lavender_sage

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?