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- “One day, that sword will be in my hand, and all will be MINE!”
- ―Ruber vowing revenge by plotting to steal Excalibur and threatens to take over the kingdom of Camelot.
Sir Ruber (or Ruber for short) is the main antagonist of Warner Bros.' 1998 animated feature film Quest for Camelot. He is a ruthless and insane former knight of the Round Table who plans to overthrow Arthur and sought to gain ultimate power to rule Camelot in retaliation for his previous defeat at the hands of Arthur. He has his pet griffin and metal henchmen to support his plan.
Background
Personality
Ruber is a very brutal, callous, evil, and greedy man with the brink of his insanity, due to his obsession with his idea of becoming the new king of Camelot. He is exceptionally tough, arrogant, really violent and strong, so that he can defeat many knights, the way he kills a dragon with nothing but his bare hands, and the way he turns around and stops an assault that is coming behind him. But despite his rudeness and arrogance, Ruber was once loyal and trustworthy to Arthur, but suddenly changed, because he is refused both the ways he wants the share of his land, and to become the self-proclaimed new king. Ruber is far different from the other knights, with his deformed look and has own muscular strength that makes him stand out, despite having a poor judgment by Arthur who knights him in the first place.
Although he did gather his henchmen and the Griffin, he can be annoyed, and resentful by their nonsensical stupidity and their clumsiness, especially where they are about to take Excalibur from the ogre. Ruber doesn't takes this too well if Kayley or Garrett interfere with his plans, where they are foiled. But little did Ruber know about Excalibur that after he melded the sword to his arm, and later accidentally gets it trapped in the stone as a result, meaning that he cannot pull himself or the sword out, which causes his unintentional downfall and demise.
Physical appearance
Ruber is a slender and strong man with fair greenish skin, big shoulders, long reddish-orange shoulder-length hair and he is nearly half bald, matching thin long eyebrows which nearly forms a unibrow, protruded forehead, green eyes with small pupils and slightly yellowish eye scleras, greyish-purple circles around his eyes and jagged and broken fingernails.
In his former Camelot knight outfit before he betrayed Arthur, Ruber wore a dark blue tunic uniform with blue sleeves and dark blue cuffs, cyan pants and dark blue boots. He has a sword with silver hilt, brown handle, and silver blade. When Ruber attacks the knights, he uses a bluish-grey mace with a brown handle.
His later main outfit, He wore an black sleeveless cleavage with two red chest and back armors with an matching cloth connected from his chest and back to his red loincloth with a gold round belt buckle attached on. He also wore red pauldrons with pair of eye shaped holes and pair of silver spikes on each pad. On his wrists, he wore red wrist cuffs with each single silver spike. He wore black loose-fitting pants and red boots with a gold fastener on each side and a silver spike on each heel. He wears a red helmet with two horns at one point whilst breaking into Juliana's home, but never wears it for the rest of the film. Ruber does carry his own sword with a brown handle with a white spiked tip pommel, black hilt, brownish-gold chappe and slightly jagged silver blade with two spiked corners under the hilt.
Later, when Ruber has melded Excalibur to his right wrist with his magic potion, his right arm is now a grayish crimson and red mechanical version of it to hold the sword. Ruber also dons a black cape with a gold buckle fasteners to disguise himself in order to gain access to Camelot.
Powers and abilities
Ruber uses his own extreme muscular strength to defend himself at times, this was shown when he overpowers the knights single-handedly as he tries to kill Arthur and when he killed a dragon he encountered in Dragon Country by simply punching it. Ruber happens to have good combat skills with sword-fighting techniques, as well as being the spell-caster of dark magic from his potion by transforming his henchmen into metallic ironmen.
Role in the film
Ruber defying Arthur by launching into attack out of cold anger.
Ruber was once a trusted knight of King Arthur and a member of the Knights of the Round Table. However, following the ten-year rule of peace and justice in Camelot, Ruber grew obsessive with power. During a meeting, he attempts to take advantage of his rank by desiring riches, to which Arthur refuses to allow, wisely reminding Ruber that the knights' obligation is to the people, not to themselves. Ruber then takes up a stand by nominating himself for the throne of Camelot, but one of Arthur's loyal Knights, Sir Lionel, berates him by responding "I will not serve a false king". This drove Ruber into a murderous rage, wanting to kill Arthur with a mace, but the brave Lionel defended the king at the cost of his life, right before Ruber turns to attack Arthur. However, using Excalibur, Arthur beats Ruber back when the traitor swung his mace at him, causing Ruber to fly across the table and towards the hallway. Ruber then flees away from Camelot in exile, vowing revenge that one day he will claim Excalibur and all of Camelot to himself.
Following ten years since Ruber is exiled from Camelot, he has gathered a swarm of barbaric followers and a griffin to support his cause to take over Camelot. As the tenth year passed by, Ruber formulated a plan involving to steal Excalibur and use land carriages to infiltrate Camelot to exact his vengeance.
As the plan goes, Ruber sent his griffin to steal Excalibur from Camelot, (unaware that the theft is bungled and the sword is dropped into the Forbidden Forest, due to the intervention of Ayden, the pet silver-winged falcon of the legendary wizard Merlin) and leads his followers to attack the lands of Sir Lionel's widow Lady Juliana. Ruber reveals himself to Juliana and explains to her about his plan to take hold of her land wagons to hide his followers and gain him access, and even blackmailed her into helping him with his plan by threatening to kill her daughter Kayley. During the ransacking of Lady Juliana's village, Ruber uses a potion he bought from some witches to transform his followers into an army of "iron men with hands of steel". Once his henchmen has transformed into their mechanical selves, Ruber announces their journey to Camelot.
Ruber meets up with the Griffin, not knowing that Kayley is overhearing their conversation, and soon learns from the Griffin that he lost Excalibur and the sword's current location in the Forbidden Forest. Ruber becomes furious with the Griffin and abuses the creature, stating that Excalibur is the one thing that can keep him for his conquest of Camelot. Ruber then suddenly sees Kayley escaping into the Forbidden Forest to search for it after she overheard him, Ruber orders Bladebeak and two of his ironmen to follow her and then orders the Griffin to lead him and the two of his henchmen to Excalibur in the Forest. Ruber later goes into the forest with the Griffin and few of his henchmen, he gets more impatient and furious with the Griffin over where Excalibur was dropped. After Bladebeak came back to his boss, Ruber then learns from the chicken that Kayley has now joined Ayden, a blind hermit named Garrett to search for the sword, inspiring him to make his decision to follow the heroes, hoping they will lead him to it.
Ruber killing a dragon by simply punching it
Whilst following them, Ruber and his army enter Dragon Country, but after they arrived, Kayley, Garrett, Ayden, Devon and Cornwall had disappeared into the wormhole, and ended up facing black ferocious dragons. One of the dragons cornered Ruber, but he simply killed it by violently punching it in the face, and later roasts it for him and his henchman to feed on. Ruber then sends Bladebeak to the wagons, knowing he will be useless on his search for the sword. Ruber then makes camp outside Dragon Country at night, plotting to get revenge on Kayley.
The next day, Ruber and his henchmen eventually catches up with the heroes and has one of his ironmen to injure Garrett whilst trying to listen to Ayden's warning, but Kayley saves him by trapping Ruber and his army under the moving tree's hand in the valley of thorns and took Garrett to safety. Ruber and his men were left stuck under the soil beneath the hand for hours. The next morning, Ruber eventually escapes from the trap and was about to beat up the Griffin, but after seeing the Rock ogre's footprints, Ruber and his men free themselves and eventually tracks the heroes down again into the Rock Ogre's Cave where they are rescuing Excalibur. Ruber and the griffin attempt to get the sword, the Griffin sneezed waking up the Rock Ogre, but Kayley manages to make him tired by swinging back and forth. When Kayley finally got Excalibur, Ruber and the Griffin then try again to steal back the sword, but the ogre yawns, causing the two villains to fall and eventually gets trapped by the ogre's rear end. The ogre breaks wind, sending the two villains flying to the wall. Ruber then recovers from this quickly and sends his henchmen down the cliff to chase the heroes and the Griffin to attack Ayden. But the falcon tricked the Griffin into flying straight into Ruber causing him to fall down a cliff with his henchmen. Ruber and his henchmen landed unconscious but unharmed.
Later on, Ruber and his men have recovered from their fall, and eventually manage to clear from the forest. After Garrett and Ayden returned to the forest and whilst Devon and Cornwall are arguing, Ruber and his henchmen capture Kayley who is alone with Excalibur. Ruber takes Excalibur from her grip, and he is overjoyed whilst finally holding it after waiting 10 years. Ruber then takes the opportunity to claim Excalibur for himself by using his magic potion from earlier to merge the mighty sword to his own right hand (despite writhing in pain as he does that), replacing his whole right arm to that of a mechanical version to hold the sword. Delighted, Ruber continues on with his plan by having Kayley tied up in the wagon, held captive by one of his ironmen and forcing Juliana up front. What Ruber didn't know is that Devon and Cornwall witnessed the entire situation and returned back into the forest to find Garrett in order to convince him to rescue her.
Ruber manages to gain entrance to Camelot by staying hidden in his black cape disguise, he enters the kingdom successfully and silently. But Kayley warns the knights in time, causing Ruber to lead off the attack on the knights and charges in the castle and has two of the ironmen to barricade the front doors. Ruber begins to attack an injured Arthur - whose arm is severely wounded from the Griffin's attack - while the Griffin and the rest of Ruber's men ward off the rest of the loyal knights.
Fortunately, Garrett, Ayden, Devon, and Cornwall arrive to the rescue; while Ayden, Devon, and Cornwall deal with the Griffin by burning and attacking him, and Bladebeak (who has now turned against the evil knight) attacking one of Ruber's henchmen, Garrett takes Kayley to an underground tunnel leading to the Round Table, where Ruber is attempting to kill Arthur before declaring himself to be the new king. During the fight, Kayley overhears Ruber to Arthur about the death of Lionel. Swearing that she will not serve a false king, Kayley slams a wooden beam into Ruber, launching him out of the window, and she is trapped by him when she follows. Garrett attempts to strike Ruber from behind with his staff, but Ruber anticipates this by slicing his stick and throws Garrett next to Kayley.
Ruber left stuck in the stone during his final moment before his death, learning the hard way that only the right-wise king can pull Excalibur free.
However, Ruber is unaware that both Garrett and Kayley are next to the stone where Arthur once wielded Excalibur from it before becoming king. Ruber eventually closes in for the kill, wielding Excalibur as he is aiming, but when he is about to strike, the two lovers move aside at the right time causing Ruber to accidentally plunge Excalibur directly back into the stone. This causes the power of the stone to kick in and Ruber, now realizing this, attempts to pull himself free from the stone to obviously no avail, due to the fact that he is not the rightful king and him attaching Excalibur onto his own arm, as the energy given off by the stone expunges the taint of his potion from the sword. As a result, Ruber's soldiers revert to their ordinary human selves, allowing Arthur's knights to arrest them.
Whilst all of this is happening around the same time, Ruber gets himself caught in the powerful crossfire between the energies of the sword and the stone's power clashing with the potion where he is fatally disintegrated to his death, being destroyed by the very same power he planned to obtain. After Ruber had obliterated completely into smoke and nothingness leaving Excalibur whole in the stone, one of Ruber's pauldrons was the only thing left of the insane knight falls back to earth.
Relationships
King Arthur
King Arthur is Ruber's main target for revenge after Ruber and King Arthur slightly clash during a meeting about the divisions of the lands, and Ruber grows his hatred towards the king by attacking him, but Arthur rebounds the traitor with Excalibur. Ruber, then plots revenge on Arthur. And after 10 years, Ruber does have the king injured by the Griffin and has the sword stolen, and when the two meet again, Ruber then tries to murder the King out of fury.
Sir Lionel
Sir Lionel along with the other knights does not get along with Ruber, due to his rudeness, obsession, and arrogance. Sir Lionel was the first to disagree with Ruber's ideas and the two clash, resulting in Sir Lionel and the other knight to fight with Ruber, and Sir Lionel lost his life from Ruber's attack.
Bladebeak
Ruber doesn't have much in common with Bladebeak, right after Ruber merged the chicken with an axe as demonstration towards his men. Ruber does have Bladebeak to chase after Kayley, but eventually finds him useless whilst on their search for Excalibur, and sends him to the wagons.
Lady Juliana
Ruber finds interest in Juliana, trying to woo her over, making a rude compliment of her being single after her husband's death, Ruber blackmails Juliana into betraying the king and help Ruber to take over Camelot, she refuses, but when Ruber threatens to have Kayley killed, Juliana is forced to help him with his plan. Ruber uses Juliana to allow him access into Camelot under disguise.
Kayley
Ruber is Kayley's nemesis, and he plans to kill her if Juliana doesn't help him with his plot. Ruber spends most of his time to get the sword and tries to stop Kayley from getting it. But however, he does capture her and taking the sword easily from her grip. But this doesn't stop Kayley from giving up, she stops Ruber from killing an injured Arthur and eventually defeats him by making him slipping Excalibur back into the stone where he meets his end.
Garrett
Ruber doesn't have much in common with Garrett, but he is also Garrett's nemesis, and Ruber plans to chase after Kayley and Garrett, hoping their search leads Ruber to Excalibur. Ruber does make physical approach to Garrett; he has one of his men to shoot him on the side, and separate him from his staff by slicing it with Excalibur. But Garrett listens to Ayden's signals, which leads to Ruber to get stunned when Garrett fights back, and later on Ruber is tricked into impaling Excalibur into the stone, where Ruber loses his life.
The Griffin
The Griffin is Ruber's pet, and Ruber uses him to steal Excalibur for his plan, but after hearing about the sword in the forest, Ruber begins to abuse the creature and snapping at him. Ruber continues doing this to the Griffin for his stupidity and the way he minds his manners, whilst on his search for Excalibur.
His minions
All of Ruber's minions are either clever or stupid, but Ruber melds various weapons to them, turning them into ironmen, rendering them more useful for his plan. Ruber can clearly get annoyed by their stupidity whilst searching for Excalibur.
Quotes
Gallery
Trivia
- Ruber is loosely based on the Red Knight from the novel that inspired the movie "The King's Damosel" (in turn an adaptation of a character already made a staple antagonist in Arthurian literature). Unlike Ruber, The Red Knight is a less prominent antagonist in the story, though still the instigator of the main plot. He is also nowhere as affable.
- Gary Oldman who voiced Ruber, also played Lord Shen in Kung Fu Panda 2, and Dr. Smith and Zorg in Lost in Space and The Fifth Element respectively.
- Ruber laughs in agony before being destroyed by the stone.
- At some points of the film, the irises in Ruber's eyes tend to disappear briefly.
- His name "Ruber" means "red" in Latin.
- According to Ruber's lead animator Alexander Williams, he give the main villain a "nervous twitch", a "wrestler's strut" and "big hands with broken nails that look creepy on close-ups".
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