If there is one character we don’t really know much about, besides Snoke of course, it’s General Armitage Hux. He seems to be fanatical and in charge of the military wing of the First Order… and that’s about it. No novels about him, no short stories, and no comics, and he is a strong secondary character. Lets look into what we do know and see if we can figure him out. Speculation and spoilers to follow.
What we do know about Hux is from the Aftermath trilogy and takes place when he was child. He is the illegitimate son of Brendol Hux and was initially treated terribly. It took the intervention of both Rax and Sloane before his father treated him with anything other than contempt and violence. Rax set Armitage’s path by gifting him a group of child soldiers and Sloane forced his father to teach him everything he knew about tactics and training of the child soldiers. Armitage took over the training of these soldiers when his father died along with command of the First Order’s troops. But what does that tell us of his character?
First, it does say that Hux may have had a hand in the training and development of the First Order troops, including Finn. This puts in a little more context the statement about “going back to a clone army”, and puts in perspective Hux’s background regarding the troops. It also says something about Hux’s motivations and how far he is willing to go for control and for his position in the First Order.
For that we go to the new Phasma novel in which it is revealed that Phasma killed Brendol Hux and his son Armitage helped to plan it. Armitage is ruthless and willing to use whatever tools are at his disposal to get what he wants. His father was in his way, he removed him. Phasma agreed to it because she wanted to eliminate the last person that knew anything about her history, Armitage used the tool he had ready made in her. This means that if Kylo Ren is in his way, and he sees the chance to take Kylo down, he will take it with one caveat–he is loyal to Snoke and the First Order. He won’t disobey a command.
Through the different tie-in novels you get the impression that Armitage believes he is destined to rule the Galaxy. This thought was placed in his mind by both Rax and Sloane or at least the seed of it. He has shown himself to be vindictive and ruthless in everything we have seen and he truly believed that the Republic and the Resistance are the real threat in the Galaxy. They cause disorder and suffering and he will do anything and hurt or kill anyone that prevents him from bringing order back. A true believer that has the skill and resources to make his belief a reality. It may be that in the end Hux is a bigger threat than Snoke or Kylo Ren could ever be.
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