a view so cruel

even though said sympathy is quite small as he doesn't offer them much comfort, he still feels it as he knows what it's like to be pushed so far and taken out of safe enviroments where he's been "coddled" and pushed into an exhausting and expecting reality where he was once over confident.

Honestly, I'm also pretty tired of people reducing him to just a cruel, pathetic loser of a teacher—which, to be fair, he is—but there's also more to him than that. He has moments of empathy, a fear of abandonment, and as I've been rewatching the episodes, I don't know if I'm the only one who feels like the only thing that genuinely seems to entertain Herkabe is messing with Malcolm.

On the surface that sounds cruel, but if you look at it more deeply, it raises an interesting question: how depressed do you have to be for the only thing you genuinely enjoy doing to be tormenting a teenager?

And that's without even mentioning his valedictorian status, which he loses in the final episode. To me, it feels like he's still desperately trying to regain the only thing that truly mattered to him—besides Malcolm, in the sense of having someone to mess with.

I honestly find it both poetic and hilarious to imagine that Herkabe wasn't in the reboot because he's still trying to pass P.E.

Anyway, I'll leave these two things here: a video explaining why he's not just the "psychopath" people often make him out to be, and something from the wiki itself. If you pay attention, you can definitely see some of the traits it describes reflected in him.

Great rant, Garf!

(Seriously, I really want to write a much longer analysis of his character and why, personally, he's the character who's made me feel the most connected to that sense of misery and "loser syndrome." LMAO.)

herkabe’s whole thing is always excelling and presumably being very cookie cutter, very dabney-esque in his track— up until he finally “broke the status quo” and quit the think tank, only to go on and lose EVERYTHING because of it. malcolm, on the other hand, is constantly fighting “the man” and getting away with it. i think that’s the main spark behind herkabe’s fascination with malcolm.

perhaps originally herkabe was just “man this kid is clearly smarter than everyone else he’s going to be my star pupil i need to make sure he’s Prepared for the Real World” but it quickly devolved into “oh this kid is actively smarter than me when it comes to personal manipulation. seek and destroy.”

i absolutely agree w everything you guys are saying, i just think this little detail is so important to why he’s so specifically fascinated on malcolm in particular rather than any of the other krelboynes who clearly have more drive to succeed academically, versus malcolm who just naturally falls into that success, and even has *more* success when he goes against the machine that his peers are all so obsessed with appeasing… that HERKABE is/was so obsessed with appeasing

At the end there is that moment where Rutger (John) is lying on the pavement and Tommy (Jim) walks up to him, and he certainly believes that he’s dead- that he isn’t as immaterial at that moment, and he kind of caresses his hair with the gun. It’s a sort of farewell. You know, he’s not walking over to him with the gun and putting five more bullets in him or turning the rifle around and bashing him—it’d just be completely wrong. There’s a certain gentleness. There’s almost… Controversial though this may be… almost a thank you, involved in it. That’s how I’ve always felt about it.

- Robert Harmon, Director (The Hitcher: How Do These Movies Get Made?)

It might be a slightly twisted view of it, but at the end of the movie, I certainly have felt Tommy (Jim) is left to wonder whether or not—if the Halsey character could turn back the clock—and choose, to have never met John Ryder… I’m not so sure that he would choose that; that he would change anything.

- Robert Harmon, Director (The Hitcher: How Do These Movies Get Made?)

In terms of the character, this is a guy who knows he’s very sick. But he doesn’t quite know where to go to have it fixed. Or, he doesn’t know how to end it. He’s a coward too. If he would have the guts to commit suicide, that would be fine, but he doesn’t have that. So, I guess somewhere in his mind, he comes up with an idea that if he can just find somebody who gives a little shit, that he can have some fun with—and then he’ll ask him to just take him out of the way.

- Rutger Hauer, John Ryder (The Hitcher: How Do These Movies Get Made?)

The second idea was the love story, which may sound a bit strange, but there’s a love story going on between the two guys, on a very strange level. And the director liked all these ideas, so he let me run with it.

- Rutger Hauer (Scene by Scene DVD commentary)

But I know he (Thomas Howell) was very excited when he shot that movie. It was the first big role for him and I loved him for who he was, because he was so gentle and so so easy to play with, and he just allowed me so- I could just kiss this guy (Jim) and he wouldn’t even budge, y’know. And he’d go ‘Well why you doing that?’ and uhh… so he was like in my hand.

- Rutger Hauer, John Ryder

I remember worrying that the censors would have some concerns about this shot, but luckily... they didn't get it I think, and left it alone.

I watched The Hitcher (1986) on a whim because I happened to see it on TV...

I’m obsessed!!!!! I love special relationship between John and Jim😭💖💖💖