General Hux

"Today is the end of the Republic! The end of a regime that acquiesces to disorder! At this very moment in a system far from here, the New Republic lies to the galaxy while secretly supporting the treachery of the loathsome Resistance! This fierce machine which you have built, upon which we stand will bring an end to the Senate, to their cherished fleet! ALL REMAINING SYSTEMS WILL BOW TO THE FIRST ORDER!!! AND WILL REMEMBER THIS AS THE LAST DAY OF THE REPUBLIC!!!"

- General Hux's speech to the assembled First Order.

Armitage Hux is a major antagonist in the Star Wars sequel trilogy, appearing as the secondary antagonist of both Star Wars: Episode VII - The Force Awakens and a major antagonist in Star Wars: Episode VIII - The Last Jedi.

He is a high-ranking member of the First Order, acting as a military official in the organisation and the top commander of the Starkiller Base before its destruction. He is bent on having the First Order conquer the galaxy.

He was portrayed by the Irish actor Domhnall Gleeson, who also portrayed Clan Techie in Dredd.

Childhood
Armitage Hux was the illegitimate son of Commandant Brendol Hux, a high ranking Imperial Officer who headed the Imperial Academy on Arkanis, and a kitchen maid. When he was young, he and his father fled to the Outer Rim to escape the Republic which won the Battle of Endor. There, he started to help create the First Order with the guidance of Supreme Leader Snoke.

Past
Born in the dying days of the Galactic Empire, through military prowess Armitage Hux managed to become a high-ranking figure in the First Order despite his relatively young age. Hux is the military commander of Starkiller Base, and is thus essentially responsible for both maintaining the superweapon as well as the various stormtroopers (which have been conditioned from birth to follow orders as opposed to being cloned) in its control. Captain Phasma answers directly to him and Kylo Ren. One of the highest-ranking members of the First Order, Hux is directly next to Supreme Leader Snoke's apprentice Kylo Ren in rank and takes orders directly from the Supreme Leader.

An unfeeling sociopath who believes in absolute power, Hux is eerily reminiscent of the Galactic Empire's former Grand Moff Tarkin. Hux makes it his duty to utterly crush the New Republic using the power of Starkiller Base, a planet-sized superweapon capable of harvesting energy from the sun to fire a weapon capable of destroying entire star systems, something Hux willingly proves he is willing to do upon firing on the Hosnian system.

Star Wars: The Force Awakens
Hux is the secondary antagonist of the film, who, despite his mutually-powerful ranking, often argues with Kylo Ren and takes orders directly from Supreme Leader Snoke.

After Kylo Ren interrogates Poe Dameron and finds out that the map leading to Luke Skywalker is with the droid BB-8 on Jakku, he tells Hux and leaves it to the general to send troops to Jakku and retrieve the droid. When Dameron escapes from the First Order with help from the deserting stormtrooper Finn, Hux is alerted. After Ren has arrived on the Star Destroyer's bridge, Hux briefs him on the situation, also telling him that Dameron had help from the inside. Ren immediately knows Finn to be the culprit and tells Hux so. Hux later calls Phasma, the captain of Finn's unit, to him to be informed about the deserter.

After Hux has sent his troops to Jakku, Ren asks him whether he is confident in the capability of his soliders. Hux replies that he won't have his methods questioned by Ren. Ren implies that he is not as confident as Hux, stating that a clone army would be more efficient than Hux' soldiers, who are indoctrinated to the Order at birth. Hux then coldly warns Ren to not let his personal interests interfere with Orders from the Supreme Leader.

After Finn, now accompanied by Rey, has escaped Jakku with BB-8, the First Order is informed. Hux and Ren are called before the Supreme Leader, where Hux claims full responsibility for the failure. He tells Snoke that he thinks it would be time to destroy the Republic, because its government is supporting the Resistance. As the Republic's destruction would make the Resistance vulnerable, Snoke tells Hux to oversee the preparations. He then dismisses Hux and after victoriously glancing at Ren, Hux leaves the room.

Hux's defining moment in the film is when he makes a rallying speech to the stormtroopers about the capability of Starkiller Base and the destruction it will bring to the Republic. As ordered by Snoke, Hux commands Starkiller Base to fire a beam directly into the Hosnian system, causing it to split and obliterate several planets within the system, including that housing the New Republic's capital.

After Ren captured Rey but failed to extract information from her, Ren and Hux are again called before Snoke. When Snoke asks whether BB-8 has already been obtained. Hux responds that Ren deemed the droid irrelevant after he captured Rey and stopped the search for it. Knowing that the droid would soon fall into the Resistance's hands, which would ultimately lead to a new generation of Jedi, Snoke tells Hux to prepare for Starkiller Base to destroy the the planet D'Qar, where the main base of the Resistance is located. However, the shield generators of Starkiller Base are deactivated by Finn, Han Solo and Chewbacca and the resistance destroys Starkiller Base. Hux scrambles to escape the exploding planet, and before its ultimate destruction, Hux is ordered by Snoke to evacuate the Base as well as to bring Kylo Ren to him to complete his training.

Star Wars: The Last Jedi
Hux is in command of the First Order fleet sent to eliminate the Resistance main base. He and his fleet arrive in the middle of the Resistance's escape efforts. Hux is distracted when he is informed that a single fighter is approaching his ship. The fighter is revealed to be the Resistance pilot Poe Dameron who contacts General Hux. Hux replies that Poe and all his comrades are traitors and that they will all be annihilated and that no surrender will be accepted. However, Poe only taunts him by acting as if he cannot hear Hux. After toying with him for a moment, which allows the Resistance enough time to finish their evacuation. When Hux orders Captain Canady in one of the First Order's dreadnoughts to eliminate the enemies, a battle ensues which results in heavy losses for the Resistance and the destruction of Canady's dreadnought.

Nonetheless, the Resistance cruisers are able to jump to lightspeed and escape the system. The same moment, Hux is informed that Supreme Leader Snoke wants an update on the situation. Hux plans to accepts Snoke's call in his private chambers but suddenly, Snoke's face is holographically projected onto the bridge. In front of all his subordinates, Snoke chides Hux for his failure to annihilate the rebels and throws him to the floor by using the force. However, Hux actually has planned the whole thing because after their jump to hyperspace, the Resistance ships have almost no fuel reserves. Meanwhile, Hux is able to track the rebel ships even through hyperspeed, so the Resistance simply cannot escape. Hux later tells Snoke so in person, and Snoke forgives Hux and tells him to make preparations for another attack. As Hux leaves, Kylo Ren enters the room. Knowing that he carries Snoke's favor while Ren has fallen from grace due to his defeat at Rey's hands, Hux throws an evil smile at Kylo.

Hux's fleet keeps pursuing the remaining rebel ships. When the Resistance fighters realize that jumps to hyperspeed will only cost them fuel without throwing off the First Order, they simply try to outrun the First Order fleet. Hux is not alarmed; although the Resistance ships are slightly faster, they cannot get away and have only fuel for some more hours. Thus, Hux simply orders his fleet to pursue the rebels and keep firing until their fuel is gone and their shields are down.

Things change for the First Order when Hux, alerted by chaos within Snoke's flagship, enters Snoke's throne room to find the Supreme Leader dead - cut in half. Hux finds the knocked out Kylo Ren nearby and, seeing his rival unconscious, plans to draw a gun to kill Kylo. However, Kylo regains consciousness and Hux is unable to go through with his plan. Hux informs Kylo that the previously captured Rey has escaped with Snoke's personal shuttle and Ren tells him that it was Rey who murdered Snoke in which he framed her for the murder. Secretly, Ren himself slew the Supreme Leader. When Kylo gives Hux orders, Hux is outraged and claims that with the Supreme Leader dead, the First Order currently has no leader and that Ren has no right to order him around. However, Kylo force-chokes Hux into submission and Hux is forced to acknowledge Kylo Ren as the new Supreme Leader.

Meanwhile, the crew of the sole remaining Resistance ship has boarded several smaller ships and makes for a nearby mining planet where an old defunct rebel base is stationed. Having learned about this ruse from the traitor DJ, Hux gives orders to ignore the sole Resistance ship and instead opens fire at the small, shieldless ships - picking off one after the other. This was prevented when the Admiral piloted the last big ship to jump into hyperspace, only to emerge right within Snoke's giant ship - destroying both the rebel ship and Snoke's ship in which resulted to massive causalities for the First Order.

The Resistance reaches the planet and Hux has several AT-AT walkers sent down to the planet. He and Kylo Ren accompany the walkers within a shuttle. They also have a battering ram canon which they plan to use to burn open the shielded doors of the resistance base. However, suddenly Luke Skywalker appears in the salt desert before them. Agitated, Ren orders all cannons to focus on Skywalker. After several moments, Hux tells Ren that it is enough but when the dust clears, Skywalker is unharmed. Kylo then orders the shuttle to land and heads out to battle his uncle himself. Unbeknownst to Ren, he is only fighting a hologram created by Luke in order to distract the First Order. The ruse works and when Kylo realizes he has been tricked, the remaining Resistance members have already fled through a secret exit. Together with Ren and his soldiers, Hux later strolls through the abandoned base.

Trivia

 * As noted above, Hux's character seems to directly reference Grand Moff Tarkin's; the scene in which he has Starkiller Base destroy the Hosnian system is similar to the scene where Tarkin has the Death Star destroy Alderaan. However, Tarkin had just destroyed one planet while Hux destroyed a system containing several planets, making Hux's crime even far more horrendous than Tarkin's.
 * Hux's speech to the Stormtroopers is an analogy of Nazi Germany. This is most significant where the Stormtroopers all raise their arm up in the air with a fist to him, which is a reference to the Nazi salute.
 * Hux is described in production to be a character more overtly evil than Kylo Ren. In several respects, this is true; Kylo Ren is shown to be chaotic, delusional, secretly afraid, and having been conditioned to the dark side by his master Snoke. Hux, by contrast, lacks empathy to the extent where he is perfectly willing to kill hundreds of billions of innocent lives to assert the First Order's power. Character-wise, Hux and Ren are polar opposites; while Kylo Ren is conflicted, prone to chaos, sympathetic, and operates on a more personal scale, Hux is more precise, collected, and certain of himself, completely devoid of Kylo Ren's sympathy, and operates on a scale even beyond that of Tarkin's.
 * Domnhall Gleeson (Hux) and Oscar Isaac (Poe Dameron) starred together in the movie Ex Machina, also released in 2015 (except in Ex Machina, Gleeson played the protagonist and Isaac played the antagonist). Ironically, Ex Machina won the Academy Award for Best Visual Effects over The Force Awakens.

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Armitage Hux