Josiah Trelawny

Origins

The games give no date of birth for Trelawny. The Red Dead Wiki lists him as British and gives Cornwall, in England, as his birthplace. In the game itself, the Cornwall origin rests only on Trelawny's own words in a camp conversation with Uncle (see Relationships). The wiki says he came to the United States and had been riding with Dutch van der Linde for several years by 1899. On the ride in "The First Shall Be Last", he tells Arthur Morgan that his own parents would have sold him for a hogshead of ale, and that he believes they tried.

He is an associate who comes and goes. On the fishing ride that can follow "The New South", if Arthur asks about him, Hosea says that Trelawny is good at disappearing when he feels like it, then prompts Dutch to tell the outhouse story. Weeks after last seeing Trelawny, Dutch stopped for supplies in a town whose name he no longer remembers, opened the outhouse door and found him sitting inside with a newspaper. Trelawny greeted him by name, asked to be left in peace and blamed a rotten oyster. Before the events of 1899, Trelawny had also settled a wife and two sons in Saint Denis, a family he keeps apart from the gang (see Relationships).

Red Dead Redemption 2 (1899)

Chapter 2: Horseshoe Overlook

Trelawny has been away from the gang for months: he takes no part in the failed ferry robbery in Blackwater or the winter at Colter. He reappears in Valentine at the end of "Americans at Rest", just after Arthur has beaten Tommy in the street outside the saloon. Dutch arrives with him (see Relationships). Arthur, who believed he had gone to New York, greets him by name. Trelawny says he went to Blackwater looking for the gang and found that they are not popular there. He then brings the news that Sean MacGuire, missing since the ferry robbery, is alive and held by bounty hunters who want to see how much the government will pay for him. He believes Sean is in Blackwater, but has heard talk of the captors moving him.

Arthur points out that setting foot in Blackwater would be suicide, and Trelawny adds that Dutch is the one the authorities want. Dutch decides they must try anyway: he sends Charles Smith to find out what he can and tells Trelawny to take Javier Escuella with him, while Arthur goes to clean up. In "Exit Pursued by a Bruised Ego", on the ride out from Valentine to the lake at O'Creagh's Run, Hosea Matthews asks Arthur to let go of John Marston's year away. Arthur answers that there is a code John knows, and that John "ain't Trelawny". If Sean has not yet been rescued and the player raises the subject, Arthur also tells Hosea that the news about Sean comes from Trelawny, who has gone to look with Javier and Charles.

In "The First Shall Be Last", Charles and Javier watch Blackwater from a clifftop to the north while Trelawny looks for Sean. Javier tells Arthur that the town is full of Pinkertons and bounty hunters, with pictures of Dutch and Hosea on display, so the gang's money stays there for now. Trelawny returns with the news that Ike Skelding's bounty hunters are moving Sean up the Upper Montana River, toward a federal prison in the west, and will stop at one of their camps first. Arthur sends Charles along the north side of the valley and rides with Javier and Trelawny along the cliffs, following the boat. On the way, Trelawny says the government seems very angry, asks about Heidi McCourt, the young mother Dutch is said to have killed on the ferry, and about the money left in Blackwater. Arthur asks him about New York, and Trelawny answers that life never runs in a straight line.

Trelawny takes the lead and tells the two gunmen to keep their weapons holstered until they are sure the prisoner is Sean. Through binoculars, they see the bounty hunters drag Sean off the boat with a bag over his head and haul him up a canyon. Two of them stay on guard by the river. Trelawny rides across alone, tells them that his wife, Bessie, has fallen gravely ill, then fakes a fit at their feet. Arthur and Javier cross behind the guards and kill them silently. Trelawny gets up, tells them they can handle the rest and rides away before the gunfight. Arthur, Javier and Charles then clear the canyon and the camp and cut Sean down from the tree where he hangs by his feet.

Chapter 3: Clemens Point

After the gang moves to Clemens Point, in Lemoyne, Dutch, Hosea and Arthur ride out to go fishing in "The New South". At a railroad crossing they meet Leigh Gray, the sheriff of Rhodes, and his deputy, Archibald MacGregor, who are driving a prison wagon. Trelawny is locked in the back with several prisoners; he greets the three men and admits he has got himself into some trouble. Dutch introduces himself to the sheriff as Hoagy Macintosh and asks what the prisoner did. Gray says he is accused of running a gold mining investment scam. Dutch calls Trelawny a magician and a fool, but not a bad man.

The other prisoners, the Anderson boys, pick the lock and run for a passing train. Dutch offers the sheriff Arthur's help and sends him after them with MacGregor riding behind him, keeping Trelawny's case to discuss later. One escapee is knocked off the train by a water tower before Arthur catches up. Arthur then boards, gets rid of two more and knocks out their leader, Anders Anderson, whom he carries to the sheriff's office in Rhodes. Once Dutch raises the matter of his friend, Gray lets Trelawny out of the cage and warns him to cause no more trouble. Trelawny calls the arrest a misunderstanding and thanks him.

Alone with Dutch, Hosea and Arthur, Trelawny says he is renting a caravan on the edge of town, behind the church, where nobody comes looking. He explains that Rhodes is caught in a feud between two old plantation families, the Grays and the Braithwaites, over Confederate gold and marriages, and Dutch tells Arthur and Hosea to look into it. Trelawny also warns them about bounties on the gang: men he met at a camp near the state line spoke of them, and of talk of super agents, in bars across five hundred miles to the north and west. Dutch dismisses it as talk (see Relationships). Trelawny bows and leaves for his caravan.

Some time later, in "Magicians for Sport", Arthur raises Trelawny's warning with Dutch. Dutch still believes it is a rumor, but since nobody has heard from Trelawny for a while, he sends Arthur and Charles to check on him. At the caravan, they find a half-eaten meal, a disturbed bed and blood on the floor, and conclude that bounty hunters have taken him. They follow the trail into the woods to a camp where two men sit with Trelawny's cane. Arthur and Charles each subdue one, and the man they question says Trelawny is held at a farm near Braithwaite Manor.

At the farm, Arthur and Charles find Trelawny beaten and held by the bounty hunters, who work, according to the mission page, for a man named Cole Stoudemire. The kidnappers scatter into the Braithwaites' cornfields. One of them takes Arthur hostage and is killed by Charles, and two more are dealt with in the barn. Freed, Trelawny assures them he told his captors nothing. He moves into the gang's camp for as long as living alone remains dangerous, and rides back to Clemens Point with Charles.

At Clemens Point, Trelawny offers Arthur a job in "Friends in Very Low Places". The two ride to the Rhodes post office, where the clerk, Alden Carruthers, sells tips on stagecoaches worth robbing; the Red Dead Wiki gives the price as two dollars a tip. Trelawny calls the clerks who sell such tips an association of discouraged men. Arthur pays for a tip about a coach due to pass Siltwater Strand, and Alden adds that a clerk in Strawberry, Hector Barlow, belongs to the same circle. On the ride, Arthur worries about going back to Strawberry after freeing Micah Bell from its jail, and Trelawny reassures him. Trelawny jokes that the gang will soon be famous enough to star in a dime novel, and dead as well. Arthur says he would rather they got free first.

The plan is a quiet one: no guns drawn, and a lock breaker for the strongbox on the back of the coach, which Trelawny supplies free of charge if Arthur does not already own one, according to the mission page. When the coach comes into view, Trelawny rides alongside and persuades one of the passengers, the opera singer Chester Damsen, to sing for him, which also holds the driver's attention. Arthur, trailing out of sight, breaks open the box, pockets the cash and rides off unnoticed. After the coach has moved on, Trelawny catches up with him and they divide the money (see Missions for the player's share).

He then spends time at the Clemens Point camp, where his camp scenes start after "Friends in Very Low Places" (see Relationships). Trelawny's own page on the Red Dead Wiki counts "Blood Feuds, Ancient and Modern", the attack on Braithwaite Manor after the kidnapping of Jack Marston, among his missions, but the mission page never mentions him. He moves with the gang to Shady Belle, near Saint Denis.

Chapter 4: Saint Denis

At Shady Belle, Trelawny spends time at the campfire (see Relationships). In Saint Denis, Arthur can find the apartment where Trelawny lives with his wife and sons, up a flight of stairs behind a blue door. Standing outside, he hears Trelawny talking to his family and handing out presents. If Arthur calls his name, Trelawny answers through the door, surprised, says he cannot talk and suggests they meet at the office on Monday, the word he uses for the gang in front of his family. According to the Red Dead Wiki's page on the Blackwater massacre, Trelawny also mentions there a recent visit to Blackwater. Back at camp, he brings up Arthur's visit (see Relationships). According to the wiki, Trelawny himself can still be heard there with his family after he leaves the gang.

Trelawny then brings the gang a new job. In "A Fine Night of Debauchery", he meets Arthur in Saint Denis, reading a newspaper that advertises a poker game aboard the Grand Korrigan, a riverboat casino. The target is Desmond Blythe, who keeps extra collateral in the boat's safe. Arthur's clothes will not pass at a high-stakes table, Trelawny tells him, and he walks him to a tailor for a suit and then on to a barber. In a carriage driven by George, he explains the plan: Arthur's cover is an oil man, the driver and the card dealer are on their side, and Javier is aboard as a guard. According to the Red Dead Wiki, Trelawny arranged for Leopold Strauss to watch Blythe's cards and pass signals to Arthur.

Arthur leaves his guns in the carriage, and the four men board and split up. Arthur beats Blythe twice, the second time for his Reutlinger pocket watch, then goes up to the vault with the pit boss. There, according to the mission page, Javier knocks out a guard and holds the pit boss at gunpoint, and Arthur disarms him; the pit boss turns out to have a second gun, so Arthur kills him and empties the safe. Meanwhile, Trelawny talks with Blythe at the bar, and Blythe accuses Arthur of cheating. When the guard whose uniform Javier took raises the alarm, a gunfight breaks out. The four men shoot their way up to the deck, leap into the river and reach the bank. Once the money is shared out (see Missions), Strauss judges the stolen watch to be worth something, Arthur takes it back, and they go their separate ways. Trelawny is not seen at camp again until chapter 6.

Chapter 6: Beaver Hollow

Trelawny takes no part in the Saint Denis bank robbery or in the events of chapter 5. He is back with the gang at Beaver Hollow, in Roanoke Ridge, as the group falls apart. "The Fine Art of Conversation" opens with Arthur coming across him as he packs, ready to leave camp one more time. Trelawny promises to return. Arthur tells him to go and stay away, since the gang has no hope left, and lets him leave with his blessing. Trelawny thanks Arthur for his friendship and slips away without fuss. Rains Fall then arrives at camp and the mission continues without him.

He is no longer at camp after this mission and does not appear again in the story. He is not seen in the 1907 epilogue. Beyond being heard at his Saint Denis apartment, the game gives no account of what becomes of him.

Rockstar Games' official description of Trelawny, published in September 2018, reads: "A flamboyant conjurer, conman and trickster, Trelawny is a very hard man to pin down but he's always able to bring good leads."

A character page from an official guide, reproduced on the Red Dead Wiki, expands on it. It calls him a conjurer, conman and trickster "with a taste for the finer things in life", and says he "is one of the only people Dutch allows to drift in and out of the gang". It adds: "He pops up out of nowhere and then, just like one of his magic tricks, disappears again. He is a very hard man to pin down, and not always to be trusted, but he consistently brings the gang good leads and provides some entertainment around camp." It ends: "A cockroach in fancy britches, Trelawny is able to get into nooks and crannies that the rest of the gang can't."

On jobs he prefers deception to gunfire (see Biography). He talks a great deal, to the annoyance of Javier, who rides with him on the search for Sean (see Javier Escuella). He keeps his life with the gang hidden from his wife and sons (see Biography).

In his own words

Riding with Arthur in "The First Shall Be Last", he explains his long absence: "Much as I love dodging the law and sleeping in the dirt with you derelicts, I do have other business to attend to." A moment later he reminds Arthur what he brings to the gang: "But without me you'll not find the caliber of victim that I find." On the same ride he warns Arthur and Javier: "Keep your guns away until we know it's Sean, okay? I know what you two are like." Locked in Sheriff Gray's prison wagon in "The New South", he answers Dutch's greeting with: "I seem to have gotten myself in a spot of bother." The Red Dead Wiki opens its page on him with another of his lines: "How can romance ever be silly? It's all we have."

Names

He is usually called Trelawny, but Dutch and Arthur also use his first name, Josiah: "Josiah, take Javier", says Dutch in "Americans at Rest", and "Javier, Josiah, come on", says Arthur in "The First Shall Be Last". The Red Dead Wiki's infobox lists one alias, Giuseppe Muldoon, used once in Lemoyne, and marks it as uncertain; the French wiki spells it Giuseppe Muldon and ties it to the stagecoach robbery. According to the wiki's page on cut content, the game files sometimes spell his surname Trelawney. The wiki also notes that Trelawny is a variant of that Cornish surname, which it glosses as meaning a person from a town with a church.

Appearance

The guide's portrait shows a man with dark hair, light eyes and a thick dark mustache, in a black top hat, a dark coat over a blue paisley vest, a black cravat, white gloves and pale gray-green trousers. The Red Dead Wiki puts him in middle age, with dark brown hair combed back, a trimmed mustache and formal clothes in every scene. According to the wiki, he is one of three gang members, with Sean and Cleet, who have no winter outfit.

Magic tricks

Trelawny performs conjuring tricks in camp: at Clemens Point he makes a crow appear from his hand and another fly out of a book (see Karen Jones and Mary-Beth Gaskill). According to the mission page of "Friends in Very Low Places", before the mission starts he can be seen through binoculars doing a trick with a playing card.

Cons, distractions and tips

On each of the three operations he shares with Arthur, his own part is a performance: a staged collapse by the river, a serenade requested at the coach, small talk with Blythe at the riverboat bar (see Biography). His other asset is information. He tracks down where Sean is held, keeps a contact among the tip-selling clerks of the postal service (see Alden Carruthers) and spots the poker game that Desmond Blythe plays aboard the Grand Korrigan. The Red Dead Wiki adds that he speaks some Italian.

Weapons and horse

The Red Dead Wiki gives him a Cattleman revolver. His horse is Gwydion, a brown leopard Appaloosa stallion with a small star on his face, according to the wiki's page on the horse. Trelawny rides him in "The First Shall Be Last" and "Friends in Very Low Places". The wiki notes that a horse with the same coat can be bought at the Tumbleweed stable in the epilogue. Gwydion is also the name of a trickster figure of Welsh mythology.

The English and French Red Dead Wikis list the same eight story missions of Red Dead Redemption 2 for Trelawny, three of which he gives to Arthur. The table below also includes the mission in which he is only talked about. The Red Dead Wiki lists no killings by Trelawny.

Red Dead Redemption 2, story missions

The lines below are given as spoken in the game, in the original English, with the mission and the person addressed. Lines from missions that have no transcript on the Red Dead Wiki are marked as taken from its quote list.

Return to the gang

• Making new friends again I see, Arthur.

  Americans at Rest (RDR2, chapter 2), his first line in the game, to Arthur after the fight with Tommy

• And miss all this glamour? You must be joking.

  Americans at Rest (RDR2, chapter 2), to Arthur, who thought he had gone to New York

• I went to Blackwater looking for you gentlemen. You're not very popular there it seems.

  Americans at Rest (RDR2, chapter 2), to Arthur and Dutch

• It's you they want, Dutch.

  Americans at Rest (RDR2, chapter 2), when the gang discusses going into Blackwater for Sean

The rescue of Sean

• Oh it must be wonderful to have such trust in one's parents. Mine would have sold me for a hogshead of ale... in fact I think they tried.

  The First Shall Be Last (RDR2, chapter 2), to Arthur, who has just said that Dutch and Hosea know where the money is

• Gentlemen, gentlemen! Excuse me, dear brothers, my wife has taken ill, gravely ill!

  The First Shall Be Last (RDR2, chapter 2), to the two bounty hunters guarding the river, before faking a fit

• A pleasure as always, gentlemen. I think you have it from here.

  The First Shall Be Last (RDR2, chapter 2), to Arthur and Javier, before riding away

Rhodes and Saint Denis

• I promise you, this was all just a big misunderstanding. However, I want to thank you from the bottom of my heart.

  The New South (RDR2, chapter 3), to Sheriff Leigh Gray, as he is let out of the cage in Rhodes

• The whole town is trapped in this interminable feud between the two families.

  The New South (RDR2, chapter 3), to Dutch, about the Grays and the Braithwaites

• You know me, I like to make friends in low places.

  Friends in Very Low Places (RDR2, chapter 3), to Arthur (quote list of the Red Dead Wiki)

• A discouraged man is no man at all, Alden... no man at all.

  To Alden Carruthers, the Rhodes post office clerk (quote list of the Red Dead Wiki)

• Everyone is the author of his own good fortune.

  A Fine Night of Debauchery (RDR2, chapter 4), to Arthur (quote list of the Red Dead Wiki)

• There's plenty I don't like about you but I have the good manners to keep my mouth shut.

  To Desmond Blythe (quote list of the Red Dead Wiki)

Said about him

• He hasn't stopped talking since we left you in Valentine. It's the longest ride of my life.

  Javier Escuella to Arthur, The First Shall Be Last (RDR2, chapter 2), when Arthur asks why he is so quiet

• He is a magician, I know him. He's a fool... but, he is not a bad feller.

  Dutch van der Linde to Sheriff Leigh Gray, The New South (RDR2, chapter 3)

• Trelawny owes... everyone for something, but his information is good.

  Hosea Matthews to Arthur and Dutch, The New South (RDR2, chapter 3), on the fishing ride that can follow the mission, after Arthur says Trelawny owes him for catching the Anderson boys

• Hey, maybe there are actually a hundred Trelawnys.

  Arthur Morgan, The New South (RDR2, chapter 3), on the optional fishing ride, after Dutch's outhouse story. Hosea answers: "What a terrible thought."

• I ain't too sure. This is what tends to happen when you leave Trelawny in charge of planning. All garnish, no meat.

  Arthur Morgan, A Fine Night of Debauchery (RDR2, chapter 4), when Javier asks how they will get off the Grand Korrigan (quote box of the mission page)

• Of course he'll talk. He'd sell his own sister to save a train fare! He don't know how not to talk...

  Arthur Morgan about Trelawny (quote list of the Red Dead Wiki, which gives no mission)

• He somehow manages to be both lucky and unlucky at the same time. But he always finds some way to pay us back. I guess that's his special talent... keeping fish on the line.

  Arthur Morgan about Trelawny (quote list of the Red Dead Wiki, which gives no mission)

Casting

Trelawny is played by Stephen Gevedon, an American actor, through performance capture. He co-wrote the horror film Session 9 (2001) with its director, Brad Anderson, and plays Mike in it. On television he has had recurring roles in Oz (1997), Show Me a Hero (2015), Madoff (2016) and The Deuce (2017 to 2018).

Interview

Gevedon talked about the role on the podcast ComiCulture BEYOND, hosted by Kevin Caldwell, in an episode released on October 14, 2019. According to Wikipedia's summary of that episode, he did not know when he was cast that the project was a video game, and expected the recording to take about a week. He was told that Trelawny was unlike the other gang members, better dressed and more professional, but still "rough around the edges".

He described Trelawny's accent as a "bad Katharine Hepburn". He chose it partly because he did not feel comfortable doing a true English accent in front of the British crew, and partly to keep the character mysterious. Rockstar liked his performance enough to expand the role, and Trelawny's wife and children, kept secret in the game, were added in the last years of development.

Cut content

According to the Red Dead Wiki, a chapter 3 mission named "tre2" in the files was to be given by Trelawny. It had Arthur and Dutch fighting bounty hunters on a train; Benjamin Byron Davis, who plays Dutch, said in an interview that they came from Boston. Animations for the mission show the pair hiding in a bar car, and an unused character, Nial Whelan, being thrown out of a window by Arthur.

A camp encounter with Micah Bell was also recorded and left out. Micah calls Trelawny a rat, then a snake; Trelawny tells him to look in his hat, and a coral snake falls out of it, to Micah's alarm. The files hold a custom Double-Action revolver for Trelawny, which the wiki describes as short-barreled with a white grip, meant for a cutscene of "A Fine Night of Debauchery". They also contain unused clothes for him (a sleeveless union suit, three vests, two ties, trousers, boots) and a cut item request for an eagle talon.

Concept art shown by the wiki pictures Trelawny with a walking cane, and another piece groups him with Sean, Sadie, Lenny and Micah.

Critics

In an opinion piece published by Polygon on November 22, 2018, "Red Dead Redemption 2 is a confection of cowboy clichés", Colin Campbell listed Trelawny among the gang's stock characters: "Josiah Trelawny is an affectatious dandy, a gentleman thief with swell togs and a crisp English accent." The same passage also names Susan Grimshaw, Sadie Adler, Leopold Strauss and Reverend Swanson.

In Game Informer's staff ranking of the 24 members of the Van der Linde gang, published on December 27, 2018, Trelawny comes 8th. The staff called him "one of the most interesting members of the gang" and "A smooth-talking trickster who comes and goes as he pleases". They noted that the gang often has to rescue him, but that he pays them back "with helpful tips and distractions", and said that players who find his secret in Saint Denis "are in for a big surprise".

Red Dead Online

Trelawny is one of the strangers who give missions in Red Dead Online, whose story is set in 1898, a year before the main game. The Red Dead Wiki names four members of the Van der Linde gang who appear in the online mode: Trelawny, Sadie Adler, Joe and Sean MacGuire; Sadie and Joe have not yet joined the gang at that point. The player finds Trelawny on the porch of his rented caravan on the edge of Rhodes.

At their first meeting, Trelawny asks whether his wife sent the player, then says it is a long story. He raises a Cattleman Revolver to his own head, saying he cannot take it anymore, then thinks better of it, and the revolver becomes a bird and flies off. He declares his love for his family, describes himself as lost, then moves on and offers a job he presents as entirely legal: stealing a horse that belongs to Catherine Braithwaite and delivering it to his contact at Hill Haven Ranch, in Scarlett Meadows. Afterwards he offers further jobs from the caravan. According to the Red Dead Wiki, most of them earn the player positive honor.

• The truth is... I just can't take it anymore! Oh... no, that's not the truth. I don't know the bloody truth. I'm lost. I'm a lost soul, my friend.

  Red Dead Online, to the player at the first meeting (quote list of the Red Dead Wiki)

Marketing

Rockstar released official artwork of Trelawny for Red Dead Redemption 2. On September 6, 2018, Rockstar posted his portrait and character description on Twitter, in a series covering the members of the gang, and The Hollywood Reporter reproduced the series the next day. In the composite image of the 23 gang members that opens Wikipedia's list of the game's characters, Trelawny is the last figure in the front row, next to Strauss.

• According to the Red Dead Wiki, Trelawny's name can appear in the camp ledger as the donor of an item even before he first comes to the Clemens Point camp.
• Before the ferry robbery, Arthur writes in his journal that he has heard talk of a man who sounded like Trelawny, whom the gang had not seen for months. The Red Dead Wiki notes how closely Trelawny resembles the Strange Man of Red Dead Redemption.
• In "Friends in Very Low Places", the player can gun down Chester Damsen and the others on the coach while Trelawny keeps them busy. According to the mission page, Trelawny then curses the amateurs he works with and rides off; Arthur later meets him at a crossroads, where he voices his disappointment that his orders were not followed.
• If Arthur is already wearing a suit when "A Fine Night of Debauchery" starts, Trelawny tells him that it is not fit for the occasion. The newspaper in that opening scene is the Saint Denis Times No. 47, which the player can buy.
• Trelawny is one of the gang members, with Micah, Lenny, Bill, Javier, Tilly and Uncle, who do not appear during the O'Driscoll attack on Shady Belle in "Horsemen, Apocalypses"; the game never explains their absence.
• According to the Red Dead Wiki, there is a very rare chance that Trelawny tries to talk to Arthur about Guarma at Beaver Hollow.
• The stranger mission "Of Men and Angels" must be completed before "The Fine Art of Conversation", the mission in which Trelawny leaves, or it is no longer available.
• His caravan on the edge of Rhodes can still be visited in 1907, run down and without a tenant.