Redemption and First Order Victims
Nov. 27th, 2019 01:19 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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lyledebeast:
If there’s one thing the sequel trilogy has not done well, it’s telling victim’s stories. Not only do the First Order’s victims get barely any screen time, but victims within the FO fare little better. Finn, Kylo Ren, and Hux are all part of the First Order when we first meet them, but their arcs have been, and will likely continue to be, wildly different.
At the onset Finn and Hux, seem to be about as polarized as two members of the same organization can be. Finn, though he has been trained to kill his whole life, has never actually killed anyone in the FO’s service; Hux uses its funds to create a weapon for mass murder. Finn takes his first opportunity to leave the FO with very little hesitation; Hux appears to never even consider leaving, even as he is physically abused by two consecutive Supreme Leaders. As the character who is most committed to the ideals of the FO, Hux is presented as unredeemable. Finn, who tells Poe in TFA that he is rescuing him because “it’s the right thing to do,” doesn’t even need a redemption arc. In the film canon at the very least, Finn is a simple victim and Hux is a simple villain; neither represents any overlap between these two categories.
Then we have Kylo, who even in TFA seems to be both. He’s been manipulated by Snoke and betrayed by Luke, but he’s also killed one of the Resistance heroes and tried to kill most of the others. But even after he killed Han Solo, he was still deemed worthy of a second chance. If killing his father, who was trying to save him, didn’t render him unredeemable, will declaring himself Supreme Leader really do it? We’ll find out in about three weeks, I guess.
I have had a lot of thoughts on Kylo’s possible redemption arc, and they’ve undergone a bit of evolution recently. At this point, it doesn’t bother me that people sympathize with him. It doesn’t even bother me that the narrative hinges on our feeling sympathy for him. The problem is the coexistence of Kylo as a sympathetic victim who has done evil things alongside the rigid victim/villain binary that Finn and Hux represent.
The view of victimization that’s revealed through Finn and Hux’s arcs holds that only victims who have done nothing wrong are worthy of compassion or help. It doesn’t matter that Finn is probably the only stormtrooper ever to resist conditioning to the extent that he is able to escape. He’s a good person, so his trauma is worthy of recognition. It doesn’t matter that Hux has been abused by one man after another, starting with his own father when he was a child; we’re meant to see him only as a mass-murderer.
As troublesome as the villain/victim binary is, there’s a logical consistency in the films’ Finn and Hux that is confounded by Kylo Ren. If being innocent were what it took to be one of the good guys, then Kylo is screwed. But if being traumatized made a character worthy of sympathy, where is Hux’s share? If Kylo’s redemption arc would trouble the tidy, shallow, victim-blaming morality of the sequel trilogy, I would be all for it. But I suspect that, rather than granting Finn depth or Hux compassion, RoS is going to present Kylo with some special dispensation of compassion that won’t be available to anyone else.
lyledebeast:
If there’s one thing the sequel trilogy has not done well, it’s telling victim’s stories. Not only do the First Order’s victims get barely any screen time, but victims within the FO fare little better. Finn, Kylo Ren, and Hux are all part of the First Order when we first meet them, but their arcs have been, and will likely continue to be, wildly different.
At the onset Finn and Hux, seem to be about as polarized as two members of the same organization can be. Finn, though he has been trained to kill his whole life, has never actually killed anyone in the FO’s service; Hux uses its funds to create a weapon for mass murder. Finn takes his first opportunity to leave the FO with very little hesitation; Hux appears to never even consider leaving, even as he is physically abused by two consecutive Supreme Leaders. As the character who is most committed to the ideals of the FO, Hux is presented as unredeemable. Finn, who tells Poe in TFA that he is rescuing him because “it’s the right thing to do,” doesn’t even need a redemption arc. In the film canon at the very least, Finn is a simple victim and Hux is a simple villain; neither represents any overlap between these two categories.
Then we have Kylo, who even in TFA seems to be both. He’s been manipulated by Snoke and betrayed by Luke, but he’s also killed one of the Resistance heroes and tried to kill most of the others. But even after he killed Han Solo, he was still deemed worthy of a second chance. If killing his father, who was trying to save him, didn’t render him unredeemable, will declaring himself Supreme Leader really do it? We’ll find out in about three weeks, I guess.
I have had a lot of thoughts on Kylo’s possible redemption arc, and they’ve undergone a bit of evolution recently. At this point, it doesn’t bother me that people sympathize with him. It doesn’t even bother me that the narrative hinges on our feeling sympathy for him. The problem is the coexistence of Kylo as a sympathetic victim who has done evil things alongside the rigid victim/villain binary that Finn and Hux represent.
The view of victimization that’s revealed through Finn and Hux’s arcs holds that only victims who have done nothing wrong are worthy of compassion or help. It doesn’t matter that Finn is probably the only stormtrooper ever to resist conditioning to the extent that he is able to escape. He’s a good person, so his trauma is worthy of recognition. It doesn’t matter that Hux has been abused by one man after another, starting with his own father when he was a child; we’re meant to see him only as a mass-murderer.
As troublesome as the villain/victim binary is, there’s a logical consistency in the films’ Finn and Hux that is confounded by Kylo Ren. If being innocent were what it took to be one of the good guys, then Kylo is screwed. But if being traumatized made a character worthy of sympathy, where is Hux’s share? If Kylo’s redemption arc would trouble the tidy, shallow, victim-blaming morality of the sequel trilogy, I would be all for it. But I suspect that, rather than granting Finn depth or Hux compassion, RoS is going to present Kylo with some special dispensation of compassion that won’t be available to anyone else.