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I thought I was going to get through The Sorcerer’s Stone before I made another Percy post, but Christmas! I have some things to say about the Weasley brothers’ Christmas at Hogwarts.

First, I think this exchange bears repeating in its entirety.

“Percy Weasley stuck his head through the door, looking disapproving. He had clearly gotten halfway through unwrapping his presents as he, too, carried a lumpy sweater over his arm, which Fred seized.

“P for prefect! Get it on, Percy, come on, we’re all wearing ours, even Harry got one.”

“I -- don’t -- want --” said Percy thickly, as the twins forced the sweater over his head, knocking his glasses askew.

“And you’re not sitting with the prefects today, either,” said George. “Christmas is a time for family.”

“They frog-marched Percy from the room, his arms pinned to his side by his sweater.”

Indeed there is a lot to unwrap here.

First, it must be said that Percy does talk about being a prefect excessively to people who are not the twins, as we see in his first conversation with Harry and after Quirrel makes his announcement about the troll on Halloween. It’s obnoxious, but just like their first scene together, the twins don’t wait for the behavior to appear before they start in.

In this scene, Percy barely opens his mouth before the twins literally jump on him and man-handle him into his sweater, which becomes a functioning straight-jacket. He does’t even use the word “prefect” before they’re taunting him with it. They don’t let him speak at all. If he can’t speak, he can’t withhold consent. Which means he must be okay with it; that’s how consent works, right?

The bullying is clearly not in response to Percy’s behavior, which suggests that this isn’t really about him being pompous with regards to his title at all. If he wasn’t a prefect, they would find something else to bully him about.

What other characters are always looking for some vulnerability in their target? Dudley and Draco. My initial thought is that what makes them worse is that they have obvious bad intentions towards Harry. And I do think that’s the logic Rowling follows, too, and that is a problem in itself. But isn’t the commonality between them also that they’re bullying Harry Potter, the protagonist, the character through whose perspective our view of everyone else is filtered?

We know that Fred and George are really nice kids, and we know that because they do all they can to help Harry when they’re getting on the train and to protect him during his first Quidditch match. And because they’re nice kids, we know that they would never intentionally hurt their brother, right? The trouble is, exactly no one is asking Percy whether his brothers’ treatment of him hurts. I don’t know if anyone ever asks, but I know we get an answer eventually.

The scene that introduces the Weasleys in The Sorcerer’s Stone is really interesting in a lot of ways. However, for the sake of brevity--and consistency, tbh, because this is a reread with a purpose--I’m just gonna look at Percy and the twins.

Percy’s first line is to Molly: “Can’t stay long, Mother. I’m up front, the prefects have got two compartments to themselves--” He can’t even finish the sentence before both twins jump on him for mentioning that he’s a prefect and then have an exchange about how often he’s mentioned it all summer. When one of them asks why Percy got new robes, though, Molly steps in to defend him a bit.

“‘Because he’s a prefect,’ said their mother fondly.”

This scene tells us a few things. One is that Percy has already gotten some pretty significant recognition for his accomplishment. The Weasleys only have so much money to get their four children sent off to Hogwarts for the term, and they’ve apparently spent most of it on Percy. We learn later that his father has also bought him an owl to celebrate his being made prefect. If he has been rubbing it in everyone’s faces all summer, on top of that, it’s easy to see why that would be annoying.

At the same time, we barely get to hear him say it once, and he’s not even talking to them. The twins’ complaining is the only evidence we have that he’s been like this, which makes it easy to read it as resentment on their part, particularly when one of them asks why he got new robes. If he had made as big of deal of it as they say, wouldn’t that have been obvious?

It seems to me that either this possible reading didn’t occur to Rowling because she’s already assuming we’ll trust the twins, or she hasn’t decided yet that Percy is an insufferable prat who deserves to be attacked. At some point, there is a transitions from “Fred and George find Percy really annoying” to “Percy is really annoying,” and I’m curious to see when that happens.

I should be grading essays, but here I am, procrastinating, working myself into a rage reading Harry Potter wiki presenting Fred and George Weasley’s relentless bullying of Percy read as “good-natured” and “fun-loving.”

Every single piece of text it cites has Percy doing/saying something possibly annoying but harmless and Fred and George publicly humiliating it for it. But it’s all Percy’s fault, of course, because he shouldn’t have that personality, right? Why should anyone, least of all Arthur and Molly, censure the twins for making their brother miserable at home and at school for years?

I feel compelled to love Percy if only because he’s such a clear case of a character who has all the narrative cards stacked against him because his tormentors are characters we’re supposed to like. Fred and George are funny; they’re not bullies. Bullies are bad people, which Fred and George are not. So the fact that they make everything Percy says or does, in public or in private, an object of derision–that’s just brothers being brothers, right?

That’s what we’re supposed to think, because we only ever get to see Percy from the perspective of people who don’t understand him or like him. We never get to see Percy’s reaction to being treated this way until he cuts himself off from his family, which we also only see from their perspective.

Fuck that. I am ONLY interested in Percy’s perspective. And I know he’s not innocent. He can be cruel, especially to his mother. But I think it’s also important to acknowledge that Molly is the only person who ever puts any effort into reconciliation–besides Percy himself at the end–which means she’s also the only person who ever comes within shooting range of Percy’s pain and anger with his family as a whole. Molly doesn’t deserve it, but frankly Percy didn’t deserve the cruelty of his brothers or the indifference of the rest of his family to that cruelty.

I decided to write a thing for International Hux Day, which also happens to be Domhnall Gleeson’s birthday. I think it’s kind of fun to observe the actor’s birthday by celebrating the character who is not only the most despised one he has played, but possible the most despised of the sequel trilogy villains. He’s definitely more hated than Kylo Ren, whose internal conflict is a major plotline in both released films, and probably more than Captain Phasma if only because she plays a less prominent role. The question of whether he is actually “worse” than these other two villains is subjective; there are many different ways to answer and as many different reasons supporting them. What I’m interested in is the question of agency and the ways in which abuse complicates it..

Kylo Ren, Phasma, and Hux are all high profile members of the First Order and are committed to its principles, but only Hux was born into it, being the son of one of the founding members. Phasma is from Parnassos and made the choice to sacrifice or murder every person she knew from her home planet to join the First Order. Kylo Ren is the son of the Original Trilogy’s heroes and has, so far, rejected two offers to return and be reconciled. Snoke’s abuse and manipulations are, obviously, an immensely important influence on Kylo, but they are hardly the only influence. Hux, however, is the product of First Order ideology and his abusive father. In the Phasma nove, Vi Morandi tells us, “Armitage Hux hasn’t left as much of a data trail as the other First Order leaders because he’s had no life outside of this war machine.” What opportunity for choice has he had?

While both Kylo and Phasma were once members of family groups who cared about them, Hux has, as far as we know, only ever had Brendol. Cardinal reveals that there is “something cruel and savage in [Armitage], something forged by Brendol himself.” Vi Morani goes even further, commenting that “The greasy ginger weasel birthed a greasy ginger weasel.” Of course, Brendol didn’t give birth to Armitage, who is the bastard son of a kitchen worker. But he may as well have for all the influence anyone else has on him . It is not until he meets Rae Sloane that anyone protects him from Brendol’s physical and psychological abuse, and by that point the damage has been done.

I have not read Aftermath: Empire’s End in which Sloane is introduced, but I’m very curious to see if Hux’s situation is treated with the moral complexity it seems to merit. I can say that it poses some difficulties to the, at times, rather hamfisted moralizing of the Phasma novel. After spending much of the novel teasing the reader with suggestions of Phasma’s moral ambivalence, Delilah Dawson presents us with a story from her past that seems designed to convince us that she was simply a bad apple from the start. The earliest story Vi tells reveals that Phasma disabled her brother and sacrificed the rest of her family to survive, and even that is not presented as the result of her circumstances. Her brother, Keldo, has the same experience and retains his capacity for shame and compassion. This seems to render all the trauma she underwent later unimportant.

That’s a difficult thing to do with child abuse. It’s hard to argue that that is a coincidence when it has clearly made Armitage Hux who he is. Does that make him sympathetic? Of course it does. Does it make him redeemable? Hardly. If he ever had any redeeming qualities to start with, Brendol beat them out of him. He’s surpassed even his father in cruelty. Vi tells us that Armitage “has gone even further” with the stormtrooper training program he inherited from his father: “The children lose all sense of individuality, of self. They’re never allowed to play, discouraged from laughter or frivolity or creativity, outside of how those emotions or urges can be used to win war games.” He’s grown up to be a child abuser in his own right, every bit as despicable as Brendol. Except that we have no idea what forces shaped Brendol from birth. Armitage can’t be saved from what he has become, but he can’t be blamed for it either

This is, of course, too messy for either of the films to handle. It’s understandable to an extent, since Brendol is dead before they begin and Hux is not a major character. But it’s also disappointing. Being a child abuse survivor makes Hux so much more troubling and interesting, especially in light of the abuse he suffers at the hands of Snoke and Kylo. There are very interesting parallels to be drawn between Hux and Kylo. So much has been made of the fact that Kylo killed his abuser, which seems to be a step towards the light. At least, that’s how Rey reads it. But not only does he not take that step, one of his first actions he kills Snoke is to start abusing Snoke’s other victim: Hux. Who also killed his abuser, via Phasma and her Parnassos beetle, and took over his position. At this point, Kylo is taking exactly the same path as Hux, with the important difference that he was offered an alternative and refused to take it.

As I’ve been rewatching Black Sails recently, it’s surprised me how much it’s made me think about Downton Abbey, which I haven’t thought too much about in the past two years (mostly because it makes me so mad!). I think maybe the reason for that is simply that DA and BS, as I’ll call them henceforth, are at such opposite ends of the spectrum in terms of queer representation. In BS, sexual relationships between men and between women are a source of pleasure, joy, comfort, and solidarity. Queer characters do suffer on this show, but that is never presented simply as the expected result of their sexuality. On DA, we have only one character who is explicitly identified as gay–which is in itself an important source of his problems–and his sexuality is most often shown as causing him misery, loneliness, and shame.

I saw this difference while watching BS the first time, but on this rewatch another difference occurred to me that I think is equally important. For all the prominence of queer characters on the show–James Flint, Eleanor Guthrie, and Max are each, in some respects, the protagonists of their own stories–surprisingly few people know about, or at least comment on, their sexual orientations. The opposite is true in DA. This got me thinking about the shows’ different investments in what their straight characters know about their queer characters. While DA is more interested in the straight character’s tolerance of Thomas, BS focuses on the importance of queer relationships for the queer characters themselves.

*I have chosen to use “queer” instead of “gay” because, while most of my examples will focus on James Flint and Thomas Barrow, a lot of my points are just as true of BS’s bisexual and lesbian characters.

Thomas’s sexuality really becomes a focus of other main characters’ attention in season 3 of Downton Abbey and continues to resurface throughout the remaining seasons. One thing that stands out is the number of times characters claim not only that they themselves know but that “we all knew about Thomas.” I believe both Robert Crawley and John Bates offer versions of this quote, and Mary once–I think this is in season 4?–bizarrely replies to her father’s shock at her knowing about Thomas with, “I’ve been a married woman, Papa. I know everything.” What’s most troubling about this is that it is nearly unthinkable that any of these characters received this knowledge from Thomas himself. The closest he ever comes to telling anyone about his sexuality is with Edward Courtenay, a soldier he looks after in the hospital in s2. And he only tells him that he is “different.” Imagine how horrified he would be if he knew that people with so much power over him were casually discussing his sexuality behind his back.

The point of these scenes, though, is never really about Thomas. Instead, it’s about showing how worldly and/or tolerant the straight characters are. All of them know that Thomas is gay, and none of them want him to be imprisoned or even suffer from unemployment because of it. Not once does any one of them offer any comfort or reassurance to Thomas that, yes, we know, but no, we aren’t judging you. But that’s not really important, is it? What’s important is that we, the audience, understand that these straight characters are not homophobic.

In BS, not only is straight tolerance for queer people not a focus, it’s not really a topic of interest. As important as James Flint’s sexuality is to his past, and his future, it is a detail of this life that most other characters, including other queer characters, do not know. Max and Eleanor’s sexualities are probably more widely known, if only because they make no effort to hide them, but they also receive very little comment from anyone else.

Charles Vane certainly knows that Eleanor and Max have been involved, but he seems to feel neither threatened nor titillated by that knowledge. Why shouldn’t Eleanor fuck women? He certainly fucks other women! Tolerance is not the word I would use to describe his feelings about that. He simply has too many real problems with Eleanor to even consider that something so irrelevant to him as her bisexuality might be one of them. (It’s an attitude DA’s straight characters with their drama-riddled lives might stand to learn from!)

Similarly, Miranda Hamilton understands that her husband and lover’s sexualities are not the problem. She couldn’t not know about their affair; it is happening in her house, and they both love and trust her. While she does seem concerned when she sees what is happening between them, that clearly has to do with the consequences they would all face if other people, who did not love them, came to know about it. And she has good reason to be concerned!

One sad irony that this comparison between the two shows reveals is that the homophobia that harms Thomas Barrow the most is his own. He tells Edward Coutenay that he’s been pushed around his whole life, but what we actually see is straight people trying to protect him from himself as he attempts conversion therapy and suicide. James Flint has some degree of internalized homophobia, but it’s homophobic straight people who ruin his life; the show is very explicit about that. Alfred Hamilton, Peter Ashe, and Admiral Hennessey work together to bring about his downfall. For Hamilton and Ashe, homophobia isn’t even the primary motivator: maintaining and gaining power is. Whatever internalized homophobia he may have, it does not stop Flint from knowing who his enemies are. When he encounters Hamilton and Ashe again, he kills them.

Apart from Silver–whom I think he tells about Thomas in s3(?)–I don’t think anyone else knows about Flint’s sexuality. And I would argue that this is less because he’s ashamed of it than because it’s really no one else’s business. What would the crew of the Walrus think if they knew their captain was in love with a man? Who cares? Maybe some would be disgusted and lose respect for him. Maybe some would tolerate that knowledge; maybe some would be indifferent to it. But that’s not a detail they need to know, and so they don’t know it. This lack of knowledge leaves Flint free to be so much more than The Gay Character, the role Thomas Barrow is relegated to playing.

One a final note, consider how long it takes for the audience to learn this detail about these two characters. Thomas Barrow kisses the Duke of Crowborough in the first episode of the first season. That he is gay, and that he suffers for it, are among the first things we learn about him. We get to know James Flint for an entire season and a half before we learn about his past life with Miranda and Thomas. The writers give us all this time to think we have an understanding of this character before they confront us with a James (McGraw) who is not only in love with a man but is very happy about it. When we see James Flint again, it is with the new knowledge that he has become this trainwreck of a man because of the trauma of losing someone he loved. We’re not asked to feel sorry for him, and congratulate ourselves for being so “tolerant” and “open-minded,” but to empathize with him.

So, I’ve been writing about Robin Hood a lot lately (thanks for bearing with me 90% of my followers who have no interest in this decade-old show), and so far I think I’ve stayed away from the Robin/Guy rivalry, despite finding it endlessly entertaining. I’m sure if I’d been in the fandom as long as some of you, I’d be weary of it, but it’s such a carnival of passion (and, in some cases, illogical folly) I can’t help enjoying it. But it’s occurred to me that a lot of posts debating the relative merits and flaws of these characters use the vocabulary and strategies of literary criticism, like textual evidence and terms like “hero,” “villain,” “antagonist,” and protagonist. As an English teacher, I love to see that, but I think it’s a bit out place in discussions of this rivalry because people don’t choose favorite characters, or least favorites, on the basis of such objective criteria. These are kinds of evidence that tell me what a character does and says, what happens to them, what their role in the story is, and what kind of relationship they have with other characters. They don’t tell me how complex, sympathetic, or compelling a character is. These things are subjective; they’re based on the individual fan’s beliefs, values, experiences. It’s no one’s place, therefore, to tell fans they’re wrong, for example, for preferring the villain to the hero.

Under the cut for examples and controversial opinions.

I recognize that Robin is the hero; he opposes the forces of corruption, greed, and wickedness and gives help to the marginalized and powerless. He is smart, noble, loyal, courageous, and generous. And I can’t stand him. Because in spite of all his virtues, he’s someone who is very sanctimonious, often oblivious to the privilege he enjoys in terms of name, rank, race, and gender, and sometimes spiteful, petty, and needlessly cruel and mistrustful of those who love him. None of these things make him the villain or antagonist; they even add to his complexity. They also make me want to throw my wineglass at the screen whenever he’s on it. I don’t have to deal with people who order peasants’ tongues to be cut out or abandon their children in the woods, but I have to deal with white, straight boys from affluent families who think they have no advantages over anyone every day of my life. So, I’m always already tired of that shit, and it really sets me off when characters on shows I watch in my downtime for entertainment exhibit it. I understand that Robin is complex, and I’m probably failing to appreciate that complexity fully because I find him so off-putting. That’s why this paragraph is the longest thing I’ve ever posted about him. But, the way I feel about him is not Wrong.

And then there’s Guy. Oh dear lord, what a rap sheet this one has: attempted infanticide, murder, intimidation, harassment, attempted regicide, assault, and just general wickedness and depravity. My child is a problem child for sure. But he’s still my baby, because in spite of all these appalling flaws he has qualities that I really like. I love characters who have been through hell and still manage to keep hold of their humanity, even if it’s only by a thread. Even if 90% of Guy’s actions on the show were evil, the 10% where he is gentle, concerned, selfless, and loving would impress me. Because given the life he’s chosen and the things he’s done, there shouldn’t be any tenderness left in him. Even though it’s tremendously inconvenient for him, it’s still there. That hardly makes him any kind of hero, anti- or otherwise, but it makes him much more sympathetic to me than a character who is good 90% of the time because he faces so much pressure from those who believe in and support him that it’s almost easier for him to be righteous. I don’t think people who hate Guy are Wrong, but no amount of pointing to the bad things he’s done will convince me to agree with them.

About a week ago, I watched the finale of the BBC’s Robin Hood’s second season in which the show’s writers shocked their fan-base half to death by having Guy of Gisborne kill Lady Marian. Because I’ve been mainlining RH fanfic like a drug for the past month, I knew it was going to happen, but what I didn’t expect was that my immediate reaction would be, “well, what did you expect, Marian?” What shocked me wasn’t just that she died, but that I had no sympathy for her, and I wasn’t angry with him. That’s not an appropriate reaction for someone who identifies as a feminist, as I do, when a man who starts off courting a woman against her will ends up stabbing her. I’ve been thinking over this a lot since, but I can’t find it in myself to feel any differently. I do, however, have some thoughts about why I reacted in such a problematic way, and it has mostly to do with the decisions the writers make with regards to both characters leading up to the finale.

I certainly was uncomfortable with their relationship in season one, but as the second season progressed I found myself feeling more sympathy for him and less for her. I’ve come to the conclusion that in this case, and perhaps in many cases where fans respond unsympathetically to heroines, the problem is that writers reserve most of the complexity and development for male characters. If I get to see a character struggle, reflect on their actions, and change, that will make them more sympathetic regardless of gender. So why don’t we see that more with heroines?

I think my lack of sympathy for Marian comes from the fact that I have absolutely no idea why she says and does what she does in the moments leading up to her death. Guy is approaching an injured King Richard with his sword drawn to finish him off, when Marian steps between them, and says, “If you want to kill him, you’ll have to kill me first.” He tries to convince her that they can still be together in spite of what he’s about to do, but instead of appealing to his love for her, as she has successfully done in the past, she says “I’d rather die than marry you, Guy of Gisborne. I love Robin Hood. I’m going to marry Robin Hood.” Really, Marian? Of all the times in the past year that you could have said that to him, you’re going to pick right now when he’s armed and you’re not? Does she want to martyr herself for King Richard? Not likely since she and Robin are in the middle of getting married. I think what’s happening is that the writers are throwing Marian’s motivations under the bus in favor of making something jaw-dropping happen. It’s as though it doesn’t matter if her actions make sense so long as Guy is enraged enough to murder her.

What’s most troubling to me about this scene is that I can understand why Guy has such a reaction to what Marian says. When we first meet him in season one, he’s violent, ruthless, and possessive. In season two, he’s still all of those things, but I’m astounded at some of the brave, unselfish things he does. He tries to save Marian from yet another man who wants to possess her, chooses to stay with her during an attack on Nottingham when his status as a black knight would allow him to go free, and saves her from execution even after he finds out that she’s the same Nightwatchman he spends all of season one trying to kill. It’s perfectly clear that he does all of these things out of love for her and a desire to show her that there is “another side” to him. None of this is any secret to her; she’s very aware of his feelings, and she exploits them. Then he finds out that his struggles to change have been for nothing because she doesn’t actually care about him at all. Marian certainly doesn’t deserve to die for what she’s done, but it is pretty unforgivable.

While he gets a great deal of development and complexity in season 2, she gets almost none. We see in season one that she is a very moral woman, devoted to justice and helping the poor, but she never has any qualms about deceiving and manipulating Guy. That’s no so much a problem in itself, but it becomes one when she remains completely unreflective about her choice to continue her involvement with him. In season one, she clearly does not reciprocate his affections, but in spite of the best efforts she can safely make, she can’t get rid of him. In season two, she has no desire to get rid of him. She visits him to reconcile after punching him at what was supposed to be their wedding at the end of season one. She kisses him (to distract him from the movements of Robin’s gang, but he certainly doesn’t know that). She chooses to leave Robin and let Guy “save” her. All in all, it’s very easy to see why Guy thinks she’s interested in him; it’s not hard to see why some fans think so too! In the finale, she’s no longer a woman giving a hard “no” to a man who’s too pigheaded to take a soft one. If we see her words to Guy at the end as a revelation of The Truth, it’s one that does her little credit.

I don’t want to think so meanly of Marian. I’d prefer her to struggle with some kind of real feelings for Guy, even if they were only regret that she has to hurt him to help more unfortunate people. There are a couple of moments where does seem to feel something other than disgust. One is the scene in which she kisses him, on the cheek this time, out of gratitude for his saving her from execution (s2e11). The other is the scene in which she goes to reconcile with Guy and finds him ~~rather gratuitously~~ shirtless, trying on armor (s2e3). I’d been wondering since season 1 if she was actually “stirred” by Guy as he claims to Robin that she is. Judging from her failure to keep her eyes on his face while they talk, I’d say Guy is right, even if for the only time ever. Unfortunately, rather than developing any of these feelings beyond these scenes, or using them to complicate Marian’s acceptance of Robin over Guy, the writers chose to present her as the dauntless, pure, true love to Robin and a cold, calculating, manipulator of Guy. It’s as though having her fit a misogynistic stereotype about women, that we love to play cruel games with boys’ hearts, is more forgivable, and more “family friendly,” than the shameful suggestion that a nice girl could like two boys at once.

Since both Guy and Robin are multi-faceted, conflicted men, you’d think the woman both of are in love with she could have some complexity too. However, once they’ve created this love triangle, there are only so many ways the writers can get out of it. I really think polyamory is the only option that would do full justice to the complexity of all three characters, but I also know there is no way this show would take that direction; it’s not nearly progressive enough. Or, Guy could take the high road and wish Marian happiness with Robin, which is probably the mostly wildly out of character decision possible for him. He’s had so little experience with love, giving or receiving, that there’s no way he’d give it up voluntarily. So, that leaves the options of killing off either Guy or Marian, and from the amount of development Guy gets that season, it’s clear that it was never going to be him. What ultimately does infuriate me about Marian’s end is not that she dies but that she is made dispensable.

I've had the idea for this for a while, but now it's been long enough since I've written anything about Downton Abbey that I can no longer remember if I've said something like this before. This post features some of the characters I've written about a lot in the past, but also some new ones. Indeed, I don't think I've ever written about so many characters in one post before. If I didn't know better, I'd think I missed Downton.

As always, I'll start with Thomas. In season 4, he goes on a mission to find a woman who will be his "friend," help him with his schemes, and generally be his spy upstairs. It goes about as well as we expected, as well as most of his plans, and I remember thinking as I was reading about the season, how stupid of Thomas/Fellowes to 1) think that anyone could replace O'Brien and 2) think that anyone would be intimidated by someone as marginalized and universally disliked as Thomas. Since then, though, it's occurred to me that while Thomas's plan is doomed to fail, you can see why he though this might be his best bet for changing the family's and other servants' perception of him. The reason why Thomas is so disliked is, unquestionably, because he's done so many cruel, selfish, ill-advised things. That's true of most of the men on the show, but what makes Robert, Bates, and Branson (to make a manageable list) so imminently forgiveable if not the fact that they each have a woman (or women) who forgives, supports, and advocates for them?

I've sure I've already made this point with respect to Anna and Bates, and I think it was Gascon who said that Anna is almost wholly absorbed by her husband before he even becomes her husband, but since this is the most obvious example of a woman redeeming a man, it bears mentioning again. Throughout the first three seasons, she has taken his selfish, callous choices--leading her on and lying in season 1, leaving without any explanation in season 2, assuming she's given up on him so easily in season 3--and turned them into proofs of his noble and unselfish nature. Yet, for all she does for him, he has no gratitude; indeed, it is she who is grateful to him for continuing to value her after she's been raped in season 4.

Cora is similarly devoted to Robert; she doesn't even flinch in season 3 when he confesses that he's lost not only his own money but hers as well. The only time she displays any anger or disappointment towards him is when he sides with the knighted doctor whose bad advice causes Sybil's death. Even then, after two delightful episodes of wonderfully snarky comments directed from Cora to Robert (and how can anyone talk to that man in any other way?) he gets bailed out by another woman: his mother. I had always wondered how a woman like her--so clever and confident--could have raised a son with so little knowledge of, or respect for women. That episode makes it clear, however, that, after her own amusement, nothing means as much to Violet as her family behaving correctly, and as usual, it's the woman's behavior that's in need of correction.

Sybil and Branson's relationship is the exception that proves the rule in this respect. When they return to Downton after their marriage, it is her behavior that is deemed exemplary while his is denounced as selfish, but that is likely because she is already headed in the same direction as Anna with regards to her husband. She has no objection to being abandoned while pregnant because her husband is in trouble with the law for reasons he does not even fully explain to her. In spite of the fact that she immediately forgives him and continually advocates on his behalf to her family, he shows very little interest in her opinions--"you're very free with your musts." Certainly, he holds her in enough reverence after she's dead, but even his grief feels like Sybil pleading for sympathy for him from beyond the grave.

I have been primarily concerned with husbands and wives, but really each straight man on the show has a network of female supporters, mostly related by blood or marriage. Mrs. Hughes is the exception, because though she is not a wife, mother, or sister (to anyone we meet) she is a tireless advocate for most of the men on the show at one time or another. Again, though, she's the exception that proves the rule. The biggest problem with Thomas's ladies' maid buddy scheme is that, on a show obsessed with marriage and kinship, he is looking for a friend. His relationship with O'Brien shows how much Fellowes values friendship.

Even more troubling is the value (or lack thereof) that the show places on romantic love outside the bonds of heterosexual kinship. In all of the above cases, the love the men have for their wives is very selfish. They take all their wives offer--which is everything they have, including their personalities--and give them little in return but the (very dubious in all three cases) promise of protection and stability. Thomas's love for Jimmy is unselfish (indeed, self-sacrificing) and he asks nothing in return, and this love is presented as it's own damn reward. Heterosexuality is not only a privileged position on this show; for a man, it's a redeeming quality in and of itself.

I’ve enjoyed all the ruminations about Thomas fans vs. Bates fans over the past week or so, but it’s occured to me that a lot of what I’ve read has been about Bates fans’ perspectives posted by Thomas fans. I have seen several comments from people who dislike Bates because he is “too good,” and that’s a valid enough point, but no one that I’ve seen has made that complaint about Anna or Mrs. Hughes, both of whom strike me as being far kinder than Bates.

Personally, my issue with Bates is that, for all his dwelling on his misfortunes over the past three seasons, he actually has it made in the shade. He has a household full of people who respect him, an influential employer and doting wife, both of whom are willing to go to the end of the earth to have him safe at home, and his own private residence. All of the characters who persecute him–and where would he be without them?–are actually less privileged than he is: gays, divorcees, petty criminals. This seems to be an issue in the show at large, given that so many storylines attempt to persuade us that the very privileged (Lord Grantham, the Anglo-Irish) are actually victims, while villifying those who actually are marginalized, like Ethel, Thomas, and the Irish-Catholics. (I do think Ethel’s storyline is handled the best out of three because she is presented as a victim, not just of individual men, but of a misogynistic system).

I bring all this up not because there's anything new in the suggestion that Bates is privileged but because I think his disavowal of the privilege he enjoys plays a role in his decison to help Thomas. When Thomas tells Bates “being nice is what got me into trouble,” he's comparing the wages of his marginalized sexuality to the bounty of perks Bates’ assures him. And Bates doesn’t like it one bit. Suffering is the lynchpin of his identity, and Thomas’s comments about his privilege–“Everyone so pleased for you”–challenge his belief that the world is against him. This seems to cause a kind of identity crisis for Bates. Think of the reasons he gives for helping Thomas: “I wouldn’t wish [prison] on any man;” “I know what it’s like to feel hopeless.” He advocates for Thomas in a way that draws attention away from the cause of Thomas’s problems, homophobia, and puts it on his own experience, prison. He thereby rejects Thomas’s reading of his identity as defined by privilege and recreates one defined by suffering.

Bates’ rhetoric imposes a false equality on his and Thomas’s situations. In fact, he privileges his in the sense that he has acually been in prison while Thomas is only threatened with it. What gets erased in his account is the fact that while Bates is imprisoned for a matter of months for something no one who knows him believes he did, Thomas has been silenced and condemned for his entire adult life because of who he is.

What I will never understand about this show is why Bates’ sanctimonious martyrdom is regarded among most of the characters and many of the fans as so much more valuable than Thomas’s sense of self-worth. Thomas does his best to reject his victim status; instead choosing to take responsibility for standing up for himself and others he sees as oppressed, in the case of Edward Courtenay and Jimmy.

This question has been on my mind lately. If we’re supposed to enjoy seeing Hux get abused by Snoke and Kylo because of the evil things he’s done, why isn’t Snoke’s death more enjoyable? He’s in charge of the whole First Order; Hux spends most of The Force Awakens waiting for his approval to fire the weapon. Furthermore, Snoke is the outside force who bears the most responsibility for turning Kylo Ren to the Dark Side. But if he shows any emotional at all about being cut in half by his protege, it’s confusion. Where is his terror and anguish? Doesn’t he deserve to feel these things after all the evil he’s done?

I think the answer to these questions is that Snoke is never presented as a figure of fun when he’s alive, so why should he be in death?

For all that Starkiller Base gets brought up by people who feel a need to defend how much they enjoyed seeing Hux get thrown around by Snoke and Kylo in The Last Jedi, none of his punishment actually has anything to do with that incident narratively. It is only relevant in the sense that he no longer has that project to use as leverage to make himself indispensable. There is no narrative reason for most of this abuse except to entertain an audience that wants to see Hux suffer. Not just because he deserves it, but because it’s funny.

There is a lot of slapstick in this movie, and Hux is not the only man who is subjected to it. Both Finn and Poe get roughed up by women–which is far more likely to read as comic than the reverse–but neither of them are defined by that for the duration of the film. It’s funny, supposedly, to see these strong men be tased, shot, and dragged around by much smaller women, but the emasculation they are subjected to is temporary.

Meanwhile, when Hux is thrown around by men who are much more powerful than himself, there is no irony. Emasculation is not what makes him an object of ridicule, his characteristic lack of masculinity is.

Consider the differences between the scenes described above with Rose and Finn and Leia and Poe and the one, partially cut from the film, where Finn and Rose are caught aboard the Finalizer and Hux interrogates them.

When he approaches them, it’s Finn whom he slaps–because not even the vicious General Hux is depraved enough to hit a woman–and slapping itself is a form of violence more associated with women than men. Perhaps his intent is to emasculate Finn (again), to treat him like an errant child instead of acknowledging that he’s a man capable of making choices in spite of the First Order’s efforts. If that’s the case, it’s very short-lived.

In the earlier scenes.Rose has a taser; Leia has a blaster; neither is shown as able to overpower Finn/Poe on her own. When Rose bites Hux’s finger, though, he can’t even retrieve it without help from several Stormtroopers, in spite of the fact that she’s much smaller than he is, bound, and on her knees. That he’s screaming “like a little girl,” to quote numerous commenters, the whole time only drives the point home further.

And this is only one scene out of many; Hux’s “skinny, pasty” body is attacked from one end of the film to the other. And it’s no surprise. Violence against men whose masculinities are deemed suspect or insufficient has been stock in trade in comedy for a very long time, a lot longer than Star Wars has been around. Such men are protected neither by their own physical prowess nor by cultural prohibitions on violence against women. Of course, queerphobia has often been heavily inflected in such violence. If one reads Hux as queer, as I and many others do, it makes these scenes that much harder to watch.

I’m not arguing that hating Hux is a problem; there are plenty of good reasons to hate him. But it’s possible to hate him and believe he deserves his comeuppance while still recognizing that it is given to him in some troubling ways, and for some troubling reasons, in this movie.

Finally get to fix the spelling error in the title, ha!

I know that some take issue with Hux’s backstory because of how being an abuse survivor muddies his agency, but I love it, for that reason as well as others. While it adds more depth to the character we see in the films in many ways, the one that stands out to me most right now relates to Hux’s leadership of the stormtrooper program.

This program is explicitly anti-family. The First Order perpetuates itself through conquest but also through taking the children of the conquered. It doesn’t produce--or reproduce--anything itself, and it even attempts to prevent new emotional bonds from being formed between these children. They are denied both their birth families and, in most cases, found families. Given that being “anti-family” has been an accusation leveled by conservatives against lesbian and gay people for decades, it is troubling to see such a program being run by a strikingly gay-coded man. In the films, there is no explanation given for how Hux came to be in charge of this program; we just know that he is very committed to it.

Having Hux inherit this program from his father accomplishes two important things. It gives Hux a reason to be anti-family that has nothing to do with his sexuality, whatever that may be, and it deromanticizes birth father/son relationships. If the formative tragedy that shapes Finn and other stormtroopers was being taken away from their birth families, Armitage’s tragedy is that he wasn’t.

In the novels, the stormtrooper program is essentially the Hux family business. Even though both Gallius Rax and Rae Sloane recognize that Brendol does not like his son, both insist that the two remain together and that Brendol teach Armitage “everything he knows.” They are making plans for Armitage to take Brendol’s place many years before Brendol dies, unsurprisingly, as a result of Armitage and Phasma’s planning. Of course Armitage is going to take his father’s place; he’s never been presented with any other option.

What makes this backstory an improvement over film canon is that it divorces the anti-family aspect of the program from the sexual orientation of its head. Brendol Hux is ostensibly straight. He not only was married but had an affair with woman who worked in the kitchens; Armitage is the result of the latter. We’re never really given a reasons for this antipathy on Brendol’s part. Maybe it’s because Armtiage is a bastard. Maybe it’s because he’s small and weak. Maybe it’s because Brendol recognized the same gender non-normative traits in his small son that film audiences recognize in Domhnall Gleeson’s Hux. We don’t know. What we do know is that this relationship is toxic for both of them--quite literally in Brendol’s case--and the fact that he is Armitage’s birth father does nothing to diminish that.

Contrast that with some of the other birth father/son relationships. While there are many abusive father and son-esque relationships--Snoke and Kylo is a striking example--birth father and son relationships tend to be more positive even when they are fraught. Even though Anakin Skywalker maimed Luke, Luke’s belief in his lingering goodness is essential to his redemption arc in episode VI. Even though Han Solo was a largely absent father, he dies attempting to turn his son back to the light. If Kylo is redeemed in episode Ix, Han’s sacrifice likely has something to do with that. And that will romanticize the connection between sons and their biological fathers even further.

It’s helpful, especially if the second possibility comes to pass, to have a relationship that shows there is nothing inherently redemptive or even positive about biological father and son relationships. Some fathers and sons despise each other; some bring nothing but harm to each other and those near them. The First Order as an organization benefits from the stormtrooper program, but one could argue that it costs all of the individuals involved in it far more than it gives them. Still, it seems important to remember that this program has been perpetuated through a biological family connection, not just the lack of them. Which really leaves the future of the program uncertain. Who will take over when Armitage--who has no children and seems unlikely to ever have any--dies?

I get the comparisons between these two movies; I really do. As some gifsets show, there are even similar shots of Domhnall Gleeson’s characters choking or being thrown in both movies. I remember seeing and reading these kinds of comparisons even before I saw Peter Rabbit, and it made me dread it just a little bit. I’m not a fan of cruelty as humor in any context, but that’s really not what Peter Rabbit is about. Both include violence that’s intended to make the audience laugh, but context is important, and the context could not be more different and the films expect very different things from their audiences. Peter Rabbit presents a fight between equally matched opponents and the humor requires only suspension of disbelief. The humor in The Last Jedi depends on the audience’s hatred of the character the violence is happening to.

I’ve read the violence in The Last Jedi described as “cartoon violence” a few times, but I’m not convinced that that really fits, at least where Hux is concerned. Cartoon violence is unrealistic in that characters are treated in ways that would seriously injure or kill them can get up and walk away immediately after. This requires suspension of disbelief on the part of the audience. What makes cartoon violence funny is that it is free from the consequences real violence entails. The violence Hux is subjected to in TLJ leaves him bleeding and unconscious on different occasions; it could have been worse, but the results are not unrealistic. He screams, but that’s a normal human reaction to pain and fear. These scenes are only cartoonish in the sense that we are meant to see Hux as less than a person, so the results of violence against him are unimportant.

The context of the violence is not cartoonish at all. Essentially, Hux is in an abusive work environment, which is also the environment he lives in. When he first receives the message from Snoke after the Resistance blows up the dreadnought, Hux attempts to take it in his private quarters. Considering how fearful he looks when Snoke appears instead–not to mention how unhealthy he looks in TLJ vs. The Force Awakens–it is easy to imagine that this has happened before. What did Snoke do to Hux after Starkiller Base was destroyed? TLJ doesn’t tell us, but it’s not hard to guess. When Kylo becomes Supreme Leader, the cycle begins again; he throws Hux into a wall for offering him advice. Both Snoke and Kylo have all of the power in this situation; Hux is physically helpless against the Force. All of this would be horrifying if we were supposed to care about the victim.

In Peter Rabbit on the other hand, part of the humor–and the suspension of disbelief–comes from the fact that the opponents are so equally matched. We have to be ready to believe that a group of rabbits are a match for a 34 year old man. When they first meet, the rabbits are fairly confident that they will triumph. After all, the older, out of shape McGregor from whom Thomas has inherited the house died from an heart attack after an encounter with them. However, they have under estimated him as much as he has them.

During one of their encounters, Peter describes Thomas as a “skinny bag of wet,” but Thomas’s lanky body proves resilient against all of their attacks. He survives a fall from his roof and having blackberries, to which he is allergic, being shot into his mouth. Outside of the requisite suspension of disbelief, he is younger and stronger than his relative. He’s also health conscious enough to have an eipen on his person when he needs it: a role model!

Thomas suffers all kinds of laughably mild, temporary injuries from the rabbits, but he also blows up their warren. He’s hardly helpless. He also gets to be as complex as the titular character; he and Peter have flaws, aspirations, and character arcs that are of equal importance to the narrative. In short, the violence against Thomas isn’t funny because he’s a bad person and we’re supposed to want to see him suffer. It’s funny because we know he’s going to be okay.

One comment Gleeson made about Hux that has stood out to me is the he wanted to make a character a child would hate and want to see hurt. I suppose if I could unsee all the baggage that comes with the violence against Hux, I would find it less upsetting. As it is, I’m bewildered by the implication that Star Wars–a story with fraticide, genocide, and torture–is primarily for children. There are clearly aspects of the story we’re meant to see as serious adult problems, but Hux’s abuse isn’t one of them. In all honestly, watching Peter Rabbit, which is clearly meant for children as its primary audience, was a relief after The Last Jedi.

I’ll admit that I felt pretty ambivalent about reading the Aftermath Series because, to be honest, I only feel invested in a small number of characters in it. So, I decided to just read the last one, and a lot of it is not that interesting to me. However! The chapter where Gallius Rax gifts Brendol Hux’s murderchildren to his son is worth the price of the book for the insights it gives.

The chapter is presented from young Armitage’s point of view and details his first experience with having power over others. This is how the chapter opens: “The redheaded boy sits on a ship without viewports so he cannot see the endless dunes or the raging war going on above them. All he can see right now is the other children: two dozen of them lining benches on each side of the transport ship, all of them in white, all of them staring at the young child as if he’s a gobbet of meat and they’re a pack of slavering yenavores.”

Needless to say, Armitage is terrified. When Rax appears, we quickly learn two things: that Brendol is on the ship and that he has not explained what is going on to Armitage. His father knows where he is and is, presumably, perfectly content with him being there. Wookiepedia describes what is going on in this scene as Rax “tak[ing] pity on Armitage.” Now, I don’t go to Wookiepedia summaries looking for insightful analysis–that’s not their purpose–but I would argue that this is straight up wrong. Before he gives him this gift, Rax manages to make Armitage even more upset than he already is.

It is Rax who introduces the idea that Brendol is neglecting Armitage because he dislikes him: “Brendol does not much like you, I suspect.”

Armitage’s reaction is just what one would expect: “Tears line the boy’s eyelids as he nods in agreement.” He’s not telling him anything he doesn’t already know, but this exchange is an interesting preface for what follows. After Rax gives Armitage the gift of authority over these children, he makes it quite plain what the consequences of not using it effectively will be: “They want to kill you, I fear. The want to slash at you with their fingernails. The want to bit you until you are just unrecognizable pieces. They would, if given half a chance, beat you with common rocks until all your limbs were broken sticks.”

Once he has Armitage nearly ready to wet his pants with fear, he offers an alternative. It’s not that Rax will take him out of this situation or stay with him to keep him safe. It’s, “You will lead these children. They will serve you [ …] It will be your life’s work to take children like these savages and hammer their malleable minds into whatever shape you require. They will be tools for the work at hand.”

Rax’s manipulation here is very effective. He makes sure that Armitage (and the children listening) know that the person who would protect him under normal circumstances is not going to do that, not because he can’t, but because he doesn’t want to. He plants these incredibly violent images in all of their minds and then leaves them to test their new relationship alone. He essentially throws Armitage into shark-infested waters and says, “Swim, kid!”

Armitage is ambivalent about this. The other children’s agreement with Rax’s directions both “disturbs and thrills” him. When Rax is gone, he orders one boy– who, unsurprisingly, looks like him–to hit another. It might say something that he immediately resorts to violence, but after Rax’s speech, violence is on all of their minds. Though he is initially afraid that the children will not listen to him, Armitage’s reaction to seeing the other boy bleeding is to feel “a strange and sinister buzz of excitement.” Is this excitement simply sadism or is it the thrill of realizing that he is not, in fact, about to be eaten alive?

This scene gives us an example of manipulation that, as I understand it, we’re left to imagine for ourselves regarding Ren and Snoke. There is nothing here to indicate that Armitage is anything other than a normal kid in an appalling situation. And given that he remains in this situation, working side by side with his father–he’s a grown man when Phasma murders Brendol–it’s unsurprising that he grows into an appalling adult. Nothing interferes with the plan Rax outlined for him and, as far as we know, he’s never offered any alternative besides the original one: being eaten alive. I would argue that fear is still a strong motivator of Hux’s actions, and there are still good reasons for that fear, as TLJ makes plain. He’s still trapped in a closed system in which violence and power are the only alternatives.

I will admit that I decided to read the Phasma novel and the final installment of Aftermath to get a better sense of Hux’s backstory, and I found myself particularly interested in his relationships with women. After all, there are significant similarities between Rae Sloane and Phasma regarding their relationships with both Huxes. Even if they have little else in common, they are both tenacious women who use their combat training to not only subdue their enemies but to cultivate relationships with potential allies. Another thing they have in common regarding their relationships with Armitage is that they are conveyed almost entirely through telling, not showing. We actually see very little interaction between Hux and these women.

The reason for that is that these aren’t important relationships in the context of the respective stories. Phasma is about Cardinal coming to understand the “real” Phasma through a second hand story told by a Resistance spy. Armitage barely appears in Empire’s End, and while the one scene in which he appears is presented from his point of view, it’s with Gallius Rax, not Sloane. Cardinal mentions Sloane’s name once in Phasma, and Armitage takes it as a threat, a piece of dialogue that raises far more questions than it answers. What does Sloane have to do with Armitage’s reluctance to hear Cardinal’s evidence against Phasma? It’s anyone’s guess; Delilah Dawson isn’t telling us. Apart from this line from Empire’s End–”Sloane likes him, but she worries about him”–we don’t know how either woman feels about him.

In spite of all these gaps in readers’ knowledge, I reject the idea that these relationships are simply unimportant in terms of helping us understand Hux as a character. It’s not insignificant that both Sloane and Phasma cultivate relationships with Armitage through violence against his abusive father. It’s not insignificant that they’re both women and that neither is Armitage’s mother or his lover. There’s something interesting going on here in terms of how the novels, particularly Phasma, represent patriarchy.

Consider what the novels do show us about Armitage: Rax grooming him to take Brendol’s place and the pissing context between Armitage and Cardinal over which view of Brendol as a father figure is more valid. The scenes and reflections readers of the novels are privy to emphasize patriarchy: the values and gifts that fathers bestow on their sons, both biological and adopted. That Brendol is an abusive father is emphasized more in Aftermath than in Phasma, but Armitage has this reflection on his and Cardinal’s shared past: “Cardinal saw how the man treated his son. If he knew anything about the human heart, he should’ve understood that the stronger Hux would rise to supplant the weaker, older Hux eventually.” What an incredibly muddy sentence. What does Hux imagine Cardinal saw? What did Cardinal actually see? What does “the human heart” have to do with the survival of the fittest. What is clear, however, is that Armitage and Cardinal see his father quite differently..

When Vi Morandi draws a very unflattering, and feminizing, comparison between Armitage and Brendol–”the greasy ginger weasel birthed a greasy ginger weasel”–Cardinal gets so angry he almost hits her. He warns her, “Say what you will about Armitage Hux, but watch your tongue about Brendol. That man was my savior and he did more for me than my own father.” Reflecting on his earlier view of Armitage as “spoiled, sullen, small, ratlike, soft,” and his assertion that Brendol held his biological son in lower esteem than his adopted one, Cardinal’s investment in patriarchal ideals becomes clear. He values Brendol because of what Brendol gave him–a better life through his position in the First Order. From Cardinal’s perspective, the fact that Armitage loathed his father enough to conspire with his murderer reflects solely, and badly, on him. From a patriarchal standpoint, Cardinal is a much better son than Armitage.

It’s a little disappointing that novel so much focused on a non-patriarchal society in which men and women rule side by side also presents so much of its story from the perspective of a man who who is so entralled to the patriarchal aspect of the First Order. Or course, it’s clear that Cardinal has been brainwashed into holding these views, but by the end of the novel he has yet to let go of them. Still, he is a character that we are supposed to like, while Hux is a villain, albeit a minor one in this novel. What’s erased, or relegated so far into the background that it is difficult to see, is that Armitage flouts patriarchal conventions, too. He has some privileges as a Hux, but when coupled with the fact that he has to work side by side with his abuser for the first two decades of his life, I hesitate to call them benefits. Armitage has no illusions about this. He forms an alliance with Sloane against his father as a child, and when Cardinal “reveals” what Phasma has done he tells him, “I’m glad the old bastard is dead.” He did not get what he needed from his father, and thus sees himself as owing him no loyalty. He gets the protection and liberation that he needs from those who are willing to give it, women whom his father has also abused (or attempted to, in Sloane’s case)

And yet, Hux’s relationships with men, based on fear, rivalry, and mutual hatred, are deemed far more deserving of attention than his relationships with women, which are based, at the very least, on mutual interest. Why? My conclusion is that it’s precisely because his relationships with men bring out the worst in him. He is the villain, after all. I haven’t read the novels featuring his interactions with Kylo Ren and Snoke, but I would imagine that the fear and loathing are only amplified there. Perhaps his relationships with Sloane and Phasma are relegated to the margins of the novels because they are too interesting, to distracting from the role he is meant to play. After all, if we start seeing Hux as an abuse survivor forming alliances with other survivors against his abuser, it’s harder to hate him.

I’ve seen a lot of posts presenting Rae Sloane as a mother figure to Armitage, and I can see the appeal that would have to Hux fans. After all, if he had an adult who cared about him and sought to take care of him at some point, it makes his life less unequivocally awful. But I’ve been thinking about a post I saw a while back positing Sloane as someone who presented Armitage with a choice, and that by choosing to follow in his father’s footsteps he is responsible for the way he turns out. It’s only one point in a longer post that I mostly agree with, so it seemed nitpicky to reblog it, but it has stuck with me because it’s so inaccurate.

Sloane does offer Armitage protection from his father in exchange for protection from the army of feral children over whom Counselor Rax had given him authority. That’s the extent of their relationship in Aftermath: Empire’s End. This protection amounts to her beating Brendol and telling him that she knows about his abuse of his son, but not whether it is psychological or physical. She tells Brendol, “You will leave him alone. And you will teach the boy everything that you know.”

Now, there is a bit of a contradiction here. It’s impossible for Brendol to do both of these things because teaching requires some kind of contact. As a point of contrast, try to imagine Leia and Han saying to Snoke, “Okay, you can teach our Ben the ways of the Force, but you’d better not try any funny business or boy, you’ll wish you hadn’t!” It’s ludicrous. They know the only way to end Snoke’s influence is to get Ben away from him.

And I have to wonder how effective Sloane could be in protecting Armitage from Brendol’s abuse when she doesn’t even know what kind of abuse it is. Given the intimate nature of abuse, it’s entirely possible for an abuser to torment their victim in ways that are apparent only to the victim. The only way to provide Armitage with any meaningful protection is to separate him from his father, which Sloane refuses to do. I’m sure she has reasons, but those reasons serve her interests and the Empire’s; they don’t serve Armitage’s.

I’m not trying to criticize Sloane here. Armitage isn’t her responsibility; she is not his momma. And the idea that all women are responsible for all children pisses me off a lot more than this one woman not making this one kid her top priority. But let’s be clear; she doesn’t offer herself as an alternative to Brendol. She attempts to exert some kind of control over this father-son relationship while keeping it intact. Armitage doesn’t have agency equal to Ben Solo’s just because somebody took his side against his father once.

As an addendum to my last meta (and because I cannot will myself to grade one more essay right now) isn’t it interesting that the one character–besides Finn–who manages to get out of the First Order is also the the character who actually is treated like a son by Armitage Hux’s dad?In spite of the fact that Brendol was a terrible person, in spite of the fact that his motives were probably bad, the attention and affection he showed Cardinal mean something, to Cardinal at the very least. Even at the end of the Phasma novel when he realizes how much he has been duped by the titular character, he is still defending Brendol. Armitage, despite his twisted views of human relationships, knows that his father mistreated him and hates him for it. Even with all the manipulation and brainwashing, Cardinal and Armitage feel the way they do about Brendol for legitimate reasons.

Caring for and emotionally supporting someone with bad intentions is still better for them than treating them with overt cruelty. I have to wonder if bonding with the person responsible for his welfare didn’t help Cardinal become sane and personable enough to be of interest to Vi Morandi and led to her rescuing him.I suppose you could say that maybe Cardinal already had redeeming qualities and Armitage didn’t, and maybe that’s why Brendol decided to nurture him and freeze Armitage out. That seems to be what Cardinal thinks. But it’s abuse apologism, and I’m not here for it. And of course, there are other factors to consider–like the feasibility of Cardinal being a torturer and a nice guy at the same time, for one. But it is pretty clear we are meant to see him as redeemable, but not Armitage. That he’s a nicer person than Armitage in spite of their shared past is also obvious. While it would be reductive to say that Brendol’s treatment of them is the only factor to play a role in that, that it plays a role at all is sad enough.

At the same time, I wonder what Brendol would think if he knew treating Cardinal like a son would contribute to his being Resistance pilot ex machina-ed out of the FO and treating Armitage like garbage would contribute to his being one blaster bolt away from the top position. Would he be dismayed? Impressed? Was this his intent all along? I don’t mean he intended for Cardinal to defect, obviously, but maybe he didn’t care what happened to Cardinal as long as Armitage grew up to be as vicious and power-hungry as possible.

I realize that I am a little late to the TLJ party, but in the last couple of weeks I’ve been reading a lot of meta and commentary, and I’ve been intrigued by the way in which the bodies of the First Order characters are used (and abused) in this film. From what I read, it was clear that the idea of their being something shameful about bodily vulnerability, particularly in men, plays some role in this film, but I didn’t know if that was going to be painted as some First Order facist ideology (which it is) or as something that is to be taken for granted. I have seen the film now, and I have to conclude that it is, unfortunately, the latter. And yet, I’m still intrigued. What does it mean to read bodies solely in terms of power or weakness? What is being overlooked in this focus on bodies?

I will consider two examples in passing and one at length. (It’s possible that my interest stems from just wanting to talk about Domhnall Gleeson’s body. Astonishing, I know.)

First, it’s worth noting that the majority of the First Order is made up of people whom we never see: the stormtroopers. There is nothing we can assume about their diversity–Finn, one of the few we ever see uncovered, is a Black man–and this seems to be the point. They are completely covered not just for protection but to erase their individuality. So, when we see part of a First Order body, or learn something about one, it’s worth noticing.

This film marks the first time we ever see any part of Captain Phasma. When Finn lands a blow that shatters her helmet, we get a glimpse of Gwendoline Chistie’s eye and part of her face underneath. This could be a moment of vulnerability for her, but it’s not. She maintains a kind of vicious dignity, even when exposed. “You were always scum,” she tells Finn before she falls, presumably to her death.

The only First Order body that is actually exposed is, of course, Kylo Ren’s. He appears to Rey with no shirt and no pretext for showing so much skin, which clearly catches her off guard. Is there a reason why he does this besides to say, “Come to the dark side, Rey. We have nice pecs?” I wasn’t able to detect one. But what is clear is that while Kylo may be emotionally vulnerable, his body is anything but. As a former marine, Adam Driver has the hardest body in the cast; he loses little of his power when he loses his clothes.

General Hux, however, has a body that is both figuratively and literally dragged. This begins in his first scene when Poe Dameron enrages him by calling him skinny and pasty. It is well worth asking, as others have done, how Poe knows Hux’s body type when he has never seen what he’s got under those uniforms, but what I want to know is, how did he know it’s going to bother him so much?

What I find troubling is that it is funny, in part, because it’s true. This is Gleeson’s second time playing General Hux. After all the press for TFA two years earlier, the Star Wars audience knows that Gleeson really is quite slender. Unlike Poe, we have a visual reference for the body we’re being asked to see as ridiculous. Poe’s intention is to capitalize on the First Order’s hatred of individuality by outing Hux’s unique traits to taunt and humiliate him in front of his subordinates, and it’s a great success. But he could have done that with any body type if it’s the individuality that’s shameful. The film’s writers present a kind of male body that is routinely shamed in Western culture, and that the actor actually possesses, for the audience’s laughter.

This revelation about Hux’s body sets the stage for his treatment in the rest of the film. Even in a society as quick to use violence as the First Order, he is singled out for special physical abuse. He is thrown face-down and dragged on his own bridge by Snoke, force-chocked by Kylo, and later thrown against a wall by him. (A scene in which he taunts Rose Tico and she bites his finger was cut from the film, and frankly, that would have been overkill!) He’s far from the only person to be brutalized like this–Rey and Kylo are both thrown around by Snoke too–but Gleeson’s sound effects signal that this is comedy. Rey and Kylo may gasp with surprise or pant with exertion, but Hux yelps, cries out, and whimpers. He lets us know that it hurts.

Throughout the film, Hux’s body is a site of vulnerability and punishment, and that makes it easy to overlook the fact that he has a much better grasp on what is going on than either Snoke or Kylo. Snoke is confident that he has Kylo under control, and Kylo cuts him in half. Hux sees the threat in Kylo; when he finds him passed out after killing Snoke and the fight that ensued, he reaches for his blaster to kill him. This is only minutes before Kylo force-chokes him for challenging his claim to be the new supreme leader. Once Kylo has stepped into that position, his first act is to play into Luke Skywalker’s hand by fighting with him while the rest of the Resistance flee to safety. Hux tries to advise him against this, and that’s when Kylo throws him into the wall.

No doubt, Kylo is confident he can continue to use the force–and brute strength–to keep Hux in check. He does need him, after all. But I would argue that by focusing all his attention on Hux’s physicality, he’s neglecting the dangerous part of him: his mind. He may have cowed him into submission for the moment, but I don’t think anyone has Hux under control but Hux. In his last frame in the film, he is watching Kylo enter the ship with a calm, collected intensity; he’s making plans already. Hux may be weak in body, but he is strong in purpose, unlike Kylo, who waffles back and forth between good and evil and throws temper tantrums that would embarrass a teenager. I have a feeling that before the end, Kylo is going to wish he’d choked him harder when he had the chance.

At least, I hope that’s what happens.

For some reason, my first entry posted fine, but each one I've tried to do since has been blacked out and I had to change the text color to make it visible at all. Does anyone have any idea of how might get rid of the black bars behind my post?

Every time I see meta comparing Hux and Finn’s backstories, I’m reminded that I STILL haven’t written the meta I’ve planned for the past five months or so. I’ve been waiting for “free time,” but this may be the closest I get to that.

My issues with this meta are that it is reductive–Finn is able to leave the FO because he is good and Hux remains because he is bad–and that it takes certain details from Hux’s backstory at face value when they merit more careful reading.

Both of these characters have tragic pasts, but their tragedies are different. Finn’s is that he was taken from his parents and trained into a killing machine. Hux’s is that he was kept close to his father and trained into a killing machine. That difference alone is pretty interesting. One the surface, Hux appears to have certain privileges in comparison with Finn, and from a FO perspective, they certainly are advantageous. He’s an officer’s son; he’s put in charge of a group of killer orphans who are all bigger and stronger than he is. But these privileges are dubious to say the least.

Finn, on the other hand, starts off as a simple stormtrooper, no different than any other. He is able to distinguish himself through his talents later, but by that time he has been able to form some degree of attachment to his peers. One of the things that triggers his leaving the FO at the beginning of TFA is seeing one of his friends killed. Now, I know that the FO discourages any kind of attachment among stormtroopers, but here’s the thing. It obviously didn’t work! It couldn’t work in every case because stormtroopers are humans and humans are social creatures.

Isolating an individual child, though, that can work very well. And in the case of Armitage Hux, it certainly did. Being put in charge of the assassination orphan squad makes him special, but in so doing it also strips him of any commonality with the other children. They obey him because Counselor Rax told them to and they have been trained to be obedient; it has nothing to do with Armitage personally. Even with this authority, his dealings with the other children are quite vicious from the beginning because he doesn’t want to look like an easy target. It’s little surprise that he grows into a man who has no close bonds with anyone, who sees other officers, the closest thing he has to peers, solely as allies or rivals.

Being Brendol Hux’s son also made him “special,” but why? Mostly because everyone knew that he was; his father certainly didn’t treat him better than other children. It’s not a matter of avoiding favoritism; Brendol makes it abundantly clear to Armitage that Cardinal is his favorite. Lavishing affection on one child while withholding it from your own is … wait for it … abuse. That thing some readers assume Rae Sloane put a stop to just because she told Brendol to cut it out.

I see the idea that Brendol physically and psychologically abused Armitage presented as a canonical certainty all the time, but the only reference to this abuse in the books is notable for its uncertainty. Sloane says, “I don’t know if [you are mistreating him] physically or psychologically, and I don’t care.” I hardly think Sloane’s uncertainty is lost on Brendol. Maybe he physically abused Armitage as well, and that stopped when she threatened him, but maybe it was only ever psychological, and that plainly did not stop. It seems clear to me than any benefit Armitage gained from her promise to protect him–which she couldn’t and didn’t keep–is outmatched by the harm done by keeping him with his father.

Almost all of the “privileges” in Armitage Hux’s past amount to abuse and abuse enabling. It’s actually quite beneficial to Finn that he lacked these advantages; if he had them, he probably never would have left the FO either.

Not to complain, but there are easier things in the world than being a Hux fan but not a Kylo fan in this fandom. That said, I’m beginning to realize that my frustrations with the latter villain have been misplaced. The things that annoy me the most are not Kylo’s fault. As far as I can tell, he’s just being the best villain he knows how to be. And he’s doing pretty well! He’s making all the right decisions to further his career. You know, like Hux if he had been quicker on the draw. It’s not Kylo’s fault that so many persist in thinking he has the potential to be turned back to the light.

It’s also not Kylo’s fault that he gets to be the only villain in the (film) franchise who actually gets to be a messy, fucked-up person who does bad things.His claim to being that is as valid as anyone’s. The problem is that in the SW film canon, the moral division is so starkly black and white, and so reducible to the New Republic/First Order divide, that there is only room for one such morally complicated villain, and he’s not as complicated as he could be.

*I’m not trying to criticize fans of Star Wars here. I didn’t grow up with it and my lack of appreciation for certain aspects of it is probably owing to that. This is just a thing that has frustrated me.

If you take a look at canon in the wider sense that includes the novels, Hux and Kylo are more alike than they are different. They are both shaped by family legacies they did not choose, they’ve endured trauma and abuse, and they’re war criminals. They have a lot in common. The difference between them is, apparently, far more important and it is that while Hux is an unadulterated product of the Empire/First Order, Kylo was born into the New Republic. That he’s more conflicted than Hux is the result of the competing influences that have shaped him, but these competing influences have given him options that Hux has never had. Kylo gets two chances to abandon the FO and he unequivocally rejects both of them. Maybe that should tell us something? He may be conflicted internally, but his choices have been pretty consistent.

Meanwhile Hux, who the novel canon shows us has been taught to hate the Republic and weaponize his talents against it his whole life by everyone he’s encountered, gets held morally and personally responsible for his actions in a way that Kylo never is. We’re meant to despise him so much that treatment which would be horrifying happening to anyone else is hilarious when it happens to him. And his backstory is so completely erased from the films that Snoke might as well have grown him in a lab.

Kylo’s agency and Hux’s lack thereof have been treated as equally meaningless. To be fair, Hux’s encounters with the Resistance have been minimal and entirely restricted to situations where they are trying to destroy each other. It would be unreasonable to expect them to show him any clemency. But it should be unreasonable to expect Kylo Ren to reject the identity he has constructed for himself just because he can, and yet Han Solo and Rey have just this expectation. That he’s offered apparently consequence-free forgiveness on two separate occasions is troubling enough regardless of the fact that he chooses not to accept it. The innocent people he has killed are just as dead as the inhabitants of the Hosnian system, but he could just walk away if he wanted to? Alright.

Treating one villain as deserving of no more compassion than an organization he never chose to be part of will never be satisfying to me, but neither will erasing all the bad decisions another has made in the event that he finally makes the right one in the end. Honestly, Hux and Kylo both deserve better, but probably the only place either is going to get it is in fanfiction.