some rudimentary ruben-pondering below.............
When people discuss this show there's often an inclination to sympathize/empathize with Niall and write Ruben off (mostly on other platforms but sometimes here) as a less fleshed out antagonist who is there to be overcome/defeated/put down like a feral animal. I get it. He is Niall's primary abuser. He's not a good guy.
That said, I think it does the show a disservice to engage with it that way. Ruben IS a victim of CSA. He embodies a reaction to that abuse taken to its most extreme, harmful ends. His violence when he feels wronged or unsafe or emasculated? A trauma response. He doesn't enact violence because it feels good or because he particularly likes it (although he may? at times? all sorts of feelings mixed together), he does it because it's a literal kneejerk reaction to feeling unsafe. Yes it's illogical, irrational, and extremely disproportionate but that's what it is. He wields his masculinity (violence) as a shield because not having that masculinity is, in Ruben's eyes, what allowed him to be so violated as a child.
That's why when Niall needles him about being infertile or whatever, it's significant. I haven't decided if I think Niall is aware of how intricately linked Ruben's fear of emasculation is to his trauma responses/violence. It would be interesting either way tbh. Niall clawing back some power in the relationship by doing this is a) inherently harmful to both of them because of the way the relationship is structured and b) also a practical inevitability because this is the only way they are able to communicate atm. Through the lens of this fake as hell dudebro 'brotherhood' where they compete to be the most alpha. It's not what either of them wants, actually, but it's all they'll allow themselves to have. Anything else opens them both up to potential intimate, emotional harm. Intricate rituals etc etc.
I also think Ruben's line about "liking being a provider" is sincere, but again, totally wrapped up in his warped view of what is safe vs unsafe. What may allow for him to get fucked over, vs he can do the fucking over. If Ruben is ever not the provider, he is being provided for. He can't allow anyone else to be in control of things like money (not with Mona or Niall) because if they are, they have financial power over him. Anyone with any kind of power over him is a threat. He takes this self-preservation to its extreme end by putting himself in debt to help Niall, because it puts their relationship back into a familiar framework: Niall, submissive, provided for, and controlled by the debt he owes Ruben. Safe, both from the world trying to harm him, and for Ruben to engage with.
Their relationship is probably the most unhealthy and difficult to navigate while in this framework. It's only when Niall challenges or questions Ruben - upending the power structure/status quo - that you see this very tiny glimpse of Ruben's real vulnerability. In the field in e3 when Niall manages to get some truth out of him about why he's claiming Alby groped him, or in e5 when they have that conversation in the car after Niall follows him to Aberdeen and puts him in a position where lying (by omission) is no longer effective protection. Forcing him to rely on Niall, in a sense. And Niall never reacts to Ruben's 'failures' or apparent eccentricities with scathing judgement but rather he wants to understand. He's the only person who wants - or even tries - to understand Ruben. Hence Niall becomes this sort of safe space even WITHOUT the power structure Ruben created to contain him enforcing it. And then of course you realize Ruben puts Niall on a pedestal as the "only person he can trust" which is its own form of entrapment and that's probably part of why Niall cries in the car after haha......ah..
The thing is Ruben MEANS and feels what he says about trusting Niall (he does, he loves Niall and it's all very fucked up), but this is what makes their codependence so destructive - because Ruben is unable to engage with Niall without the framework of an abusive/controlling relationship comforting his abject fear and aversion to vulnerability.
So Niall is imitating Ruben because he thinks that's Ruben wants, and it's not working because what Ruben actually NEEDS (wants) is more of the softness and emotional vulnerability the Niall innately possesses (less so when he's skinwalking Ruben LMAO). But Ruben doesn't know how to communicate thatttttttttt because he was never taught so he's in a permanent death-spiral. SIGH
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