Luisa Fortuna

Origins

The dialogue of Red Dead Redemption gives no birth date for Luisa Fortuna. According to the game's Game of the Year guidebook, she was born in 1892, which makes her 19 in 1911. She is Mexican and lives in Nuevo Paraíso, the Mexican province south of New Austin. Her family's house is at Campo Mirada, a homestead in the Perdido region; John Marston describes her to Abraham Reyes as the girl from Campo Mirada. The family has four other members in the game: an unnamed father, an unnamed mother, a brother named Emilio, who works as a driver, and a sister named Miranda (see Relationships). Luisa describes the Fortunas as a close family.

Landon Ricketts presents her as a teacher. The Game of the Year guidebook adds that she is training to become a schoolteacher in 1911 and taught herself to read, write and speak English as a child. Her father taught her to read and write Spanish. She is also a rebel: she supports the uprising that Reyes leads against Colonel Agustin Allende, the military governor of the province.

Red Dead Redemption (1911)

In 1911, agents of the Bureau of Investigation hold John Marston's wife and son to force him to hunt down his former companions Bill Williamson and Javier Escuella. At the end of the first act, the trail takes John across the border into Nuevo Paraíso, where Allende's army and Reyes's rebels are fighting each other. Luisa appears in seven missions of the second act. Ricketts gives the first two, she gives the next four from Campo Mirada, and she dies in the last mission of the act, given by Reyes.

Act II: Nuevo Paraíso

Luisa is first mentioned in "Landon Ricketts Rides Again". At the hotel in Chuparosa, Ricketts tells John that the army is holding the sister of Emilio, the man he has been questioning about Escuella. On the way, he explains that the army wants her because she is a rebel close to Reyes, and that her looks are usually enough to interest Allende. A butcher named Carlos, in El Matadero, confirms that she is still held in the caves above the village and distracts the guards. Ricketts and John fight their way in, and Ricketts blows open the door of her cell with dynamite. She is barely alive, and Ricketts carries her out unconscious while John covers him. They escape on horses that Carlos has left at the cave mouth.

Near Diez Coronas, Carlos meets them and takes Luisa away for medical care. Before she leaves, she thanks the two men and calls them friends of the people of the land. Ricketts asks whether Javier Escuella was among the men holding her. She does not think so, but she remembers hearing the name in prison, from bad people. Ricketts takes it as a sign that Javier is still in Mexico.

In "The Mexican Wagon Train", she runs into the Chuparosa hotel while Ricketts and John are drinking. She reports that Allende is sending more men to their deaths without trial, among them a writer named Castillo and a local official whose only crime was refusing to evict smallholders who were late with their taxes. Ricketts jokes that for once he agrees with Allende, she protests, and he says he was joking and asks where the prisoners are. She answers that they are near Escalera, and thanks both men. She then walks into the Chuparosa church and prays at the altar. On the trail, Ricketts tells John she is angry, and at the end of the mission he advises John to talk to her, because she is well connected on the Mexican side.

"My Sister's Keeper" opens at Campo Mirada as the family packs to leave the house. Luisa introduces John to her parents as the gringo who saved her, and her father thanks him (see Relationships). Luisa announces that the revolution is coming and that, with Reyes, anything is possible. Her parents and her brother are leaving for the hills, she says, and her sister has to flee because of the way the army treats women. Asked about herself, she tells John not to worry about her (see In her own words). When John calls her noble but naive, she answers that she would rather be dead than a cynic like him, then adds that she knows he is not really like that, since he saved her.

Her father urges her to find someone to take Miranda to the port, because the boat leaves at nightfall. Luisa asks John for one more favor: drive her sister to the docks, from where she will go to work for a kind man in the Yucatán. She says Miranda is too young for revolution. John agrees and drives Emilio's stagecoach, with Miranda beside him, through several army checkpoints to the docks of Puerto Cuchillo. Miranda thanks him and leaves before sundown. Luisa does not take part in the ride.

At the start of "Must a Savior Die?", John finds Luisa in tears on the porch of the house, which has burned down in the meantime; the army set it on fire. She says she weeps for her country rather than for herself: Reyes has been captured. He was riding to meet her at Roca de Madera, which she calls a very romantic spot, when an army patrol ambushed him, and he is held at El Presidio. She tells John that in their hearts they are already married, but that his family does not approve of a girl as poor as she is, and that Reyes does not care about such snobbery. She says she will rescue him or die trying. John suggests they ride together to the fort and work out a plan, and she kisses him on the cheek.

Luisa drives the coach to El Presidio, north of Campo Mirada. She points John to a partly collapsed wall he can climb, warns him that the guards will kill both men if they see him, and tells him to bring Reyes to friends who wait for her by the river. John kills the executioner from a sniper's nest, frees Reyes and rides out with him behind a rebel guide. Once freed, Reyes calls her the love of his life; on the ride, he gets her name wrong and John corrects him (see Names). Reyes recognizes her only when he sees her at the river landing. She greets the two men, says the revolution will live on thanks to them, and cheers for Mexico. Reyes asks her to come with him and sings her a love song (see Names).

"Father Abraham" takes place after the battle of Chuparosa, where Reyes's rebels saved John from a firing squad. On his way to meet Luisa, John is stopped by rebels who take his gun and walk him to her campfire. She apologizes, saying they cannot be too careful. She then tells him that her father was killed the day before: the army accused him of treason, cut out his heart and fed it to the dogs. She blames Allende, and says he then took the honor of two young girls. She insists that her father's death must mean something. She explains that Allende has sent for reinforcements and that Reyes personally asked for John to stop them before they reach Escalera, by ambushing them on the old trail. John objects that he has a family to worry about. She answers that she has lost her father, that her mother is in the United States, that her sister has fled, and that she has nothing left but the cause. John agrees out of respect for her loss.

They set off for the Frontera Bridge, John either beside her on the wagon or on his own horse. On the way, Luisa says that her father's death must make them fight harder to win power for Reyes, whom she calls a true revolutionary who fights out of love rather than hate. She has heard that he killed nearly a hundred soldiers at Chuparosa to save John. She tells John that she still cannot forgive him for helping Allende and what he did to the rebels. They argue about revolution: she says there can never be a revolution without blood and that Mexico, after fighting off the Spanish, the French and the Americans, has only fought itself since independence; John answers that he has lost faith in power. She thanks him for helping her mother and Miranda escape, regrets not sending her father with them, and says they know nothing yet of his death. In "My Sister's Keeper", John drove only Miranda, and Luisa had said that her parents were going to the hills. She asks John whether he has children, and he names his son Jack.

She explains that the convoy must not be robbed but destroyed, with everyone in it, because Reyes wants to send a message. Her men have no experience with explosives, so John shows the demolition team where to place five charges on the road and mans the detonator on the ridge while Luisa watches for the wagons from above. The convoy is destroyed. Luisa thanks John, says her father would be proud, and returns to Campo Mirada with her rebels, promising to repay the favor.

In "Captain De Santa's Downfall", John finds her at the rebels' camp (Campo Mirada) as her men load their rifles. She tells him that Captain Vincente de Santa has been sent to oversee a massacre at Sepulcro and asks him to kill him and the rest of Allende's followers. She sends her men with John and stays at the camp. At Sepulcro, John captures De Santa, who is then shot by John or by the rebels, at the player's choice (see Vincente de Santa).

Luisa does not appear in "The Gates of El Presidio", but she is discussed in its opening scene at Agave Viejo, where John walks in on Reyes with another woman. When John asks what Luisa would say, Reyes first asks who he means. He then recommends her to John, laughs at the idea that she thinks she is his wife, and says he will never marry a peasant, because he means to become president of Mexico (see Abraham Reyes).

"An Appointed Time" is the last mission of the act. The army has executed rebels in Escalera and captured Reyes. John walks through the town as the townspeople and rebels fight the soldiers, and finds Reyes being beaten in the square by Major Raul Zubieta and his men before his execution. John draws his gun and tells them to let Reyes go. Luisa then rushes at the soldiers with a knife, shouting in Spanish to leave her man alone, and the soldiers guarding Reyes shoot her dead. John kills two of them, then kills Zubieta in a duel and cuts Reyes loose.

Luisa dies in Escalera in 1911, on the day the town falls to the rebels. After the battle, Allende and Bill Williamson die on the road out of town. Reyes proclaims that Mexico is his and thanks John, who answers that the victory also belongs to those who gave their lives, people like Luisa. Reyes calls her brave and says she will be missed, then asks who she was. John reminds him that she was his peasant girl and wife to be. Reyes promises that a day will be named after her, gets her name wrong again (see Names), and turns back to politics.

Undead Nightmare (non-canon)

Undead Nightmare, an expansion released in 2010, is not part of the series' canon, and Luisa has no role in its story. An ordinary undead uses her character model. This undead is first met in Escalera, and her necklace (see Appearance) shows on it when the player gets close and uses Dead Eye.

Rockstar described her on its Newswire on May 3, 2010: "Luisa Fortuna is a 19-year old Mexican teacher and revolutionary, who knows how to handle a sidearm." On the road to Sepulcro, Victor Melendez, one of the rebels she commands, tells John: "She can fight as well as any man."

She speaks Spanish with the rebels and her family and English with John and Ricketts, whom she calls Mr. Marston and Mr. Ricketts. She first calls him John during "Father Abraham" and greets him by that name in "Captain De Santa's Downfall". She speaks of Reyes as Abraham or Abraham Reyes, and of the revolution as a duty owed to the people and to her dead father. She says the province was renamed Nuevo Paraíso (New Paradise) when the Spanish left, and that one day it will live up to its name.

In her own words

To John, as her family leaves Campo Mirada in "My Sister's Keeper": "Don't worry about me, Mr. Marston. I am living in history. I am not afraid to die." On the wagon ride to the Frontera Bridge in "Father Abraham", when John says he once believed that enough spilled blood could change the way people think: "Revolutions are always won with blood." A few lines later, when he says that nobody is ever free: "Be honest with yourself and you will be free." As the army convoy reaches the charges: "Every time Allende hits us, we hit him back harder."

Names

Fortuna is the Spanish word for fortune or luck. Reyes calls her Laura: he asks John how he knows "my young lover, Laura" in "Must a Savior Die?", then sings "Laura, dame la fuerza para luchar" (Laura, give me the strength to fight) as they ride off together. After her death, in "An Appointed Time", he promises her a "Laura's Day" and, corrected by John, says he knew a Laura as well. When he recognizes her at the river, he calls her "Mi amiga" (my friend).

She calls herself "little more than a peasant girl" when she explains why Reyes's family does not approve of them. Reyes, speaking of her to John at Agave Viejo, lumps her with "These peasant girls".

Appearance

She is a young woman with dark hair tied back. She wears a loose white blouse trimmed with blue at the neckline and sleeves. She wears a gold cross on a beaded necklace, which she keeps throughout the game.

Her weapons are a Cattleman Revolver and a Hunting Knife. She has a knife in hand when she runs at the soldiers in Escalera (see Biography). She never rides a horse herself, like two other major characters, Agustin Allende and Nigel West Dickens. In "Landon Ricketts Rides Again", Ricketts carries her on his horse, and she leaves with Carlos, who takes her home on horseback. She drives the wagon in "Must a Savior Die?", with John riding shotgun; she can crash it if the player watches the journey instead of skipping it. In "Father Abraham", John chooses between riding in her wagon and following on his own horse.

In "Father Abraham", her rebels have no experience with explosives, so John handles the dynamite (see Biography); she orders her men to their positions in Spanish. The missions she takes part in fail if John kills her ("Landon Ricketts Rides Again"), assaults or kills her ("Must a Savior Die?", "Father Abraham", "Captain De Santa's Downfall"; in all three, hurting any rebel also fails the mission) or abandons her ("Must a Savior Die?"). Killing the horses that pull her wagon also fails "Must a Savior Die?" and "Father Abraham". Her body cannot be looted in "An Appointed Time". The missions she gives are listed in the Missions table.

Luisa appears in seven story missions of Red Dead Redemption, all in the second act, set in Nuevo Paraíso. Her own strand has four missions, which all start at Campo Mirada. It becomes available after "Landon Ricketts Rides Again", given by Landon Ricketts, and "Civilization, at Any Price", given by Vincente de Santa. She is also discussed in one mission given by Abraham Reyes.

Appearances

Mission in which she is mentioned

The lines below are given in the original English. Most are exchanges between Luisa and John Marston, or lines that other characters say about her.

Red Dead Redemption, Act II

• But they do have his sister. Emilio's I mean. She's a fine young woman, teacher, a human being. Not the clothed vermin so many people seemed to have turned into.

  Landon Ricketts, Landon Ricketts Rides Again (RDR1, Act II), at the hotel in Chuparosa

• Luisa: Thank you for saving me. You're good men. Friends of the people of this land. / Landon: Was someone named Javier Escuella one of the men holding you? / Luisa: No...I don't know. I don't think so. But, I remember that name from prison. Bad people spoke of him.

  Landon Ricketts Rides Again (RDR1, Act II), after the escape from the caves

• Marston: Luisa was pretty shaken up. / Landon: She's angry. This war is getting dirtier by the day. People are being executed just for having an opinion.

  The Mexican Wagon Train (RDR1, Act II), on the trail to Escalera

• Talk to Luisa. She'll help you and she's well-connected in that other land.

  Landon Ricketts, The Mexican Wagon Train (RDR1, Act II), parting from John on the American side of the border

• Luisa: Great and terrible things! The revolution is coming! The country will be in turmoil once more. This time, we hope is the last time. / Marston: Does that seem likely? / Luisa: With Abraham Reyes, anything is possible!

  My Sister's Keeper (RDR1, Act II), at Campo Mirada, when John asks what is happening

• Marston: Your nobility's almost as affecting as your naivety. / Luisa: I would rather be dead than a cynic like you, Mr. Marston. / Marston: I would too... / Luisa: I know you're not really like that. You saved me.

  My Sister's Keeper (RDR1, Act II), at Campo Mirada, after she tells John not to worry about her

• Luisa: Mr. Marston, can I ask one more favor of you? Can you take my sister to the docks? We are sending her to work for a kind man in the Yucatán. She is too young for revolution. / Marston: Okay. Anything I can do to help out.

  My Sister's Keeper (RDR1, Act II), at Campo Mirada

• Luisa: I don't weep for myself, but for my country! Abraham Reyes has been captured! / Marston: He has? / Luisa: He was coming to meet me at Roca Madera. It's a very romantic spot. It was a beautiful night, yet he was ambushed by a patrol. My heart is breaking, but I cry for Mexico.

  Must a Savior Die? (RDR1, Act II), on the porch of the burned house at Campo Mirada

• El Presidio... You know, in our hearts, we are married already, but his family does not approve.

  Luisa, Must a Savior Die? (RDR1, Act II), when John asks where Reyes is held

• Marston: Luisa sent me. We have to meet her by the river. / Abraham: Que? / Marston: Luisa. The girl you're marrying. / Abraham: Oh, yes. Such a devoted thing. El amor de mi vida.

  Must a Savior Die? (RDR1, Act II), at El Presidio, after John cuts Reyes free

• Luisa: My father must not die in vain! His death must mean something. / Marston: It'll mean that war is brutal and unnecessary and good people die and that's all it will mean. / Luisa: That is not enough.

  Father Abraham (RDR1, Act II), by the campfire, after she announces her father's death

• Luisa: We all have problems. This is about the people! My father died for his people. For these men and for millions like them, that they may be free. / Marston: While there are guns and money, there won't be any freedom, Luisa.

  Father Abraham (RDR1, Act II), by the campfire

• Luisa: Mr. Marston. I have lost my father. My mother is in the United States. My sister has fled. I have no family, just the cause. Please. Good actions make you a good man. / Marston: Then, I'm doomed, but I will help you, out of respect for your loss.

  Father Abraham (RDR1, Act II), by the campfire, when John says he has his own family to worry about

• Marston: Allende betrayed me, and I saw him do bad things. Things that disgust even me. / Luisa: Allende es pura maldad. One day I will cut his heart out.

  Father Abraham (RDR1, Act II), on the way to the Frontera Bridge; "Allende es pura maldad" means "Allende is pure evil"

• Luisa: You Americans forget too quickly, that is the problem. If it wasn't for your revolution, you would still be making tea for the English. / Marston: At least we knew where we stood. It's more difficult to understand why your own people treat you like shit.

  Father Abraham (RDR1, Act II), on the way to the Frontera Bridge

• Luisa: What is his name? / Marston: Jack. Jack Marston. I ain't been much of a father. We tried to hide the bad from him growin' up but he saw things he shouldn't. / Luisa: Children see more than you think / Marston: That's what I'm worried about. I don't want him to become a man like me.

  Father Abraham (RDR1, Act II), on the way to the Frontera Bridge, after she asks John whether he has children

• Luisa: No, destroy them! And kill everyone. Abraham wants to send a message. Do you have experience with explosives? / Marston: A little. Been a long time. / Luisa: Good. Because we do not.

  Father Abraham (RDR1, Act II), when John asks whether they are going to steal the army's supplies

• Marston: What would your most loyal follower, Luisa say about that? / Abraham: Who? / Marston: Luisa. The girl from Campo Mirada. / Abraham: Ah, her. A gentleman never tells, but she was a most wonderful, ay... I just say she was incredible, yes. Let me tell you something. I strongly recommend her. You take her when you have the chance, my brother. (...) / Marston: Are you going to marry her? / Abraham: Marry a peasant? My dear boy, don't be absurd. I'm going to be the next president of Mexico. My wife will meet ambassadors, kings, other great men. The very thought that I would marry some peasant girl with the hands of a farmer, well I really don't think so.

  The Gates of El Presidio (RDR1, Act II), at Agave Viejo

• Abraham: Ya, ya matalo. / Luisa: Déjen mi hombre! / Raul: Ay, Dios mio! Santa Maria! / Marston: You want to settle this now, friend? Or do you want me to shoot you in the head right now, for that poor girl?

  An Appointed Time (RDR1, Act II), in the square of Escalera; Luisa's last words. Reyes's and Luisa's lines are in Spanish in the original

Casting

Luisa Fortuna appears in Red Dead Redemption, released in May 2010. She is voiced by Francesca Galeas. No interview in which Galeas discusses Red Dead Redemption was found. No source consulted names a performer for Luisa's motion capture.

Design and promotion

On May 3, 2010, two weeks before the game's release, Rockstar presented on its Newswire two character artworks newly added to the official Red Dead Redemption website, one of Luisa and one of Irish. The post adds that both characters feature in the site's "People of the West" updates and in the game's character videos, and that the artworks are available as desktops, backgrounds, icons and avatars on the Downloads page. She is also one of the backgrounds of the official site. A pre-release version of the game gave her a more worn face, dark yellow teeth and unkempt hair.

Character rankings

WhatCulture ranked her fifth in "5 Most Memorable Red Dead Redemption Characters (Aside From John Marston)", by David Michael Hughes, published on November 16, 2013. The entry opens: "Luisa Fortuna is a rebel who openly opposes Colonel Allende and is willing to suffer or die for the revolution." Hughes writes that "Luisa is nothing if not extremely brave", and that "Luisa sacrifices herself for Reyes, the man who cannot even recall her very name and only valued her for sexual pleasure." He adds that what she died for was not worth it, in his view, because Reyes becomes as bad a dictator as the man he overthrows.

Academic study

In "The Mustang Diaries: A Study of Mexico in Red Dead Redemption 1", published in the Revista Panamericana de Comunicación (vol. 4, no. 2, 2022), Javier Aldape, of Texas A&M University, describes her as "a staunch Reyista who firmly believes Abraham is the true savior of the country". In the same passage, he writes that Reyes forgets his followers' names. Aldape also notes, without naming her, that Reyes cares more about the corridos sung about him than about the soldaderas, the women fighters who die for his cause.

Multiplayer

Luisa 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. The pack added 15 characters from the story, as well as Poker, Liar's Dice, horse races and the Stronghold mode. Players select her in the Redemption section of the Outfitter, alongside John, Abigail, Jack, Bonnie MacFarlane, Leigh Johnson, Nigel West Dickens and Seth Briars. She wears a dress throughout the story, while her multiplayer model is given chaps, a change also made to Abigail's model. Her family's house at Campo Mirada, which burns in the story, is still standing in multiplayer.

The versions of Red Dead Redemption released on PlayStation 4 and Nintendo Switch on August 17, 2023, then on PC on October 29, 2024, contain the story and Undead Nightmare but not the multiplayer mode, so the Luisa model is not available in them.

Later games

Luisa does not appear in Red Dead Redemption 2 or in Red Dead Online. Outside Red Dead Redemption, her only appearance is as a character model in Undead Nightmare (see Biography).

• In "Father Abraham", Luisa calls out when to set off the charges, but her timing is not always right. She can also criticize John's handling of the explosives even after a direct hit (noted on PlayStation 3).
• "Father Abraham" is the first mission in which John says his son's name aloud.
• In "An Appointed Time", Luisa falls on her back when she is shot, but lies face down once the cutscene ends.
• The cemetery of Sepulcro has a grave in the name of Alejandro Fortuna, who died on August 14, 1909; its epitaph reads "He died for his country." No dialogue links him to Luisa's family.