Red Dead Redemption 2 is no stranger to the world of subtle storytelling, and often makes the strongest points clear only to the keenest of viewers and long-time fans. One such occasion is the foreshadowing of the antagonistic and traitorous Micah Bell, who may have very well been setting up the gang from before the player even picks up the controller. Micah's horse Baylock, whose name can be roughly translated to mean "black hairs," is a striking example of the subtleties involved in telling a proper story through foreshadowing.
Micah's horse is a Missouri Fox Trotter with a stunning black coat and white face, which to fans of the series may have been their very first sign of trouble when the character was introduced. Baylock bares a nearly uncanny appearance to the Dark Horse from Red Dead Redemption, which would only spawn if the player had low honor. Honor in the Red Dead Redemption series is best explained as being similar to the karma system from the Fallout series - the player does good or bad and the honor either rises or lowers, respectively.
Micah's dark horse feeds in well with the treacherous nature of the gang member-turned-mercenary. The cowboy's villainous acts and detractive personality are reflective of what players can experience during a low honor play-through of Red Dead Redemption. Among this, however, there were other various references to Micah's allegiance against the gang that could be spotted by fans who have seen a fair share of the Western film genre. Micah wears a white hat, a staple of the typical protagonist of most Wild West genre movies, while the protagonist of Red Dead Redemption 2 wears a black hat in contrast, the typical antagonist's hat.
Micah's Dark Horse Is One Of Many RDR2 Hints
The writing for Micah is designed to create a feeling of hostility and disrespect that fosters a mutual distrust between the player character, Arthur Morgan, and Micah. The player is introduced to Micah's antagonistic behavior as early as settling in to camp for the very first time in the prologue, when he makes racist comments regarding the gang's non-white members, Javier and Lenny. Determining Micah as the traitor to the gang early on can be seen as both a testament to the game's writers' ability to foreshadow, and the player's ability to pick up on smaller Red Dead Redemption 2 details.
The dark horse in Red Dead Redemption is a symbol of the player's evil actions, giving Micah's Baylock a mysterious origin and offering strong hints from the very beginning that the character isn't to be trusted. Micah's actions over the course of Red Dead Redemption 2's story firmly places the character as an antagonist, with in-game evidence including Dutch van der Linde's bounty poster found in Micah's campsite, suggesting he'd been against the gang since the very beginning. The dark horse chooses a rider with a heart as black as its own oily coat, and it seems that Micah fit that description far better before John Marston had the potential to ride it in Red Dead Redemption.