No formal explanation is given for the strange man, leaving players to form their own conclusions about his nature. The Strange Man's apparent invulnerability to bullets, his bizarre calm in the wilderness and his unusual knowledge of Marston's own criminal past, and nature of Marston's victims seem out of place. Additionally, the Strange Man seems to foreshadow the location of their final encounter as a "nice spot", where John would eventually be buried.
[edit] Deity
* Several popular interpretations include the strange man being a moral or religious deity, or powerful supernatural agent. In this interpretation, the strange man is testing Marston's supposed redemption from crime and evil.
* if looked at carefully john's curse of "Damn You!", and his answer "yes, many have," and being it's set in the wild west 54 years since president Abraham Lincoln's death still fresh in the minds of people in the day, one could say it's John Wilkes Booth's ghost as, in the christian religion your punishment will be decided by god himself then you shall have your soul redeemed, in christian beliefs
* Some players have insisted that the when he claims to have had a son, it is a reference to the Abrahamic Deity, and specifically the Christian interpretation of Jesus Christ.
* When the Strange Man responds to John's curse of "damn you!" with the retort of "yes, many have", this could allude to a number of colloquial blasphemous profanities involving the damnation of deities throughout numerous religions.
* It has also been suggested that the Strange Man is a personification of Death; as only John interacts with him during the crucial events leading up to his death, and is neutral in his requests as opposed to a good or evil deity.
* The Strange Man has also been be said to possibly be an incorporeal manifestation of John's deceased father(however this seems unlikely as John's father would have a Scottish accent); once again citing the Strange Man having a son, and his ambiguous profession.
* In the mission The Outlaw's Return, Bonnie states "A Devil Walks Among Us!", which could be a reference to the Strange Man being Satan.
* In the final encounter with the Strange Man, Marston attempts to shoot him as he walks away. However, the bullets do not harm him, and Marston looks at his gun as if something was wrong. Suggesting that the bullets went right through him.
[edit] Personal
* Another explanation posits the strange man as a hallucination or manifestation of John's own conscience. This explanation seems to conflict with the fact that when the Strange Man issues John a task, he has intimate knowledge of this situation; knowledge that Marston alone could not posses.
* Some players insist that he is not a supernatural being and instead a skilled illusionist who has taken an interested in the increasingly famous John Marston.
