Lanterns Episode 7: Hal Jordan's Dark Family Secret Explains His Fear of Being Replaced

Episode seven of Lanterns gives us a tiny glimpse into Hal Jordan's family history, and it explains something that on the surface is unclear about his weakness. Now I finally understand why Hal Jordan does what he does. Don't get it twisted, it doesn't justify his actions, but everything is starting to make sense, which is why from now on nothing about him should surprise you.

Hal Jordan's behaviour started long before the Green Lantern ring

We have already seen John Stewart's childhood, how he was trained and the things he was made to believe growing up. So I can say that we certainly understand John, how he makes some decisions and what he is after. With Hal, we couldn't say that. His character always makes us ask whether he is really a friend or an enemy.

We have been looking at him as a difficult man who wants to control everything. He doesn't like to be challenged, he depends on himself and not on people, and he always wants to be the person who knows it all, never wrong and always knowing best. After seeing young Hal, I think this is where those things began. Hal didn't become that person because he was a Green Lantern. Perhaps all these behaviours started long before the ring ever came into his life.

Hal's father's key, I believe, was really a responsibility and a secret

One scene in episode seven, where Hal's father is with him, is one of those scenes that makes you think deeply. I think it has given us a huge piece of the puzzle when it comes to understanding Hal Jordan. His father gives young Hal a key, and as young as he is, Hal asks very sensible questions. He asks why he should have the key and not his mom. He is just a child who doesn't understand everything that is happening, but his instinct to suggest that another adult should know about the key tells you Hal was indeed an intelligent person.

His father tells him no, that it's a men's affair, something that stays between the men in the family. That statement carries weight, and I think it was the beginning of Hal's story. I believe his father didn't give him a key but a responsibility and a secret, and more importantly he was teaching him what it means to be a man in the Jordan family. It appeared that the men carry things they don't have to tell anyone. You depend on yourself and deal with problems by yourself, so that you are strong enough for others to depend on you.

Hal's father loved him, but being special became tied to being loved

This made me wonder whether his father was trying to damage his son's emotional development. I personally see it this way: no, he wasn't. From what we saw, he loved his son very much. He clearly wanted to provide for him, and you could see the affection between them. The huge problem was the lessons that came with that love, for someone so young to understand.

If you analyse what his father said, it was an emotional and personal recognition that young Hal was one of them and could handle what others cannot. For a young boy, that could be the biggest compliment in the world, and such compliments don't leave overnight. Imagine your father looking at you and saying you're special and you can carry this. You accept it immediately and want to prove him right. That's where I think the older Hal perhaps got his problems from.

So what happens when being exceptional becomes connected to being loved, and being useful becomes connected to your value? You start believing that if you stop being exceptional, maybe people won't need you or even love you anymore. I think maybe that's why Hal hated being replaced, something you could tell from previous episodes. When you're replaced, it doesn't just mean somebody else is doing your job. To Hal, it may feel like somebody is saying you are no longer useful or necessary, and that is something he won't succumb to.

His father's suicide may have taught Hal to hide his struggles

There is an even darker secret about the Jordan family that also makes sense of how some events have gone in the show. We learned that Hal's father died by suicide. He left a note behind, and that note talks about suffering that already existed in the family. It is one thing to carry someone's memory, and completely different to carry that person's pain. Clearly Hal wasn't carrying just his father's memories but his pains too.

Think about being a child trying to understand that the man who taught you to be strong, carry things and keep things within the family was himself carrying something so heavy that he eventually couldn't continue. That is enough to destroy the way someone understands weakness. To Hal, if his father was suffering and couldn't say it, the takeaway might be that you don't tell people when you're struggling. You keep going, stay useful, and become so good at what you do that nobody has a reason to look too closely at what is happening inside you. That's exactly what we saw in adult Hal Jordan, and it makes complete sense.

The baseball story showed Hal that talent buys tolerance

There's also a baseball story, because I think the show is trying to make us really understand a character who has given us a puzzle to solve. Young Hal is talented and a star, but he refuses to give up the ball when the coach wants somebody else to pitch. His father arrives, and interestingly he doesn't tell his son he was wrong. Instead he gets involved in the conflict and even fights with the coach.

Doing that in front of a child tells him there is absolutely nothing wrong with what he has done, because his father will defend him. It also teaches that talent can be an excuse for bad behaviour, because if you are good enough, people may tolerate things from you that they wouldn't stand from someone else. Every incident gave young Hal a lesson he grew up with: you can be difficult, arrogant and refuse to step aside, but as long as you deliver and are useful, people keep making room for you. I think Hal built that into his personality as he grew up.

Why John Stewart became such a problem for Hal Jordan

I think this is why John Stewart becomes such a problem for him. John isn't just another Green Lantern, he is a replacement for Hal, one who can continue the work without him. Meanwhile, Hal's identity has been built around being exceptional. So when John came into the picture, he wasn't just a trainee. He became a threat to the identity Hal spent his entire life protecting, and however Hal chose to train John stems from the lessons he absorbed in childhood.

I am not condoning Hal's behaviour. He is wrong, and these experiences don't mean his behaviour can be excused or pardoned. I understand Hal, but that is not the same as saying we should excuse everything he did to John and the choices he made. "Understanding somebody is not the same thing as excusing them." John still suffered because of Hal's behaviour. Hal puts burdens on John without explaining them properly. He challenges John instead of comforting him, and pushes him instead of admitting that he understands what fear feels like.

From my point of view, it looked like Hal was trying to teach John the same lessons he learned as a child: be strong, don't complain, keep going. To me, Hal inherited whatever he saw, especially some of his father's ways of dealing with pain.

Hal's hologram is uneasy about trust and what others know

The relationship between Hal and the woman in his life is also revealing. We saw the hologram version of Hal asking whether Hal had been open with her, whether she knew him, and whether he had said anything about his father. Trust is a big deal for him, because trusting somebody means giving them information they could use against you. The hologram didn't seem comfortable at all, which is why I think there was some suspicion there. If someone knows about your pain and your weaknesses, they can disappoint you or hurt you.

This version of Hal suspects she knows more than she appears to. But if she genuinely loves Hal, that changes things. Hal will have to deal with something he can't solve through investigation. This is where I think acceptance will come in: he would have to accept that somebody may have loved him even when he wasn't being the strongest person, and perhaps that's something he doesn't even know how to receive.

Hal may have cared about John without knowing how to show it

If Hal didn't know how to receive that kind of care, how could he give it to John? John was the person who needed Hal to see him, and he got the complete opposite. Perhaps in Hal's language, he was preparing him. You can care about someone and still not know how to make them feel cared for. Perhaps Hal cared about John, but his own lessons didn't help him show it. You can't keep telling someone they are not good enough and then expect them to suddenly understand that deep down you believe in them. Hal sees potential when he sees it, but he didn't know how to comfort someone.

The hologram is where the show flips all of this. It pulls John out of the drowning instead of telling him to toughen up, which is the one thing the original Hal never managed. I won't replay the whole rescue, because the rescue on its own is beside the point. What matters to me is what it tells us about Hal: the hologram is clear proof that the same man can have the same memories and still make a different choice.

Retirement is the worst thing you could say to Hal Jordan

His father's suffering existed before Hal was old enough to understand it, and perhaps Hal grew up believing that strength means you don't become a burden. The way his father died was very painful for a child, so it's possible Hal did his best to become the opposite by being useful. He becomes a pilot, a Green Lantern, the man everyone calls when things go wrong. That way, no one can look at him and say he is a burden.

So telling someone like Hal to retire is the worst thing you could say to him. What happens when he is no longer the Green Lantern? What is his identity if John takes over? When no one calls or depends on him, what does that make him? These, I believe, may be some sort of fear for Hal. It's not even about death or failure, but about not being useful or necessary.

That brings me back to the baseball. I think giving up the ball meant somebody else got to do the thing that proved he mattered. Even though his father later told him to let go and Hal threw the ball away, by fighting the coach first his father had already reinforced the idea that Hal should keep fighting for his position. And here is the part that seals it: after his father's funeral, young Hal went back and picked that ball up again. The one thing his father told him to let go of, he kept.

Hal leaves John things to uncover, just as his father left him something locked away

The same goes for keeping secrets. Hal was told some secrets stay between the men of the family, which also meant family pain should be contained. You don't tell everyone or expose everything; you hold and protect the family story. The evidence shows Hal embodied this well. He doesn't say much, and we see safes and hidden information appearing throughout the show, as if the physical objects reflect the emotional lives of these characters.

Hal's father left him something that was locked away, and Hal in turn leaves things behind that John has to uncover, much like his father did to him. Trying to understand a man who isn't there to explain himself is a frustrating mission. Hal has been there, and he has put John on that same mission.

The family history explains Hal, but not who killed him

One question I have is whether Hal's family history connects to the murder we have all been trying to solve. I do understand Hal better now. But I also think that just because suicide exists in his family history doesn't mean we should automatically connect it to his death. We don't have enough evidence from what we have seen so far. I have learned that Lanterns keeps giving us things that look like answers and then opens another door. The family history explains many things, but not the exact thing we are looking for.

However, this version of Hal has admitted that he is broken. The man everyone sees as their legendary Green Lantern is saying something inside him is broken. He can be repaired, but how? Recognising what he spent years covering up is already a win. I think at this point Hal knows he can ask for help, that being strong doesn't mean carrying everything alone, that he can show love without being controlling, and most importantly that someone can replace you without replacement meaning rejection. "You can stop holding the ball and still be valuable."

The similarities between Hal and John are interesting. Unlike Hal, John has started pushing back on the people who shaped him, and I do think this cycle ends with him. Perhaps if Hal had questioned his father and not held on to those lessons, it would have been a different story. Loving your father doesn't mean every lesson he taught you was right. Asking a child to carry adult secrets was unfair of his father, and while we may admire Hal, what he did to John Stewart was unfair and wrong. "His father taught him how to carry weight, but clearly no one has been able to teach him that he is allowed to put it down."

The boy who was told he was strong became the man who couldn't admit he was hurting. He was told he was special and grew up afraid of replacement. I strongly think that perhaps John may be the person standing in front of him asking the question nobody else asked. It's sad, but I think maybe Hal believes being the best was the only way he could remain loved. The puzzle is still unsolved, and we still don't know what Sinestro is up to, who actually killed Hal Jordan, or what the planet John found himself on will lead him to do next. I look forward to the next episode.

Do you think Hal's family history has anything to do with his murder, or is that a door Lanterns wants us to open for nothing?