Executive dysfunction is getting the best of me rn but I wanna discuss at least a little bit about Rudo. My baby. My boy.
Manga spoilers under the cut (looking at you Nico. Sorry bud.)
Rudo's canine motif, to me, is an allegory for the dehumanization of trauma survivors, even despite the way they put their best foot forward. So many people still boil them down to their trauma rather than their merit as a person.
Rudo never chooses to be viewed as a dog or a wolf—or more specifically in my eyes, a pit bull. But everyone around him forced that view onto him. Canis passing down his last name of Surebrec (Ceberus backwards. The hell hound) to Alto, and Alto passing it and his reputation down to Rudo for the Sphere to shun him for. Treat him like a "viscious" dog ready to snap, just as pit bulls are.
Then he fell to the ground and August, the man trusted with designing Cleaner's uniforms and full faces to their essence, designed his full face to be a dog. Even more a brightly colored, *snarling* dog, both pushing more of the motif of the vicious dog, and—while a likely stretch—a common thing used in dog fights are called bait cats. Cats and kitten slathered in bright paint and thrown in the ring with two dogs for spectators to bet on which will eat the cat first.
Further more, the entirety of Doll Fest. Wolf Rudo was August's doing. His idea. If it wasn't for August's choices, Rudo would have never became that wolf, he would have never kept those fangs he now has (which I have mentioned previously I believe them to possibly be a thematic nod and future example of Rudo's further dehumanization. He's still very very much human under those non-human features, the fangs that mark a very traumatic moment in his life, assumably permanently. Rudo knows he's human, beyond those fangs, but others will always see them before Rudo). And the handcuffs the Hell Guard have? Something about the way Kyouka caught Rudo and yanked him back felt like animal control handling an "aggressive" dog that was really stressed and fearful and in need of gentleness. Not to mention the dehumanizing way she spoke to him during the interrogation.
All of that to say Rudo's dog motif is not him reclaiming his treatment, but rather highlighting it and pointing out the ways people view trauma survivors through their trauma rather than their character.
