Was There a Secret Traitor? - Red Dead Redemption 2

This video idea came courtesy of Filbee gaming, subscribe to his channel here: youtube.com/@FilbeeGaming

If Abigail had been the rat, I just don't see Milton passing up the opportunity to throw her under the bus in that moment, and laugh at the fact that Arthur came to rescue her

its obviously gavin, his disappearing abilities are well suited for spying jobs.

I've just noticed that in the character art portrait for Micah, he's holding his two revolvers up and crossing his arms. He is literally double-crossing

It's tragic that Molly died for literally nothing and did not even get a proper burial. And also the fact that the Pinkertons tried to squeeze information from her but still said nothing proves that she was always loyal to Dutch even after he treated her like a pet he no longer wanted. :(

I think Hosea might have sacrificed himself to get Abigail out of the situation.

I never even thought about how Micah yells Arthur’s name in strawberry so much.

they didn't need a traitor, they were sloppier than the town drunk

15:39 Pearson smiled at a picture of the gang he hanged in his store in the epilogue. The guy clearly loved them.

One point I'd like to mention is the fact that Arthur's bounty is worth $5000 dollars in chapter 2. Since the Pinkertons say that they want Dutch over Arthur, and that Dutch is obviously a more valuable target, this should mean that the bounty on Dutch's head must be more than $5000. In the same chapter however, as shown in this video, the wanted poster found at Micah's camp is worth only $1000, meaning this must be an old wanted poster for Dutch. Seems a little suspicious that Micah would have a wanted poster of Dutch which is clearly from an earlier time when the bounty on his head was much less. Obviously he could have found an old wanted poster somewhere, but why would this be left in the game? Maybe Micah had been holding on to this for a while, hinting that maybe he had been working against the gang for much longer than we think.

There is a wanted poster clipping for Dutch that can be found in Micah's campsite near Strawberry. Micah's MO was to infiltrate a gang, convince the leader to perform crimes that could raise the price on his head as a result, then either inform the police about the upcoming the robbery, or turn him in after kicking the rest of the gang out. This seems to be the case when he went and murdered a couple from a previous gang he worked with in the jailbreak, didn't want Arthur to know.

I’m pretty sure Abigail is asking “what’s wrong?” After Arthur comes back from fishing because she can see his face is different. Ya know body language cues, especially considering they’ve known each other for a while.

I've played through the game 3x at this point, and while the idea of another informant is fun, it's never really held much water for me--especially the Abigail theory. For myself, I've always felt like a lot of the gangs misfortune simply came from time catching up to them. Police getting better, cities getting larger, and the gang themselves (outside of Arthur) not having enough self-awareness to realize that outsmarting the system is beyond their methods at this point. Unable to give up the life, the power, the supposed freedom, Dutch keeps thinking he's one step ahead when he's really 10 steps behind. You've got a gang of outlaws, half of them sloppy drunks who rarely had a plan beyond shooting their way out. The trail was there for anyone who wanted to find it, as shown in the credits. Bill, Uncle, Micah, Strauss, Davey, Mac, Sean, all sloppy gunslingers leaving a trail of destruction and carnage everywhere they go. It was only a matter of time.

I think Molly just wanted to hurt Dutch, as the chapters go on, he neglects her a lot and in her eyes that’s a betrayal. So either she did tell the Pinkertons, or she said that she did just to try and mess with him.. it’s not an uncommon tactic for people who are hurt in relationships… ehhh that’s just my opinion though.

I have a hard time believing that Abigail was the traitor from the beginning. As much as I find the way you laid down the theory very interesting, by sticking around in camp and watching the interactions its clear that Abigail cares for the rest of the gang. Even though her loyalties lie with Jack and John, I don't think she'd willingly set the law on people she lived with and confided in regularly around camp. As a whole, I definitely think theres a stronger case for the "traitor" to be Dutch himself, with the way he constantly underestimates the law around them and always aims for the largest scales, most dramatic and risky jobs ever, not to mention largely overestimating how low profile they are at any given time. He thinks there's a traitor because he can't admit to himself or to others that any of his actions were a mistake.

Arthur said it himself. "We don't need a rat. We got sloppier than the town drunk..."

The wanted poster in Micah's camp just confirms it for me: even if it was nothing more than a Plan B, Micah was always toying with the idea on turning Dutch in for his own amnesty, he was just hoping to score the Blackwater money first (as evidenced at Horseshoe Overlook by Micah asking Dutch to tell him the location of the stash so he could go "retrieve it").

I think Agent Milton was far more honorable than you give him credit for. He offered Arthur his freedom in exchange for Dutch when he could have simply ambushed and arrested Arthur and tortured the information out of him or just killed him, he discovered the gang’s location in chapter three and instead of swooping down with his army of agents and slaughtering everyone he offers them amnesty in exchange for Dutch alone. These are vicious killers responsible for the deaths of dozens if not hundreds of people yet Milton gave them a chance (two in Arthur’s case) and only actually tries to kill them after they refused him and killed many more people. His actions in later chapters may have been brutal but the Van Der Linde gang really did necessitate it.

The one sticking point that always gets me when we start to theorise about whether or not anyone else other than Micah is the rat is that Milton was convinced Arthur was going to die by that point, I think it's much more likely he would want Arthur to die in that moment knowing who the rat was but wasn't in a position to do anything about it, rather than arbitrarily tell him a lie. (Obviously he made a mistake with assuming Arthur wasn't going to be able to do anything in that moment). Not to mention he probably didn't expect Abigail to break free either.

People forget that Milton is incredibly intelligent and calculating, and that he is speaking not just in front of Arthur, but in front of Abigail who would leave and tell the group, even if Arthur died. That would split the group. Honestly, I think there is no rat. Just a group torn apart by paranoia and stress, trying to live a life that isn't possible with the changing times.