I love in FO the situation is considered beyond fuck when even Hux is gone. On normal days he’s totally the workaholic, who’s always the last to leave.
I love how the morale is high even when under attack because it’s like, “Hux has got this. He’s the Youngest General Ever. I’m sure he has a plan even when the fuel cells get hit!”
Where nobody acknowledges they might die until Hux is gone and then they’re like, “SHIT WE MUST BE ABOUT TO DIE. OUR SLYTHERIN LEADER IS GONE.”
Honestly this says so much about him as a character and with as little as we got from his own screentime, i’m really happy they decided to include this because it shows what kind of leader he was. Always the last to leave. I’m pretty sure the only reason he’s not in there at that moment was Snoke’s order for him to go get Ren.
Anybody remember the White House petition to build a real Death Star? It reached its goal so the White House had to issue a response (it was NO).
The costs for building a Death Star were estimated at 850 quadrillion dollars. For one single weapon.
Now, the Starkiller was – what – ten times as big as the Death Star? With the power to suck up an entire sun. I think it’s safe to say that the costs of developping, constructing and maintaining that thing were abhorrently high. (Think GDP of all the industrialized economies combined and higher)
Yet, once again, they manage to leave a vulnerable spot that allows it to be destroyed completely within maybe an hour.
First of all, the First Order is leading a total war. Where do they get that money from??
Second of all, imagine what they could have accomplished if they had poured all those resources into marketing instead.
Buy all the big companies of the Galaxy, the ones that have branches on every single inhabited planet (the Fortune 500 of the Galaxy)
Infiltrate these planets by bringing trustworthy First Order men into the highest positions at these companies
Infiltrate their political systems with lobbyists, representing First Order interests to the governments
Meanwhile send the Resistance on wild goose chases around the Galaxy by having completely unimportant parts of the fleet fly here and there, broadcasting “We’re gONna kILLl Luke SKYwaLKer!” to attract attention
While the Resistance is somewhere at the Outer Rim tracking down what they believe is an intricate scheme to find and kill Luke, Kylo Ren and General Hux walk right into the middle of the Senate.
“Yeah, we’re the new representatives of, like, ninety percent of your democratically ruled planetary systems.“
“What do you mean mass-murdering fascist regime? We got ourselves elected by bribing the competition and puring millions into the election campaign. Just like everyone else.“
“Are you seriously trying to oust us? You do realize we hold the shares to all your favourite porn websites, don’t you.”
like, give me a First Order that’s equal parts children of Imperial families torn from the Core and children of hardscrabble Far-Rim colonists, half of them nursed on stories of glory now lost forever and half of them on promises of a better life that will never come, and all of them having decided that they’re sick of stories and will change the galaxy with their own hands
give me the children of farmers and miners and factory workers who can’t see much of a difference between the various regimes that have ruled at the shining center of the galaxy while they labor out on the dark fringes, who are either exploited by corporations with their lobbyist fingers still deep in the government or now unemployed thanks to the loss of the Imperial war machine and its endless demand for ships and materiel, and what good is the Rebel’s so-called freedom to them?
give me Imp-Ex children who see the suffering and struggle on the Rim and beyond and burn with frustration that for all the tales of glittering splendor this was the reality even then, that their parents are only interested in reclaiming what was the status quo when they could stand up and do better, bring real order and prosperity
and yes, give me the dark side of that discontent, too: give me Imperial xenophobia taking root even in places humans and aliens have worked side-by-side for generations, give me ends-justify-the-means thinking, give me all the wrong lessons learned from the Empire and applied with brutal efficiency, give me all the things that cause otherwise decent, ordinary people to go along with terrible choices
I would strongly advise you not to think about how much sense it makes that kylo ren sees injuring himself as perfectly acceptable. like, he doesn’t argue when han tells him that snoke will throw him away, will destroy him, as soon as he’s outlived his usefulness. the script tells us he knows this, deep down. and he doesn’t rage against it – it appears to be something he accepted a while ago.
why is that? why is he willing to live with the knowledge that he is utterly expendable to the person on whom he has hinged his entire life?
well, let’s take a look back. we now know that ben solo felt abandoned as a child – that his parents split before he was sent away. and let’s not kid ourselves about whether he realized that at least part of the tension inherent in his parents’ marriage was due to him. ben was force sensitive from birth. this is a kid who would have been intimately aware people’s feelings of unease around him.
and what happens after his parents split, after his father leaves? he’s sent away. I think even a child who wasn’t force sensitive would be able to put two and two together. there’s something wrong with him. (he isn’t the child his parents deserve.) he’s got this great and terrible power and there’s this struggle inside himself that’s tearing at him day and night and he’s hardly old enough to understand any of it – other than that he scares even the people who love him enough that they send him away.
he’s wrecked his parents’ marriage – their lives – and inside his head is this voice, one only he hears, telling him that he’s right. he did. of course they sent him away – they don’t want him anymore. maybe they never even wanted him at all. confirming all his deepest fears and twisting reality and playing into the mental and emotional issues ben is already struggling with.
they don’t want him, this voice tells him, but there’s someone who does. him. snoke. snoke who takes an adolescent ben solo and tells him that he’s the only one who can understand him. that he’s special, his best and brightest pupil. his great weapon. this is literal child-grooming, as well as blatant manipulation of ben’s own non-existent sense of self-worth.
in his own mind, kylo ren has only ever been wanted as one thing: a weapon. a tool. that is the value snoke has ascribed to him, and it’s the only value kylo ren knows. and if your only worth is as a tool, well, tools are meant to be sharpened, aren’t they? honed in whatever ways their masters require. if kylo ren must drive his fist into his own wounds to intensify his power – his usefulness – well, it’s hardly a question at all as to whether he’ll do it.
his pain is the cost of his usefulness, and that usefulness is well worth the price. because make no mistake, for kylo ren, there is no worth as a person. he is a thing to be used.
…but even that is better than being not wanted at all.
What frightens me most about this is the idea that one point Ben may not have been able to distinguish between his own inner voice and Snoke. Snoke would probably have used this to mold Ben into what he wanted him to be. This would have caused a traumatic psychological break. There was literally nothing anyone could have done. Not Han, not Leia, not even Luke. This was something that was happening inside Ben, that only he could hear, and it was slowly twisting his mind against him. I think there’s a part of Kylo Ren that does know he’s been manipulated, but what difference does it make anymore? Its too late. Too late to make up for what he’s done, too late to go home, too late to ask for forgiveness. He has to believe that all his suffering has somehow had meaning, somehow been worth it, and that even a little of what Snoke has told him is true. Yet after he watches his father fall, and is not suddenly powerful with his own self-righteous anger, but weakened…he knows its all been a lie. He’s always been nothing but a tool, and so he might as well use himself as one. What difference does any of it make? Its too late.
You know, with all the language throughout Star Wars about “giving in” to the Dark Side, how the Dark Side makes you more powerful, how the Dark Side makes you age strangely and destroys you, it sure doesn’t sound like an “opposite side of the coin” so much as the “deeper end of the pool,” like it’s actually the true form of the force and being a Jedi is about keeping it tamed so it doesn’t eat you the way it actually wants.
the force is entropy
Eldritch Jedi pls
This is one of the reasons i love the second Knights of the Old Republic game, wherein one of the major characters (who defines herself neither as Jedi nor Sith) actually views the Force this way, saying “I hate the Force. I hate that it seems to have a will, that it would control us to achieve some measure of balance, when countless lives are lost.”
It’s also the game that gave us the two most entropic, eldritch characters in the franchise: Darth Nihilus, whose dark-side-borne ability to feed on the Force and consume life itself has twisted him into a half-living “wound in the Force”, more presence than flesh
and Darth Sion, whose entire body is a ruin, his flesh nothing but ragged scar tissue, every bone and muscle broken and torn, kept animated by will alone as he forces himself, second by agonizing second, to exist
I wish there were more horrifying perspectives on the force like that
This is one of the reasons the term “Light Side” never felt right to me, even before it was used in any official media; The Force always struck me more like an ocean than a binary concept: the deeper you go, the darker and more crushing it gets — at a certain point becoming an effectually consistent darkness — and while light filters down and fades for some distance, if there is a truly light “side” it’d be the surface.
Which isn’t to say “the Force is evil unless you flounder about near the top” — just that it’s a natural force, and as such is something you need to respect and be adequately prepared for. (Take electricity, for example: super awesome and pretty dang useful, but OH HOLY SMOKES don’t try and harness it unless you REALLY know what you’re doing!)
In this sense, being tempted by the Dark Side is less a case of “Hey, I wonder what’s on the other side of this coin it looks pretty cool haha oh whoops I’m Space Walter White now,” and more one of “The deeper into this thing you go, the harder you’ll need to fight to resist the ever-increasing pressure, to remain whole, even to just see whatever the heck you’re actually doing.”
(which is why Jedi training is so important: those padawans gotta build themselves a mental Deepsea Challenger!)
i wasn’t going to write this because i don’t put a lot of stock into jj how-about-a-few-more-lens-flares abram’s directing chops, but after some speculation on how the next two sequels will pan out, i thought i’d toss in my few cents.
star wars has always had the pattern of mildly subverting tropes to tell a classic story in a different way. what’s special about luke skywalker is that he’s not a department store hero, nor a Chosen One – he shares his heroism with two others. what’s special about anakin skywalker is that he is the Chosen One but he fails miserably. what i think is going to be special about kylo ren is that tfa set up an impending redemption arc, but i don’t think it’ll be his.
i wouldn’t put money on it, but a lot of people out there are saying hux is going to die, and i think maybe his story might end up being more complicated than we assume. what’s the point of casting someone like domhnall gleeson if you’re just going to kill him off? they could have cast any nobody who could keep a straight face, but no, they got the most glaringly unique, expressively nuanced motherfucker available.
think about what hux represents in the star wars universe: the heavy hand of blind law. he provides a foil to kylo ren, an example of another kind of villainy. he’s the guy who gives the order to knock down the dominos.
this is an interesting contrast to the original trilogy because there were only two primary layers of evil: the guy who called the shots (palpatine), and the guy who did his bidding (vader). (phasma, by contrast, is the Threat. she’s the sequels’ darth maul and boba fett.) hux provides a confusing third wheel to this dynamic, which leads me to believe his real function in the overall story is yet to be seen.
i don’t think hux will ever be a hero, nor do i think he deserves sympathy. he’s an allegory to fascism, and to seek actual forgiveness of his character is incredibly dismissive of all the actual victims of fascism, as so many kylux haters are wont to point out to us humble sinnamon roll fic authors.
but i do think there will come a time in the next two movies where he might betray the first order and/or kylo ren.
lighting has always been pretty symbolic in star wars due to light sabers (green and blue [and purple] being Lightside, red being Darkside), but the lighting in tfa is particularly meaningful. i was originally going to write a post about The Scene but i thought it was too obvious to discuss the symbolic lighting. you’ve all had 8th grade english, you don’t need me to explain it.
just in case, here’s a short version…
before ren kills han:
after ren kills han:
the (blue) light dies here, and so does ben solo. ren is then cast in darkness (red).
characters tend to be bathed repeatedly in the colors that reflect their light or dark side.
which is why i find this so particularly interesting:
every time red and blue mix together is a point of conflict, and one always wins. here we have half of hux’s face in blue and the other in red, right after ren basically tells him he’s fucked.
this screencap also begs an interesting thought: why are there so many shots that linger on hux’s (really emotional??) reactions?
if hux is a throwaway bad guy like his predecessors, why is he so emotional? why do we care how he reacts? why does he look so remorseful and conflicted? just like finn is a complex interpretation of a stormtrooper, i think hux is a complex interpretation of a Tarkin.
if he is really a foil to ren, his equivalent Darkness Moment is when he blows up the Hosnian system. but unlike ren, who has fallen beyond any light at all…
…hux retains an ounce of light in his eyes:
in conclusion, i think hux has a shot at being more to the sequels’ story than his handful of tfa screentime would have us believe. i don’t necessarily want him to find the light, but it would be really great if he could put a wrench in the dark side.
In other words, that table of ash was originally in Ren’s private quarters. And the fact that he incinerates and preserves the remains of his foes adds a new, eerie dimension to his Dark Side nostalgia — and hoarding tendencies.
– The EW interview.
Then I’d like to remind you all about Hux asking for a skull as proof in the novel. These two are SO EXTRA and I love it. They are made for each other.
Holy fucking hell, I’m actually somewhat disturbed by this revelation.
Hux asking for skulls makes sense to me, since that would be pretty definitive proof of death – but Kylo cremating his foes & hoarding their ashes?
That’s… really fucking terrifying. I love it.
They’re such pretentious little goth shits and I love them.
Interesting. I’m curious about your views about Ben/Kylo. I think I see what you mean, but I don’t think Kylo becoming Ben again is necessarily taking a step backward. He can’t erase the things he’s done, he will be forever scarred, he can’t go back to the innocent boy he was, clearly, so “Kylo” won’t magically disappear. BUT Kylo can finally accept to be Han and Leia’s son, and that’s the true meaning behind Ben’s name. Because at the end, his character arc seems to be an identity quest, a choice between two legacies : his parents and Luke’s, or Vader’s. So I think talking about a redeemed Kylo as “Ben” isn’t unjustified, and when I think about it I find it damn relevant, because names are important in Kylo’s story. He tries to define himself, to find a place in the world, and at the moment he wants to be anything but Ben Solo. But his identity as Leia and Han’s son is damn important, and I think will be addressed in future films. Because Star Wars is a story about names, identity, and family legacy. I have the strong impression that this all Ben/Kylo dichotomy will somehow play like that :
Luke: I’ve accepted the truth that you were once Anakin Skywalker, my father. Vader: That name no longer has any meaning for me. Luke: It is the name of your true self. You’ve only forgotten.
When I talk about having major issues with this Ben/Kylo thing, it has nothing to do with the erasure of what he’s done (that’s a separate issue). It has everything to do with the dismantling and compartmentalizing of a person’s identity in order to fit an ideological narrative (see: the treatment of women in media, virgin/whore dichotomy, how there’s good vs bad behavior to reward, etc).
I also have major issues with this because of the fact that Kylo’s whole arc is an identity quest (as you mentioned) – his own – and yet people insist on identifying him with his past. With shoving him into a narrative he seems kind of uncomfortable with to begin with. Unless you subscribe to something like my evil space twin theory, Ben and Kylo are the same person. This is their identity, so why this frenetic insistence on separating the two into a black-vs-white dichotomy? The movies are partially to blame for this, but like… when you separate people’s identities (see: Ben = good, Kylo = bad, which is the subtext) and then say something along the lines of the quote you provided, you’re basically telling a person they have to kill off a core part of themselves in order to become “who they’re truly meant to be.” You are telling someone else who they are as a person – you are talking over their voice. You are speaking over them and (inadvertently) refusing to acknowledge who they see themselves as, as a person. I mean, that’s what’s happening here, on a subtextual level. Do people not see this? Because I do, clear as day, and I find this incredibly unsettling.
Now things are gonna get cleared up in subsequent novelizations and movies, and one it does my opinion might change. Few things are locked in stone. But in the meantime this whole dichotomy of Ben-vs-Kylo (and how its being talked about in fandom) is actually kinda insensitive. But again, this is something I’m going to explain in detail in the meta essay, and once I do people are obviously free to pick it apart at their leisure. My apologies that I can’t go more in-depth than this.
Yep yep. Love this whole conversation.
If we assume (safely) that Ben was manipulated, likely for years, into what he is now, then how can we justify manipulating Kylo into giving up that identity through the use of a name he has willfully discarded? Succumbing to the dark side is, in and of itself, a surrender of agency- Kylo serves Snoke and is subsumed by his will in exchange for power. We can’t “free” him by forcing him to revert to an old identity that obviously represents emotional pain and weakness for him. That just sells his contract to another master, it doesn’t empower him at all.
These scenes in fanfiction where someone insists on calling Kylo “Ben” despite his protests often smack of disrespect and a lack of sensitivity. If we intend to redeem him or help him heal or what have you, we have to respect the way he identifies himself and allow him to construct a self-image that reflects his own values, and not the values someone else is pushing onto him – AGAIN.
I used to think I didn’t care for redeemed!kylo, but I think the real issue is that I don’t care for weak!kylo. I don’t want to see him just adopt someone else’s idea of who he should be for the third time in his life. I’d prefer a stronger character that decides for himself what kind of person he will be. So that’s what I’m trying to write… It doesn’t preclude redemption, but it does mean that I won’t be calling him Ben.
^I really like all of this; how its so incredibly clear and concise. Still disagree with the use of Ben, but honestly that’s such a small quibble (in this context), and I’m still reblogging because again, wonderfully worded. I especially like this part:
1) I have major, major problems with this “Ben/Kylo” thing, and it plays a HUGE role in why I’m very much against this trend I see surrounding current redemption meta. You’re right, it is a backwards step for his character (in more ways than one). That said, I’m going to address this (in full) in my meta essay, so you’ll have to wait until then (and for those of you who disagree with my opinion on this, please wait until I explain myself before you get up in arms).
2) Chances of Rey falling to the Dark Side are pretty high, but as for her staying there? Honestly its all smoke in the wind and we won’t get a real tangible feel for this until Episode 8 arrives. Once I see Episode 8 – and if Rey does fall – then I’ll have a much better idea on where everything is going. As for how: there’s a couple ways. Can’t get into it in too much detail right now because my lunch break is almost over, but it could be:
through her natural inclination to anger (yes, this is A Thing with Rey)
through a connection with Kylo
through a Sith manipulating resentment/feelings of abandonment stemming from her childhood
through coming in contact with a Sith Artifact (see: Rakata Prime, KotOR in general)
There could be other ways, but those are the ones that immediately come to mind.
We can’t “free” him by forcing him to revert to an old identity that
obviously represents emotional pain and weakness for him. That just
sells his contract to another master, it doesn’t empower him at all.
Couldn’t agree more.
ADDENDUM: Oh my goodness @hyperscanvindictator, I misread your statement! I thought you said you would be calling him Ben, not that you won’t. My apologies.
Old conversation is old, but I still want to signal-boost this.
They literally had no idea how fandom would latch onto Hux. Like, no idea.
They don’t even mention him by name in the behind the scenes footage, let alone interview Domhnall about his character.
It’s hilarious.
I mean they talked to Andy Serkis about Snoke and like, who gives a fuck, dude is a fugly old hologram creep.
They talked to Gwendoline Christie, bless her soul, about Phasma, who has less to do in the film and whose helmet never even comes off. (which is like, rude, please give her more to do in the next movie)
Like, seriously. Tell me about this angry ginger twink who talks like he’s always giving a fucking speech (and totally gets off to actually giving a speech). Apparently he hates Kylo Ren? Buddy, me too, please elaborate.
1. Maz-style “Where is my boyfriend?” 2. Where is the lie, though?
I haven’t gotten the behind the scenes footage yet, but i was actually looking forwards to it because i thought there would be hux – so i’m honestly really disappointed right now.
I also think it’s kind of rude to not even interview Gleeson about his character? I mean, he plays a big role, and it seems he’s generally ignored in interviews and Star Wars photoshoots? I genuinely hope that’s his own choice, and that he’s not just being completely ignored.
This also annoys me with the merchandise – I understand that they didn’t think he’d be as popular as he is, but he’s not on a single fucking poster i’ve seen. You’ve got Rey, Finn, Poe, Kylo, Phasma and a bunch of troopers. Never Hux.
Bleh- I was really looking forwards to knowing more about Hux
There are four possible reasons for this:
1. Hux isn’t an important character in the SW verse and won’t feature heavily in the future. Snoke and Phasma will be more important in future, and that’s why they’re getting the merch/focus now: to draw your attention to them early. I hate this and hope this is not the case, but it’s possible.
2. In an exact reversal of the above: Hux’s backstory is telling and he is an important character, but they want this to be a surprise, so they are diverting attention to others in the hopes that they
won’t anticipate his future importance.
3. Hux wasn’t important, but they have realised since that he has been
taken quite to heart by the fans and thus will have a larger (not large,
but larger) role in the future, BUT they can’t be bothered to spend time/money/effort on retconning him into the pre-planned promotional materials now when they can just include him in the Ep8 stuff instead.
4. The lack of Hux-related stuff is purely a combination of issues with logistics and marketing and infers nothing either way about Hux’s character: i.e., they simply want to put focus on their female and POC characters as a selling point, and Gleeson is/was an extremely busy man who wasn’t very available. Rather than trying to pin down one very busy person hopping between multiple projects and probably on-set for far less time than the others, they expended their efforts for the BTS stuff on the people most available to them– like Daisy, John, and Adam, who were around a lot because of their larger roles. Likewise, they put Phasma up front and center in their promo materials because they don’t want this to be seen as “another generic-white-male-dominated movie where the ladies are pushed out of the merch” as happened with the Avengers and other recent blockbusters, and which (justifiably) made people mad. In this case, we can infer very little about Hux’s importance, except to assume he’s less important than the main characters, which sadly, we could probably have assumed already.
I’m hoping for #2, but honestly, only time will tell. 😥
I’m gunning for #2.
I just can’t get past the fact that every.single.character in TFA has a full name – down the band members in Maz’s cantina – except Hux. That is really telling. I feel like they are holding some reveal back and trying to make him as unassuming as possible.
And that tweet– General Hux’s first name has not been decided?! Fuck off. As if! As you say, the tiniest bit players have backstories, and Hux could so easily have been killed off this movie. So easily. Like Tarkin, he could have gone down with his ship. He has zero merch, they could so easily have made him a throwaway character.
But they didn’t.
And they allowed a book to go to press featuring his damn father. Why bother if he has no real importance to the SW universe? Why bother making the First Order’s goals/ideals match up so much with what his dad was pushing in that book?
And finally: why bother hiring an actor like Gleeson– who is, let’s face it, fucking amazing, and so ridiculously in demand that I imagine getting him on-set is a bit of a challenge. They could so easily have cast somebody with no other commitments– and curiously, if you take a peep at his IMDB, apart from jokes about pineapples, you’ll see he has nothing else in the works right now apart from two movies in post. Coincidence? I’m hoping not.
*wipes away one single tear* nonny, I’m obsessed with this, because it opens up so many doors.
Do you mean to imply, that having Snoke in his head is one of the only things keeping Kylo Ren Kylo Ren? And that in the absence of Snoke, Ren falls into personality limbo? Slipping between the person he believes he has become and should be, versus the person he once was, who he does not believe he can return to?
Does that mean, anon, that sometimes when Hux goes to him, Ren’s smile is more mischievous and his touch is less to bruise and more to tease? Whereas other nights, Ren is a suffocating force of ardor and injury, taunting and tantalizing in turn? Tearing into Hux’s mind without thought for the consequences? And then, then anon, is Ren picking up the pieces the next time he finds Hux in his arms, and attempting to undo his own work???
I’m not saying a Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde AU, I’m saying where is my Ben Solo and Kylo Ren fic.
And Hux understands the mask now, the threat of seeing Ben Solo’s face in the mirror. The raging outbursts that cause more harm to Ben Solo than anything else. Kylo Ren may be shredding a control panel but the act of it silences Ben, a flickering, fading light.
Hux offers to go on every mission with Kylo Ren, to the furthest reaches of the galaxy, just to catch a glimpse of Ben now and again, just to get far enough away from Snoke that the flame can start to burn brighter. He doesn’t mind Ren’s rage anymore, not when he knows what lies underneath it. Each bruise he inflicts on Hux, each wound, each tear is worth it.
dispatches from the dumpster 