>>72848Games can tell more than one story. John's personal story with the gang, his interaction with ross, and how the world changed around him would be the main ones. Almost all the stranger encounters are designed so you conclude that the frontier was the absolute worst place in the world. You are meant to see Ross and the goverment as preferable over self rule, and to push that point, all of the people you meet in the lawless side are miserable idiots who get nowhere or just die.
The man who wants to reach california dies in the desert, the woman whose husband was beating her just gets killed by him, the cannibal from armadillo just kills people and that's it, the man who wanted to make movies lost it all and had to work on the trains for a living, the man who wanted to make a plane just falls and dies. The only secondary mission with a happy ending is the writer from manhattan, who decides the wild west actually sucks and goes back to the city like a good goy.
I think there is a good argument there, but the game never presents it and it doesn't even seem to occur on the minds of the writers, they just show you how horrible everything outside of blackwater is.
The good argument would be what
>>72796 sort of said, which is that the comforts of the modern world can outweigh it's bad sides on a scale big enough that you would be willing to accept it. You can hate the goverment and taxes all you want, you would still love antibiotics, and it's that specific structure what allowed them to be discovered. The game never really presents that point i a manner good enough for it to be thought of. Ross only mentions crime and the game never shows you an alternative. I would even say the game goes against an idea like this because many modern wonders are presented in a mocking manner. Ross' car breaks down, and harold is addicted to cocaine for example; things that should be very strong proof of why civilization is necessary are played for laughs, with gang violence being the argument the game presents seriously, which is the worst argument to present btw because is not like we are safer today as opposed to back then.
There is a good nuance tho. The fact john helped the goverment and they still came for him afterwards concedes the fact that Ross was full of shit, and that there was no amount of civilization john would suck up that would make him part of the club. The goverment can tell you they are armed to protect you, until they decide you are the enemy actually. If they did it to such a useful asset as john, they can do it to anyone.
<I guess there is more to see in this game than i originally thought, but it isn't true that it's only about one thing.