Ruvé Adams

"You have no idea of the power that you're up against."

- Ruvé to Lonnie Machin

Ruvé Adams (died May 2016), also called Ruvé Darhk, was the mayor of Star City. She was the wife of the late Damien Darhk and the mother of Nora Darhk. She was killed by Lonnie Machin.

Early life
At some point, Ruvé met Damien Darhk, who promised her "a new beginning". They married, and on December 2, 2003, she gave birth to their only child, Nora.

Ruvé was privy to H.I.V.E.'s Genesis project, which planned to repopulate the Earth with their followers after destroying the rest of humanity. As part of this plan, H.I.V.E. needed to control Star City, where one of the magical nexus chambers was located.

Stonehaven
As a result, Ruvé moved to Stonehaven, a house in Star City, with Damien and Nora by fall 2015. Despite the nature of their project, they seemed happy as a family, for example decorating the Christmas tree together that year.

In January 2016, Damien's former ally Lonnie Machin took Ruvé and her daughter hostage to try to get to Damien, who he saw as having betrayed him. He tied them up and was about to burn them, when Green Arrow's team came and rescued them. While in police custody, Ruvé presented fake identification for Nora and herself. They moved out of Stonehaven straight after this, staying at the Fairmount hotel for a month while they found a new place to live. In a private conversation on the way to the Fairmount, Ruvé criticized Damien for leaving the Green Arrow alive, and they discussed the progress of the Genesis project.

Standing for Mayor
As phase five of Genesis required H.I.V.E. to have political control of Star City, Ruvé was chosen to run against Oliver Queen in the 2016 mayoral election, despite not having a background in politics. She announced her campaign in early February, using the slogan "a better alternative". On hearing she was running, Oliver went to her campaign office in Pennytown as the Green Arrow, and demanded that she set up a meeting for him with Damien. Oliver was not able to make the meeting, but instead used the opportunity of meeting her again before the mayoral debate in mid-February to trail her, hoping she would lead them to Damien. Instead, Ruvé managed to ambush Oliver, warned him not to follow her, and sent about half a dozen Ghosts to attack him before easily escaping, leading Team Arrow to give up on this approach. Meanwhile, concerned that Ruvé might not win the election, H.I.V.E. hired the Demolition Team to destroy the mayoral debate venue while the debate was happening, with the intention to leave only Ruvé alive, to make her a sympathetic figure to the voters. Team Arrow discovered this, and evacuated the building, so Ruvé ordered the Demolition Team to change their mission to kill Oliver instead. Team Arrow managed to take out the Demolition Team and disarm the explosives, and the debate went ahead with Oliver being declared the clear winner by most pundits.

In late February, Oliver Queen withdrew as a candidate for the mayoral election, and endorsed Ruvé, as Damien threatened the life of his son William, who Malcolm Merlyn had kidnapped on Damien's orders. Damien was arrested after this, and imprisoned, but H.I.V.E. continued their plans for Genesis without him. By late March she was looking for a new chief of staff in preparation for becoming mayor after the election, and despite Thea Queen trying to discourage him, Alex Davis (Oliver's former campaign manager) got the job. As the only candidate, Ruvé was elected mayor of Star City on April 6, despite 48% of the voters writing in Oliver Queen on their ballots. She made District Attorney Remz the deputy mayor, and offered Laurel Lance the chance to take over as District Attorney, but Laurel was killed by Damien (who then escaped jail) before having a chance to respond.

Genesis
As mayor, Ruvé moved forward with H.I.V.E.'s plans for Genesis; in late April, as a cover for building Tevat Noah, she claimed that the city was undertaking a massive upgrade of the sewer system. While looking for his brother Andy, John Diggle attacked the mayor's limousine, killing the driver and bodyguard, and demanding to know where he was, nearly killing Ruvé before Oliver arrived and stopped him. This led Ruvé to bring back the SCPD's Anti-Vigilante Taskforce, and make an announcement that she had asked District Attorney Wallace to issue arrest warrants for the vigilantes, starting with the "Black Canary" (actually Evelyn Sharp), ironically choosing to dedicate this to Laurel Lance, who she knew had secretly been the real Black Canary. Evelyn responded by attacking Ruvé at a Gala held at Star City Plaza Hotel. Ruvé insisted on staying despite her security detail advising her to leave, hoping to tarnish the Black Canary's image. Oliver arrived as the Green Arrow, and convinced Evelyn not to kill her. After Evelyn left, Ruvé tried to have Oliver arrested, but he escaped. Her plan to ruin Laurel's legacy as Black Canary failed when Oliver revealed Laurel's secret identity at her funeral.

By May, Ruvé had given Alex, her chief of staff, suggestion pills in order to brainwash him to become loyal to H.I.V.E., claiming that they were vitamin tablets to keep him healthy. She briefed him on Genesis, and had him welcome people moving in to Tevat Noah, the safe-haven town H.I.V.E built beneath Star City.

During May, H.I.V.E. gained control of Rubicon, and attempted to launch the world's nuclear arsenal. While this was going on, Lonnie Machin entered Tevat Noah, attempting to destroy it to get his revenge on Damien. Team Arrow managed to prevent all missiles except one, which destroyed Havenrock. While H.I.V.E. attempted to launch the rest of the missiles, Ruvé took over from Malcolm Merlyn, who had been unable to capture Machin, and ordered him to take care of the Green Arrow and Spartan instead, who had also reached Tevat Noah. Ruvé broadcast a message welcoming the citizens of Tevat Noah, followed later by another instructing them all to kill the Green Arrow and Spartan. Machin took control of the command center, taking Ruvé and Nora hostage, and threatening to kill Ruvé if Darhk did not show up. She tried to reason with Machin but he let her know he was not rational. Team Arrow showed up and tried to save Ruvé and Nora but in the process, accidentally hit Tevat Noah's volatile power source. This triggered explosions, which caused the building to start collapsing. During the chaos, Machin stabbed Ruvé in the heart with an arrow, and managed to fight off Team Arrow until the ceiling began to collapse, falling on Ruvé, and allowing Machin to escape. Diggle freed Nora, while Oliver went to check if Ruvé was alive. Her last act was to beg Oliver to save her daughter, which he did.

Legacy
Ruvé's death had a huge impact on her family. On learning of the destruction of Tevat Noah, Damien Darhk's first question was whether Ruvé was safe; he was absolutely distraught on learning that she had died, causing him to change his entire plan to destroy the whole world, rather than trying to rebuild it, saying that he wanted to save his daughter the pain of growing up without her mother only to be foiled by Team Arrow and killed by Oliver minutes later.

Within days Ruvé was reported missing, presumed dead, and her deputy mayor, Remz, called for calm. Soon after her death, Oliver Queen succeeded Ruvé as mayor of Star City. It is currently unknown if Ruvé's involvement with H.I.V.E. and marriage to Damien Darhk was exposed after her demise. Five months after her death, Ruvé's killer Lonnie Machin was finally brought to justice when Oliver took him down during Machin's attempt to use a bomb to destroy half of Star City. Oliver knocked Machin out and left him for the police.

Ruvé's daughter, Nora, was especially affected by her parents deaths and was committed to an orphanage where she went from being happy and carefree to bitter and lonely from the isolation and became possessed by the demon Mallus for the next 23 years.

Personality
Much like her husband, Damien Darhk, Ruvé was cold, cruel and ruthless. However, she was also was intelligent, manipulative and, unlike her husband, very calm and levelheaded, rarely losing her composure. This allowed Ruvé to run for mayor of Star City against Oliver and maintain a false, clean image without arousing any public suspicion. Ruvé was also smug, spiteful and selfish, uncaring of the consequences of her, Damien, and H.I.V.E.'s actions on innocent people and showing no regard for anyone other than herself and her family. For example, she ordered the Demolition Team to destroy the debate building to wipe out everyone except her to make herself look like a sympathetic survivor and was fully supportive of H.I.V.E.'s inhumane Nazi-esque experiments on their followers, such as testing gas chambers and suggestion pills.

Ruvé is always out to use other's tragedies for her own ends. After John Diggle's attack on her and Evelyn Sharp's attempted murder of her Chief of Staff, Alex Davis, in the wake of Laurel's death, Ruvé took advantage of this by issuing an arrest warrant for vigilantes to impede on Team Arrow's activities. She had the audacity to dedicate this to the memory of Laurel, knowing full well that Damien murdered her in cold blood. Ruvé even silently mocked Evelyn when the latter aimed to kill her to avenge her dead parents, showing no sympathy for the teenager who was orphaned because of H.I.V.E., only caring about tarnishing the Black Canary's legacy.

Ruvé has a very low opinion of Team Arrow and despises them for trying to get in the way of Genesis. Compared to her husband, Ruvé felt she owed nothing to Green Arrow after he saved her and her daughter from Lonnie Machin and even criticized Damien for sparing the vigilante archer's life because of this instead of killing him when he had the chance. This also shown when Ruvé immediately ordered for Green Arrow's arrest when he talked down Evelyn from killing her. Ruvé made the mistake of underestimating Lonnie Machin, believing him to be nothing more than a "juvenile annoyance", ignoring the fact that unlike Team Arrow, Machin doesn't have any morals or rules that will stop him from harming her. This mistake resulted in her getting captured and killed.

Ruvé's only redeeming trait was her love for her husband and daughter, Nora. Both times when Machin kidnapped them, Ruvé's main concern was Nora's safety. Even on the brink of death, Ruvé showed no fear for her own life, instead worrying about her daughter. In her final moments, Ruvé requested Green Arrow to not waste time trying to save her and instead to protect Nora.

Abilities

 * High-level intellect/Expert tactician/Great business acumen: Ruvé was very intelligent, she had enough confidence to run for mayor of Star City against Oliver Queen. She was a capable tactician, as Ruvé ordered the Demolition Team to destroy the debate building to wipe out everyone except herself, to make herself look like a sympathetic survivor.

Arrow
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Season 2

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Season 3

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Behind the scenes

 * The wife of Neal McDonough, the actor who portrays Damien Darhk, is also named Ruvé.