Bonnie MacFarlane

Origins

Bonnie is the daughter of Drew MacFarlane, who owns MacFarlane's Ranch in Hennigan's Stead, in the state of New Austin. The games give no date of birth. She tells John Marston during the ride to Armadillo that she is 27 years old; the official guide gives the same age, which places her birth around 1884. Her mother is never named. Drew tells John that the family has lived on the land for 30 years, after coming from the East when it had never been settled. He lists what they went through: ten years of fighting with the Native Americans, then outlaws, drought, smallpox, hard winters and cholera. He says he has buried more of his children than he has raised.

Bonnie had six brothers. She tells John that five of them died, of illness or of foolish choices. Their graves are in the cemetery of Coot's Chapel: Hank died of tuberculosis at twelve in 1893, Owen of chronic diarrhea at fourteen in 1896, Cole of a gunshot wound to the head in 1899, Ethan at nineteen in 1903 after trying to milk a bull, and Gus in a bar fight at twenty-two in 1905. The sixth brother left for the East about ten years before 1911 and never came back. According to his last letter, he is a banker in New York. Bonnie does not name him; residents of the region call him Patrick when they talk about him. One of her brothers used to read penny dreadfuls, she tells John.

Her father hired a couple of cheap governesses to give the children some manners. Bonnie also tells John that one of them claimed to be French but spoke Russian, at a time when her father thought she would become a lady, and that she has rarely left Hennigan's Stead. After her brother's departure, she took on the role of the man of the ranch. She says her father is frailer than he looks, although he would never admit it. She has stayed unmarried. There were a few suitors, she says, but a ranch in the middle of Hennigan's Stead is not the place to find a husband, and she finds the ranch hand Amos a little countrified. She also calls herself married to the ranch and too old now.

By 1911 the ranch is in difficulty. Bonnie tells John that her father's debts are still terrible after all his work, and that she worries every day about losing the ranch, which would kill him. She doubts it will last five more years, with businessmen replacing cowboys (her words are quoted under Quotes). Rustlers and other undesirables are stealing from the ranch, and rabbits eat the crops. She says she no longer feels safe in her own bed, that she spends her nights patrolling the property, and that everyone in the area now carries a gun.

Red Dead Online (1898)

Red Dead Online is set in 1898. The player's character can meet Bonnie on the porch of her house at MacFarlane's Ranch. She takes the newcomer for a thief at first. Learning that they want work, she says that she and her father mean to leave for a time because of the outbreak in Armadillo. Amos interrupts them: one of the ranch wagons has gone missing. Bonnie sends the player to bring it back and promises to pay on their return. The wagon stands along the road at Brittlebrush Trawl, guarded by a gang of six. Bonnie then stays at the ranch as a stranger who hands out free roam missions (see Skills and Missions).

Red Dead Redemption 2 (1899)

Bonnie does not appear in Red Dead Redemption 2, but a man in love with her does. In a random encounter, the player can find a shipwreck survivor lying on a shore, near Flatneck Station or south of Van Horn Trading Post. He looks dead, but when he is searched he wakes up, hands over a letter and passes out again. The encounter can be played as Arthur in 1899 or as John in the 1907 epilogue. The document, titled "Letter to Bonnie MacFarlane", is addressed to "Miss MacFarlane". The writer apologizes and admits that he lets things get out of control in his head. He says he saw them married with children in a dream. He is leaving to make his fortune and plans to come back a rich man. He believes that her father will come to accept him, however humble his birth.

Red Dead Redemption 2: the epilogue (1907)

John can visit MacFarlane's Ranch during the 1907 epilogue. The ranch is almost empty, and several buildings are missing or unfinished, among them the train station and the general store. Neither Bonnie nor her father is there, as Javy Gwaltney of Game Informer noted on November 28, 2018 (see Reception). The game gives no reason.

Red Dead Redemption (1911)

Act I: New Austin

The newspapers released during Red Dead Redemption place its start in early October 1911. Bonnie is on the train that takes John from Blackwater to Armadillo; the game does not say why she made the trip. She later tells him that she saw him board at Blackwater with the gentlemen in bowler hats. In "Exodus in America", John rides to Fort Mercer and calls on Bill Williamson to come out. One of Bill's men shoots him, and the gang leaves him to die. Bonnie and Amos find him by the road and lift him into their wagon. John later tells Abigail that Bonnie took him to the doctor, and Bonnie says the Armadillo doctor, Nathanial Johnston, saved his life. He wakes up at the ranch.

In "New Friends, Old Problems", John wakes up in a room at the ranch. Bonnie tells him the doctor took the bullets out a couple of days earlier and expects him to be fine, and that it cost $15. She asks whether he wanted to die when he picked a fight with the worst bandit in the county, and introduces herself as Miss Bonnie MacFarlane. John says he was giving Bill a chance for old times' sake and now means to go after him the less kind way. She offers him a way to work off the doctor's bill: riding the perimeter with her. When he is back on his feet, she gives him a horse and shows him the ranch: the Foreman's Office and its stockade, the general store, the horse corral, the train station, the barn and her house, where she offers him a cold drink.

That evening, she asks him to keep watch with her on the property line, because of the rustlers, and hands him a rifle. On the patrol they shoot rabbits in the vegetable garden, then coyotes that have got into the chicken coops; some chickens are lost. Bonnie notes that he can handle a rifle and says the family will do what it can to help him against Bill. She shows him to his room. In "Obstacles in Our Path", she asks how he knows Bill and what he wanted from him. John declines to answer: telling her would put her in danger, and people dear to him as well. She apologizes for prying and challenges him to a horse race. Afterward, she advises him to see the marshal in Armadillo, Leigh Johnson, about Bill.

In "This is Armadillo, USA", Bonnie asks John to ride with her to Armadillo for supplies and lets him take the reins of her wagon. On the way she talks about hope, which she says a rancher in this country cannot do without. She says she does not think he is a bad man, only a little stupid, and worries about him roaming the region like a bounty hunter. John tells her he has a small holding in the Great Plains, has been farming for three years or so, and has left it in the care of Uncle. When he describes New Austin as the last real outlaw country, she answers that those days are gone, if they ever existed. In town, she pays for his first purchase of medicine at the doctor's office, then heads back to the ranch.

In "Women and Cattle", Bonnie has heard from Leigh Johnson that John means to settle in the area. John explains that he already has a life and is trying to end another so that the first can survive. When she asks him to call her by her first name, he tells her about himself: he is married, has a son, and had a daughter who died; years earlier he rode with a gang that robbed banks and trains, and Bill was one of its members; if he does not capture Bill, his family will come to harm. He also talks about his father, his mother and the gang leader who taught him to read. Bonnie asks whether he killed people, and he says yes, and that he has suffered for it. She then asks him to help move the herd to the far pasture, and thanks him for telling her all this.

In "Wild Horses, Tamed Passions", Bonnie introduces John to her father. Drew says his daughter has told him that John is on a secret mission to rid the county of undesirables, and tells him that, to him, a government agent is a worse menace than Williamson. Bonnie gives John a lasso, and the three of them ride out to break wild horses. Drew has seen the telegram the marshal received from Blackwater, and Bonnie says she saw the men on the train. Back at the ranch, Drew passes on Amos's report of more horses outside Armadillo. On the ride there, she tells John about her governesses and her suitors (see Origins), and he compares her to his wife (see Relationships). Bonnie and John drive the herd into a canyon, and John chases down and breaks the stallion that escapes. Bonnie gives it to him as thanks from the family.

In "A Tempest Looms", a storm is coming and the herd is scattered across the valley. Amos has secured the horses and chickens and does not want the men caught out in the storm; Bonnie answers that without the herd they will all die anyway. John sides with her and tells Amos to gather his men. On the ride, Bonnie asks John whether he is a religious man. Lightning strikes a tree and the cattle stampede toward a cliff; John heads them off, and they bring both herds back to the ranch. Bonnie tells him he saved the herd.

"The Burning" follows "A Tempest Looms" and Leigh Johnson's mission "Spare the Rod, Spoil the Bandit". Drew has gone out to ride the land and has not come back, and Bonnie asks John to help her look for him. On the way, she tells him about her brothers (see Origins). They find Drew next to dead men and dead horses; he blames rustlers, maybe the Bollard Twins, and sends his daughter back for the wagon with John. Riding back, Bonnie challenges John about the men he has killed and the code he says outlaws live by. At the ranch, the barn is on fire and its doors are blocked. John climbs the windmill to get into the barn from above and frees the horses, while Bonnie is driven back by the smoke. Williamson's men set the fire. Afterward, John tells Bonnie that the gang seems to really want the family out.

Amos thanks John. Bonnie tells him he saved the ranch and that her family owes him a great debt. John answers that she saved his life, and asks only one thing: once he is home and his farm is running again, she should sell him some cattle. She agrees, then goes to see how her father is coping.

In "Hanging Bonnie MacFarlane", Bonnie has not been seen since the afternoon before. The Blackwater Ledger later reports that she was kidnapped from her home. John finds Drew at the marshal's office in Armadillo, accusing him. Drew says he cannot cope with losing another child. A rider from Bill's gang appears outside: he wants Norman Deek, held in the Armadillo jail, set free in exchange for Bonnie, and gives them a couple of hours to bring him to Tumbleweed. He threatens to leave her to fifteen of his friends, and to cut her throat himself if they try a trick. John promises Drew to bring his daughter back. Johnson's deputy Jonah carries Deek out of the office, hogtied, and the posse rides out with Deek tied onto a horse. At Tumbleweed, John walks Deek into the middle of town while Deek taunts him about her, but the gang's Kent Gallaway refuses any deal and shoots Deek. The stool Bonnie stands on is kicked from under her during the gunfight. John cuts her down, or shoots the rope from a distance.

Bonnie thanks him, then asks what took him so long. The rope caught the side of her throat, so her neck did not break; she had been beaten. Marshal Johnson takes her back to Armadillo once the gang's men are dead. The Blackwater Ledger's article "Kidnapped Woman Found Alive" says she narrowly escaped hanging after a shootout between Armadillo lawmen and Williamson's gang at Tumbleweed. The paper calls the motive unclear, links the kidnapping to Deek's capture, and notes that Williamson's body was not found. Bonnie takes no part in the rest of Act I.

Act III: West Elizabeth

After the death of Dutch van der Linde, John returns to Beecher's Hope, where the cattle have been stolen. In "The Outlaw's Return", he rides with his son Jack to MacFarlane's Ranch to buy a herd. Drew greets them and sends them to Bonnie at the corral. John reminds her that he promised to come back after the barn fire; she remembers, but says she did not believe a word of it. She asks about Mexico, where she had heard he was going, and about Williamson; John says he and Bill settled their differences. John introduces Jack. Bonnie asks after his wife and says she is glad they are together again; the ranch, she says, is surviving, but it has not got any easier. She rides with them until the cattle are off the ranch, then turns back (her parting words are under Names).

In "Old Friends, New Problems", which follows Abigail's mission "Pestilence", a telegram from Bonnie reaches Beecher's Hope. Abigail cannot read, so John reads it aloud: weevils and moths have eaten the whole county's corn supply, and Bonnie urgently needs corn sacks. Abigail sends him to help the woman who saved his life, then decides to come along. At the ranch, Bonnie thanks them and says they lost the entire harvest. John introduces his wife. Abigail thanks Bonnie for saving her husband and for teaching him some manners; Bonnie answers that she never tried to change a man, and Abigail replies that people can change. While the ranch hand Trent Oxley unloads the sacks, Bonnie asks Abigail how she is after her ordeal, and the two women tease John together.

As the Marstons drive away, Bonnie watches them leave, then follows Amos into the general store. This is her last appearance in the story. On the ride home, Abigail says Bonnie is pretty, that she likes her and that she blushed when she saw John; John answers that he has that effect on women. The game does not show whether Bonnie learns of John's death at Beecher's Hope in "The Last Enemy That Shall Be Destroyed".

Red Dead Redemption: the 1914 epilogue

Bonnie does not appear in the 1914 epilogue, and the game gives no fate for her. The ranch is still running in November 1914, despite her fears about its future. Jack is still welcome there and can use the cabin where his father recovered three years earlier. He never meets Bonnie, but the ranch residents still talk about her, as they did in 1911.

Undead Nightmare (outside the canon)

Undead Nightmare is not part of the series' canon. Once John has cleared MacFarlane's Ranch of the undead, Bonnie greets him on her porch and starts the side mission "Paternal Pride". She tells him that her father has been rounding up the undead and locking them in the barn, and that she has not heard from him for at least a day. She asks John to check on him. The barn doors will not open, so John gets in from the windmill or through a window and kills the undead inside. Drew bursts out from under bales of hay, turned into one of them, and John has to kill him with a Winchester Repeater found in the barn.

John walks back to the porch without a word; Bonnie understands from his silence and remarks that he always does bring sunshine into her life. He sits down beside her and says he is sorry about her father. She answers that Drew died protecting the people he loved, and John agrees. Each tells the other to take care, and Bonnie goes back into the house. She is not seen again in the expansion.

The official Game of the Year Edition guide to Red Dead Redemption introduces her this way: "Bonnie is the 27-year-old daughter of a prominent rancher. She is unmarried, educated, and a kind-hearted proto feminist. At one point, she takes a romantic interest in Marston, and this evolves into a solid friendship. Some day in the future, she expects to inherit and run the MacFarlane ranch." Rockstar's character descriptions of September 2018 concern the gang of Red Dead Redemption 2 and do not include her.

In the game she pays for a stranger's treatment and puts him up in exchange for work (see Biography). She speaks bluntly to John: she calls his fight at Fort Mercer stupid, says he talks in riddles and mocks his talk of an outlaw code. She dismisses his picture of New Austin as the last outlaw country as something out of a cheap novel. She worries aloud about the future of the ranch and is wary of the strangers the railroad brings in.

In her own words

On the road to Armadillo, in "This is Armadillo, USA": "Oh, there's always hope, Mr. Marston. You can't be a rancher in this kind of country if you don't believe that." Riding out with her father in "Wild Horses, Tamed Passions": "There's certain things in this country a woman could do much better, if you ask me." When John says that everyone has a code, in "The Burning": "There's nothing more depressing than a man who's found a way to think the bad into good." To Abigail, who thanks her for teaching John manners, in "Old Friends, New Problems": "I knew better than to try to change a man."

Names

She introduces herself to John as "Miss Bonnie MacFarlane", and he calls her "Miss MacFarlane" almost throughout the game. In "Women and Cattle" she tells him: "Ugh, call me Bonnie, you fool. Call me Bonnie." In the same scene he uses her first name ("I've said too much, Bonnie"), and he uses it again when he cuts her down in "Hanging Bonnie MacFarlane" ("Bonnie, are you okay?"). In Undead Nightmare, he also says it in "Paternal Pride". When they part in "The Outlaw's Return", she repeats the request: "Call me Bonnie, you dolt!" She calls him "Mr. Marston"; after the barn fire of "The Burning" she thanks him as John, then goes back to "Mr. Marston" within the same scene. She calls her father "Pa" or "Daddy".

Appearance

Her eyes are blue-green and her dirty blonde hair is tied up in a bun, a looser one in 1911 than in 1898. In both periods she wears a turquoise necklace with a metal charm and, like most male characters, two belts: an ordinary belt and a gunbelt. On the way to the ranch, John describes her to Abigail as "pretty normal".

On the ranch

Bonnie gives John the first mission strand of the game (see Missions), and each one shows a part of her work. She patrols the property at night with a rifle, and in "New Friends, Old Problems" the player does not need to shoot the rabbits and coyotes because she kills them herself. She races John on horseback in "Obstacles in Our Path": she is hard to beat with John's first horse, the conversation changes with the state of the race, and winning brings no bonus: the reward is 20 Fame either way. She drives the ranch wagon and hands John the reins before they set off for Armadillo. She herds cattle, ropes wild horses and brings the herd home with John through a thunderstorm in "A Tempest Looms". Her father, Drew MacFarlane, taught her to break horses and run the ranch.

She also equips John. "New Friends, Old Problems" gives him a horse she picked for him (a Cleveland Bay in the original version, a War Horse in the Game of the Year Edition and later versions) and the Repeater Carbine he uses on the patrol, and it unlocks the first level of Dead Eye. The same mission opens the safehouse at MacFarlane's Ranch and the ranch's Nightwatch job. In "Wild Horses, Tamed Passions" she hands him a lasso, and she lets him keep the stallion that broke away from the herd, a Kentucky Saddler, as a thank-you from the family.

In Red Dead Online, 1898

In Red Dead Online she is a Stranger at MacFarlane's Ranch, in New Austin. After her introduction (see Biography), she offers four kinds of free roam missions: Recovery (getting back a stolen wagon), Delivery, Caravan Escort and On The Hunt, in which the player tracks a grizzly bear. Accepting her missions raises the player's honor. Their start and end points are listed in the Missions table.

Weapons and horses

Her weapons are a Cattleman Revolver, a Repeater Carbine and a Double-barreled Shotgun. Artwork shows her holding a Winchester Repeater, a weapon she never carries in the game. Her horses are a Painted Quarter Horse, a Standardbred Pinto and a Painted Standardbred.

Bonnie gives John the first missions of Red Dead Redemption after "Exodus in America": her strand runs from "New Friends, Old Problems" to "Hanging Bonnie MacFarlane" and teaches the basics of the game (shooting, riding, driving a wagon, herding, the lasso, climbing). She returns in two missions of Act III and in one side mission of Undead Nightmare. In Red Dead Online she gives free roam missions. The events are told in the Biography.

Red Dead Redemption and Undead Nightmare

Red Dead Online and Red Dead Redemption 2

The lines below are given in the original English.

Red Dead Redemption

• I do. "Stupid" is the word we use around here.

  When John cannot find a polite word for how he feels, New Friends, Old Problems (RDR1, Act I)

• Next time, Mr. Marston, I strongly recommend you don't try to lose it quite so earnestly.

  To John, about his life, New Friends, Old Problems (RDR1, Act I)

• Change is only good when it makes things better.

  On the railroad reaching the ranch, New Friends, Old Problems (RDR1, Act I)

• Well, with your trigger itch and my feminine intuition, we should make quite a team.

  On the night patrol, New Friends, Old Problems (RDR1, Act I)

• You are being deliberately obscure as a substitute for having a personality.

  To John, This is Armadillo, USA (RDR1, Act I)

• We'll be lucky if our ranch survives another 5 years. Businessmen are the new cowboys.

  This is Armadillo, USA (RDR1, Act I)

• You do so love to talk in riddles, Mr. Marston.

  Women and Cattle (RDR1, Act I)

• Civilization is a truly beautiful thing, Mr. Marston.

  After John describes his mission, Women and Cattle (RDR1, Act I)

• You're not bad with the herd. Ranching might be your true calling, Mr. Marston. Either that or you were a cow in a past life.

  Women and Cattle (RDR1, Act I)

• I think you could be a fine rancher someday. If you can bear to stop killing people for a living.

  Wild Horses, Tamed Passions (RDR1, Act I)

• And if we lose the herd, we'll all die, you stupid man.

  To Amos, A Tempest Looms (RDR1, Act I)

• We all need to look for answers somewhere. Some in big ol' books. Others in big ol' bottles of whiskey.

  On faith, A Tempest Looms (RDR1, Act I)

• He switched his saddle for a tie, and that's fine. I just never met a man in a tie I could trust.

  About her surviving brother, The Burning (RDR1, Act I)

• The outlaw with a code? How wonderfully romantic! The reluctant murderer, the noble criminal.

  To John, The Burning (RDR1, Act I)

• If you think I'm going to lower myself by making a joke about being "all tied up," you've got another thing coming.

  To John, after he cuts her down, Hanging Bonnie MacFarlane (RDR1, Act I)

• Good Lord, do my eyes deceive me? A devil walks among us.

  Greeting John at the corral, The Outlaw's Return (RDR1, Act III)

Undead Nightmare

• First hell walks the earth, then you turn up... can my week get any worse?

  Greeting John, Paternal Pride (Undead Nightmare)

• Daddy, stop teasing me!

  Calling to her father, Undead Nightmare

Multiplayer and Red Dead Online

• Are you afraid of losing to a woman?

  Multiplayer taunt, Red Dead Redemption

• This sure beats milking cows!

  Multiplayer taunt, Red Dead Redemption

• Look at that male pride go!

  Multiplayer taunt, Red Dead Redemption

• Leave now, or never leave at all!

  Multiplayer taunt, Red Dead Redemption

• You really helped me out last time, thank you.

  To the player, Red Dead Online

Casting and motion capture

Bonnie is played by Kimberly Irion. Irion plays her in the main game and in Undead Nightmare (2010), voices the multiplayer version of the character added by the Liars and Cheats pack, and returns to the role in Red Dead Online, where Bonnie is a minor mission giver. No interview in which Irion discusses the role was found. Bonnie's motion capture for the opening train scene was performed by Steve J. Palmer, the actor who plays Bill Williamson.

Cut content

During development, the ranch was called "Hennigan's Ranch" at one stage, then "MacFarling's Ranch". The game files also contain an unused Penny Dreadful item, the kind of novel Bonnie says her brother used to read; its intended purpose is unknown.

Game Informer ranked Bonnie 29th in its list of the 30 characters who defined the decade, published in its December 2010 issue; John Marston came second. The cover art commissioned for the feature, revealed by the magazine on November 5, 2010, shows Bonnie's hand resting on John's shoulder.

In a 2012 article in Western American Literature, Sara Humphreys describes Bonnie as "insightful and resourceful" rather than "a woman masquerading as a male figure", while noting that she defers to simple domestic tasks when her father is present. Matt Margini, in his 2020 book on the game for Boss Fight Books, points out that on one occasion she becomes a damsel in distress. In a retrospective for the game's tenth anniversary, on April 4, 2020, the German magazine PC Games called her a modern woman, assertive and direct.

Her return in Red Dead Online drew coverage at the launch of the online beta. On November 28, 2018, Javy Gwaltney of Game Informer described finding MacFarlane's Ranch deserted in the story of Red Dead Redemption 2, then meeting Bonnie online, "years before meeting John Marston", with a mission to find a wagon.

Multiplayer

Bonnie became a playable character model in the multiplayer mode of Red Dead Redemption with the Liars and Cheats Pack, detailed by Rockstar on August 27, 2010 and released on September 21, 2010. Players select her in the Redemption section of the Outfitter, alongside John, Abigail, Jack, Leigh Johnson, Luisa Fortuna, Nigel West Dickens and Seth Briars. Her model has 28 taunts, a few of which are quoted above. The versions of Red Dead Redemption released on PlayStation 4 and Nintendo Switch on August 17, 2023, then on PC on October 29, 2024, do not include the multiplayer mode.

Marketing and merchandise

Rockstar released promotional images and artwork of Bonnie for Red Dead Redemption, and she appears on the back of the fold-out map packaged with the game. Her outfit could be bought for avatars in PlayStation Home, Sony's former online space on PlayStation 3. The Undead Nightmare trailer includes a shot of John and Bonnie embracing.

Red Dead Redemption 2

In Red Dead Redemption 2 she is only mentioned: in the shipwreck survivor's letter and, in the 1907 epilogue, as away from her ranch (see Biography).

• The Blackwater Ledger article "Kidnapped Woman Found Alive", published after her rescue, calls her "a spinster of 29 years" and judges a crime of passion implausible for that reason. The age contradicts the 27 years given elsewhere, including by the Game of the Year Edition guide.
• During the tour of the ranch in "New Friends, Old Problems", Bonnie says her father built the barn himself when she was a little girl. In Red Dead Online (1898) and Red Dead Redemption 2 (1899 and 1907), the ranch has no barn.
• Born around 1884, Bonnie would be about 14 in Red Dead Online, set in 1898; her model there looks like a woman in her early twenties.
• When the shipwreck survivor of Red Dead Redemption 2 wakes up to hand over his letter, Arthur exclaims "Whoa, I thought you was already gone!" and John "Jesus! I thought you were dead...".
• The $15 Bonnie paid the doctor is never deducted from John's money during the game.
• In the original release, when Amos passes Bonnie at the end of "Old Friends, New Problems", he says "Ma'am" while the subtitles read "Howdy, miss". The Game of the Year Edition fixed it.
• In Undead Nightmare, two of her lines are written as graffiti on walls in Blackwater: "You do so love to talk in riddles" and "Civilization is truly a beautiful thing".