The first game doesn't bear much on the second. Many of the characters show up against but they're much shallower and you get vastly less time with them. Rdr2 has much better writing and much deeper characterization and much more focus on the characters. The very first game, read dead revenge, has nothing in common except being set in a fanatsy version of "the west".

Re; i'm an old man now, totes agree, it's got a lot of "white man's boredom" going on. both games are about the closing of the west, and John and Arthur's stories both parallel that as each of them is seeing their way of life end as America completes it's conquest of the west. Arthur contemplating what his life has amounted to, and struggling to reconcile the violence he's done with the ideals he wants to believe in, is a stand in for America struggling to reckon with the disconnect between it's mythology and the actual horrors it committed. John, Dutch, and Josiah have a weird maiden mother crone thing going for Arthur in that they represent a better past, a destabilizing presence, and some kind of hope for a future.

You never get much perspective from the women in the group, and while the game does try to give perspective from various subaltern groups there can be a long time between those moments and a lot of Dutch ranting and Arthur being sad. Sadie is pretty cool, though. From "oh no my husband and my life" to "murder is cool and i like wearing pants"