I saw a list like this for another character (with admittedly, some very valid points) so I thought I’d do one of these for Rip Hunter. Because while he is definitely not as hated as he used to be, he still tends to get scapegoated or overlooked a bit too often for my entirely unbiased taste.
So, this is a friendly reminder that:
Rip Hunter lived on the streets at the age of five, suffering explicit starvation and implicit violence. (“I knew what I’d do if someone tried to harm me.”) We don’t have many details, but we can guess that it was bad considering that even after he has started living in a comparatively safe place with a supportive parent figure, his instinct is still to stab an adult who threatens him. (1x12, Last Refuge).
From the age of ten onward, Rip was raised in a hidden, isolated orphanage by the Time Masters, an organization that, we know now, is pretty fucking messed up. (1x12, Last Refuge).
At some point in his early career, Rip went to a place called Calvert, where he befriended a man named Jonah Hex. He ended having to choose between remaining a Time Master or staying with Hex, with the knowledge that Calvert would be destroyed after he left. (1x11, Magnificent Eight.) There are implications of other unpleasant missions in his past, going by his “I have seen Men of Steel die and Dark Knights fall, and even then, I accomplished my mission, no matter what” speech. (1x03) Blood Ties.
The Time Masters so strongly disapproved of interpersonal relationships that, upon discovering that Rip and Miranda were in love, subjected them to a fairly brutal public humiliation and forced one of them to leave the Time Masters entirely. (1x07, Marooned).
Rip Hunter came home to Whitechapel, England, in 2166, to find the corpses of his wife and child after having been brutally murdered by Vandal Savage during the 2nd London Blitz. Of special note: Jonas Coburn/Hunter had been shot in the fucking face. (1x01, Pilot.)
Rip Hunter, in a desperate attempt to save his family, shot straight back to Ancient Egypt in order to kill Vandal Savage before he became human. He hesitated at killing his defeated enemy, and was captured and tortured for his trouble. (1x03, Blood Ties. The torture is discussed in 1x14, River of Time.)
Rip Hunter then attempted to save his family “countless times” by trying to rescue them before their murder. He watched them die. Countless times. (1x13, Leviathan)
Rip Hunter begged the Time Masters, his employers and FAMILY for most of his life, for help and was denied. Moreover, they sent ASSASSINS after him. And his most trusted mentor tried to lure him into an ambush! (1x01, Pilot. 1x04, White Knights). Oh, and they’re working with Savage, and actually ORDERED the murder of his wife and child. (1x14, River of Time/1x15 Destiny).
Rip Hunter has demonstrated numerous symptoms of trauma and mental illness throughout the course of the first season (detailed here), the most dramatic being a week long self-isolation in which he did nothing but watch images of his dead family. He received no support from the crew at this time, except for Martin eventually telling him that the crew was bored. (1x07, Marooned). – to be fair, there are other occasions in which many of the crew members have shown sympathy to his loss.
Rip Hunter has yet to receive a hug or really any form of physical comfort that was not a hallucination from his dead family (1x16, Legendary) or his imaginary human incarnation of his AI. (2x13, Land of the Lost)
Rip Hunter subjected himself through “temporal electrocution” to try to protect his part of the Spear of Destiny. (2x1, Out of Time/2x09 Raiders of the Lost Art.)
Rip Hunter was captured by the Legion of Doom and tortured, while amnesiac and helpless. (2x10, Legion of Doom.)
Rip Hunter had his brain rewritten to become a monster, attack and murder his friends, and turn over the spear pieces that he specifically lobotomized himself to try to protect. (2x11, Turncoat, 2x12, Camelot, 2x13 Land of the Lost.)
The single shred of Rip’s original personality spent an unknown amount of time as a prisoner in his own mind, imprisoned and tortured, by mental fragments in the form of his friends. (2x13 Land of the Lost.)
Likely less than a week after he’s saved from brainwashing, he learns that a teammate has turned the Spear of Destiny over to the very people he had suffered for a full season to protect it from (2x15, Fellowship of the Spear). As a result, he spends a year trapped in solitary confinement, aboard a powerless ship with only his AI as company, with no knowledge of his team’s survival. (2x16, Doomworld.)
Rip Hunter has shown signs of alcohol abuse (various points of season 1, 2x01 Out of Time) and has never been shown to eat or sleep during the run of the show.
Rip Hunter has attempted to commit at least passive suicide more than once. (Flying into the sun, 1x16, Legendary; taunting Jax to shoot him, 2x11 Turncoat; Suggesting and volunteering for the hatch thing, 2x14, Moonshot.) And he has taken pretty insane risks with a very likely result of death additional times. (Flying the Waverider in front of a Nuke, 2x01, Temporal Electrocution, 2x01, appearing as “Rip” to confront the Legion, 2x09, Raiders of the Lost Art.)
Rip Hunter has now left the ship that has been his only home for his entire adult life, and the being who has been his partner for about that long, believing that he is useless and has nothing to contribute to the group. (2x14, Moonshot, 2x17, Aruba.)
At the end of season 2, Rip has: 1) no wife and kid - they are still dead, 2) no biological family for support. 3) no adoptive family, as the fucked up space/time cult that raised him is dead, 4) no mission, 5) no home (Whitechapel is destroyed, Vanishing Point is destroyed, and he’s left the Waverider), 6) no partner, 7) no ship, 8) no team, and 9) no confidence
These are just a few things that it’s worth keeping in mind about Rip Hunter. Feel free to add your own, if you like. :-)
