Brendol's death
Dec. 4th, 2018 11:19 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
potboyOMG, thinking about Brendol’s death, suddenly things make sense. So Brendol’s been using Cardinal all these years to dig at Armitage - look how great he is; look how much I love him more than you etc. They’re kind of like brothers and there’s a power balance going on where Cardinal makes Armitage feel inadequate and Armitage (probably) consoles himself with thinking how he could order Cardinal to take a short walk out of an airlock if Brendol wasn’t around. And it’s all horrible, but it’s also more or less stable.
Then Brendol turns up with Phasma. Suddenly Cardinal’s facing life on the Armitage side of the equation, as the one who isn’t Brendol’s favourite. Cardinal cannot stand this and immediately begins making plans to bring Phasma down. So far so canon.
But, what if Armitage sees this, and this time around he recognizes what Brendol is up to. Things have gotten almost comfortable, he’s been able to learn to ignore Cardinal, and even put him to good use. He had a handle on that situation. But this time around he thinks to himself Oh Hell No, we’re not playing that game any more. This time, dad, you’ve gone too far.
And he goes to Phasma and says “My father is trying to use you for his own purposes - trying to instill loyalty in you, so you’ll follow him like a dog.“
“I’ve noticed.”
“Don’t assume he won’t succeed. He’s cleverer than he looks.” It worked on me most of my life. “Are you willing to take that risk?”
“Or?”
“Or we could kill him now.”
Phasma really doesn’t strike me as a follower. If she thought she was going to be enlisted on Brendol’s side to bolster his position and be used as some kind of token/lapdog for him, I’m not surprised she went straight from “Well he’s useful, I’ll tolerate him,” to “You know what, I’ll conspire with his son to kill him instead.”
And after that, of course, she and Hux have blackmail material over each other and have to stay as friends.
I’d been wondering why Hux chose that point to act. Why he teamed up with Phasma who was an unknown quantity to him at that point. But this helps explain why it was Phasma’s appearance that was the trigger for it. Brendol’s own “make them all compete for my attention,” machinations backfired at last, when the one he’d trained to use the tactic recognized it being used on him and wasn’t having it.
That makes a really satisfying kind of sense now.
Then Brendol turns up with Phasma. Suddenly Cardinal’s facing life on the Armitage side of the equation, as the one who isn’t Brendol’s favourite. Cardinal cannot stand this and immediately begins making plans to bring Phasma down. So far so canon.
But, what if Armitage sees this, and this time around he recognizes what Brendol is up to. Things have gotten almost comfortable, he’s been able to learn to ignore Cardinal, and even put him to good use. He had a handle on that situation. But this time around he thinks to himself Oh Hell No, we’re not playing that game any more. This time, dad, you’ve gone too far.
And he goes to Phasma and says “My father is trying to use you for his own purposes - trying to instill loyalty in you, so you’ll follow him like a dog.“
“I’ve noticed.”
“Don’t assume he won’t succeed. He’s cleverer than he looks.” It worked on me most of my life. “Are you willing to take that risk?”
“Or?”
“Or we could kill him now.”
Phasma really doesn’t strike me as a follower. If she thought she was going to be enlisted on Brendol’s side to bolster his position and be used as some kind of token/lapdog for him, I’m not surprised she went straight from “Well he’s useful, I’ll tolerate him,” to “You know what, I’ll conspire with his son to kill him instead.”
And after that, of course, she and Hux have blackmail material over each other and have to stay as friends.
I’d been wondering why Hux chose that point to act. Why he teamed up with Phasma who was an unknown quantity to him at that point. But this helps explain why it was Phasma’s appearance that was the trigger for it. Brendol’s own “make them all compete for my attention,” machinations backfired at last, when the one he’d trained to use the tactic recognized it being used on him and wasn’t having it.
That makes a really satisfying kind of sense now.