I love Ruud Hoenkloewen. He's such a non character. He's honestly just a metaphor for institutional violence distilled into a person. The need for authority, for bloodshed. The absolute platonic ideal of an oppressor pared to the least complex it could be. Compressed into one angry, snarling, shaking life form. He is no more and no less. He exists only to impart upon the player how capital looks when it takes off its mask of humanity to kill.
I love characters like that. You'd think theyd be boring, one note and only there to move the plot along, but I think he was handled so well. He made an extremely strong impression on me the first time I saw him.
His design is extra effective because you've heard a lot about the Fairweather armor throughout the course of the game. Specifically the leg, gloves, and torso pieces. I don't know if this is true for all playthroughs, but at least in my run, I had never seen the helmet piece before the tribunal. It's a great moment to reveal it imo.
Regardless of whether Ruud was the first time you saw the helmet piece, his portrait immediately communicates to the player that this is an extremely dangerous and frightening individual. Along with the more abstract Disco Elysium art style, the helmet itself is utterly sinister looking. Combining a ww1 helmet and a gas mask-esque face piece. When Ruuds portrait first appeared on screen I seriously thought it was a skeleton I got scared.
Ultimately I just wish people acknowledged him (and the other assassins) more. They have a lot of bearing on the game's message but since people can't woobify them they kind of go untouched.
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