Talk:John Marston (Red Dead)

Potential merge

If nothing else, Undead Nightmare certainly proves that Marston is one of gaming's great characters, a fully-formed creation who is nonetheless flexible enough to reflect the player's own intentions, able to express genuine performance through a shift in posture or the twitch of an eyebrow. It's a genuine pleasure to spend another five or six hours in his company.
— Whitehead, Dan (October 28, 2010). "Red Dead Redemption: Undead Nightmare Pack". Eurogamer. p. 2. Retrieved July 10, 2016.

As much as I can find praise of Marston as a character, I'm not finding much with context/depth out of immediate reviews of the game itself. He's certainly seen as a significant part of Red Dead Redemption, but the coverage and scattered nominations stops short of explaining his independent importance in video game history. Unless there are unused sources for his development and more reception on his character, I would recommend merging this into the main game's article. But regardless of whether that happens, the major points of his character article should be covered in the main game's article. I would recommend a separate subsection under Legacy if the sources require it—otherwise the character development goes in with Development, and comments on his character within Reception. czar 12:54, 12 July 2016 (UTC)

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Per Wikipedia:Featured topic candidates/Red Dead Redemption/archive2 and @CR4ZE, just reiterating here years later that I still don't see what sourcing is used to justify Marston's independent notability from that of the two games. I'd be interested even in the top three sources being used to justify this split from the RDR1 article. Honestly the strongest source for independent notability doesn't even appear to be in the article yet (the 2013 Polygon feature) so if the case is that the best sources aren't even cited yet, would be curious what those are. Otherwise articles like these tend to be coat racks for minor details about the game's story and development that can be sufficiently covered in the main game articles albeit with some loss of fidelity (but the same reason why game articles do not cover every aspect of reception and development). czar 02:18, 25 May 2020 (UTC)

Know I'm reviving a four-year dead horse for a beating here, but hey I figured this was a conversation worth revisiting. Thanks for the ping. So in my mind that Polygon interview definitely helps build a case for notability. Really should be mentioned here—there's some good info to unpack. This Game Informer article outlines disparities between Marston and Morgan and gives analysis on both (heavier on the latter, mind you). I tried to find some "best VG characters" from RS that were more than mere listicles and found two so far: GamesRadar (#14); Independent (#8). Is WatchMojo (#10) reliable? This is a preliminary outlook, if anything, from 20 mins of research. I haven't searched up much on Wiethoff yet—page 1 of Google also brought me to Polygon above—but maybe diving deeper would merit something more substantive for Marston. I maintain he's notable, albeit with the willingness to be proven wrong. — CR4ZE (T • C) 03:36, 25 May 2020 (UTC)

Reading back over the article, it still feels like a coat rack for plot summary. Anything important that needs to be said about the character can be said in context of the existing articles, particularly because his impact is particular to the games in which he appears, nothing out of universe. I'll undoubtedly check back in a few years as fictional character notability standards slowly work themselves out, but will go back to unwatching this page for now. (not watching, please {{ping}}) czar 04:41, 19 June 2020 (UTC)

Requested move 5 June 2019

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

The result of the move request was: moved (closed by non-admin page mover) DannyS712 (talk) 19:23, 12 June 2019 (UTC)

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John Marston (character) → John Marston (Red Dead) – Per WP:CONSISTENCY with other character articles and the guidelines for video game articles. The title doesn't conflict with any games of the same name. _{ZXCVBNM (TALK)} 18:14, 5 June 2019 (UTC)

• Support per nomination. Most of the main title headers at Category:Video game characters, Category:Video game characters by genre, Category:Action-adventure game characters, etc, use parenthetical qualifiers which specify the character's provenance, rather than simply use the all-inclusive "(character)", which could be literary, film, television, anything. —Roman Spinner (talk • contribs) 01:17, 6 June 2019 (UTC)
• Support - WP:NCVG says Disambiguate by appending the series or individual game title in parentheses after the character's name. This move is directly in line with that. -- Netoholic @ 03:36, 6 June 2019 (UTC)
• Support - WP:NCVG In ictu oculi (talk) 11:44, 6 June 2019 (UTC)

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The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

Did you know nomination

The following is an archived discussion of the DYK nomination of the article below. Please do not modify this page. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as this nomination's talk page, the article's talk page or Wikipedia talk:Did you know), unless there is consensus to re-open the discussion at this page. No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was: promoted by Cwmhiraeth (talk) 05:53, 10 June 2020 (UTC)

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• Comment or view
• Article history

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Rob Wiethoff

• ... that, for his role as John Marston in Red Dead Redemption, Rob Wiethoff (pictured) worked for almost two years? Source: Let's Play Podcast
  • ALT1:... that Rob Wiethoff (pictured) was asked to reprise his role of John Marston from Red Dead Redemption about a month after moving from Los Angeles to the small town of Seymour, Indiana? Source: Let's Play Podcast

• Reviewed: List of awards and nominations received by Natalie Portman

Improved to Good Article status by Rhain (talk). Self-nominated at 02:12, 12 May 2020 (UTC).

• Article improved to GA, long enough, and adequately cited (except for the plot). Hook short enough, interesting enough, and also cited. Article appears to be neutral and free of copyright violations and plagiarism. The QPQ is done, image is used in the article, and it's good to go. Thanks. ~~ CAPTAIN MEDUSA^talk 17:06, 21 May 2020 (UTC)

• Hi, I came by to promote ALT0, but it's not immediately clear what "work" it's talking about. Do you mean:
• ALT0a: ... that Rob Wiethoff (pictured) worked for nearly two years to perfect (or "fine-tune" or "develop") his character of John Marston in Red Dead Redemption? Yoninah (talk) 22:38, 8 June 2020 (UTC)

@Yoninah: It’s referring to the fact that he worked on the project as the lead actor for two years. I wouldn’t necessarily say that he spent those two years “perfecting” the character, since that’s not mentioned in the sources. Two years is a pretty typical amount of time for an actor to work on a game like this. – Rhain ☔ 22:41, 8 June 2020 (UTC)

@Rhain: I understand. But could you tweak ALT0 so everyone will understand it? Yoninah (talk) 22:43, 8 June 2020 (UTC)

@Yoninah: How's this?

• ALT0b: ... that Rob Wiethoff's (pictured) work as John Marston in Red Dead Redemption lasted almost two years?

– Rhain ☔ 01:22, 9 June 2020 (UTC)

• OK, I guess. I still feel something more descriptive than "work" would be better. Yoninah (talk) 11:18, 9 June 2020 (UTC)