who struggled the most after the gang collapsed because he's one of the people who has been there for the shortest amount of time. Many of the others manage to find their way; Tilly got married and was starting a family, Mary-Beth became an author, Pearson found a job at the general store, and John, Abigail and Jack finally started to settle down into a life (we're going to ignore the events of the first game for the time being). And then there's Charles, who is throwing fights for money.
For Charles, the collapse of the gang must have been confirmation that he didn't belong. If he truly had a place in the world then why was everything always being taken from him?
And to lose Arthur in the midst of it all. Charles found someone he could trust, who he could rely on. A man that, despite everything that the group was going through, would hopefully have his back for years to come. Even without the Van der Linde gang, Arthur was likely someone Charles could rely on after it all. But that was never to be.
As I said earlier, Charles has always had to be careful about who he opens up to and who he expresses his emotions and concerns to because the wrong person would weaponise them against him. But Charles found someone he could trust, someone he was willing to share his vulnerabilities with. He began letting his walls down around Arthur only to lose him within just a matter of months. And Charles was the one who buried him.
Think about this for a moment. Charles lost his best friend, made the decision to go all the way back and bury him somewhere he knew Arthur wanted to be (bearing in mind the man has been on top of a mountain for (at least) several days and is going to be in horrendous shape), went through the effort of carving out a proper gravestone for him, and then also makes sure to tell Mary where Arthur was buried so that the people in Arthur's life could mourn him properly and get closure. Charles put himself through what would have been an incredibly traumatic set of events to make sure that this friend got the burial he deserved. I don't even want to imagine how difficult that would have been for him.
(I'm also going to quickly throw in an idea that Noshir himself has mentioned before, which is that Charles’ mother used to sing him lullabies, which he then sung to himself as he buried Arthur. It's a possibility that has broken a piece of me into many pieces that I don't think I will ever put together again but it just encapsulates how tragic this whole experience was).
The collapse of the gang and the loss of Arthur once again left Charles alone in the world, unsure of his place or where to go. A feeling of hopelessness so deep that he was still struggling to find his place in the world eight years later.
Rekindling Old Friendships and New Hope
Thankfully, Charles’ story does not end (as of right now) in complete tragedy. Throughout the epilogue, we begin to see Charles find stability again. Working on John and Abigail's ranch gives him a sense of purpose. He forms stronger friendships with the Marstons, Sadie, and even Uncle, once again giving him people to trust, a place where he feels he has a right to be.
But what I find even more moving is Charles’ acceptance that that isn't where he should stay. His place isn't at the Marston's home, it's out in the world somewhere with his own family. After having everything torn away from him for much of his life, and after being repeatedly thrown out into the world with no clear sense of direction, Charles is finally in a position where he has the agency to make that decision for himself. He takes that step not because he's forced to but because he understands that that is what he needs to do. It's on his own authority and while we don't know exactly what happens to Charles next, seeing him finally have that agency over his life and that understanding of where he needs to go after feeling so lost for so long is honestly the best place I could hope for Charles to be at the end of the game.
I'm sure he thinks about the gang a lot and the people who were a part of his life, even if only for a brief time. Hosea, Lenny, Arthur of course. People who have shaped Charles into who he is now. Do I like to believe that Arthur's unwavering belief in Charles is something that the man holds with him to remind him that he really does have a place in the world? Yes. I do. But I do also think that Charles’ growth is down to much of his own learning, understanding and reconciling. Though only knowing each other a short time, Arthur was an integral piece in the puzzle of Charles’ life.
