⸙ ˚࿔ @devilarmed — what’s ruarc's “i’ve killed for less” trigger?
Ruarc has a handful of hard lines between him and the tenuous control he has over his temper, both as an individual and as the figurehead of his commune. One point that intersects on both perspectives; perceived disrespect to anything that Ruarc considers his. He's a subtle but extreme control freak - Ruarc considers himself a gardener of men, shaping the world through his stewardship philosophy, and those who hinder, or complicate, the development of his garden, from inside the fence or outside the fence, are treated with the same regard as any farmer would handle a pest; as any would handle a snake attempting to invade Eden.
Ruarc is a calmer, if a bit emotionally divorced, man, in present day, who regularly takes his mood stabilizers to approach circumstances with a level, if a bit still estranged from reality, perspective. Ruarc in his 'glory days', nearly lost custody of his daughter, Mae Shepherds, after violently beating a hunter who trespassed onto the commune's private land, resulting in the man being permanently paralyzed.
Ruarc is territorial of his beliefs, in short. It's part of why it's such a defining moment that he leaves Boone for Hope County without so much as a 'be right back' to the flock he's built over thirty years; but what the Seeds are building cannot be ignored, cannot be left to fester in the woods bordering his property. He can't let his flock know that he's intimidated, that he's interested, that somebody else is being spoken to by a voice Ruarc hasn't heard in years since he was court ordered to be medicated.
Ignoring the Project at Eden's Gate threatens the balance he has carefully cultivated over his lifetime in ways he doesn't dare spare further thought over direct action; he's on a coyote hunt, the Seed siblings set in his sights, a hesitant finger on the trigger, unsure if he's looking at something in a similar genus to himself, as close as kin, or a predator circling his flock.
Ruarc's 'i've killed for less' boundary isn't just about anger when it comes down to it, he doesn't like to be challenged, invalidated, defied, competed with; it threatens the structure of the garden, and that cannot be tolerated.
Ruarc doesn’t see violence as emotional, he sees it as maintenance. When someone crosses into his space (physically or ideologically) and disrupts what he’s cultivating, his response isn’t fury, it’s “this must be removed, before the cancer spreads.” That’s where the hunter incident comes from — not viewed as just trespassing, but violating the sanctity of something Ruarc believes he built correctly. If he was medicated at the time, he probably would have killed the man in a discreet manner instead of losing his shit in public and permanently disabling him.
Last Penny Salvation and the Project At Eden's Gate exist in the same category, but with different executions. They're both essentially doomsday cults, but Ruarc fosters the belief that he's the only one who can make a chosen few morally strong enough to usher in a new age and avoid foreseen calamity, and Joseph fosters the belief that he's the only one who can give a chosen few shelter to endure foreseen total collapse, so they can rebuild in the aftermath.
Is it God's intent that they avoid collapse, or endure collapse?
A dangerous question that threatens Ruarc's authority.
In essence, Ruarc is the cup half-full of koolaid, Joseph is the cup half-empty of koolaid, and both being, allegedly, spoken to by religious figures leaves them at odds on the exact message being conveyed (fun fact; Ruarc technically can't call Joseph a false shepherd because it puts him in just the same position for doubt), when really this 'message' is delusion extrapolated from a different series of traumatic events.
They're both traumatized and powerful men trying to talk louder over eachother, and everything between them burns for it.
So when Ruarc goes to Hope County, it’s not just territorial, it's enough to drive him from his garden to the world outside, it’s existential. This opposing cult isn’t a trespasser he can beat into submission. This is something that threatens to rewrite the rules of his reality. The simple existence of the Project at Eden's Gate endangers the fragile ecosystem he’s built to keep himself feeling like God, instead of a mortal man.
He's certainly killed for less, like trespassing, so if he's going to go on a violent blaze of glory, it may as well be for the core of his belief system.
