yarking replied to your post “Kylo Ren is the villain you’re supposed to empathize with & want to...”
ah no, what happened? Was there something in that new book about Hux that was unflattering? :C
It wasn’t just the new book, but I think the new book was the final straw. I mean, I know when I saw the film, what I saw in Hux was a man who was fearless, powerful, passionate and frightening, and the early tie-in material was also “he’s very ambitious and a genius engineer.” And then the Secret Academy came out and it seemed pretty clear that his father was abusive and he was raised in a society where - at least for the officer class - making any kind of progress in your career was a case of kill or be killed.
So I was like “yes, that makes sense. To be that young and to be in charge of such a massive military machine, and to have survived and triumphed over so many people who would have wanted you dead must require someone who is exceptional in some way. He’s bad - and I’m absolutely not disputing that he’s bad - but he’s competent and clever and dangerous - someone who has fought and murdered his way to the top despite his youth and lack of Force/physical prowess, so that now he’s on a level playing field with Force users and warriors by virtue of sheer cleverness and ruthlessness, and surely that is worth admiring in a villain? (No secret, but that kind of character is absolutely my jam.)
And then Aftermath comes out and it turns out that (a) it’s confirmed that his father did abuse him, and (b) he’s just randomly handed an army of terrifying monster children at age 5. Meaning that fighting his way up the ranks is as simple as setting one of his feral kids on his enemies. At a stroke that takes away most of his need for cleverness or any kind of abilities of his own.
Then the Phasma book makes that worse with a kind of pervasive contempt for both Brendol and Armitage Hux. Brendol’s is tempered by the fact that he’s knowledgeable and useful to Phasma, and he’s loved by Cardinal - who is obviously a decent bloke. But not even brainwashing seems to be able to convince Cardinal to think well of Armitage, who he recalls as a child was “Spoiled, sullen, small, ratlike, soft while the orphan children were hard and sharp.”
(And I’m bearing in mind that this sullen, ‘soft’ child is an abused child, and that hurts me.)
And then there’s this sentence when our narrator describes our viewpoint character meeting Armitage for the first time:
“Even then, one imagines Armitage was always looking for ways to impress or destroy his own father.”
And that’s an absolute stab in the heart for me, because as someone with an abusive parent I absolutely identify with the ability to hate them while also being desperate for them to be pleased with you, to be proud of you for once. And basically suddenly I’m taking all the narrator’s contempt for Armitage personally, and I absolutely understand where it’s coming from, but I don’t want this. (”Spoiled!”)This is not fun any more.
Sometimes when you’ve been an abused child, you want to grow up to be strong enough to be able to blow up worlds, you know? It’s comforting to imagine coming out of that experience honed into something that spits in the face of opposition, something strong, dangerous, powerful. Because then, maybe people will have to stop treating you with contempt... but apparently not even that is enough.
