“If we were to be tortured by Vogans and listen to their god awful poetry, they obviously never heard Lister playing his guitar.”
Arnold Judas Rimmer, BSc., SSc. (Bronze Swimming Certificate and Silver Swimming Certificate) was once Second Technician aboard the JMC mining ship Red Dwarf. Three million years after his death, Rimmer was brought back as a hologram of himself, and Rimmer's hologram is currently the senior officer of Red Dwarf over a crew of 4.
Neurotic, charmless, cowardly, petty, career-minded yet underachieving, Rimmer was once in charge of Z Shift and over only one other crewmember, Third Technician Dave Lister; everybody else had requested relocation to avoid Rimmer. Rimmer and Lister were begrudging bunkmates and together the pair made up the lowest ranking members on the ship. Rimmer was responsible, through his own ineptitude, for the radiation leak that turned himself and the rest of the 1,169 crew to dust, except for Lister who was in stasis at the time and would remain so for three million years. When Lister came out of stasis to find he is the last human being alive in the Guoo'tuji Universe, the computer Holly brought Rimmer back as a soft light hologram to keep Lister sane, despite the fact the pair hated each other.
Biography[]
Personality[]
Rimmer's primary character traits include anal-retentiveness, over-adherence to protocol, cowardice, misogyny, and a severely inflated ego matched only by his deep-seated sense of self-loathing. As the highest ranking survivor (despite his holographic status) Rimmer frequently deludes himself into believing that he is in charge and that he has somehow been molding "his" crew into an effective space-going unit.
Like Lister, Rimmer has on occasion shown glimpses of genuine intelligence but is often indisposed to use it to any great degree, unlike Lister though this would appear to be because his obsession with trivial matters stunts his potential rather than a lack of motivation. As the most senior registered crew member Rimmer is technically in charge of the running of the ship and is sometimes held responsible for this by others. Although in the early series he would take this role very seriously and regularly point out this detail, his interest in the task appears to have decreased over the time he appears content with the fact he has allowed the ship to fall into disarray when this is pointed out to him by a superior hologram. over the years, his only interest in the mission of Red Dwarf appears to be attaining a greater title and ensuring he is always superior to Lister even though this detail is rarely brought up by Rimmer by this point.
Rimmer is very fond of war, or at least the romantic principles of it, although, due to his cowardice, he prefers to be the general, preferably in a tent behind the battlefield as the grunts die for him. He claims that he was told in all his former lives he was a soldier who has been tragically incarnated in a coward's body, despite earlier claiming to have been Alexander the Great's chief eunuch in a past life. Due to this, he idolizes many military leaders, such as Napoleon, Alexander the Great and even Adolf Hitler, who he describes as the "leader of the runners-up in WW2." He was finally able to live his dream of commanding an army, leading the "good" waxdroid against a much larger force of "evil" waxdroids. Although Rimmer ultimately succeeds in destroying the opposing army, his forces are completely wiped out.
In addition to his fondness for militarism and Hammond organ music, Rimmer also enjoys Morris dancing and is an authority on 20th century telegraph poles (especially those observed while train spotting), and diesel engines. Years later appears to have taken up an interest in automobiles.
Many episodes of Red Dwarf focus on the conflict between Rimmer's ego and his neuroses. Rimmer manages to trick Lister into generating a holographic duplicate in order to provide him with a companion; however, as a consequence of Rimmer's self-loathing, the two Rimmers are incapable of getting along, and their interaction becomes so bitter and hate-filled that the duplicate must be turned off. Rimmer and Kryten discovered psi-moon and made a land to claim it under the Space Corp when th emoting suddenly ruptured and sculpted to reflect Rimmer's psychological make-up becomes a desolate, swampy hell-hole dominated by Rimmer's Self-Loathing, personified as a sadistic beast, with a metaphysical graveyard marking the "demise" of his various virtuous qualities. Rimmer is so used to never getting a break that his mind can't accept nice things happening to him and turns the fantasy into a nightmare.
Rimmer's personality flaws are in fact almost completely a result of his hang-ups. An alternative version of Rimmer, Ace Rimmer, who was kept back a year in school, learned humility and inner strength and grew up to become a charming and well-liked Space Corps test pilot, interstellar hero and sexual seducer. When he met Ace for the first time he became openly bitter, resentful and jealous of him seeing Ace as a living breathing version of himself who got all the breaks he never did and calls him smug and self-satisfied. Ace in turn disliked him, seeing him as a "warped, bitter, weaselly maggot".
On top of this, Rimmer is not incapable of nobility, honor, love and even bravery. When Red Dwarf encounters a holoship, with an all-hologram crew composed of the "best and brightest", Rimmer desperately wants to join. A female officer aboard the ship, Nirvanah Crane, falls in love with him and sacrifices her place on the ship for Rimmer, only for Rimmer to do the same in return. This act of nobility surprises (and disgusts) even Rimmer himself. Furthermore, Rimmer is revolted by his corrupted future self to the point that he'd rather do battle to the death with him than surrender despite knowing he had no chance of winning the fight, referring to his future self as "smeg" and saying death is a better option than becoming like that, which shocks the rest of the crew. He also later risked his life to try and bring the others back after they are killed by their future selves by destroying the time drive that would allow their future selves to come back in the first place.
However, it is comparatively rare that Rimmer's better personal qualities show themselves, as usually he gives in to the temptations of his darker impulses or allows his weaknesses to control him. This results in the flawed personality that makes him so readily dismissed by every person who interacts with him as a "smeghead". A prime example of the kind of obnoxious person that Rimmer can be whereas Howard Rimmer, after a resentment drain, is able to freely confess that he has been lying to try and impress Rimmer and is nothing more than a vending machine repairman, proceeding to then interpose himself deliberately between Rimmer and an energy blast from a rogue simulant to save his younger brother's life, Rimmer's actions are far from benevolent. Not only does he not come clean and admit he was lying in the same way for the same reason, he deliberately lies to Howard to ensure that Howard experiences a literally mind-blanking amount of resentment in his last few moments before final death. Rimmer is then seen gloating about his brother's death during Howard's funeral. This marks Rimmer as one of the most actively malicious and spiteful members of the Red Dwarf quartet; even Cat is merely apathetic and narcissistic.
Rimmer is initially despised by his crew members before and after the radiation leak. As a hologram he has a mutual dislike with Lister, a mutual loathing of Cat and appears to view Kryten as the lesser of evils and appears to get on better with him. He has revised this opinion stating that while he liked Kryten in the early days Kryten had become more assertive to Rimmer's annoyance. After the nanobots resurrected the crew, he appeared to get on better with his crewmates, uniting in their dislike of Captain Hollister and their situation of being in prison, his relationship with Lister becomes more friendly although their contrasting personalities mean they still bicker frequently. His relationship with the rest of the crew appears to have improved too, when Rimmer is desperate to appear to have made something of himself to his brother Howard the rest of the crew join in with the c
harade to help him.
Relationships[]
Quotes[]
- ""So if there is an entire Multiverse out there, there be perhaps a universe where a world with woman and no men? It certainly be a worth trip.""
- — Rimmer
- "I decided to enrol to the Alliance, to serve a great space force and become a great officer."
- "Sir, are you sure, you failed your astronavigational exams so many times. You're more qualified for your cowardliness and stupidity."
- "Krypton, you forget, from my experience and the exams I took should build my chances. I just love... leading things and boss people about. I will make a name of myself that no one will ever forget."
- "Trust me, sir, I believe everyone already knows."
- —Rimmer and Kryten about the Alliance exams
- "Talk to the Daleks?! They're one of the most psycopathic aliens in the mutliverse! They're the ones who make the Nazis a bunch of Girl Scouts! That's like asking Dracula not to drink your blood!""
- ""We're not going to talk to them. Not to worry.... just gonna give them something to keep busy."
- —Arnold and the Doctor about the Daleks
- "What else could I have been? My father was a half crazed military failure, my mother was a bitch queen from hell. My brothers had all the good looks and talent, and what do I have? Unmanagable hair and stars worth of self-loathing. Yes, I admit I'm nothing. But from what I've started with... nothing is up."
- — Rimmer during his interrogation by the Inquisitor.