Hux’s competency and the future of the Order
After reading tlj-novelization, what strikes me most about Hux is the sharp contrast between how the characters around him describe him and what we actually see him do.
Yago, Peavy, Finn, Snoke,… They all describe him as hot-headed, emotional, angry, mad… But how do we actually see Hux act?
- In the TFA novelization, there is a strong insistence on describing Hux as not displaying any emotions (”he wears his mask on the inside” and similar descriptions.
-In the same book, during the attack on Starkiller, It says Hux is frustrated and angry and wants to scream at his officers, but refrains from doing so because he realises that it would not make them work harder.
-When one of his life projects is destroyed and the ground he stands on is literally about to blow up he is described as having some difficulty keeping his composure. Can you imagine? any normal person would be panicking. He does what is expected of him, goes to Snoke, and then gets Kylo, without any signs of being particularly emotional.
This trend continues in TLJ
-When Rose bites him, his initial instinct is to have her tortured for her insolence, but he immediately reassesses and sticks to his initial plan of having her executed.
- When the Supremacy is destroyed and Hux sees the Supreme Leader dead there is again a complete absence of emotion, on the contrary, he evaluates the situation and reaches the conclusion that he should kill Kylo.
-Half an hour after Kylo stages his coup and almost kills him, he is standing next to him, relaying his order, playing the part of the loyal subordinate. In the book, even more than in the movie, I find, there is a very clear contrast between Kylo’s emotional responses and Hux’s controlled ones.
So when do we see him display strong emotions? The main example is, of course, his speech on Starkiller base. But this is a controlled exercise in pathos. He lets his emotions run free (or freer) because he knows that is the way to appeal to his audience ( we know from “before the awakening” that Hux’s speeches are popular with the troops). The only uncontrolled outbursts are when he slams his fist on the console in response to Poe’s mocking and when he raises his voice to Kylo when he the knight questions the worth of his troopers.
What we see of Hux’s behavior does not justify how he gets described by the people around him. So what are we supposed to believe? That Jason Fry is such an incompetent writer that he intends to portray Hux as unstable, but only relies on descriptions not on actions to show his intention, going against one of the maxims of writing (show, don’t tell)? or is his intention something else?
Let’s look at the people who describe Hux as deranged.
Finn has never been in Hux’s presence, all he knows about him is what he has seen during the speeches. It is not so strange, although rather naïve, that he believes that Hux acts like that all the time.
But Peavy and Yago and Canary should know better, there is no reason to believe that Hux’s actions during the two movies are more controlled than he normally would be, on the contrary, given what is at stake, you’d expect him to be more so. Peavy, in particular, should be familiar with this by now. So why don’t they?
What these three men have in common is the fact that they are older than Hux, by several decades, yet they serve under him. Must be quite a blow to the ego. Here they are experienced Imperial officers, yet for some reason, Snoke and the rest of High Command promote this boy who is half their age above them. Now are these self-reflecting men, willing to consider the possibility that maybe they aren’t as good as they think they are? Well no, much easier to convince themselves that Hux is incompetent and only got there through nepotism (even though Hux’s father has been dead for years). It’s not to hard to imagine them sitting around a cantina complaining about him and making fun of his speeches. Peavy even has convinced himself that Hux takes him along because he knows he needs the captain’s expertise, even though we never actually see Peavy council Hux or Hux ask for it.
It is interesting that Kylo’s interpretation of Hux is quite different. He want’s to impress and show Hux that he is capable, he distrusts him so much that he insists on taking him with him to Crait. Keeps him around even though he loathes him.
Simply put, if Hux was the way the Imperial officers describe him, he wouldn’t be where he was now. Snoke wouldn’t keep him around, neither would Kylo. All Hux’s roles involve command and strategy, if his talents lay somewhere else (designing programs, technology) that would be where Snoke would have placed him.
So what is the point? Peavy, Yago and Canary’s assessment remind me more about old people ranting about millennials than accurate analysis. And maybe that is the point? Maybe we are supposed to see the generational rift that runs along the First Order.It’s not just Hux they criticise, Canary also calls his younger crew members unprofessional, even though the only sign we see of this is when his second questions Canary’s orders for being contrary to Hux’s. On Hux’s part, he considers the Imperials obsolete and cumbersome and expects to be rid of them before the end, just as they expect of him.
What is particularly interesting, I find, is that The First Order’s younger generation fire and devotion, which the imperials so heavily criticize, is the direct result of their abuse and manipulation. They took vulnerable children from all over the galaxy and trained them to be a ruthless killing machine, devoted to the Order. And now to their great dismay, that is exactly what they became. And like anyone who gets what they wished for, they find they don’t want it at all. But instead of trying to do something about it (get rid of Hux, change the programming, attempt to influence their younger crew) they are happy to just hang on and convince themselves that Hux will self-destruct and everything will turn out fine. Historically not a good plan.
I would love to see this come to its fruition by the younger generation of the FO killing of the older one. The victims getting their revenge on their abusers, the way Hux got his revenge on his father and Kylo on Snoke.
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