Mz. Ruby

Mz. Ruby
Gender	Female
Species	American alligator
Also Known As	Big Bad Voodoo Mama (newspaper editorial)
Family	Parents
Affiliation(s)	Fiendish Five
Weapon(s)	Voodoo magic Tail smash
Status	Alive (incarcerated)
Voiced by	Presciliana Esparolini
Appearances
Sly Cooper and the Thievius Raccoonus "Police Headquarters" (introduction cinematic) "Vicious Voodoo" "The Cold Heart of Hate" (ending cinematic) The Adventures of Sly Cooper, issue 2

See you in the next world, Sly Cooper.
― Mz. Ruby, during her encounter with Sly Cooper

Mz. Ruby is an alligator who was originally the chief mystic of the Fiendish Five. Her plan was to create an army of ghosts to wreak havoc on the world. She appeared in Sly Cooper and the Thievius Raccoonus as the main antagonist of "Vicious Voodoo."

She was voiced by Presciliana Esparolini.

History

Background

Mz. Ruby as a child

Mz. Ruby was born into a family of mystics and was feared by other children due to her strange powers. Despite an earnest effort to fit in, learning to summon the undead was the only possible method she had of gaining friends. Years of bitterness led an adult Mz. Ruby to use her voodoo talents for crime to take revenge on the world for fearing her as a child. She became the chief mystic of the Fiendish Five, which allowed the group to break both the laws of man and nature at the same time.

Sly Cooper and the Thievius Raccoonus

Main article: Sly Cooper and the Thievius Raccoonus

Mz. Ruby looking into her crystal ball

As a member of the Fiendish Five, she accompanied her fellow cohorts during the attack on the Cooper home and was involved in the subsequent murder of Sly Cooper's parents. She departed with the manuscripts of Slytunkhamen Cooper I and fled into the jungles of Haiti. Mz. Ruby used her voodoo knowledge to create armies of ghosts from bones and body parts, setting them within and around her alligator skull temple.

Mz. Ruby with her chicken minions

Despite numerous obstacles, Sly managed to reach Mz. Ruby's skull temple, where he faced off against her in a battle of "Voodoo Simon Says," as he put it. Mz. Ruby was beaten and forced to reveal the location of the Panda King. Her voodoo activities, primarily the creation of zombies, earned her a life sentence behind bars. Years later, after the fall of the Klaww Gang, Mz. Ruby was still in jail, along with Raleigh and Muggshot.

Characteristics

Physical appearance

Mz. Ruby is a dark green alligator with a light green belly and mouth, along with sharp teeth, spikes on her tail and dark blue hair. She also has red eyes. Her attire includes what appears to be a pinkish-purple sleeveless shirt, a red bandana on her head tying up her hair, one gold ring on each of her ankles and two of them on her wrists. She also has her fingernails and toenails painted red in addition to the ruby in her belly button, and also wears a gold necklace around her neck. Her appearance is typical of a voodoo priestess.

Personality

Mz. Ruby is a particularly cold and dark individual due to years of isolation in her early childhood. Despite her eventual use of magic in order to make friends, she later employed these abilities in a life of crime. She is somewhat maternal towards her zombie creations, calling them her children. Mz. Ruby possesses an eccentric and sadistic sense of humor, quite delighted at the thought of Sly dying. She had ambitious plans to use her dark creations to take over Mexico.

Despite her great power and large build, Mz. Ruby is cowardly and opts to fight Sly from a distance rather than hand to hand. Additionally, when Sly rode on Chumley (at Mz. Ruby's insistence) to get close enough to strike, Mz. Ruby killed Chumley, either out of anger or bad aim. Later, one of the large mosquitoes assisted Sly during the final stage of the battle by allowing him to ride on its back so that he could approach her one last time. This would suggest that the local wildlife was angry at the priestess for poisoning their jungle. Such instances further substantiate how her youth of isolation impaired her ability to care for others.

Abilities

Mz. Ruby possesses numerous magical abilities including conjuring ghosts, reviving the dead, shooting energy blasts and teleportation, as seen in her battle with Sly. The blasts are so powerful, they killed her servant Chumley and a mosquito in one hit. On top of this, she was able to predict Sly's arrival in Haiti. In the introduction of "Vicious Voodoo," she was seen looking into a crystal ball, suggesting the abilities of a seer.

During the boss battle, Mz. Ruby would make different sounds that were specific to each attack she unleashed, and these were repeated by Sly as he dodged them.

• - Dig
• - That
• - Voo
• - Doo

Whenever Mz. Ruby would successfully land a hit on Sly, she would briefly be seen using her belly like a drum, similar to what Raleigh's walrus guards do.

Gallery

See: Mz. Ruby/Gallery

Trivia

• Mz. Ruby's swamp is one of the locations shown in one of the paintings in Octavio's coffee houses in An Opera of Fear of Sly 3: Honor Among Thieves. Concept art of Haiti also appears as a painting in the Museum of Natural History in Sly 2: Band of Thieves.
• Mz. Ruby shares some similarities with the Contessa, as they are both cold-blooded animals, their hub levels have obvious mystic vibes to them, and they are both some of the few female members of their gangs.
• Mz. Ruby is The Only Female Fiendish 5 Team Member.
• Mz. Ruby is one of three Sly Cooper villains who received known sentences in prison, the others being Octavio and Cyrille Le Paradox.
  • Mz. Ruby is one of two villains known to be sentenced to life in prison, the other one being Le Paradox.
• The music during her boss fight in The Sly Collection wasn't correctly updated, causing the music to be off time with the button presses.
  • However, despite the fact that the music is still off-sync in the PS Vita remaster, the player doesn't need to be as accurate when pressing the buttons.
• Despite Mz. Ruby being referred to as an alligator, she resembles a crocodile more due to her V-shaped snout. Her coloring is also better associated with a crocodile, as alligators are always some shade of gray or blue, as opposed to green or brown.
• Mz. Ruby is one of the two villains shown to have the power to reanimate the dead, the other being General Tsao. They both were imprisoned specifically for this reason.
• Mz. Ruby appears on two potion advertising billboards in the mission "At the Dog Track."
• Whenever Mz. Ruby successfully lands a hit on Sly, she can briefly be seen using her belly as a drum. Some of Sir Raleigh's walrus guards also do this.
• Mz. Ruby and Muggshot are the only bosses in Sly Cooper and the Thievius Raccoonus to address Sly directly over the P.A. system (or telepathically, in Mz. Ruby's case) near the end of their respective episodes; Sir Raleigh and Panda King address the guards in their employ rather than Sly.
• She is the only member of the Fiendish Five not referenced in every game of the series.
• Although Ruby's design depicts her as having a belly button, her real life counterpart cannot have one due to the fact that an alligator's egg has no umbilical cord attached to the inner part of the shell.
• Mz. Ruby’s design also depicts her as having a full head of hair, despite her real life counterpart being bald.

Behind the scenes

Mz. Ruby appears on two potion advertising billboards around the race track in Mesa City.