Javier Escuella

Red Dead Redemption 215 views2 favorites16 min readby 𝐑uthl𝐞ss 𝑶u𝖙la𝒘View on Steam ↗

𝑩𝒂𝒄𝒌𝒈𝒓𝒐𝒖𝒏𝒅

Javier Escuella was born in a small village in Nuevo Paraíso, Mexico. Javier's father was a drunkard who worked as a laborer on land owned by Agustin Allende's uncle, and his mother was a strict Catholic who would try her best to keep her son in line. When he was a boy, Escuella witnessed his uncle and four other men castrated and fed to pigs, because they suggested the villagers demand a fair wage from the local landowner. This event strained Javier's relationship with his mother, who continued to accept peasant life as it was even after her brother was killed.

Eventually, Javier became a notorious bounty hunter and revolutionary, fighting against what he saw as a corrupt system. Around the summer of 1894, he killed a powerful, high ranking former army officer in Punta Orgullo over a woman he was in love with. Fearing that his loved ones would suffer if he remained in Mexico, Javier fled to America. However, he could not speak any English and ultimately became feeble and starved.

In 1895, while attempting to steal some chickens, Javier came across Dutch van der Linde doing the same. They both laughed, and Dutch fed and clothed Javier, offering him a spot in the Van der Linde gang. Escuella felt an immediate affinity with the gang and its ideals; he came to see the gang as his family and his true home, while especially idolising Dutch as a revolutionary paragon and becoming fiercely loyal to him.

Javier functioned as a gunman for the gang, and was involved in a number of robberies and various other crimes across the frontier. One notable example is a bank robbery in Tucson, Arizona, which Javier robbed with fellow gang members Arthur Morgan and Karen Jones in the mid-1890s. The heist was a success, with the pair sending Karen to infiltrate the bank disguised as nun, concealing two pistols in her clothes.

Sometime prior to 1899, Javier and Arthur attempted to rob a stagecoach after receiving tips from a crooked lawman in Reno, Nevada. However, they decided to let the stagecoach go when they found out that it was full of women and children. To their disappointment, that stagecoach was robbed by the O'Driscoll Boys the very next day, who murdered all its passengers.

At some point, Escuella heard that his mother had died and that his sister had married. Despite deeply missing them both, he couldn't go back to Mexico because he would most likely be killed if discovered.

By 1899, the gang had fled east and ended up in the state of West Elizabeth. They had been camping outside of the town of Blackwater when Dutch caught wind of a boat carrying an immense amount of money. The gang attempted to rob the boat, but the heist went wrong when Pinkerton agents showed up. Javier, along with John Marston, witnessed Dutch murder a young mother named Heidi McCourt, and participated in the huge gunfight that ensued. The gang subsequently made a desperate escape to the north, ending up in the snowy mountains of Ambarino.

𝑪𝒐𝒍𝒕𝒆𝒓 𝑪𝒉𝒂𝒑𝒕𝒆𝒓

During a snowstorm, the gang take shelter in the abandoned mining town of Colter, in Grizzlies West. The next day, Abigail Roberts asks a reluctant Arthur to look for her partner John, so Hosea Matthews sends Javier to ride out with Arthur to find him. After a long search, the duo eventually find John badly wounded, and realise that he was attacked by wolves. Javier carries John and puts him on the back of his horse, before he and Arthur ride back to camp and fight off the remaining wolves. Later, the gang learns that the O'Driscolls are camped nearby. Javier is paired with Lenny during the assault on their camp, slaying several O'Driscolls.

During the assault on the Cornwall train, Javier attempts to jump aboard the moving train, but misses, and falls to the ground injured. He soon recovers, and is seen among the others after the train has been incapacitated.
During the gang's escape from the mountains, Javier is seen with Charles Smith in the caravan ahead of Arthur and Hosea. When the latter's wheel comes off, Javier offers to help mend it, although Arthur and Hosea decline. Upon arrival, Javier is seen at the entrance to the camp, and Arthur lets him jump on as he drives the caravan into the gang's new spot.

𝑯𝒐𝒓𝒔𝒆𝒔𝒉𝒐𝒆 𝑶𝒗𝒆𝒓𝒍𝒐𝒐𝒌 𝑪𝒉𝒂𝒑𝒕𝒆𝒓

Not long after moving to Horseshoe Overlook, Javier is in the saloon in Valentine when a brawl breaks out. He is seen punching Tommy in the face but is overpowered by him and is saved when Tommy gets attacked by Arthur.

Later, he takes part in the mission to help rescue Sean MacGuire along with Arthur, Charles, and Josiah Trelawny, an associate of the Van der Linde gang. Along with Arthur and Trelawny, he assaults the camp head on, while Charles takes a vantage point over the bounty hunters. Trelawny distracts two bounty hunters which allows Arthur and Javier to silently take them down. He then leaves, allowing Arthur and Javier to engage the rest of them in combat. The pair eventually join up with Charles, and the three clear out any remaining bounty hunters. Ultimately, the mission results in Sean being rescued.
At some stage within this chapter, Javier can also rob the homestead of Chez Porter with Arthur.

𝑪𝒍𝒆𝒎𝒆𝒏𝒔 𝑷𝒐𝒊𝒏𝒕 𝑪𝒉𝒂𝒑𝒕𝒆𝒓

The player can choose to go fishing with Javier during this chapter, where he and Arthur share a friendly conversation. Later, Javier, John and Arthur make a deal with the Grays, in which they will steal the Braithwaites' prized horses and sell them for five thousand dollars. The three of them talk their way into the grounds, before killing the stablehand and stealing the horses. Javier leads the horses during the escape, until the trio sell them for a meager seven hundred dollars. Later on, Javier takes part in the assault on the Braithwaite Manor, after Jack Marston was kidnapped and sold off by them.

𝑺𝒂𝒊𝒏𝒕 𝑫𝒆𝒏𝒊𝒔 𝑪𝒉𝒂𝒑𝒕𝒆𝒓

Javier plays the part of a security guard during the riverboat robbery. After Arthur wins a Reutlinger pocket watch from Desmond Blythe in a poker game, Javier escorts Arthur and the overseer upstairs to the vault as Arthur goes to collect his prize. Javier holds the man at gunpoint as soon as he opens the vault, which he and Arthur quickly empty. After the man pulls a concealed gun on them, Arthur is forced to shoot him, which alerts the ship's guards. After a brief shootout, Javier, Arthur, Leopold Strauss and Trelawny are forced to flee the ship by jumping overboard and swimming to shore. After getting to safety, they divide the significant amount of money between themselves.

Later, Javier participates in the Saint Denis bank robbery, where he is given the job of guarding the side entrance of the bank. However, the robbery quickly goes wrong due to the arrival of Pinkertons and the resulting deaths of Lenny and Hosea. Javier and the gang make their escape across the city's rooftops and temporarily find refuge in an abandoned apartment. Afterwards, the gang make their way to the docks and board a ship destined for the Caribbean.

𝑮𝒖𝒂𝒓𝒎𝒂 𝑪𝒉𝒂𝒑𝒕𝒆𝒓

After the boat out of Saint Denis sinks, Javier, Dutch, Bill Williamson and Micah Bell wash up on the shore of Guarma. Not long after, Arthur finds them, but he and the rest of the gang are soon arrested by Cuban soldiers. After Hercule Fontaine opens fire on the enemy soldiers, Arthur manages to unlock their handcuffs and they make their escape. However, Javier is shot in the leg while trying to flee and is captured by the enemy.

Escuella is taken to Aguasdulces, where Dutch and Arthur see him being dragged on the road by a donkey, surrounded by Colonel Fussar and his men. They interrogate Javier for information on who his fellow gang members are and beat him, but he refuses to divulge any information to them. Javier is then locked up in a cage until Dutch and Arthur break him out after creating a distraction. They bring Escuella to the safety of the rebels and his fellow gang members, where he is left to heal, with Bill looking after him. For the rest of his time on Guarma, Javier's time is spent recovering.

𝑩𝒆𝒂𝒗𝒆𝒓 𝑯𝒐𝒍𝒍𝒐𝒘 𝑪𝒉𝒂𝒑𝒕𝒆𝒓

With the gang on the verge of collapse at Beaver Hollow, Javier takes a fairly minimal role in gang affairs. However, he remains unendingly loyal to Dutch, despite the latter’s ever-decreasing sanity, and his relationships with the main doubters, Arthur and John, deteriorate as a result. In separate camp interactions, Javier accuses Arthur of only being there for money, for going behind Dutch's back, and breaking his heart, while also expressing dismay at John not being hanged soon enough following his arrest at the Saint Denis bank robbery, and calling him "an arrogant ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥," when he gets offended by John's remarks that the gang isn’t his family. Moreover, he also becomes frustrated with others like Charles, Abigail, and Uncle because of their perceived lack of faith in Dutch.

Javier does, however, take part in the assault on the Cornwall refinery, in which he joins the gang and the Wapiti Indians in battle against US Army soldiers led by Colonel Favours.
Javier is also present in the final train robbery, where he is seen accompanying Dutch, Micah and Joe in going back for John after he was shot. However, the four men later return without John, with Dutch and Micah falsely claiming that he had died. Later, a standoff at Beaver Hollow ensues when Arthur and Micah draw guns on each other at camp; Javier appears when it is ongoing and announces that Pinkertons are coming, but unwittingly causes the death of Susan Grimshaw in the process as Micah shoots her while she is distracted by this. Dutch then pulls out his revolvers and demands who is "with" him and who is "betraying" him, causing Javier to hesitantly join the majority of the gang on Dutch and Micah's side. After Pinkertons begin their assault, Javier presumably flees with Bill, as neither of them are seen pursuing Arthur and John, unlike the others.

𝑬𝒑𝒊𝒍𝒐𝒈𝒖𝒆

At some stage after the disbandment of the gang, Javier returns to Mexico. He is reported to be living in the mountains in Mexico by 1907.

𝑬𝒗𝒆𝒏𝒕𝒔 𝒐𝒇 𝑹𝒆𝒅 𝑫𝒆𝒂𝒅 𝑹𝒆𝒅𝒆𝒎𝒑𝒕𝒊𝒐𝒏 1

Nuevo Paraíso
By 1911, Javier works as a hitman for Colonel Allende - the Governor of Nuevo Paraíso and an aide to General Sanchez. Through his association with the Colonel, Javier was put under the Mexican Army’s protection. Prior to the assault on Fort Mercer, Javier helped Bill Williamson escape to Nuevo Paraíso, which resulted in Williamson also being placed under Allende’s protection.

When John Marston arrives in Mexico in pursuit of Williamson and Escuella on the Bureau of Investigation's' orders, Allende takes advantage of the situation, using Marston to aid him in fighting the rebels led by Abraham Reyes in return for finding Javier for him, but with no intention of fulfilling his side of the bargain. Eventually, John is betrayed and nearly killed by the Mexican Army, so he then sides with the rebels. Reyes promises to find the two men for John, and eventually finds out that Javier is in El Presidio. Javier is located by John during the rebels' assault on the fort.
In El Presidio, John holds Javier at gunpoint in a room within the fort. Javier is surprised to see John working for the US government, but John points out that both of them simply "work for different governments". Javier laughs at this and tries to convince John to let him go, claiming that he still cares about him. John is quick to remind him of how he and Dutch left him to die all those years ago and says to Javier: "It's either you or me. The way I see it, it might as well be you". This doesn't faze Javier and he continues to try coaxing a deal out of John, claiming that he'll give him Bill and claiming to know the location of Dutch, who is allegedly in Colombia. As John is left unconvinced, Javier suddenly pushes a crate onto John, who falls over. Javier then leaps out a window, and John follows. Depending on how the player decides to deal with Escuella, two outcomes can occur.

𝑪𝒉𝒂𝒓𝒂𝒄𝒕𝒆𝒓

A revolutionary, Escuella was a firm idealist who held loyalty above any other virtue and could passionately devote his life to a cause. This allowed him to connect with Dutch, who Javier remained unwaveringly loyal to throughout the time they knew each other. As of 1899, Javier is seen to be friendly with most gang members and possesses a strong sense of camaraderie. He seems to be good friends with John Marston, gladly volunteering to search for him when he goes missing during a snowstorm, stating that if the situations were reversed, John would do the same. The two drift apart later on when John begins to lose faith in Dutch, whom Javier stays loyal to, despite his declining sanity. His closest friendship seems to be with Bill, however, with the two having similar views on Dutch. Additionally, Javier will be the one who tries to rescue Bill if he is captured by bounty hunters, Bill was asked specifically to care for Javier on Guarma, Bill felt he could console Javier in who the "rat" is, and the duo also appear to run off together after the standoff. By 1911, the two still seem to be friends, as Javier helps Bill to escape America and flee to Mexico, when John on the orders of the government begins hunting both of them down.

As the gang slowly falls apart, Javier continues supporting Dutch, despite the latter’s decreasing sanity; he also chastises Arthur and John for disapproving of Dutch's decisions and leadership. He ultimately sides with Van der Linde during a confrontation with Arthur and John, albeit reluctantly. During this standoff, he is the only member to side with Dutch that does not aim his weapon directly at Arthur and John, instead pointing it upwards, indicating some remaining fondness or at least neutrality towards the duo. However, the slowly revealing insanity of Javier's mentor and role model had a big effect on him; Javier begins losing trust in anyone not faithful to Dutch, and Arthur notes how Javier had changed after the latter had an argument with Charles. John says to Abraham Reyes in 1911: “When Dutch lost his mind, Javier took it harder than any of us. It’s like all he ever believed in turned out to be a fraud". John also assesses that Escuella was a complex and paradoxical figure who was more misanthropic underneath than he appeared, stating him to be "a cynic who desperately wanted to be a romantic" and a "torn man" despite being a revolutionary and idealist who was committed to making the world a better place.

In his spare time, Javier can frequently be seen playing guitar and singing for members of the Van der Linde gang, especially during meals and parties. His passion for music is exemplified further in his tendency to compose his own songs, which delights his comrades since it means he can vary the entertainment he provides for them very frequently. However, Javier is shown to be quite vain, always being impeccably dressed wherever possible and taking pride in his appearance. He also doesn't take kindly to any form of mockery or disrespect, holding a knife to Bill's throat upon being called a "greaser",[18] threatening to fillet Sean with a knife after being made fun of and punching Micah in the face after being told to “♥♥♥♥ off back to Mexico”.

Over a decade later in 1911, Javier is working as a hitman for the ruthless tyrant Colonel Allende, a stark contrast to his younger self who was critical of tyrannical governments. It is also implied several times that Javier has built up a bad reputation in Nuevo Paraíso within the intervening years. A prostitute in Casa Madrugada comments "I wouldn't spit on him if he was on fire." when John Marston merely mentions his name to her. In another instance Landon Ricketts mentions Javier's name to Luisa Fortuna. She responds "I remember that name from prison. Bad people spoke of him."
When Javier is confronted at gunpoint by John in El Presidio, he initially acts very placid and cooperative. He attempts to calm John down by claiming that the gang didn't leave him to die all those years ago and offers him Dutch's supposed whereabouts. However, Javier's initial cooperativeness seems to be mostly based in deception rather than genuine sympathy, as he quickly takes the opportunity to knock John off balance by pushing a crate onto him then escaping out a window. When John pursues him, Javier has no hesitation in drawing his revolver and shooting at his former brother in arms while insulting him repeatedly. If Javier is captured instead of killed, he angrily threatens John and curses his family while being locked in a cell.

𝑨𝒑𝒑𝒆𝒂𝒓𝒂𝒏𝒄𝒆

In 1899, Javier is a slim-built man, with black hair and a dark complexion, notably having a mustache that is shaved in the middle, with a prominent scar on his eyebrow, often hidden by his hair. Javier also has a scar along the front of his neck, though he never reveals how he got it. According to John, Javier is approximately 5'8. He generally wears a white shirt with a red tie, a silver waistcoat, a blue jacket and a bowler hat complete with black trousers and boots, which is modified by a poncho and gloves when in the cold. In Chapter 2, he will sometimes, instead, be seen wearing a long, grey coat, a sombrero and a bandolier over his waistcoat, while, in hotter temperatures, Javier wears a dark blue waistcoat over his shirt without his usual blue jacket. For the Saint Denis bank robbery, Javier wears a smart white shirt, a black tie and a silver waistcoat, which is mostly covered by a long, smart black jacket. On Guarma, said attire regresses to a shirt and a waistcoat only, along with black trousers.

By 1911, his appearance has changed somewhat since 1899, his face is lined and wrinkled, with some additional scarring, in addition to appearing somewhat thinner. In stark contrast to his sharp, clean looks in 1899, by 1911 Javier appears to have poor hygiene and his now medium-length hair appears unstyled, exposing his prominent eyebrow scar. He also changed his attire, instead wearing a beige-colored jacket with a white shirt underneath, a bandolier and a sombrero, which are more suitable for the desert climate.