Thursday, January 14, 2016

2016 Call for Valentine's Stories

It is perhaps a little early for this, but I think it will help. For those of you who are newer to us, we have in the past held challenges and requested story submissions to be published here on the blog. They were sometimes more open ended requests, sometimes based on words or in the case of the infamous "Speedo Challenge" based on a series of photos of Harrison Ford in a skimpy bathing suit. Sometimes silly, sometimes serious, sometimes sexy, but always in good fun.

We skipped over this one in 2015, but we're bringing it back because I think we could all use it. You can check out other stories from challenges in past years from the link on the sidebar. So what is the Valentine's story challenge? They don't really have Valentine's Day in Star Wars, I'm sure. It is really more just a call for fun, romantic Han and Leia stories. Anything that showcases their love for each other. Although it probably doesn't even have to take place after they are "together" if you have an idea for something that takes place before that but still shows that they care for one another.

Since the blog is getting a lot more traffic lately, I'll just lay out some guidelines here. For these challenge stories, they should be relatively short. No specific word count, but just think about if you were reading stories on a blog, you probably wouldn't want to sit down to something that is going to take you a long time to get through. One-shot is what we are looking for here. More than one submission from the same author is also acceptable. I request that whatever you send in hasn't been posted anywhere else yet. That's not so much for exclusivity rights, just because to me it doesn't really make sense to be posting stories here people have already read in other places. Once posted here, you can post it somewhere else but I'd recommend that you wait at least a few weeks if not months to do that. As a writer I notice a big overlap in audiences, so that is more for your own sake, you'll get more reviews if you wait to post something later when people have had time to have forgotten about it and then be reminded! Adult material is ok, we've posted R-rated stories on here before, just make sure you add a little warning at the top. If you have a specific photo you wish to have included you can either attach it or send a link or describe it so we can easily find it and post it with the story. If you don't we will probably just pick something, because who doesn't want more pictures of Han and Leia? Also please send your stories edited and ready to be posted. We don't want to have to spend extra time editing for grammar, etc. Also as for comments on these stories, first, please comment if you like something. People love hearing that people read and liked something you wrote. Second, try and keep the comments on the posted stories just about the story and not wandering off on tangents about the new movies or what JJ said or anything. You can do that in the comments on THIS post if you want, just try and be respectful to the authors of whatever we post for these challenge responses.

I think that about covers it. We could all use some good happy Han and Leia stuff. If you have something you want us to post, email myself or Push and we will get it posted at some point. We do try to space them out a bit, so not like daily postings so that nobody gets buried too quickly, so just be patient if you send us something. Let us know if you have any questions, too.

Happy writing!

288 comments:

  1. Yay for Valentine's Stories! We need some happines and fluff!

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  2. Han and Leia fans will be represented tonight on the Star Wars Underworld Podcast. Tune in at 9PM eastern time (USA). It will be streaming live at http://mixlr.com/channel-1138/ or you can gain access at www.starwarsunderworld.com. It will also be available on iTunes tomorrow.

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    1. If you guys can't listen to this live I'll post a link to the recording as soon as I have it.

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    2. Cool! Thanks. Maybe give Disney and Abrams an earful?

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    3. Anyone listen to it? I couldn't get it to work on my iPad. What'd they say?

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    4. This is the first I've heard about this. Yes, please post a link ASAP. I tried the other sites to no avail.

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    5. Brit, if you're reading this blog, thanks for representing the H/L fans.

      I'm listening to it right now. They are mostly talking about Han and Kylo and Han's character development. Brit mentioned her disappointment at H/L's lack of reconciliation prior to his death. They talked briefly about Leia's role in this movie and in the future movies and whether it was affected by Carrie's abilities. Brit is talking right now about the Twitter parody account "Bad Father Han Solo" and how it irks her that people would actually believe that Han was a bad father when the movie suggested no such thing etc. I'm only half way through the podcast right now but Brit is essentially bringing up most of the H/L related concerns that have been discussed here before.

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    6. I think a lot of people took that line "he would have disappointed you too" literally. As well as Leia's line about "I always hated seeing you leave." It doesn't sound like the books are going to go down that route though, with the visual dictionary describing Han as a family man and with Chewie's entry that he went back to Kashyyyk.

      I was disappointed with the lack of reconciliation too, since Arndt's script had them reuniting, but in my head canon they got a night together before Han went off to Starkiller Base. I rhink therw may have been a couple days on base before they headed off.

      Please keep us updated on what the poscast says as it won't work on my computer for some reason! Thanks for the info!

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  3. I'm liking this. :) And no worries on comments about the movie from me (well, except the one above). I'm seriously trying to forget it. Where's a neuralizer when you need one?

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  4. Yay Valentine's Day stories! And speaking of Han/Leia fluff, everyone should go read Mandy Q's story of Han giving Leia her wedding gift of a galley in the Falcon (as seen in the new official book) here: https://www.fanfiction.net/s/11720031/12/Tales-from-The-Millennium-Falcon. I've been wanting to read this story since I first read Jason Fry's blurb about it.

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  5. Another beautiful Han/Leia fic: http://archiveofourown.org/works/5718034

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  6. Forget the galley additon, I'm writing a story about the bunk remodel.
    Jzhanfan

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    1. Yes, please! Sounds great. :)

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    2. Yes! Please let us know when it's posted!

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    3. working on it...

      jzhanfan

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    4. The bunk remodel? Was that also listed in the Incredible Cross Sections book?

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    5. one of the older editions of cross sections used to have the crew quarters remodeled into "captain's quarters" with an oversized bunk. it disappeared from the official blueprint somewhere along the way but it remains in my vision.
      jzhanfan

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  7. I'm one of the Han/Leia fans who didn't mind TFA because I always thought Han and Leia were more interesting when they were at odds with each other. Their whole relationship was built around conflict and Han threatening to leave so it makes sense that they'd have the same issues after the OT ended. Don't worry though, I'm not one of the Han/Leia fans that's been bashing and making fun of this blog in other places. Anyway, I thought this post about Han and Leia summed up well why not all Han/Leia fans hate TFA and some actually like it. I hope over time people will get over their disappointment and realize the movie treats Han and Leia and their relationship as very in character and respectful to th spirit of their relationship in the OT.

    Star Wars is a kind of tragedy, just like you said. It’s handled as a family drama that spans several generations, and we know that no one in the Star Wars universe, no one, ever stays happy and at peace for long. It’s the way it works. But more than that, I think the relationship between the characters are very well handled, especially in TFA where a portion of the fandom seems to be finding that the original characters were treated poorly and got the short end of the stick. And I don’t agree.

    We see Han, Leia and Luke as people who have matured, and it makes sense since it’s been 30 years since ROTJ. I’m gonna focus on Han and Leia, since well that’s why you messaged me, and we can’t really talk about Luke’s situation right now, even after seeing the movie (for obvious reasons). See, Han and Leia are ultimately a couple like any other. They have good and bad times. We know since ANH that they have a tumultuous relationship, and ROTJ did not erase that from their relationship. So we can imagine how hard it would have been to maintain a relationship when the two of them have such strong personalities. But more than that, it’s not having a tendency to argue that broke them, but it’s the loss of their son.

    Which is, I think, quite realistic. Losing their son literally broke them in more ways than one. It made them drift apart and retreat to what they knew how to do best, where they could find a certain familiarity from their past life. For Leia, it was being a military leader. For Han, it was being a smuggler. And I think that’s very realistic and not at all out of character for the both of them. You can easily guess that Leia was scared her child/children would some day turn to the dark side, because of Vader and the strong power of the Force in the Skywalker family. And that’s exactly what happened. As for Han, he never had a family, the closest thing that he had to a family was Chewie, and then it was Leia and Luke. He lost it all when Ben turned to the dark side. His wife - because it is canon that Han and Leia got married shortly after ROTJ - probably closed herself from him, Luke went into exile and abandoned them both to deal with their broken family, and Han couldn’t do anything to make things better. They both needed to cope in their own way in order to heal.

    And it’s not because essentially they spent years apart after that tragedy that they didn’t love each other anymore, or that they were never happy together. More than anything, it just means that they loved each other too much to watch the other suffer so much. And don’t forget that Han and Leia never got divorced, it’s mentioned nowhere. Better yet, Han and Leia are described as husband and wife both in the novelization and in the screenplay. They were still very much a couple, just one going through very tough hardships. So yes, I think H/L was handled well and very realistically.

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    1. It'd be nice if movie comments could be kept to the movie threads instead of this one. I can appreciate you want to comment, but I'm ready for some happy fluffy stories. And really just want to forget about TFA for now. And I have to disagree they were handled well at all. And it wasn't respectful of the OT. They pretty much ignored ROTJ and made Leia's life as miserable as they could. So if we could keep this thread positive and movie free that'd be awesome.

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  8. As for Han’s death, let me tell you, I love him so much. But I’m okay with it. It took me a while. I knew Han was going to die like 9 months before the movie opened because of some very reliable leaks. That’s how I also knew that Han and Leia were going to be estranged. And I knew that Kylo, their son, would be the one to do it. Mind you, it didn’t make things less painful. But the thing is. You see how much of a loving family Han and Leia were to Ben.

    Sure, they drifted apart and didn’t try to confront their son right away when he turned to the dark side. But when Han and Leia finally reunited after years spent apart, the first thing that Han tells Leia is that he saw their son. He’s everything to them. A great part of their interactions in the movie revolve around Ben. Leia telling Han that there’s still light in Ben, telling him that they might be the only ones able to bring Ben back to the light, because Han is his father. And their goodbye. When Leia asks Han to bring back their son if he sees him. Honestly, if you haven’t read the novelization or the screenplay, please do it because it gives so much more insight on Han and Leia’s feelings about each other and Ben.

    Did you know that Han essentially died for his family? For Leia? It’s made clear both in the novelization and in the screenplay that when Han sees Ben on that bridge, and the camera stays on his face for several seconds, he’s thinking about Leia. About what Leia asked him to do, about what she wishes to happen to Ben. That he goes back to the light, that he comes back home. Because otherwise, Han could have just run away. He had an exit, he could have just disappeared in the shadows and he could have escaped safely. But he didn’t.

    He stepped onto that bridge and he faced what Leia and him both had refused to face more than a decade before. He did what Leia asked, but he also did it so that his family could be reunited. Did you see how Han looked at Ben? He was shocked first, but then you know that he would have done anything for his son to be his boy again. He loves him so much that he willingly put himself in danger by standing so close to Ben, despite the fact that he could have had his lightsaber ready at any moment. He believed in what he was doing. He believed he was doing the right thing, that it was a noble act. And he almost succeeded. But it’s made clear that Ben is submitted to Snoke. So he kills Han. But did you see their looks? Han forgave him. And how he caressed Ben’s face. In the novelization and the screenplay, it’s clearly said that Ben basically disgusts himself for killing his own father. And that’s precisely this aspect that I think will allow Ben to redeem himself.

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    1. I really do disagree with these 2 posts just because, as a Han and Leia fan, I still stand by the fact that they shouldn't have separated them after 32 years. However, it's time to move on and move myself away from canon Star Wars. They won't be getting my $$ for the next 2 movies or anything related to them. I will enjoy the wonderful avail. fanfic.

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  9. But that’s not all. Han’s life was coming to an end either way. And I understood it quickly thanks to Harrison Ford. Indeed, he said in an interview that Han’s luck has run out. He’s at the end of the road anyway. He owes money to literally every gang in the galaxy. His ship was even stolen. He’s reduced to smuggling creatures for important figures to make a living, but he hasn’t been more chased in his life than when we find him in TFA. That’s the end for him. He’s come to a point where his whole life has fallen apart. He’s got nothing to lose, and that’s exactly why he merely hesitated to go after Ben on that bridge.

    So yes, I do think H/L and Han’s ending were handled well. It was realistic, it made sense, and it wasn’t all perfect like some people wanted it to be. Without drama, there’s no story.

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    1. Please post these to the movie threads. There is no need to go into it on this thread. And drama doesn't always equal tragedy.

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    2. Are you the mod on this blog? She posted that we could still discuss the movie here. The problem with posting on the movie threads is that most people only check the top post and posts made to ones below that just get ignored.

      Feel free to ignore my posts about TFA if you don't want to read about it.

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    3. I was disappointed with how Han and Leia were handled in TFA (and JJ's comments after didn't help), but I think this post makes a lot of good points. One thing I don't mind is the manner that Han died for purely selfless reasons trying to reunite his family. That's a complete 180 from the selfish smuggler we meet in ANH and a fitting way for him to go out.

      I have to agree that with the layout of this blog if you reply to posts that aren't the top post they tend to not be seen and get ignored so I just always post on the top post, otherwise no one ever replies to my post (although I won't to fics posted as Zyra requested but I will to this post). It's easy to ignore posts you aren't interested in reading.

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    4. I politely asked to not post here if we could. Sorry if that offends you. Understood that Zyra said people could, but another few hundred posts and this thread will be unusable as well. And some of us would like to move on.

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    5. This blog has been pretty slow for the past week. I don't think we're in danger of getting to 300 posts any time soon.

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    6. We're still doing this, huh? We've all said a lot of the same things over and over again. But I'd like to respond to this.

      It's not even really Han's death that bothers me. I thought he was going to die from the time they announced there would be another one and before we even knew whether or not Harrison was coming back and even then I thought, well, if they do it right, I'll be ok with it. Han and Leia splitting up and becoming shells of their former selves due to the incredible tragedy hoisted upon them yes, that is also realistic, as you said. I guess my issue is why do we want Star Wars to be realistic? Why is there no possibility in this entire universe for there to be a happy and intact family? I completely agree that without drama there is no conflict. There are plenty of other characters to give drama to, or there are ways to have drama without making it so that every aspect of certain characters' lives is terrible. There was NOTHING good for Han and Leia. Nothing. Han didn't even get to fly his own damn ship except for maybe the 2 days from when he found it again to when he died. Leia is doing her thing, but she is alone and has nobody. And to top it off, now that Han is dead, there is no way for any of it to improve, either. They made it all awful with no chance for any of them to make it right again. THAT is my problem. The only thing to come out of Han and Leia's love story was the worst villain in the galaxy. I suppose there is still a small chance they will come back to us later and be like, well, surprise, Rey's their kid and she's great so it wasn't all bad. Or maybe they have some other long lost daughter out there they just didn't mention yet. I kind of doubt it. What they have told us is that the galaxy would've been better off if they had never gotten together and Han had flown away after he saved Luke so he could blow up the first Death Star. That's pretty darn sad. And that is my biggest problem. If they had given us some reason it was good for them to have ever been together, maybe I'd feel differently. But that seems impossible now. I mean at this point, even if Kylo is somehow "redeemed" so what? It all just kind of cancels each other out. If he turns good later, does that make up for all the bad he's done or make anyone better off than if he'd never been born? I don't know how they can have that happen.

      So again, you can rationalize all you want about Han and Leia being apart and how it makes sense, and I will agree with you that given the circumstances it makes sense, as does Han's death and the fact that he has nothing left in his life. My argument is still that it's just way too much to give them SO much tragedy that there is literally nothing good left in their lives, hasn't been for years (how many years we don't know yet) and now that Han is dead there is no way for there to ever be anymore.

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    7. I agree Zyra. There was no point in it. And be nice we could all move on and ignore the bloody thing.

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    8. Agreed, Zyra. The point is not that it didn't feel "real" given what the writers wrote, the point is they didn't need to write it this way. Let's just move on - we've all managed to forget the prequels, let's forget this too. - kels

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    9. As someone who was incredibly disappointed with TFA, I have to disagree that who Ben Solo becomes lessens the OT somehow and ruins Han and Leia's love story. The OT will always stand on its own and as a great story with Han's arc of going from a selfish smuggler to Leia's partner who's part of the greater good and Leia's arc of learning to love something beyond her cause. I don't think we should take away from TFA that Han would have been better off leaving the Rebellion after ANH - After all, both Luke and Leia get rescued by Han in ESB, so if Han hadn't been around, maybe Luke would have died out on Hoth and Leia would have never gotten off in the Falcon and died as well. Then the Empire would have never been defeated and in the timeline of TFA would still be ruling the galaxy with an iron fist. Same with ROTJ, if Han hadn't gotten the shield down maybe the Death Star would have never been destroyed and the Empire would have never fallen.

      I complained about this very thing to my boyfriend too right after the movie, that after TFA you'll watch ESB and go like "No don't fall in love, it's only going to result in the villain of the sequel trilogy!" He responded with "That's like saying the hockey team who got Wayne Gretzy should have never signed him because after he played on the team for 10 years and won them 6 Stanley Cups he ended up leaving and going to another team and after he left the team was utterly defeated and never went on to win another Stanley Cup. Just because it doesn't end well, doesn't mean you can't appreciate and love the good times they had". Haha, guys and their sports analogies, not quite the same thing, I know. BUT what sort of comforts me about the whole thing is that they DID have over 20 years of being together and being a family in a peaceful galaxy with the Empire defeated before it all went wrong. We don't know exactly how long, other than Pablo said they had "decades" of peace. That's actually more than the old EU gave them.

      And honestly, I think even TFA Han if you asked him if he regretted any of it, going back to save Luke, falling in love with Leia and marrying her and having a kid with her he'd say no. Because he was always more than a selfish smuggler and always wanted to be more and Luke and Leia brought it out in him and he DID have years of happiness with Leia before it all went wrong. He still loves his son even with what he became - that's why he strokes his face lovingly before he dies.

      My main disappointment with TFA is the lack of reconciliation. When it was confirmed through reliable rumours that they would be estranged, I thought that Kasdan split them up so he could do a repeat of their falling in love in ESB which was so popular, sort of an Indy/Marion rehash. But we didn't even get that, so I really don't understand what the point was of splitting them up. I really wish we had gotten the scene in the MSW timeline of them talking in Leia's private quarters with the call sheet title saying "the spark is still there". Maybe someday.

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    10. I do understand your boyfriend's sports analogy there, but I don't think it completely fits. It's not really about whether or not they were ever in love, it's that the love created the worst being in the galaxy. Gretzky getting traded just meant that he played for another team. If he had never played for that other team, they still just wouldn't have won any Stanley Cups. If it were possible to go back in time and make sure Hitler's parents never met, don't you think a lot of people would do that? Even if they had many loving years together, wouldn't we all have been better off without him? (I have no idea who Hitler's parents were or what his childhood was like, but hopefully we all understand the analogy, but you can replace it with any horrible human who eventually went on to murder millions - and Kylo Ren fits) I guess my point is just who cares if they loved each other for a little while if Kylo happened because of it?

      I'm also still curious as to how long they were "happy" for. That's going to make a big difference here. And how bad Ben was as a child.

      I understand that this is an incredibly cynical viewpoint. I've just given up on them showing us that there was any bright side to it all.

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    11. For sure, the sports analogy is not perfect, but I don't think the Hitler one is either. Hitler's parents, whoever they were, were not galactic heroes. If Luke had never hired Han and his ship, Leia would have probably died on the Death Star, the Death Star plans would have never reached the Rebel Base, the Death Star would have blown the Rebellion to smitherees and the Empire could have ruled on for another 100 years. There's a part of the Thrawn Trilogy where Han thinks about this, about how close he came to losing Leia forever if he hadn't been the one to transport Luke and Ben, that the Empire would probably still be ruling the galaxy. Even if Han had taken off right after helping destroy the first Death Star, Luke would have probably died on Hoth and Leia might have never gotten off and died as well. Without Luke, the Emperor would never have died and Vader would have never turned back to the Light. See what I'm saying? Han and Leia's relationship created a lot of good in the galaxy, and if they had never met the galaxy might have been in a much, much worse state for the past 30 years. We know from what's been officially released that they had over 20 years of peace after ROTJ before it went wrong.

      Tim Zahn said that Talon Karrde was supposed to be the character Han Solo would have turned into had he never met Ben and Luke that fateful day in the cantina. You see that the character of Talon Karrde is pretty bitter, cynical, going through the motions of swindling and smuggling but not really enjoying himself. I don't think Han regrets meeting Leia and Luke and changing his life around because he always wanted to be something more than a thief and smuggler. Like Carrie Fisher said, he's the tough guy with the cream filling. Meeting Luke and Leia let him fill his potential of the heroic guy he really was. The fact that it all went wrong 20 years later doesn't change those years he saved the galaxy multiple times over and the years of happiness he had with Leia, Luke, and Ben.

      Also, even if Han and Leia hadn't had Ben, Snoke would have probably just picked some other Jedi apprentice to manipulate. One of the underlying mythical themes is that evil always exists when there is good, just like Darkness always exists when there's Light. Snoke targeted Ben because he was an ancestor of Vader, but if Ben hadn't been around, he probably would have targeted Rey (who I'm 95% sure is Luke's daughter) and probably could have turned her much easier since she was raised in isolation as opposed to a loving family like Ben. So no matter, some form of Sith would have risen in the galaxy because that just seems to be the way it goes.

      I do hope that they have some books, comics, and maybe even a TV series like Clone Wars showing Han and Leia in happier times with baby Ben.

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    12. I'm going to be argumentative again. I don't think there is a right or wrong answer here, I just think it is an interesting conversation. Yes, of course Han and Leia and Luke all did great things beyond just Kylo Ren. I understand that point, but ok, what if they never got Han out of carbonite? Or he died while being frozen? No Kylo Ren. Leia and Luke still would've been able to do what they did. And really, do we think that nobody else could've done what Han did in ROTJ? Really, this is one of the reasons I never blamed Harrison with being underwhelmed by playing Han Solo in that movie. He didn't do anything that someone else could've done. I guess there are no guarantees that that someone else would've been able to pull it off, but let's just argue that they did. Ok, so then you've got no loss there except Leia doesn't get to marry him and have a kid with him.

      And then you say Snoke would've found someone else, but who else? Supposedly there are no other Jedi. There wouldn't have been any more unless Luke or Leia had kids. I guess maybe he would've targeted Rey instead, but maybe something about her makes her more difficult to manipulate.

      I'm also just quite fearful they are going to make this all seem even worse as we learn more, rather than better. I'm kind of setting myself up for that.

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    13. Speaking of books, I wonder what the chances are they will re-write their engagement and wedding. It may not be one book to itself but it could be a larger plot to another filler novel leading up to TFA. Something better than COPL perhaps?

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    14. I've wondered this too, Sharoni. I'm afraid to get my hopes up. But really, the origin of Kylo Ren and his birth and even conception are now kind of important to the whole back story, so it would actually be odd at this point not to cover it in some way.

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    15. There WERE other Jedi. Han says that Luke had a Jedi Academy and that Kylo Ren killed all the other Jedi apprentices. The only reason there are no other Jedi in the galaxy now is because Kylo killed them all. Snoke would have either targeted one of them or Rey if Ben didn't exist.

      I still disagree with who Ben becomes undermines everything that happened in the OT and I think the OT can still stand on its own.

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    16. Right but again me being argumentative, would any of those other potential Jedi and Force sensitives have been powerful enough if they did not possess Skywalker blood?

      I think it remains to be seen if they are going to basically make it so that Ben Solo destroys any reason for us to be happy how things ended in ROTJ. Even if he is redeemed does it matter if he did so much damage?

      Also, honestly, I am going to have to also not really care whether or not Rey or Finn or Poe wind up "happy" or victorious at any point in these movies, because everyone we focus on is ultimately going to live a life of suffering.

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    17. Sure, why not? There are lots of powerful non-Skywalker Jedi (Yoda, Obi-Wan, Mace Windu). The Dark Side makes a Jedi more powerful too. I think what we are seeing from the prequels, the OT and TFA is that evil will always exist in the galaxy as long as good does. Dark is there to balance out the Light. So I think inevitably the Sith (or whatever Kylo Ren is) would have risen again even if Ben hadn't existed. And if we want to put this hypothetical that Han died in ROTJ, maybe Leia would have gotten forced into a political marriage like COPL and had a kid who went evil, so now Leia's life would have been ever more horrible because she lost the love of her life and was forced into a marriage with someone she didn't love. Who knows?

      Now that they are pumping out one movie a year, I doubt Rey, Finn and Poe will get happy lives. It'll be like the EU where they had to fill every single minute of Han, Leia and Luke's life to make sure they never had a minute of peace. I really think with them mass producing the movies like this the quality is going to suffer and Star Wars is going to just end up being a formulaic genre like James Bond with the same formula recycled over and over again.

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  10. Loving the background pic, they're just too cute! Excited to read the new Valentine's stories!

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  11. Watch some ESB. It fixes everything. :) Omg, they are too great in that one.

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  12. Adam Driver is hosting SNL tonight for anyone who is interested. I'm very curious to see if they will address the fact that he killed Han Solo. It's almost weird to me at this point that everyone is still being relatively quiet about it when it is such a huge freaking deal.

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    1. How did it go? Did he say anything? It is curious isn't it.

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    2. Nope, no spoilers. It was funny though, they had Kylo Ren doing "Undercover Boss" and that was pretty funny.

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    3. Here's the link to Kylo Ren doing Undercover Boss, it's pretty funny: https://www.facebook.com/snl/videos/10153853992226303/?pnref=story

      Adam Driver plays a total douchebag on Girls and then the only other thing I saw him in was TFA so it was nice to see him playing a comedic role for once!

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    4. I've never seen Girls. I only saw Adam in that movie with Tina Fey and Jacen Bateman and they're all siblings and I forget the name of it now but he played a comedic role there, and actually acted somewhat Han Solo-esque. Even just watching him on SNL last night, he is a very good actor. Regardless of everything else that has happened it'll be interesting to see what they do with his character.

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  13. Another excellent tumblr post on how Han and Leia's characters and relationships evolved in ROTJ (they're talking about the scene in ROTJ where Han gets upset about Leia confiding in Luke instead of him then comes back and apologizes):

    Okay so I know I just reblogged this, but I’m doing so again because there’s some meta stuff I need to talk about. Namely, that this scene is actually the climax of both Han and Leia’s character arcs (and that this, I think, is where the writers for TFA stopped paying attention to Han and Leia’s character development).

    First, though, Han and Leia’s character arcs.

    I’ve talked before about Han and Leia’s character arcs throughout the original trilogy, as have many other people, so I won’t go into a whole long thing about it. But, briefly, Han’s arc is primarily about coming back–about learning that there is so much more to life than money and safety, and that there are things besides himself that are worth not only sacrificing himself for, but fighting for, and giving his loyalty (and love) for. Leia’s arc, meanwhile, is about healing–that she is not only capable of loving and being loved, but that she deserves to love and be loved in return, as well as that duty isn’t the most important thing in the galaxy.

    And this scene, right here, is where we see both characters’ arcs come to their subtle, sweeping climax.

    Han comes back. He turns around, and he apologizes to Leia–something he has never done before (as far as I can remember) in the entire trilogy. He knows he was in the wrong here, and he asks for forgiveness–and then not only does he ask for forgiveness, but he then listens to what she needs, and he gives it to her. Yes, in ESB, we had the climactic moment of “I know,” wherein Han wasn’t thinking about himself anymore but was thinking about Leia, and yes that was an incredibly pivotal moment. But this, right here, shows us that Han has learned to come back, and that he has learned to listen. Here, we see that he has moved past, and his relationship with Leia even matured beyond just storming off in a huff.

    And Leia… Oh, Leia, who had been so afraid of opening herself to vulnerability, who had been so tentative of allowing Han to comfort her and unwilling to allow Han to hold her before, now turns to him for all those things. This is such a moment of intense fear and fragility for her (she just learned that Luke is her brother, Darth Vader is her father, and now she stands to lose Luke to the monster she just learned is her sire), but instead of closing off and drawing into herself–which she almost does–she turns to Han and lets him in. Lets him (asks him to) hold her. Lets him comfort her. Lets him be her strength, if only for a few moments.

    In this scene, I think we get to see two characters truly come into their own strength and healing–and we get to see them transition, together, into a relationship that would (that should have) lasted years. Even years of heartache. Because no longer is Han the one who will walk away, he’s the one who comes back, the one who listens, the one who is willing to be what Leia needs. And no longer is Leia the one who pulls away, who withdraws, who throws herself wholly into work and duty, but she is the one who has learned that she can turn to Han in moments of weakness and fear (and not only has she learned that she can, but she does), that she is allowed to be uncertain and afraid, and that she not only can be human (with all that that entails, including breaking and healing and loving), but that she deserves to be human.

    I know I’ve said this before, and I’m sure I’ll say it again, but it’s like this scene (and what happens in the scenes after this) were forgotten by the writers and creators of TFA. It’s like the forgot that the characters matured beyond their storming, bickering relationship; that they forgot that Han learned to come back, and that Leia learned how to be weak (and in that weakness turn to others) and how to love.

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    1. Ewwokey - Any chance you can direct us to the original Tumblr post?

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    2. It was JJ that forgot in my opinion. It's like he didn't watch ROTJ or something. And been my main beef with the whole thing. Tromping all over the happiness in ROTJ. Well, and too much realism in the plot line. I much pretty a happy ending. Silly, but I come to escape not be bummed out.

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    3. Original tumblr post: http://weary-hearted-queen.tumblr.com/post/137425844136/theprincessleia-come-on-tell-me-whats-going

      It's got a nice clip of the scene from ROTJ.

      amara, I would have been okay with them having the galaxy in a perilous state at the beginning of TFA because it's hard to create a good story without some conflict going on. But they didn't need to undo Han and Leia (and Luke's) character arcs in ROTJ to get the galaxy in that state - they could have had a united front against the new threat, whatever it was. That was something the EU managed to do decently. Hearing all the comments from the writers and creators of TFA that both Han and Leia never really changed from their ANH personalities to me just shows a fundamental misunderstanding of what Star Wars is about.

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  14. JJ Abrams and Kasdan discuss why they broke up Han and Leia and killed Han: http://www.ew.com/article/2016/01/16/ew-podcast-star-wars-force-awakens-creators-discuss-secrets-universe

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    1. That was a pretty brief podcast. I don't feel like they touched very much on the actual separation. If you are going to listen to this, just be aware there are a few F-bombs and such here and there. I had my kids running around in the background while listening and had to do a little damage control after. Any way, the only thing I gathered from the few minutes they even mentioned the separation was that when originally writing the screen play, they wanted the original three to be separated throughout the galaxy and then come together later for a reconciliation. However, as the writing and editing progressed, JJA felt that Han was merely a piece of "sexy luggage" that was being carried around. To move the story forward and have Kylo "potentially" rival Vader, they needed to do something "F----ing bold" and axe Han. There wasn't much more on Han and Leia to be honest, other than the original intent to have a reconciliation that was later changed. That's it. So yeah, I agree with Amara in that he likely forgot. He also even admitted that he was thankful that Kasdan was with him (essentially holding his hand through the writing process) to help him with the progression of the story and filling him in on the OT.

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    2. See, the backlash got back to Abrams and Kasdan. Otherwise, Abrams wouldn't get on a podcast and explain his decisions.

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  15. Amara, I don't think it's silly at all ( that you watch a movie to escape; isn't that what most of us do?)
    Couple Separation just didn't 'belong' in StarWars; that belongs in a daytime soap opera or something. No matter how hard jj tries to justify their decisions, their explanations will always be inadequate and fall short , because it doesn't 'fit' with the idealistic Star Wars universe that was originally created( and that was child- friendly. I wouldn't have my kids watching anything with this type of anti- marriage, patricide message)

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  16. I don't know why you guys are still seeking out some sort of explanation from JJ or Kasdan that will make what they did seem ok. They've said plenty, and we all disagree with pretty much all of it. They aren't going to say anything new. The summary you just gave of that podcast (I didn't listen) sounds exactly like what was in the print article we saw a couple of weeks ago.

    The thing is, they don't even have to give us an explanation. I know as fans we want to think we have a say, but we don't. And yes some of you will say, "But I pay with my money and I won't give it to them anymore!" This movie made almost 2 billion dollars so far, they're not going to notice. It's sort of like how I have no emotional investment or knowledge of Star Trek, but enjoyed JJ's versions of those movies just as a general movie goer. Real Star Trek fans were furious from what I understand, feeling similar to what we are feeling about Star Wars, but the outraged audience just doesn't make that much of a difference, especially since so many of them are STILL going to pay to keep handing over money.

    This is what my approach going forward is going to be: we need to start treating it like just another movie franchise. Yeah, I know, but this is STAR WARS! It's different! It's special! Sad news: it's not that special anymore. I don't have anything close to the same emotional investment in any other movies, but I can go see a Marvel movie or an X-Men movie or something like that and just sit back and be entertained on some level, and not be outraged because they did whatever they did with a certain character because at the end of the day, it's just a movie. Star Wars was never "just a movie" but when you move past having one person in charge of it, one person who created it, and its his baby and he wants to make sure it doesn't lose its integrity (ok, let's not think about the prequels), and that person sells it and suddenly a bunch of random people are in charge, and maybe a few of them are sort of invested in it but mostly the idea is to make a lot of movies and a lot of money, well, goodbye integrity. It was nice knowing you. You need to just look at it as these guys playing with the characters and worlds. This is no longer the story George wanted to tell.

    I know it is WAY harder to detach and look at it as "just a movie" when the people we know are involved. This isn't some new version of Han and Leia, it was THEM. And it turns out that was our absolute last chance to see them together. I guess we should remind ourselves that until sometime in 2013, we all still thought that our last chance to see them together was 1983, so maybe we need to remember that, too.

    You won't find comfort in any answers given to you by JJ or Kasdan or anyone else. They were wrong about certain decisions, we've been over it and over it for a month now. You need to start treating it like, this is them playing in George's sandbox and their stupid version of things, and I don't agree with it, so I'm going to forget about it, or maybe write some other story about what I think happened instead. Really, they don't care if you don't like it, because there are plenty of other people who are drooling over how much they loved it.

    I still enjoyed the movie, I still have plans to see it again next week. I also still HATE everything they did to Han and Leia. I won't let that destroy my love of Star Wars, but I will have it allow me to basically ignore what they did to them from now on and revert back to my own ideas on what went down. And I just remind myself that the reason my "head canon" was not made into these movies is because it is too boring to just watch them be mostly happy all the time.

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    1. Right. I mean, I'd made peace with the fact that I liked the movie A LOT. However, I still stand by my opinion that they shouldn't have separated Han and Leia and THEN not have a happy ending. And they shouldn't have given them an evil son with them both having unhappy lives for awhile. The fact that Han was smuggling at his age was just pathetic. However, if he was smuggling for the resistance, that would've been different. And you don't have Han killed by his evil son. The son is therefore unredeemable to me.

      You're right that they don't care about who they disappointed because of the $$ they made, which certainly included all of ours. BUT, after the VII stuff, I won't hand it over for anything involving VIII and IX, and that WILL matter to them.

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    2. Also, don't ever expect a writer/producer to apologize for his/her work. He/she never will. Too proud. He/she never believes that she/he writes/does anything in error.

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  17. TFA is just another AU guys. Just another AU. And I am a Star Trek fan. And I've had to do this exercise before with JJ. It can be done. mckak

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  18. Zyra, I think you are missing the point of some of these posts.everyone knows that these are just movies, but you need to allow people to mourn in their own way, at their own pace- let them. It's condescending and unnecessary for you to tell them what to do or not to do...

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    1. I understand the point and of course went through it myself with all of you, through numerous posts on here. If anyone has been reading along we've seen it. I'm offering a suggestion, and wondering why a lot of people are still going over the same exact things we've been going over for a month now. We've already heard JJ's explanation, and we all know it's crap. I don't know why we need to keep reminding each other that he didn't know what the heck he was doing and was wrong.

      Trust me, I understand the grieving and mourning over this. I cried for days over it, didn't sleep AT ALL after I watched it. I just don't want us all to get so wrapped up in it that we never again talk about anything else.

      I was reluctant to even say anything, because my intention is not to completely shut down the conversation about what happened in the movie. Clearly I've participated in a lot of it, and will probably continue to. We've just come to a point where it seems like we're talking in circles and again, I just don't want it to be the only thing we talk about going forward. Again I didn't listen to the podcast but someone just quoted the "sexy luggage" comment, which he already said in a print article so this is probably the audio of what they already told us and we have already talked about. A lot. I mean after I post this comment I'm going to go up there and respond to a different comment talking about Han and Leia in the movie. I'm not entirely done with it either, but most of my comment was more in reference to looking for answers from JJ and Kasdan is going to be a waste of time. And then I said what I've been doing to make myself feel better.

      Please don't make me have to start acting like the "mom" around here.

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    2. I think it's okay if people still want to talk about the movie. I mean it only came out a month ago and we're still talking about the OT and that came out 34 years ago! There's a lot to digest and discuss of seeing our favourites on screen after 30 years of thinking we'd never see them again.

      I agree that JJ Abrams and Kasdan aren't going to make us feel better with their weak explanations. I really just fundamentally disagree with Abrams in how he sees Han Solo as never having evolved from the cynical pirate we meet in ANH and not being at all the type of person to settle down. His explanation will never satisfy us and doesn't fit with how we view the character, so we should probably just all agree that JJ Abrams just doesn't "get" Han and never will.

      Instead of talking in circles about what we were disappointed of in the movie, I think it'd be fun and interesting to explore from here how they will fill in the gaps between ROTJ and TFA. There's been some great fanfic dealing with this already, like Mandy Q's Tales from the Millennium Falcon https://www.fanfiction.net/s/11720031/1/Tales-from-The-Millennium-Falcon which are a series of vignettes from ANH-TFA about Han and Leia's relationship. I'm looking forward to seeing their new proposal and marriage. Guys, it CAN'T be worse than COPL!

      Even their separation years I think could be an interesting area to explore. Did they have contact? Did Han send gifts to Leia while he was away from things he picked up while travelling the galaxy? Did they think about each other? Maybe they did meet up and reunite in the years inbetween but then it fell apart and they separated again? There's a lot of areas to explore in fanfic and the official books and canon of what was going on.

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  19. After hearing all of JJ's comments on his complete misunderstanding of Han's character arc in the OT, I think now we should consider ourselves extremely lucky now that back in 1993 someone like Timothy Zahn was picked to show what happened to the galaxy after ROTJ. I always felt like he NAILED Han's character of how he would develop post ROTJ, still keeping his roguish charm and adventurous streak, but becoming respectable and a devoted husband and dad. His character developed exactly how I envisioned after ROTJ to the Han we meet in Heir to the Empire - helping the New Republic, in a respectable job, loving husband to Leia, good friend to Luke, fiercely protective of his expecting children, nostalgic for the "good old days" but realizing that he wouldn't want to be anywhere else, and still maintaining his scoundrel personality and managing a wisecrack occasionally. It's like JJ Abrams et al couldn't grasp that Han could be a wisecracking scoundrel AND have a respectable job and be with Leia, so they took the easy way out.

    I didn't start reading the EU until like 2000, but I remember a comment from a fan who read The Thrawn Trilogy when it first came out who said "I was so relieved that Han and Leia were together and married and expecting children! Thank you Timothy Zahn!" At the time, I remember reading that and being like "Well, of COURSE they were going to be together, how could they not be?!" Little did I know now how much worse it could have been. So yes. Thank you Timothy Zahn.

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    1. Yes, exactly. I think I said it before, what I don't understand about their comments on his character is that they don't seem to think there is any middle ground between cheating smuggler and castrated house husband. The EU found a great balance there. He wasn't just sitting around his house taking care of his kids and getting old and fat, he was still out doing things and going on adventures, he just happened to be married and have some kids too. I don't see why those two things are mutually exclusive.

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    2. When we first see Han in Heir to the Empire, he's on a mission using contacts from his old smuggling days to see if they'll work for the New Republic. That's exactly the kind of job I could see him with post-war - he's resourceful, smart and sociable and a natural leader - he's got lots of qualities that could be helpful in a post-war period. He wouldn't have to lose that freedom of adventure and roguish personality by doing missions for the New Republic. It's like JJ Abrams could only see Han being married and a father as Han sitting at a desk job and a hen-pecked husband. I agree THAT would be a betrayal of his character. I also didn't like it when they had him basically be a house husband for a few books in the EU because I just can't see Han doing that for too long without getting restless and bored. There are a lot of fun ways to play with his character in between.

      But Hollywood is just really bad at coming up with storylines for happily married couples. Chris Carter has come out and said that Mulder and Scully are more interesting broken up than they are as romantic partners which is why they're no longer a couple in the new X-Files. It's like no one knows how to creatively write happy couples in Hollywood!

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    3. Ewokkey -

      This is one of the reasons I'm interested in the new series "Colony." (Ok, admission: I would watch Josh Holloway read the phone book). But the leads are a married couple whose son has been lost in an invasion. They are obviously deeply in pain, but they're trying to keep it together and it's obvious that they still love each other. He, in trying to find their son, gets recruited by the Collaborators while she is in "the Resistance." (yes, that's what it's called). So it plays with the dynamics of a married couple who love each other but are trying to do what they have to do survive and get their son back. Likely they won't be a happy couple, but their circumstances aren't happy. They seem to be a couple though that will do what they can to keep it together even though they have aligned themselves with different sides (like Mulder and Scully and the skeptic/believer divide). And I think that's waaaay more interesting than a split couple. I mean, seriously, one of the most interesting real-world couples to me is the Carville-Matalin marriage. Seriously, how could that work? But it does. And it's way more interesting than most of the split couples we see on screen. - kels

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    4. That dynamic might be an interesting fic scenario to explore with Han and Leia. I like to think that after Ben went Dark, they tried to reach him and save him for a few years before they gave up. Leia might have been too busy with the Resistance so Han took off in the Falcon to try to find Ben and reach him and either he couldn't find him or Ben rejected him. Could be an interesting fic to explore.

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  20. Here's another great tumblr post (I know, I'm on a roll) to all those fanboys who said Han never loved Leia, their break up in TFA "proved" that he was never in love with her and that they would never last after ROTJ. I've noticed a lot of those fanboys cite Han's response of "I know" to show that he never really loved her and that he was always emotionally distant with Leia making all the effort in the relationship (you know, forgetting that he did tell Leia he loved her in ROTJ).


    Right? ‘Cause everyone I know takes this (the first gif above, the one from Empire Strikes Back) as like a 'LOL! Han is such a dick here and LOL!women so much more emotional than men’ - like this whole scene is about how he wouldn’t say I love you, and she would. Like, it never occurred to me to think that until I watched the film with someone else, who exclaimed 'OMG! Such a BASTARD!’. And for a while I felt kinda duped for thinking it had been romantic when I saw it on my own, but, for real, check it:

    Were you guys even watching the rest of the film? Han is consistently the more emotionally open about their relationship. A good portion of the early scenes on Hoth are about Han trying to get Leia to admit that she likes him, and being totally open about the fact that he likes her. But she’s all 'Dude, I am a general and I have a fucking rebel moonbase to run and I’m a military leader what exactly do you think the troops would say if I were to suddenly turn round and be gooey over you?’ Like, Leia’s priorities have always been with her people and the greater good. She’s pissed off with Han in the first movie because it looks like he’s gonna run off and look after his own arse, but he comes back - a bit for Luke, but a lot for her. At the end of the day, Han puts his emotions first - look after yourself, look after your mates, follow your heart. The tough guy act is his defence against people seeing how much his emotions rule him - and it’s there in all his relationships, particularly his friendship with Chewbacca. Leia doesn’t do that, and she doesn’t have that luxury. When her ship is captured she sends a 'help me’ message, but it’s not actually about helping her - she stands proudly before Lord Vader after she’s captured like absolutely no one else. She doesn’t expect to get rescued. She expects to be tortured, then die, knowing that her plea for her people and the crucial plans will escape where she could not. She’s selfless to a T and she fears admitting her feelings because they make her vulnerable. She can’t afford to put anyone else before her cause, and if she admits her love she just might have to do that. The Han/Leia emotional arc is all about him trying to pull her in to admit her feelings, and her trying to pull him along and see the bigger picture.

    The point of this scene is not that she says 'I love you’ and he doesn’t. The point is that he’s been consistently open about the fact that he loves her, and she hasn’t been willing to admit it. He’s not saying 'LOL - I know you do but I’m going to leave you hanging about how I feel’. She says 'I love you’, in front of Vader, of all people, and he reassures her that he knew all along. And she’s able to say 'I love you’ then because she’s seen him tortured and not give in and she’s seen him willing to sacrifice himself in this way and she sees that her refusal to credit him with seeing the bigger picture has been unfair, so also her refusal to admit her love is equally unfair. And what he’s saying is not 'Haha, I got you to say it!’ it’s 'It’s OK, I always knew how you felt, it doesn’t matter’.

    So, that’s what I think about that.

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    1. There's also the look on Han's face in that scene. As the platform descendes, his eyes never leave hers until the last moment. He doesn't even blink. He just looks at her, while thinking he is going to die, and you can almost see him trying to will her to know how much she means to him and to be strong. Those are not the actions of a guy who's a dick. Those are the actions of a guy who loves her back. - kels

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    2. Yeah, fanboys watch that and they're like "Dude, Han Solo is the ultimate dudebro! He's so macho and cool he won't admit his feelings when a woman's bearing her soul to him!" Um, NO. That was not the point of the scene. If you read Harrison and Kasdan's discussion of the whole thing it becomes so clear it's all about Leia and how much Han loves her.

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  21. HOT HOT HOT fic. Even as a Han/Leia fan I loved this. http://archiveofourown.org/works/5550473

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    1. Ugh. Nope, can't handle it. I won't lie, what a skimmed is well written. I just can't handle the idea right now. Likely not ever. Excellent writing though.

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    2. Ugh. Nope, can't handle it. I won't lie, what a skimmed is well written. I just can't handle the idea right now. Likely not ever. Excellent writing though.

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    3. ew. No matter how well written, the only person in the SW universe I want to read about Leia being with is Han, and the only person I want to read about Han being with is Leia. This is like reading about Snow White getting it on with one of the Seven Dwarfs. - kels

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    4. Hmmm... thanks guys for saving me a click. Yeah, I don't want to read about either of them having sex with anyone else, sorry.

      I should say that this is another reason I like ff.net. I don't know if it's just because everyone has tended to just do it this way or because of the way stories are filtered, but I almost never run into weird pairings on there. Usually it's Han and Leia. Or if it isn't, it's clearly stated in the description so I can skip that one. Just not my thing.

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    5. As someone who thinks that probably both Han and Leia were involved with other people during their separation (and I don't think that diminishes their love at all), this particular pairing is out of character for Leia in my opinion. If Leia was seeing anyone during the years her and Han were separated, it would have been someone of similar ranking and age. Sleeping with a subordinate 20 years younger is unprofessional and Leia wouldn't risk it. I'm not against reading a well written fic that explores this possibility in an in character way, like Ivylore's fantastic fic Renewal, where Leia gets involved with an Alderaanian philanthropist while her and Han are separated. I'll say that the author was a very talented writer, but I can't buy into this pairing.

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    6. Ivylore does an amazing job of doing a realistic, in character Han and Leia separation and reconciliation in Renewal (and the reconciliation is SO wonderful and satisfying, compared to what we got in the NJO and TFA). Even though I hated the idea of Leia with anyone else, the way she wrote Leia being attracted to someone else while feeling lonely and abandoned after Han left, was totally in character and believable. I think Ivylore is hands down THE most talented Han/Leia (and Luke) fanfic writer our fandom ever had. I hope she comes back.

      Cindy Olsen's The Wager and One Day at a Time also does a great job of showing a realistic and in character Han and Leia estrangement and reunion. I heard she was working on a sequel to One Day at a Time to show Han and Leia piecing back their relationship but I don't think she ever finished it.

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    7. Oh, and Leia/Poe - NO, I really don't get how this pairing is so popular. Yeah, I get Oscar Isaac is good looking, but if anything, I see Leia having a mother/son like relationship with him and kind of seeing Poe as the son she wished Ben had turned out to be. And yeah, he's her subordinate, wrong on so many levels! I'll admit that fic was well written though.

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  22. New Yorker article about Han/Leia fanfic: http://nymag.com/following/2015/12/force-awakens-ship-power-rankings.html

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  23. Question for all you old EU readers. I'm making my way through the old EU. I read a comment on the EU club here that Han and Bria have more innuendos/implied sex than Han and Leia do the whole series. I remember Han and Bria having three implied sex scenes (their first time on the beach, the last night before she leaves, and their reunion) but I counted the following four innuendos for Han and Leia. Are there any more? There are definitely way, way more scenes of Han thinking how much he loves Leia than Han thinking how much he loves Bria.

    1) Sex after Leia takes the drip out of Han's arm in Tatooine Ghost.

    2) Scene where Anakin is conceived in Dark Empire.

    3) Floating candle scene in Children of the Jedi.

    4) Reference to making love to Leia on a rug in Planet of Twilight.

    Anything else?

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    1. Good question. In the book you'll see a review of this week, Specter of the Past, when Han and Leia are reunited they share some banter about "wifely affection" and that nothing important will happen in the next hour. I'll count that. You mention Anakin's conception, but that was only in the radio drama, not the comic book, not sure if that counts or not.

      I know there were a couple of scenes in NJO, and by a couple I really mean like 2, that allude to it but I don't recall specifically enough or which books to say much more about it here.

      I think the thing that annoyed a lot of us about Bria was that a lot of their "moments" were basically stolen from Han and Leia moments in the movies. Things that they said or did, that made it seem like Han was just copying his old relationship with Leia and making it seem like nothing was unique with her.

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    2. I can think of a few more:

      1) In Destiny's Way, there's a small innuendo that they are going to spend some time "alone" on the Falcon (of course, that is eclipsed by a lengthy Luke/Mara S & M scene, but that's a rant for another day..)

      2) There's a line in Rebel Dream that Han seals up the cockpit and they spend the flight in each other's arms with Leia on his lap and that Han is "delirious" when he comes out of it

      3) In the Dark Nest books, Han asks Leia to wear the Falleen costume to bed and she says "later".

      4) In The Final Prophecy, Han and Leia are watching a sunset and it says "[Leia] reached out and took his hand. 'Stop right there ...and I may show you something else I know how to...' She trailed off suggestively.

      'I dunno...it's an awfully nice sunset.'

      Leia gestured at the place next to her on the divan and raised her eyebrows.

      'You've seen one sunset, you've seen 'em all.'

      People bash the EU for lack of Han/Leia moments, but there is actually a ton of goodie Han/Leia stuff post Balance Point after the huge campaign by Han/Leia fans.

      Bria was one of the aspects of the old EU that annoyed me the most. I don't care if Han had previous relationships, but she was SUCH a Mary Sue and I really felt that Crispin portrayed her to be the great love of his life not just an ex-girlfriend. I read interviews with her where she says his heartbreak over Bria "explains" why he was so reluctant to get into a relationship with Leia and waited 3 years to pursue her (I didn't get that all from the movies, I thought that he started pursuing Leia pretty soon after ANH and she resisted). She also said Bria had to die otherwise Han would have never been able to move into a relationship with Leia. Bah!

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    3. Oh and the Dark Empire innuendo definitely counts! We get to HEAR Han and Leia (or their voice actors) acting it out. The line goes something like

      HAN - For once in my life I'm trying to be sensitive and romantic and see where it gets me? Luke can take care of himself. We need some time to ourselves, for youand me. Besides, you have enough to worry about right here.

      Leia gives an amused little laugh.

      LEIA (playfully) - Do I?

      HAN - Uh-huh. After all, a beautiful Princess alone with a notorious scoundrel. Who knows what could happen...

      Now, I always wondered if Anakin was planned because Han seems pretty surprised when Leia tells him she's pregnant later. I like to think birth control in a GFFA is fool-proof, so I'm guessing they were "trying" when they had Anakin. (Though apparently Ben in the new canon is an accident, so who knows...)

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    4. AC Crispin said that Bria "explains" why Han said "I know" to Leia because Bria said "I know" to Han when he told her he loved her in the Paradise Snare and he thought he was going to die so he might be reunited with Bria. Why did that scene have to be a reference to Bria? I also agree too many Han/Bria scenes mirrored the Han/Leia scenes like their first kiss was almost exactly like Han and Leia's and Han getting offended when Bria called him scruffy-looking...

      The trilogy tried too hard to explain every single line of Han's in the OT. Like putting that cult plotline to explain why Han hated religion in ANH, when I always thought Han didn't believe in it, not that he hated it. Or explaining why Han "hated female Rebel leaders" because of what Bria did when I never thought Han's hate was that specific. I don't think he hated Leia either, he was simply cynical about the Rebellion.

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    5. I just remembered, there are also a lot of subtle "fade to black" scenes where they probably did have sex after, but it's very, very subtle - like The New Rebellion where Han kisses Leia "passionately" and then the scene ends. They're married, it's not like they're just going to have a make out session!

      Yeah, that was one of my main problems with the EU - too many authors getting invested in the original characters over the OT ones and trying to put their palm print on SW. That's what happens when you hire authors who are sci-fi authors foremost, not necessarily fans of Star Wars. Troy Denning was the only one whose favourites were obviously Han and Leia. For the other authors, Zahn obviously favoured Mara Jade, Stackpole Corran, and Crispin Bria.

      I totally got the impression reading the HST that Crispin was in love with Han and Bria was her Mary Sue. It was just WAY too contrived how Bria was the love of Han's life AND started the Rebellion and she also transmitted the Death Star Plans to Leia (how many people transmitted those plans anyway?!) I also never got that Han "hated" the Rebellion like Crispin said. He was a cynical smuggler and didn't see any point in committing to an idealistic cause where in all likelihood you would end up killed. Sounds reasonable to me. He also never seemed heartbroken in ANH to me like Crispin said he was.

      Wow, it's been a while since I've been on a HST rant - that felt good!

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  24. Do you guys think Han took Leia's last name when they got married? Because when Rey says "You're Han Solo!" he says "I used to be".

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    1. No, since just prior to that he tells Rey, "Well you tell them Han Solo just stole the Millenium Falcon back for good". I think his words, "I used to be" is merely in reference to the old life he once led, implying he had become someone different, better perhaps, older, wiser in the years.

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    2. In the credits they refer to him as Han Solo. I'm really curious on whether Leia changed her name and then changed it back when they separated, or if she always kept her maiden name.

      I think Han was referring to the fact that he was no longer a Rebellion hero and was just a petty smuggler because Finn says "Han Solo, the hero of the Rebellion" or something like that.

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    3. It was just a joke. Probably Harrison's idea because apparently he does that when people ask him, "Are you Harrison Ford?" He says, "I used to be." Because now he's just an old guy, not like THE Harrison Ford, much like how Han is just some random smuggler, not THE Han Solo.

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  25. Here's an interview from Troy Denning regarding Han and Leia's relationship and how it could survive anything. If only TFA had followed this....

    "This would be especially true of Han and Leia, who lost both Chewbacca and their son Anakin to the enemy. It's often said that personal tragedy either draws a couple together or drives them apart, and breaking up the Solos is not an option. (Even after the NJO, some ideas remain off-limits.) So they would have to emerge from the war closer than ever, realizing that they have the strength to face anything -- as long as they are together."

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    1. I would love to know if the "off limits" comment about breaking up the Solos is something that came down from Lucas. I would really, really like to hear that it did. - kels

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    2. I'm sure Lucas would never have split up Han and Leia. I wonder if his recent comment about "Han Solo was going to marry Leia" was a subtle dig at TFA.

      I know that the author who wrote Agents of Chaos was considering Han having an affair during that time but the editor nixed that idea. Thank God.

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    3. Yeah, I wondered about that Lucas comment too. Seemed pretty pointed. But didn't someone with knowledge say that the Big Three were all scattered across the galaxy and separated at the beginning of the Arendt treatment too? If that is true, then I'm puzzled as he worked with Lucas on that story, no? - kels

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    4. Yeah, I'm not sure we'll ever know what Lucas' original story treatments were. Based on everything he's said about what Episode 7 would be like, it sounded like he would have had Luke as a wise Obi-Wan figure with a Jedi Academy, Leia as a Senator (interesting he didn't see her going down the Jedi path later), and Han and Leia married. It'd be interesting if he was actually the one who came up with Han and Leia's kid going dark and Han, Leia and Luke splitting up. But again, I could have dealt with the estrangement better if they have reconciled and Han hadn't died, which was in Michael Arndt's original script. I don't get why JJ Abrams cut out the reconciliation part but kept the estrangement.

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    5. I read an interview where he said he didn't have Han and Leia reconcile because that would have been a giveaway to everyone that Han was going to die if there was an "I love you" "I know" repeat. He wanted the audience to be shocked when Han died.

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    6. Funny thing is, I don't know own anyone who was all that shocked. Abrams thinks he did this giant, ballsy, shocking thing in killing Solo, but pretty much everyone would have given even odds that Han wouldn't make it out of Ep VII alive. - kels

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    7. Yeah, I don't think anyone was surprised he died. I thought he was going to die when the movie was first announced and they probably hadn't even decided yet. I went to see it with my mom and she doesn't pay much attention to Star Wars and even she said she didn't think he was going to make it out alive. I sort of held out some hope just because I thought maybe they wouldn't make absolutely everything terrible and have all of my worst fears about what they could do with the movie come true, but turns out they did, in fact, do all of the worst things they could do. And no, it wasn't shocking. It was just this sinking feeling that started in my stomach from the opening crawl and just got worse and worse right up until Han died when I just gave up.

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  26. So after seeing the movie twice this weekend and having an opportunity to digest it, I want to give some of my initial thoughts on Rey’s lineage, and why I still think it’s possible for her to be Leia and Han’s daughter (and why I think this would be the big reveal of the next movie…which will throw plenty of distractions insinuating she’s Luke’s daughter and then in the final act reveal she’s Leia’s).

    In order for the theory to work, you really have to look in the grey areas of TFA and make some assumptions on timelines. In pretty much every conversation between Han and Leia it was mentioned that they have been estranged and gone their separate ways. I got the impression that Han left around when Ben was sent off to Luke to train when Ben was a child and has been gone for around 20 years when he and Leia run into each other. I would imagine that a lot of the issues focused around how to raise Ben and his Jedi training (which they both mention a few times as being the one to blame).

    Once again, keeping in mind that we do not know exactly when Han leaves, it is entirely feasible that Han is gone before they discover Leia is pregnant..Rey could feasibly have been born and sent to Uncle Luke to be trained as a Jedi at 3-4 . Han has left for good and doesn’t see Leia again until the reveal in TFA and has no idea Rey exists.

    After Kylo’s slaughter at the Jedi Academy, he either spares her life because he is her older brother, and at the time cannot bring himself to kill her (or Luke and Leia hide her on Jakku before Kylo has a chance to kill her). Now, I realize this doesn’t address why Kylo doesn’t recognize her, but if we operate under the guise that she’s both ~20 years older than the last time he saw her and possibly was given a different name when her memory was wiped, it would make sense that Kylo doesn’t notice her.

    While, there are certainly a lot of grey areas that would need to be explained in future films, I think this addresses the reason why Han maybe never knew this person who is finishing all his sentences is actually his daughter, and similarly, the only time her and Leia ever share the screen is at the very end before she leaves to find Luke, and all she does is smile a very comforting smile at her and tell her to go find Luke.

    I think it is entirely within the realm of possibility that Rey is her daughter and she knows it, but will not say anything to put her life in danger nor jeopardize her impending Jedi training…because let’s face it, while watching a man you had become close with die by some evil stranger is heartbreaking, it becomes more difficult to bear under the realization you watched your older brother murder your father, and could lead down a path of hatred and the dark side if Luke does not train her as a Jedi before it is all revealed.

    Would love to hear anyone’s additional thoughts!

    Tl;dr: Rey is Han/Leia’s daughter and Leia knows but Han/Rey do not

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    1. I do wish Rey could be Han and Leia's (she really looks more like Harrison and Carrie than Mark Hamill), but Han and Leia being apart for 20 years doesn't ring true to me. The way they fall pretty easily back into their soft banter with each other to me speaks of a couple that hasn't been separated for that long. And if they had been separated for 10 years but apart for 20, Leia for sure would have filed for divorce. I mean, what is the point in staying in a marriage where you have been apart twice as long as you've been together?!

      Also, Pablo says that Rey was dropped off on Jakku before the Jedi Academy slaughter so those two events aren't related. I am curious if she ever trained at the academy with Luke and that's why Kylo recognizes her - as his cousin - but how did she end up on Jakku if Ben wasn't bad yet then? I guess we'll have to wait for the next film to answer.

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    2. The script that was released online described Rey and Leia having a motherly embrace.

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    3. I just took that to mean that Leia took on a motherly role to her just like she saw Han as a father figure. I don't think the above theory holds up because I don't think Han and Leia have been separated for 20 years.

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    4. I don't think she's Han and Leia's. Makes zero sense to kill off her father without him ever acknowledging her. Or really, it just makes no sense for her to have interacted with mom, dad and brother without anyone acknowledging her or even mentioning the fact that there's another child in this family. Even if they thought she was dead, Han and Leia would've brought it up when they had their private conversation. Just from a storytelling perspective, it needed to be set up and it 100% was NOT.
      Also just from the way it was shot, her scenes with Leia were so fast while the camera lingers for waaaay too long when she meets Luke and then pans away, and then lingers even more. It's called visual storytelling.

      Plus with Maz saying directly to her that the lightsaber had belonged to Luke Skywalker and his father before him leaves little doubt with it calling to her as it did. The wordless exchange between her and Luke at the end just convinced me even more.

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  27. You know, if Leia had force-sensitive children and she didn't pursue Jedi training to the fullest extent of her force capacity, which it looks like she didn't, given everything we know in the film...she's kind of a really negligent mother. Since everyone on other sites seems to be saying "but it's reeeaaal" about the Han/Leia split, ok, let's say it's reeeaaaal. Wouldn't you as a mother with the same kind of power want to do everything humanly possible to protect/help raise a child with this kind of power, instead of letting them figure it out on their own, especially when your husband doesn't have it?

    Everyone's out there talking about how Han was a bad/neglectful parent who couldn't settle down, but let's look at what Disney wants us to believe Leia did, and did not do. You don't hear JJ talking about that...

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    1. You know, I'm actually okay with how they didn't have her develop her Force powers. Leia's strengths have always lied in being a diplomat and I see her wanting to continue that path after ROTJ. I also could see her being fearful of turning into Vader - she's definitely got more of a temper than her brother.

      Now that we know from TFA that apparently you can mind wipe and lightsaber fight without any training, there's no excuse for her not at least doing some BASIC training of learning to mind wipe a stormtrooper in case she was ever captured though!

      I think we'll see a similar situation to the EU where she's busy setting up the new government and doesn't have time to train but she does learn the basics. I've been reading Mandy Q's "Tales from the Millennium Falcon" over at Fanfiction.net and she does a great job showing Leia using her limited Force skills to comfort Ben through their Force bond and things like that.

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    2. Oh and there are plenty of Kylo fanboys calling Leia a bad mother. Most of them assume she was a workaholic who neglected her child when the official info that has been released says she didn't start the Resistance until AFTER Kylo started the New Order so it was obviously after he already went dark.

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  28. Episode 8 has been postponed 7 months. I probably shouldn't be surprised. They need more time to rewrite it to make sure that they make things extra awful for Leia and maybe even flashback to make things worse for Han as well.

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    1. Maybe that's a good thing. Michael Arndt was fired from TFA because he told them he would need 18 more months to work on his script. Disney said that was too much time and hired Lawrence Kasdan who apparently wrote the script in 2 months - and look what we got. I really wish we had seen Michael Arndt's original script - I loved his work in Little Miss Sunshine and Toy Story 3.

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    2. I think it's actually a scheduling thing due to other Disney product, but my first thought when I saw this on FB was "sad that I don't really care." - kels

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    3. Although I do agree with Zyra's thoughts as well, LOL. They have to figure out how to make Ghost Han Solo an abusive sonofabitch to the poor misunderstood patricidal maniac. - kels

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    4. I care less than I thought I would.

      Honestly from a money making perspective, it probably makes more sense to keep releasing them in December from here on out. Summer gets swallowed up in blockbuster after blockbuster. This thing has free reign for months and people have nothing better to do on Christmas vacation than to go to the movies over and over again. So in that regard, can't say I really blame them.

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  29. Thought I'd add a comment from an unhappy fan commenting on FB. It's a male this time, which makes me very happy, even though I don't agree with his last paragraph. I think Han strolled out on that bridge for Leia and their son, knowing there was a good chance he would die:

    "It's just so easy to write that old characters having kids. That isn't all that bad really, just easy. It would have been better if they didnt try and be all mysterious, all "oooo who is he" sort of thing. It was done for the sake of doing the Vader thing. If the script writers had been wiser they'd have filled that wasted time on giving more Han and Ben interaction. To not just tell us they have a strong connection but to display it so we feel it. TFA failed to do that. The discussion between them was stale without any foundation and really any notable buildup. It waa just a rush job to copy the Vader routine and to be like "look we killed a famous well liked character". Anyone who has read, watched or listened to enough stories can see through all that. I felt nothing between the two from either end yet by the brief parley between the two the writers expected the audience to.

    The second thing, happy endings apparently weren't worth the investment at the end of Return Of The Jedi because Leia and Han aren't happily aging as a couple and hasn't been and I'm ok with that if a good story came out of it but all we have almost nothing to explain anything reasonably. I'm sorry but if my kid was grown up and turning into a psychotic killer, I'd choose to be with the woman I love to help each other through the tragedy.

    On that, they made Han "Over my dead body" Solo look look like an idiot by being baited onto the bridge. After all his adventures, after comstantly being on the run from Jabba the Hutt, after taking on the Empire and knowing very well how these darkside things tend to go he just strolled out there after decades of being a cowboy in space. Worse than shooting second."

    -kels

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    1. Yeah, I feel like TFA would have been stronger if we were given any insight into Han and Ben's previous relationship. All we know is that Ben considers Han a disappointment, but why?

      I think three scenes that were cut that were in the MSW outline would have helped a lot in this regard. One is when Ben is in his ship and hesitates to blow up Maz's pub because Han is in there. Snoke rebukes him and says "Don't get sentimental". Kylo claims he doesn't care but makes up an excuse not to blow up the pub - showing he DOES still have feelings for his father.

      Another one is the flashback where we see Han and Leia drop off Ben to his Uncle Luke. We would have gotten to see them interact as a family - how old was Ben? Do they seem like a happy family or are things already strained?

      Then, the scene where Kylo boards the Falcon and sits in the cockpit and looks nostalgic, perhaps thinking about "what could have been" in a different life. To me, that shows that Han and Ben had some father/son bonding time on the Falcon and Ben is remembering that. A flashback inserted here of Han with Ben on his lap showing him how to fly the Falcon would have gone a long way in establishing the Han/Ben relationship.

      I'm baffled as to why they cut out those scenes but kept that dumb gangster scene - maybe they needed to keep the Star Wars tradition of having a people-eating monster in each movie?

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  30. Ooh check this out: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R9ApMEkpCoo#action=share

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  31. And this - very hot!! Is it real? http://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/20160121/cef605267b695866635fd3e0d9bbeed9.jpg

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  32. Carrie agrees with the Han/Leia fans - she just retweeted this:

    https://mobile.twitter.com/digimushroom/status/690088334362804225

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    1. I saw a Twitter status on how a mom explained to her 6 year old who asked "Why aren't Han and Leia together any more?" "Sometimes two people fall in love, but then later on they stop loving each other and divorce." Broke my heart to see our couple being used as a lesson in 21st century realism!

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    2. I get she tried to explain the situation in easier terms, but that isn't even the actual reason they "are not together anymore". For goodness sake!

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    3. The six year old should have then asked Mom, quizzically, "But if they stopped loving each other, why did Han do exactly what Leia asked about Ben EVEN THOUGH HE KNEW HE WAS PROBABLY GOING TO DIE?" If that ain't love, I don't know what is.

      On another "misunderstanding love" internet post, a college-aged boy posted that Han's love for Ben was so unconditional that he was happy to die so that Ben could feel at peace with his decision to go dark.

      I wanted to paraphrase Han Solo himself and say "THAT'S NOT HOW UNCONDITIONAL LOVE WORKS!!" Good God, if that's how someone explains the unconditional love Han was showing in that scene (and I agree that it was unconditional), this society is in trouble...

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    4. Yeah, I'm surprised at the number of comments I've read on other sites and reviews that are like "Oh, Han and Leia are divorced and are still friendly with each other but the love is gone." I don't get that at all from their scenes. They obviously love each other, but it's too painful to be together. That's what I took away from it. I guess it's all a matter of interpretation though since neither of them say "I love you".

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  33. Sad that the only "realism" that some people seems to exist is that two strong individuals who live with tragedy get destroyed rather than find strength with each other. I know otherwise. Mckak

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  34. I stumbled across this YouTube channel that has created some really great Han and Leia videos. Check out this one in particular and take a peek at their other videos as well. Pretty great editing if you ask me:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i81yo-Hkmds

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  35. It doesn’t bother me at all that Han and Leia weren’t perfect parents. No one is a perfect parent. I feel like it stands to reason that Leia got pregnant with Ben very soon after the Battle of Endor. At that point, Han and Leia had never actually had any kind of monogamous relationship. Yes, they loved each other. But they spent their relationship at war, constantly fighting with only moments of being together in between.

    So suddenly, they were about to become parents, and they had to figure out how to make it work. They had their son, and probably lived together with him, doing their best to raise him. But here’s the thing. We all know and love Han and Leia. What do these two do? They argue. They bicker. They drive each other crazy. Does that mean they don’t love each other? No. But they have personalities that inevitably clash.

    It is really easy for me to imagine a young Ben seeing his parents argue in front of him on a regular basis. Often these fights would end with Han walking out of the house and leaving him with Leia. He’d probably be gone for a few days to blow off steam, then he’d come back, and things would be okay for a while with him and Leia, until they fought again.

    All of this is ENTIRELY in character. Han even says it in the TFA! “That’s why [I would leave]. So you would miss me.” Han is the type to walk away. Did he come back? Yes. But that doesn’t make it easier on a child to see his father walk away constantly. Ben’s line about how Han disappointed him as a father was very important, and it was not surprising.

    Han and Leia weren’t perfect parents. And honestly, I’m glad they didn’t try to portray them that way. I’m not saying it’s their fault that Ben went to the dark side, but when you think about the two of them raising a child, the seeds were planted at a very young age.

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    1. Wow, that is an awful lot of assumptions being made in one post. Seriously at this point we have NO idea how much or if at all Han and Leia's parenting had any influence at all over Ben's turn. Leia herself in the movie tells Han outright that it was all because of Snoke.

      You say Han likes walking away from things. I mean, the last we saw of him in ROTJ when he gets mad at Leia on that bridge, what does he do? Yeah, he starts to walk away, and then he turns around and apologizes. He has changed by then and while the scene wasn't entirely performed all that well, it was another one that showed the evolution of his character. And yeah, they argued and bickered all the time in ESB. Please point me in the direction of any scene at all where they argued and bickered after they kissed in ESB. Oh, right, there isn't one. While I doubt they actually never bickered again, once the sexual tension was gone they got a whole heck of a lot more relaxed with each other and started to work as a team rather than arguing all the time.

      I also think you are misinterpreting Han's line in TFA. I think he is referring to just when he left the last time, not why he left at any time. And I was never under the impression that he would just leave all the time and leave her alone with Ben. If he did, and he really was a crappy, abandoning father, do you think Leia would actually talk to him lovingly at all ever again? Leia is a strong character, and I think she would be pretty unforgiving if Han had always been running off and leaving her alone with their son, and she certainly wouldn't think that he would have much pull in bringing Ben back.

      To assume that Han and Leia constantly bickered in front of their son is to assume that the two characters never grew at all, and frankly were awfully selfish and childish, which isn't likely true.

      Nobody expects them to be perfect parents, and I'm sure they made mistakes and probably had a very hard time dealing with a kid who from what we were actually told was being manipulated from birth by an evil Sith. But there is nothing that suggests that their parenting contributed to his actual turn. Except his mention of being disappointed in his father, but we have absolutely no idea what exactly he was so disappointed about, or even if Han deserved that or if it was just something else that Snoke manipulated him into thinking.

      If they DO tell me later that Han and Leia being crappy parents made their kid evil then frankly that is just absolute garbage and a complete destruction of two great characters.

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    2. What Zyra said x 10000. You really need to concentrate on these characters' arcs in the OT a little more. The only time Han ever made a move to walk away was at the end of ANH, and even then he didn't get very far before he came back. Every other time he could have walked away from Leia and the Rebellion - after ANH when he still owed Jabba, when he got his clearance to leave on Hoth, after he was rescued on Tatooine, even on that bridge on Endor, not only did he not walk away, but by ROTJ he had gone from loner to ranking member in the Alliance and even apologizing for thinking of walking away, even for a moment. There is zero evidence in the OT that Han was ever someone who would walk away. Frankly, even when we meet the rogue Han in ANH, he'said trying to pay back the gangster to whom he owes money instead of trying to run away from the obligation.

      All of this "Han would run" behavior in TFA comes from Kasdan's lazy storytelling belief that Han = Rhett Butler and JJA's desire to play with ANH Han. Hey, Kasdan stole half of the great Han/Leia banter in ESB directly from Gone With the Wind, so he might as well steal the whole character, right? It's annoying that people are buying into this revisionism and deconstructionism when there is zero textual support for it anywhere in the OT. Text matters and character arcs matter, and what you are positing is nowhere found in text or characterization prior to TFA.

      The only place I disagree with Zyra is that I took Han's "that's why I did it" line to mean when he was going on missions or whatnot. But hey, it's in TFA so it is unlikely that anyone writing it actually thought about prior textual support or characterization. Since Kasdan reportedly wrote the script in 2 months (which is basically the time you'do give a first draft), I'm going with "hey, fun line to have come out of Harrison Ford's mouth" as the only reason it was in the film. - kels

      PS - sorry for getting heated abut this, but as a former screenwriter who had the fact that if a character has an arc, you'd better be consistent about it or you are just playing God with chess pieces practically beaten into my head from some screenwriters who had Kasdan-level success, I find TFA infuriating on this level, no matter how much fun it was.

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    3. I disagree completely. Yes, maybe they bickered less after they got together, but on Cloud City, they disagreed a lot about Lando, and argued about whether they should trust him. This was at the beginning of their relationship. In the next movie, yes Han did accept it when Leia said she loved Luke, but earlier in the movie, when he saw Luke kiss her on the cheek, his first response was to lash out in jealousy. He said sorry, but it tells you a lot that often the first thing he does is get mad.

      It’s pretty common knowledge that a relationship that begins with arguing does not get better. This is the case in real life and it was the case with Han and Leia. Leia even says "No matter how much we fought" and the novelization Han says "I know we argued a lot" implying there was a LOT of fighting going on in their relationship. If at the end of a relationship all you can say is "Well, it wasn't all bad, some of it was good", that's not a good indication of a healthy happy relationship.

      I do agree that Han portrayed character regression in TFA, but I don’t find it surprising at all that Han and Leia’s relationship was one of arguing and anger because that is how we always saw them behave, in all three movies.

      I find it interesting that some fans don't want to see Han and Leia as anything other than perfect parents and are more willing to blame a CHILD than think that Han and Leia had anything to do with Ben's downfall to the Dark Side. Have you read about Paul Bernardo (infamous serial killer)'s childhood? There is a LOT in there about how his dad's abuse of his mother and sister led him to hate women and become a serial rapist and murderer of women. Or read about the autobiographies of children born to activists in South Africa. They talk about how they admired their parents for all they accomplished but that it came at the expense of a deeply neglected childhood because all of their parents attention was focused on their idealistic crusades.

      Lastly, I suggest you watch JJ Abrams and Adam Driver's interviews on why Ben became the way he did. Adam Driver says Kylo is not a purely evil or bad guy. He is conflicted and confused because he wasn't loved enough as a child (By who? Of course, his parents). JJ Abrams said that Han is a cool guy and fun to be around, but that "bad boy scoundrels" don't make good fathers and husbands. They are definitely hinting that Han being a poor absentee father was the route of Ben's fall to darkness.

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    4. They disagreed about stuff but it was nowhere near the same level of arguing and anger that we saw from them earlier. Leia feels like something is wrong and was being loud about it on Bespin, but Han's reaction to that was very soft spoken, not yelling or arguing.

      Again, where is anyone saying "PERFECT parents"? And we're not blaming the child, we're blaming Snoke, who apparently somehow was able to manipulate him FROM BIRTH. Which probably made him a very difficult child, which Han and Leia had a hard time dealing with. You say bad parents, do you honestly think that they will later tell us that Han and Leia were SUCH BAD PARENTS that it would have turned their son into a murderous psychotic killer? Really? Again I ask you if Leia would've even LOOKED at Han let alone reacted at all tenderly toward him if he had been such a bad dad.

      It'd be like blaming parents of a schizophrenic kid who went out and committed some horrible act of violence. The parents were dealt a terrible hand that almost nobody is equipped to deal with. I don't think it makes them bad parents.

      At this point we have no idea if Han was a bad or absentee father. If we find out he was, well I'm going to argue that this is all just complete garbage. Regardless of whether or not I think Han would've been a good and devoted father (I do think he would've) Leia would never have forgiven him for that and she certainly wouldn't have asked him to bring their son home in TFA. I don't even think she would've spoken to him, and she certainly wouldn't have looked at him with love and she DEFINITELY wouldn't have missed him or said she had missed him. None of that makes any sense.

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    5. A few things and questions:

      1. Watch ROTJ: how many angry/arguing moments were there between Han and Leia? One, and it's a one-sided argument on the bridge in the Ewok village. Yes, he'd seen Luke kiss her on the cheek, but more than that, it's that Leia won't tell him what's going on. She says she can't tell him, and that's what sets him off. Which I think would set a lot of us off if we see someone kiss our partner and then our partner won't tell us what's going on. It's pretty rational anger. But Han immediately apologizes, realizing he's hurt her, and, even though he's confused by what he's just seen, and probably hurting about it himself (because he would still have reason to be concerned about her feelings for Luke), he does exactly what she asks when she says "hold me."
      2. Who on this site has said or implied that Han/Leia were "perfect parents"? I see nearly everyone saying that no one is a perfect parent but arguing that Han and Leia wouldn't be actively bad or neglectful parents as you are positing that they were.
      3. Bringing in the childhood of a real-life serial killer...hmm...well, to be honest, I don't even know where to go with that because if we want to talk about the way things work out in the real world, all of Star Wars would immediately fall apart like the escapist house of cards it is. So it's kind of a red herring of an argument. If we look at the argument you presented, Luke should have been a serial killer and Leia should have been messed up by being neglected by Bail Organa as he established the Rebellion.
      4. We're all clear on what Abrams has said. The problem is what Abrams is saying discounts 40 years of the arcs of these characters being very clear, so what Abrams says HE wants doesn't count much against known history. (Same issue ST fans fell) Sure, it got him a hit film, but it's lousy dramaturgy. So I'm wondering why what Abrams said as a newcomer to the franchise is supposed to be given more weight than what Lucas said in the OT and about the OT?

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    6. 5. When Driver speaks, of course he's saying that. He's playing the character. He can't look at a character and say "he's evil." He has to take the character's view of the world and give the character an internal consistency -- whether or not that's supported by actual events in the backstory of the film -- or he can't play him adequately. The quote, by the way, was that Kylo "felt he" did not get enough love as a child. It was not stated as a fact, but as Kylo's feeling.
      5. If you're taking what Kylo says in the film as any kind of objective truth, well, there's a chance it could be, but you're also discounting other words from the film, which is Leia's statement to Han that Kylo's fall was due to Snoke manipulating him from the day he was born. So the choice there is yours: either believe the bad guy's view of the world, or accept Leia's point of view, which did not blame Han.
      6. What sense does it make for Leia -- a character whom you've told us is usually angry/arguing with Han -- not to be angry at Han when she sees him again if he was a bad husband/father? She's pretty damn loving - as his he -- when they reunite.
      7. What sense does it make for Leia to ask Han to bring their son back if he was a bad father? Kind of pointless for a crappy father who is justly hated to go after the son.
      8. Does a bad father go out on that bridge after Kylo knowing there's a good chance he dies? Not likely. Bad boy scoundrel runs the hell away, as he's not going to risk his life.

      All good and fine that you think that everything in the film regarding these characters works, but you, as well as a lot of people who do believe that it all works, are bringing in a lot of outside sources, creative team interview comment, and personally-informed modern beliefs about what makes a relationship work and what creates a serial killer to do it instead of relying on the textual, character, and historical evidence in the world of the films.

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    7. Isn't saying "Snoke made him do it" a cop-out, like Ted Bundy saying the devil made him do it? Snoke manipulated Ben but those fears, insecurities and anxieties came from somewhere. If Han was absent for most of Ben's childhood, it's likely Ben had a fear of being abandoned and not being loved. Snoke was able to capitalize on that and turn Ben against his father, but Kylo's bitterness towards her father didn't come from nowhere. There had to be a seed planted first.

      If you look at the biographies of serial killers and mass murderers, a common theme is absentee fathers and a childhood where they felt they weren't loved. That disillusionment, that anger and hatred come from somewhere, they don't manifest on their own even if someone tries to manipulate them. If Ben had a happy, loving childhood I don't think Snoke would have been able to reach him.

      We (as Han and Leia fans) WANT to believe that Han would be the good, devoted father we saw in the books. But where is the basis for this in anything we see in the OT? Han never indicates that he has any desire for parenthood in the OT and we never see him interact with a child. Ben was clearly an accident and Han and Leia never had any time to adjust to life post-war before he was born. Their entire romance was built on surviving in the middle of a war and thinking every day could be their last. Han is used to flying around the galaxy, going on adventure after adventure - how well do we REALLY think he could adjust to fatherhood and settling down? Especially when the baby was unplanned? Don't you think there's a reason why Han and Leia never had another kid?

      All we know about Han from the OT is that he can't hold down a steady job (as JJ Abrams said) and he's bad with finances and staying out of debt - even when he's in his 60s he was out swindling people and making dubious business deals so that he ended up deeply in debt and being chased by gangsters all over the galaxy. He's reckless and lives on the edge of danger. Again, not good traits for being a particularly good husband and father. That's just who he is. I think Han realizes that him being a poor father contributed to Ben's fall and that's why we see him looking guilty in TFA for what became of Ben. He goes out on the bridge to make amends for not being around enough when Ben was a child - Han has always been like this, trying to run away but coming back when it counts like in ANH when he comes back to rescue Luke. He tried to rescue Ben after running away from him and it failed.

      I also think Han was out of the picture before Ben went dark and that's why Ben is so resentful of Han. Leia says "that's when I lost you both" which says to me that Han left when she sent Ben away to Luke.

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    8. I'm going to leave this discussion now, because I wholeheartedly don't agree and think you're underreading what we know from the text of the OT, but you really can't use things from TFA or things that people promoting TFA said to support TFA. That's like defining a word by using the word.

      Example: We absolutely DO NOT know from the OT that Han is swindling people out of money all the time and getting into debt. That's a supposition that TFA made. All we know from the text of the OT is that the Falcon was boarded and Han had to dump a load of spice, resulting in a debt to Jabba. Textual evidence from the OT that Han is bad with finances and staying out of debt: O. That's all TFA supposition.

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    9. Also, (1) where's this proof that Ben was an accident? It's been posited, but no canon proof that I know of and (2) there is non-film textual support for the idea that Han's life was stable and family oriented from the Visual Encyclopedia or whatever it is that people have been reading, as Chewbacca left for Kashyyk for at least 10 years while Han/Leia raised a family.

      Ok, over and out. Think as you will.

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    10. If you keep trying to compare real life serial killers with Ben Solo then we can't have an actual conversation about this. We may as well be arguing about the physics of lightsabers or how people are able to move things with their freaking minds. IT'S NOT THE SAME THING. Mental illness compared with ACTUAL TANGIBLE VILLAIN MANIPULATING A HUMAN FROM BIRTH. If you have an actual example of a serial killer who from the time of their birth was being manipulated in their head by an evil presence through the Force, then maybe you will have a solid argument.

      Also, while this may turn out to be true, WHERE does it say anywhere at this point in time that Ben was an accident? At some point you may have a valid argument, but by no means can anyone say "clearly he was an accident." WE DON' KNOW.

      You also continue to conveniently ignore my question about how anyone could possibly expect Leia to be so forgiving and still love Han and say she missed him if he had been a shitty father to their son. That is NOT Leia. If Han really was as bad as you say, there is no way Leia would be like, "Oh, but that handsome scoundrel, I missed him." Sorry, no. If that's the case, he tore their family apart, she would NOT have asked him to try and bring Ben back and she would barely have even spoken to him.

      He has not "always been like this" when it comes to running away. Every single time in the OT when he has the opportunity to run away, he doesn't. He came back in ANH, and then he never left again after that.

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    11. I think the assumption Ben was an accident is from that he was born about 9-12 months after ROTJ, so Leia got pregnant right after ROTJ. The treaty with the Empire wasn't signed until a year later. I don't think Han and Leia would have wanted to bring a child into this world when the galaxy was still embroiled in war, so it makes sense that he wasn't planned. I do see him as not planned but wanted once he arrived and don't subscribe to Han being a bad father theory. The Visual Dictionary describes him as a "family man".

      I also don't think Han took off when Ben left for training. It's possible he was sent quite late - we know he was already going dark when Leia sent him. Han's line "Every time you looked at me you saw him" to me doesn't make sense if he wasn't around after the Jedi Massacre.

      - S

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    12. I don't think we actually have any canon sources saying yet that he was born 9 - 12 months after ROTJ, do we? I've heard everything from "a year' to "a few years later." We have a bunch of disagreeing quotes among the creative team of the film as to exactly how many years after ROTJ the new movie takes place too. So I'm still not convinced we know when Ben was born.

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    13. That timeline is still fuzzy. There is new canon of Han and Leia several months after ROTJ where Leia is NOT pregnant. I'll say again, while the "Ben was an accident" theory may very well turn out to be true (and because I dislike it so much, I actually kind of expect that is where they'll go with it, because they only want to do things I don't like) as of now, we really don't know.

      I do agree that that line makes no sense if Han left before things went really bad. If Ben still hadn't turned, why would Leia not want to be reminded of him?

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    14. By the way, canon or not, it's ridiculous for the powers that be to posit that Leia got pregnant right after ROTJ. From what we know of that character, she wouldn't want to have children so soon after finding out Vader was her father. There would have been some infallible birth control going on there. So it's silly even if it's canon.

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    15. Pablo Hidalgo head continuity guy at LFL has said several times that TFA takes place 30 years after ROTJ and that Kylo is 29-30 in TFA so Ben was born within the year after ROTJ. I'd take his word over what JJ and Kasdan have said since they have nothing to do with the books and comics and were done after TFA was completed.

      I have a theory they'll explain Leia getting accidentally pregnant by the Force like how Shmi got pregnant (with there actually being the father this time of course. One plausible theory that's been floating around is that after Palpatine and Vader both died there was an imbalance with no evil in the galaxy so Ben was born to counteract that balance and bring evil back. Or could just be birth control gone wrong. In the old EU, Mara got pregnant while on birth control.

      - S

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    16. Aftermath which takes place 5 months after ROTJ doesn't have Leia in it, so she COULD be pregnant. It has a scene of Han and Chewie out on a mission and it mentions that he misses Leia, but no mention of being engaged or married to her or her being pregnant. She COULD be it just doesn't mention if she is. They could retrofit it in.

      - S

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    17. Yes, he said that, and other people have said other things. And as I said, there is actual canon evidence out there of Leia walking around a few months after ROTJ NOT PREGNANT. Why don't we wait and see how they decide to fill that gap before we make assumptions on whether or not Ben was an accident? I'm not even trying to tell you he for sure WASN'T I'm only asking you to remember that for now: WE DON'T KNOW FOR SURE EITHER WAY.

      Anyway, I'm done arguing with you. It's like arguing Rey's parentage, as of now, we have NO idea. And looking at evidence has always proven to be stupid and pointless anyway. Was there any evidence in ANH that Luke was Vadeer's son or that Leia was his daughter? No and no.

      And again, I'm not asking you to say, oh, no, of course Ben was planned. I'm just asking you to remember that we don't know either way at this point.

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    18. How about Kylo is not even Han's son but a product of an affair Leia had with a gundark? There's no way Han Solo produced such an ugly kid. I'm just saying...

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    19. Zyra, I'm not the same Anonymous arguing above. That's why I sign my posts S. You'll see from my above post I agreed with you Han wasn't a bad father :)

      I think the timeline is worked out if Bloodlines which we know has Han, Leia and Ben/Kylo in it coming out in a few months. If it wasn't worked out, Pablo wouldn't be comfortable sharing Ben's age and how long after ROTJ TFA was.

      Are you talking about Shattered Empire? It's possible Leia is already pregnant but doesn't know it yet. It's common couples don't announce pregnancies until 3 months in and women don't start showing then. We know Ben is born within the year after ROTJ, so Leia could have gotten pregnant 3 months after ROTJ and had him exactly a year after ROTJ.

      I agree there's no evidence that he wasn't planned, just evidence that he was born within the year after ROTJ. Could Han and Leia have been so crazy in love and so grateful for the defeat at Endor that they got married right away and decided to have a baby immediately? Sure! But again, I think it would be more in character that they would want to wait until there was peace in the galaxy.

      Further, I don't see anything wrong with Ben being an accident. Mandy Q has a great story on fanfiction.net of Leia realizing she's pregnant accidentally but her and Han being overjoyed by the news. Ben Skywalker wasn't planned in the old EU either but of course Luke and Mara both loved him. Lots of kids are unplanned in the world and still have parents who are overjoyed and love them unconditionally.

      - S

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    20. I'm just going to add that Leia was 2 years younger than Luke in Star Wars and Empire, and then his twin in Jedi, so whatever timeline line we're talking about, let's take it with a grain of salt. These movies are clearly not the most carefully plotted things ever. They've even admitted with the ST that they "kind of" know where they want to end up with IX. Which I think his "kind of" horrifying at this point, given that, unlike the OT, they were damn sure the whole trilogy would get made and should have carefully plotted it before one frame of film was shot.

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    21. Oh God, I just had this conversation with another poster on another forum I post it, so I'm just going to report my reply to him. I'm not sure why this headcanon of Han was a bad father is so popular.


      Not according to the Official Info. The Visual Dictionary says: "After the Galactic Civil War, Han's Solo's life took unexpected turns as he became husband to an influential New Republic politician, a family man, and - for a time - a successful racing pilot. But the peace of this life was not to last, and after a profound tragedy upended what had become normal for the Corellian, Solo returned to his old life as a tramp freighter captain, smuggler, and freelance law bender. Chewbacca returned to Solo's side, and although much had changed, in many ways it was like the old days.

      So according to the Official Info Han didn't leave until after Ben went dark and the Jedi Massacre occurred. It also sounds like he was a good husband and father. Chewie's entry in the Visual Dictionary says he went back to Kashyyk after the War on Jakku because Han had settled into a family life and they didn't go on adventures any more, so it doesn't sound like Han was gallivanting around the galaxy while Ben was a child. I took Kylo's line about Han being a disappointment to mean his disappointment in having a non-Force sensitive father.


      On Ben possibly being an accident: We don't know if he was or not. All we have confirmed is that he was born within the year of ROTJ so Leia got pregnant shortly after ROTJ. Maybe Han and Leia wanted to have kids right away. And even if he IS an accident, I'm not opposed to that idea like some people are. Han and Leia obviously DEEPLY love Ben unconditionally in TFA even after all the horrible thing he's done. He was obviously a well-loved child even if he wasn't planned. It's like the Rebellion - Han wasn't planning on joining it, but when it came across his way he committed to it ;)

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    22. And yes, Mandy Q's fic on Leia finding she's pregnant when it wasn't is adorable! Here it is: https://www.fanfiction.net/s/11720031/13/Tales-from-The-Millennium-Falcon

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    23. Here's another post I wrote on another forum I post on in reply to all the stupid "Han and Leia were terrible parents and turned Ben to the Dark Side" arguments:

      It seems like a lot of the posters on the JC have mixed up the timeline. They think it went Han was off smuggling + Leia was off building the Resistance --> they had a dysfunctional marriage and broke up --> This caused Ben to turn to the Dark Side. When really the timeline is made explicitly clear in the movie and the Visual Dictionary that Ben turned to the Dark Side --> Han and Leia split up --> then Han went back to smuggling and Leia threw herself into working for the Resistance. By all accounts, their marriage was fine until Ben turned to the Dark Side and they had a settled family life with Leia as a New Republic politician and Han as a racing pilot.

      The Visual Dictionary also says that Chewbecca went back to Kashyyk after ROTJ because Han was in a settled family life and they didn't go on adventures any more, which seems to put the kibosh in the popular fan theory "Ben turned to the Dark Side because Han was never around during his childhood and off gallivanting around having adventures."

      It also seems like a lot of posters are taking things at face value or completely literally. For example, Kylo's comments "He would have disappointed you as a father", are we really supposed to take what the villain who's been manipulated by Snoke says at face value? Why are people so quick to assume that Han Solo, hero of the Rebellion, the man who risked his life for Luke and Leia multiple times over, who took on a parental role to Rey and Finn, two kids he had just met who he had no relation to, would be a deadbeat dad? The explanation that actually makes the most sense is that Ben was disgusted at his non Force sensitive father, the same way Voldermort was of his "Muggle" dad.

      Next, the assumption that Han and Leia had a dysfunctional, abusive marriage which caused Ben to go to the Dark Side because they were "always too different to begin with, they were never going to last, plus they never really loved each other". Again, there is nothing in TFA which supports this. Whey they discuss why they separated neither of them say that it was because they couldn't get along or because they didn't love each other - it is clearly 100% because of what happened to Ben. I wonder if the posters that assume that they would always be fighting have ever watched ROTJ - their fighting in ESB was because Han wanted Leia to admit her feelings for him and she wouldn't. Once they get together, they're incredibly loving, tender and affectionate with each other. Leia basically follows Han around the entire movie with a lovestruck look on her face and uses any opportunity to be physically affectionate with him. The only disagreement they have is when Han gets upset that Leia confided in Luke instead of him and then he apologizes right away like a real adult.

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    24. It seems like way too many people on the JC are taking the fact that they broke up as "proof" that they never really loved each other to begin with, when they were together for over two decades before tragedy caused them to separate, and it is painfully obvious how much they still love each other when they see each other again. And again, people are taking Leia's teasing line of "No matter how much we fought, I always hated seeing you leave" completely literally. It's obvious to me that she is fondly remembering their good natured banter and how she missed him when he had to travel during their marriage (probably often as a racing pilot). If she really meant "We had a horrible marriage where we fought all the time and you frequently abandoned me with our son to go off adventuring), er, I don't think Leia would be delivering that line with a smile and so much affection and Han wouldn't be smiling lovingly back at her.

      I think another aspect of this rush to "justify" Ben's fall to the Dark Side is the need to have a sympathetic, multi dimensional villain. That's fine, and there's plenty of evidence to support that Ben isn't all evil. He was manipulated by Snoke from birth and born into a family of legacies and likely suffered some insecurity on whether he could ever live up to his mother, father and uncle. He finally succumbed to the manipulations of Snoke and fell to the Dark Side, but still struggles with the Light. You can have a sympathetic villain without desecrating Han and Leia's characters that they "caused" him to turn to the Dark Side. The "villain had a broken childhood and his parents didn't love him and it's not really his fault" trope is really tired and cliche. People are also applying too much real world pop psychology onto the issue, with comments like "All mass murderers and serial killers came from broken homes". In the real world, that may be true (although not necessarily, some people are just bad seeds). But in the Star Wars universe, where the Dark Side is an actual mystical power, there's no real world analogy for what Ben went through. It may be that he never really stood a chance with Snoke whispering in his ear as a young age. But again, no need to have Han and Leia behave in a way that would completely out of character and against their hero arcs in the OT so that we can sympathize with Ben.

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    25. I'm with Kelso on this in the sense that there is alot unsaid and loose and this is on purpose so they can rewrite as they want. which is what is happening and why there are these delays. Pablo has said some things on his twitter account, an account that advises not to take anything said as canon. mew shall see. Mckak

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    26. On how long after ROTJ TFA is the Visual Dictionary says Poe is 32 in TFA and he was born 2 years prior to the Battle of Endor.

      One cool thing about Poe's entry: it says General Organa is his idol. Go Leia!

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    27. I stepped away for a while. So this goes back a bit, to reply to the anonymous poster signing as "S" I didn't think you were the same person. No worries there. And I agree that even if Ben was an accident of course they could've still been happy about it. But I was arguing against the other person posting that the fact that he was an accident would've been even further reason for the bad parenting, abandonment, resentment, and his ultimate turn to the dark side. I think that was what the other poster was arguing when they mentioned he was an accident, that the mere fact that he was unplanned only fueled all the issues that led to is turn.

      And Kels, yeah, I think it is "kind of" frightening that it seems like nobody is really in charge of this overall story arc and everyone seems to be allowed to just kind of do whatever. That is not a good sign at all.

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    28. Pablo really should know the timeline by now since there are several pre TFA books coming out soon. I don't think he would be allowed to tweet that Kylo is 29-30 if they hadn't already decided that. And I don't really get why people are so against Ben not being planned. It doesn't diminish Han and Leia's love for him in any way (I absolutely do NOT believe they were poor absentee parents, see post above.)

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    29. We posted at the same time so you probably missed it but my objection to the accident thing had more to do with the idea that him being an accident would be part of why he turned bad.

      My other issue with it though is that if he was an accident, and if he was born practically immediately after ROTJ, and if he really was being manipulated from birth, then there is really very little chance that Han and Leia got any happy times together before they were mostly just overwhelmed with dealing with Force sensitive problem child. Even a year or two would make me feel a little better. I don't doubt they loved him and did the best they could, but I am under the impression that he was not easy to deal with due to the manipulation. And in fact it's probably going to be pretty awful when we DO have to read about it. Can you imagine a baby/toddler/child being brainwashed by a creature like Snoke constantly from the time he's born? That's pretty damn terrifying.

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    30. I think they had some years of happiness. Even if Ben was being manipulated by Snoke from a young age, how much could Snoke really do to a baby/toddler? It's likely he didn't start to "get" to Ben until he was your typical angsty teenager and take the "my parents don't understand me!" angst and multiply it by 1000 with Snoke and having one parent who was Force sensitive but not a Jedi and another who wasn't Force sensitive. Then after he was sent to Luke's, I'm not sure how much Han and Leia were in the know of how bad it was getting as I could see Luke trying to keep them in the dark and they probably had some good times with just the two of them when Ben was off training. Han even says "it wasn't all bad".

      On another note to the above anonymous poster, this is my biggest problem with this popular head canon theory that Han was a terrible husband and father who was never around during Ben's childhood and was always flying off gallivanting around the galaxy and that he and Leia had a dysfunctional, always arguing marriage. Have those people SEEN Leia in the OT? Why would anyone think LEIA, an incredibly strong-willed, independent and intelligent woman who put up for a second with Han treating her and her son like that? Maybe she would do it for a few years because she loved him and they had a child together. But if he continued to do that into Ben's childhood, no matter how much she loved him, Leia would see that the relationship was unhealthy to her and it was unhealthy for Ben to have a father like that, and would have divorced him. She would have wanted to move on with her life and possibly find someone who treated her the way she deserved and could be a good father to Ben. I say that even as a Han and Leia fan who sees that Leia loves Han beyond anything but would still have the backbone and intelligence to end something that was fundamentally unhealthy and toxic. We know from what's been officially released from the timeline that her and Han were together for over 20 years before the Jedi Massacre occurred, so the idea that Leia would put up with Han treating her and Ben like garbage for 20 years is beyond ludicrous.

      Even when we see Leia in TFA and separated from Han, she's clearly dealing with the separation a lot better than Han is - she's driven and focused on leading the Resistance with thousands of people looking up to her (Poe says General Organa is his role model in the Visual Dictionary). In Before the Awakening, which tells Poe's story of how he joins the Resistance, he thinks about how Leia has fire and spark in her when she talks about the Resistance, even though this is after her husband and son have gone, so she obviously wasn't completely crushed by what happened. Han clearly isn't dealing with the separation as well as he's drifting aimlessly around the galaxy, fallen into deep debt, lost his ship, and getting chased by bounty hunters across the galaxy. Bottom line, if Leia realized that what she had with Han was bad for her and Ben, she would have divorced him long before they split up after the Jedi Massacre.

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    31. Kels, are you saying you disregard Han's characterization in TFA completely then? Because that is part of his canon arc you can't just throw evidence that he ran away from Leia and went back to swindling customers away because you "don't like" it.

      Believe me, I am and always was a huge Han and Leia fan. I wanted them to have a fairy tale ending. TFA made me re-evaluate their whole relationship into what it really was. I now watch the OT with new eyes. I was a teenager when I first saw the OT in theaters and naive. Now I watch TFA as an adult with real-life experience I see how it really is.

      Han and Leia were never going to have a happy ever after. They were two very different people. Leia is a type A, control freak, workaholic personality. Han is a laid back, unreliable restless spirit. They wouldn't be able to stand each other for longer than few years, MAX. I believe they stayed together for the kid and Han really did try but then his restless spirit got the better of him and he wandered off.

      Ladies, a man like Han does not "change" for a woman. Period. That may be want we want to believe in a Cinderalla fairy tale, but it does not happen in real life. Han did not change and was not even going to change. He ran away in ANH, he ran away in ESB, and we see when TFA opened he ran away from Leia and was a disappointing father to Ben. That's a constant theme in his character. We WANT to believe that Han would change with the love of a good woman. Trust me, when I watched the OT when I was a teenager I truly believed he had and that it was possible. Now looking at TFA as a 45 year old, and having had relationships with men just like Han, I know that doesn't happen. Men like Han are who they are, they don't change for anyone. We see Han never really did change, hence him falling back into smuggling and going around the galaxy cheating and swindling customers. That's who he really was all along. He was never comfortable being a husband and father because he couldn't commit to anything. That's why it was so easy for him to go back to smuggling when his family fell apart.

      Leia is not blameless in this situation. You asked me to reply to your comment about Leia treating Han with warmth when she sees him. I think Leia, just like Han, recognizes her failings and how she inadvertently contributed to the downfall of her marriage and led to Ben going down the dark path. She is strong willed and sharp-tongued and she clashed constantly with Han during Ben's childhood. She occupied herself with her work to avoid her disastrous marriage and failure as a mother. It became a cycle - it was bad at home and Han was never around - she worked longer and longer hours to avoid what was going on in her personal life, neglecting Ben in the process. You can't build up something like the Resistance without an incredible amount of work put it into. Work that came at the expense of her family. Leia and Han are both beset by guilt when we see them in TFA because they know their failures as parents led to Ben falling to the Dark Side. Snoke capitalized on Ben's feelings of abandonment from his mother (due to her work) and father (due to him being an absentee father) but he didn't create those feelings. If Ben had had a truly happy childhood, there would have been nothing for Snoke to manipulate him with. That's why I believe Leia doesn't treat Han harshly when they meet up in TFA - she knows she is equally to blame.

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    32. um. wow. I am also an adult and see none of that in the OT. I saw a character that grew from a variety of experiences (friendship with Luke, a number of missions with the Rebels, being rescued by friends who risked life for him), not just the love of a good woman. He came back in ANH of his own accord, he stuck for three years after and would stayed longer but for "Ord Mantell" incident, and he never left in ROJ. I very much dispute your whole idea of a marriage to a career as some sort of torture. Jeez. I mean jeez. To the extent that we are trying to inject "reality" into this series of movies, I can only say again that I know many successful decades long happy marriages of men and women who have opposing personalities, who have experienced tragedy, of women who are strong and focused on really time consuming careers. They could easily have been written this way as well. People can go through stress and tragedy and have conflict and hard times and still stick together. And frankly, Lucas, the creator, has said that his vision and intent was they were together and "having barbeques". But if that was JJ's theory - Han is man child who really just wanted to escape - he sure looked like his life was shitty and that he wanted to return to Leia. so they really tried to have it both ways. mckak

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    33. Why the hell is everyone so hung up on what would happen in real life and not? Star Wars isn't real, for goodness sake. It IS fantasy and does not have to reflect any such "real" life situation by any means. Why Abrams even went down the path to mirror as much realism as possible when it came to these two, is totally beyond me and completely ridiculous. Point being, in the fantasy that is SW, yes, Han could have "changed for a woman". Period.

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    34. Oh I agree. The argument about reality in a science fantasy does seem misplaced. I am just pointing out that there is no single reality that supports that "justification' for changing the story that way. Mckak

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    35. There are so many assumptions being made in what you're posting.

      As to Han's characterization in TFA, I can mostly understand them splitting up due to something as awful as what they were given, their son turning and murdering he Jedi, who knows maybe murdering Luke's wife, and joining the First Order and helping to kill lots of other innocent people. Yeah, that is a lot for anyone to deal with, and in this case maybe too much.

      It's all of these assumptions you are making about how Ben was raised. Where are you getting absentee dad and workaholic mom from? Maybe at some point they will tell us that was how it is, but really if they were such terrible parents and really were the reason Ben turned, then they're basically the bad guys. It's their fault. Han's death in the end doesn't really mean anything because he was a shitty dad anyway, made his son what he was, and he deserved to die. The information we've been given so far in the visual dictionary was that Han was a devoted father and husband and "family man." I'm sure he wasn't perfect, and who knows at this point, but those are all assumptions you're making about what they were like as parents. You're going into extensive detail about specifics like how her marriage was a disaster so she started working more to get her mind off it. Do you know something we don't or is that another assumption?

      I think I already discussed this with you (or someone who wrote basically the exact same thing on NHP) but where are you getting that Han is constantly running away? With the exception of leaving in ANH, which only sort of counts because he did come back, he literally NEVER runs away. His wanting to leave in ESB was not "running away" it was facing responsibility. It is implied that they had an incident with a bounty hunter and presumably it became apparent that Leia was now in danger too, and THAT made him realize he had to go face Jabba. That wasn't like, screw you guys and your stupid Rebellion, I'm out. That was, shit, I can't stay away from this forever and now I'm not the only one who might get hurt. He goes back to get Leia and make sure she gets out. Why the hell would he still be there in the beginning of ESB after three freaking years if all he ever did was run away?

      You also mention Han not changing. If characters don't grow and change, then they are not worthwhile characters. It's one of the most basic elements of story telling, characters grow and evolve. If they just stay the same the story doesn't move forward. If Han's only character trait was to be a no-good smuggler, then his story with Leia is nothing more than a cautionary tale for women. His "running away" before TFA is not because he hasn't changed or was always running away. There was way more to it than that. Han is not a lowly smuggler because at his core he is a bad dude. It was a matter of circumstance. He doesn't change FOR Leia, I think finding Leia and Luke and the Rebellion allowed him to be the man he was meant to be. All men and relationships with men like that being terrible is just as unrealistic as the Cinderella fairy tale.

      It also doesn't say much good about Leia's character if there wasn't anything more to Han. She saw more in him because it was there. If it's not, then she only fell in love with him because he was charming and hot and I think Leia deserves a lot more credit than that.

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    36. I also disagree that Han and Leia are such opposites. I think they are more similar than a lot of people seem to believe. Yeah, as far as background, they're quite different. But they share the same sense of humor and are both very loyal people.

      Either way, this movie should NOT change the way we look a their relationship in the OT. The man who actually created the characters told us they wound up together and had Jedi babies, and that Luke started an Academy to train new Jedi. Selling the rights to someone else and letting them play with the characters and do what they want does not negate his vision and it shouldn't change how we look at them in the original films.

      Seriously, why go to the trouble of having Leia open her heart FINALLY and let someone in if it was basically going to ruin her life and he was never any good anyway? It reduces Leia to just being a vessel to deliver us a new villain in the new movies. She deserves more than that, they all deserve more than that.

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    37. Sigh...I saw the same argument on Nerfherder's Playground about Han being a "bad boy" who'll never change and a manchild that Leia should stay away from. I didn't respond then because it's clear that those who don't like TFA aren't welcome over there, but I will here.

      Look, all this talk about how it's unrealistic that a guy like Han could change essentially ignores everything Han does from the time he comes back to save Luke to the end of ROTJ. So you just want to believe that Han is who he is when we meet him in ANH and ignore every other time we see him on scene?

      Luke, Han and Leia are so beloved BECAUSE they are heroes. Because they are "unrealistic" in that 99.99% of people would never be as brave or courageous as them to do what they do. 99% of people (including frankly, myself) would have taken the reward money at Yavin and peaced out of there. That doesn't mean they're bad people, it just means they're not heroes. It wasn't Han's fight and he had no vested interest in the Rebellion's cause, let alone any reason to risk his life for it. Han came back (and risked his life for it) because he wanted to be more than just a smuggler. To revert him back to "well, he was always just a selfish smuggler" is to ignore everything that his character does after that.

      So sure, is it "unrealistic" that Han comes back and risks his life for a kid he's known for 2 days and a princess he doesn't even like? Is in "unrealistic" that he sticks around for 3 years for no good reason when he has this debt hanging over his head? Is it "unrealistic" that he makes a formal commitment to the Rebellion (and therefore to Leia) when he signs up to be a General? Is it "unrealistic" that he volunteers to take on a dangerous ground mission to save the Rebellion? Maybe it's all those things. But you can't change the fact that his character does all those things in the CANON MATERIAL.

      You say you've dated guys like Han. I'm going to bet that you dated guys who were like ANH Han and thought you could change them. You're right, in real life that rarely works. It's why I stay away from bad boys and date (and married) a nice guy. The bad boy trope with the heart of gold rarely exists in real life. And maybe it IS unrealistic that Han changes over the course of three movies. But you can't ignore the canon material that he DOES because of your real-life bad experience with "guys like Han". I'm willing to bet that the guys you dated WEREN'T actually like Han because if put in that situation that Han was in in Yavin, they probably would have peaced out with the reward money and never looked back, just like 99% of people would have. Han is beloved because he is a hero. Not because he's just like a regular person who would have taken the money and run. So when you say you've dated "guys like Han", I don't really think you have.

      To ignore Han's character arc like JJ Abrams et al did is to ignore what Lucas intended for the character. To think that Lucas would say "Well, I'm going to create this scoundrel and he'll SEEM like he has a heart of gold and pretends to change, but nah, jokes on you! He never really changed and he was a selfish smuggler who doesn't care about anything but money all along" is to ignore the very intention of the creator of the character and the whole POINT of his character arc in all three movies. - Karen

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    38. TFA doesn't ruin the OT at all. It makes us look at the OT with new eyes, wizened with age and real life experience. How many of us saw the OT as a child? Now we've grown up and lived life and know that relationships don't always turn out the way we want them to be and that people don't always live up to their expectations. I think that's a great message to send. It's like when you were a child and thought Christmas was magical and believed in Santa, and TFA makes us realize that Christmas is just a commercialized holiday meant to make money. Treating children - and especially girls - the idea that everyone will have a fairy tale ending is unrealistic. It's movies like that are why women return to abusive husbands over and over again believing "they can change". To those who think they can change a guy with the love of a good woman - go to your nearest courthouse and give your number to a criminal charged with drug trafficking (that's the real life equivalent of what Han was doing in a GFFA). Come back to me and tell me how much you "changed" him in five years.

      Someone above mentioned that Luke, Han and Leia are heroes. That's what TFA did that was made is so realistic - breaking down these characters so that we see that they aren't heroes, they're just regular people like me and you. Luke is not an infallible hero but a flawed individual who doesn't know what to do when he fails - he turns tail and runs. Han was brave and confident in a war situation, but when he failed as a husband and father, he too turned and ran. Leia is the most heroic of the original three and is still leading the Rebellion/Resistance, but we see that it came at the cost of her family. It's very realistic and it gives the characters nuance and depth that Lucas never achieved and JJ Abrams finally did. Harrison Ford complained that Han Solo as a thin, one dimensional character and that he only became three dimensional and depth with TFA. We see all along that Han tried and wanted to be a hero, but ultimately, he wasn't. And that's okay. He fell back into smuggling because that's what he was the most comfortable with all along and him being a husband and father was just a facade he tried to wear. Even JJ Abrams, who's favorite character is Han, recognizes this. He says Han is a fun guy and fun to be around, but when it comes down to it, the "scoundrel, manchild, cheating" personality isn't compatible with being a good husband or father. And that's okay - good, interesting characters have flaws. It's why shows like Breaking Bad and House of Cards are so popular - people want to see human, imperfect characters they can relate to, not infallible heroes. Leia, too - we see the price she paid for saving the galaxy. Again, that's realistic - if you ever interviewed Martin Luther King's wife and children about what their family life was like, they were honest and said their father's great achievements for mankind came at the expense of him being a good husband and father.

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    39. You say that it cheapens Han's character arc if he never really changed from when we first meet him in ANH and that it turns Leia into a cautionary tale. First, I don't think it does cheapn his arc or the story of the OT at all. We see that Han tried, and maybe thought, that he really could change. He wanted to and he wanted to believe that he could be the hero that Leia believed him to be. But in the end, he wasn't as evidenced by what he's become in TFA. Which is, again, realistic - many people try to change for the sake of their loved one, but they can't, really for long because they are who they are. Goodness knows my ex tried again and again to be a better man, but he couldn't. And we split when we both realized that. Second, I don't see anything wrong with Leia being a cautionary tale. She fell for the bad boy, she thought she could change him, and she was wrong. It shows Leia is human - she's a brilliant diplomat and fearless Rebel leader, but she sucks when it comes to picking men. She's human, and that's okay. What TFA did was show these characters we met back the beginning - Luke turned into an Obi-Wan hermit, haunted by his failures, Han into a selfish smuggler, and Leia into an isolated Rebellion leader. I think that's beautiful and poignant in a way.

      As someone who is amicably divorced from my husband (very much a "Han" guy), I appreciated the honesty that JJ Abrams showed in showing us two people who were essentially divorced and still had feelings for each other, but knew they could never work out together. It was a breath of fresh air after seeing the old tired cliche of "divorced spouses hate each other's guts" we see in Hollywood. How Han and Leia behaved with each other is the way me and my ex-husband act when we see each other - we're courteous, still banter and we both still care about each other, but we know that the marriage and our relationship is in the past and over. As evidenced by a number of reviewers who praised the realistic situation of Han and Leia's marriage falling apart, their relationship came off as much more emotional and realistic than the cliche "witty banter" we got in the movies.

      Zyra, you say Han and Leia are similar, but are they in the ways that count? They can joke and banter with each other, but when it comes down to it, they have very different personalities that aren't compatible in the long run. Leia is an idealist who would do anything for her cause and is responsible and type A personality. Han rolls his eyes at idealistic crusades, is irresponsible with money, can't hold down a steady job and craves adventures and living dangerously. How long could Leia really put up with Han's antics before he started to drive her crazy? How long could Han be settled into a responsible life before he got bored and restless? What kind of role could Han really play in a post-war situation? They were two people who met in wartime who never went on an actual date or lived day to day life with each other. Their entire relationship spanned a couple of weeks or a month, max. To think they wouldn't have a tumultuous relationship is, well, frankly naive.

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    40. Zyra, you say I am making assumptions based on nothing. First, that's what we do in forums - speculate and infer based on the information we're given. Second, my assumptions are not coming out of nowhere - they're from what I know from Han and Leia's characters as we see them in TFA and the OT, and what their dialogue with each other indicates about their past relationship. From what we know from the movies is that:

      1) Han and Leia argued frequently during their marriage (Leia "No matter how much we fought"...)
      2) Han walked out on Leia frequently ("I always hated seeing you leave")
      3) Han was a "disappointment" to Ben as a father.
      4) Han easily returned to smuggling and swindling customers when things fell apart at home, indicating that he was never really comfortable in the role of husband and father and always longed to be an obligations-free smuggler.
      5) Ben was LIKELY an accident. I agree we do not have a DEFINITIVE answer at this time, but the information we have indicates that he probably was. He was born within the year after ROTJ and I find it hard to believe Han and Leia would want to have a kid during such a period of galactic turmoil. It is also telling that they do not have any other children after Ben, which to me also shows that Han may have never wanted children to begin with.
      6) Leia created and led the Resistance, something that would take an enormous amount of work.
      7) Han was never comfortable with the Force and mocked it to Obi-Wan and likely had a lot of trouble relating to Ben as the father of a Force-sensitive child.

      To me, TFA and what we know about Han and Leia's characters from the OT clearly paint a picture of a dysfunctional marriage between Han and Leia. With respect to your comment on Han not running, he runs out in ANH - and no, I don't think you should get much credit for coming back at the last second on an impulse action. When we see him in ESB he's trying to take off again. He isn't rescuing Leia either, he only went to find her to make sure she got off on her transport. He's not helping the Rebellion even though they're being attacked by the Empire like Luke is - he's trying to haul ass off the planet. Then in ROTJ he tries to leave when he thinks Leia has feelings for Luke. Then we see in TFA that he's left Leia for good and prefers to life of being a cheating smuggler flying around the galaxy swindling customers instead of trying to support Leia in her time of grief and help her find Ben.

      As JJ Abrams failed in what Lucas did in creating three dimensional characters with depth in showing what Han, Leia and Luke were really like, I felt he also did the same in creating a three dimensional villain in Kylo Ren. To make Kylo a one dimensional baddy and blame it all on Snoke is poor story telling and simplistic. It makes Kylo a much more compelling, sympathetic villain if the root of where it all went wrong started with growing up in a dysfunctional household with his parent's broken marriage and his father's resentment of him. That is something a lot of people Kylo's age will relate to, and it makes his story arc, which I am guessing is leading towards redemption, all the more compelling.

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    41. Sorry but how does Leia saying she hated seeing Han leave prove that he kept walking out on her? That's a huge assumption to make. How about he left because he was on missions for the New Republic or later on, because he had to go and take part in a race, because he became a professional racing pilot? There are plenty of reasons for him to "leave" that aren't negative ones.

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    42. I have to agree with Claire, I did not interpret her words to mean anything in relation to him continually walking away from her, I interpreted it as him leaving for work/missions/races. Strange how different people with different life experiences will come to entirely different conclusions.

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    43. 1. Just wondering when we are going to see Arwyn and Aragon get a divorce due to her resentment over becoming "mortal" for him. You know. cause "realism".
      But if we are going to argue for this version of "realism", how about the "realism" of feral children growing up to be so compassionate as to go out of her way to free a previously unknown droid. Where is the realism in that? How about the "realism" of even suggesting sympathy, complexity, redemption for the mass murderer and school shooter who commits patricide, in your scenario? Oh, but wait a minute, he's "complex" so it's all forgiveable in the world of "realism" cause his parents fought. and if you are worried about what TFA is teaching girls about romance, take a little look at the fan fiction for Kylo/Rey.
      2. This "new view" of the OT is simply retconning, it was never there and never intended to be there per Lucas, per the novelizations of the movies (the "second level" of canon), per the comments of Troy Denning regarding the rules of writing EU, per commentary by Kirshner and others on the movie discs. The most ridiculous example of this is characterizing Han's return in ANH as a momentary impulse. That then lasted three years. mckak

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    44. Haha - this is the best response, Mckak.

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    45. I really liked Karen's reply up there.

      You really can't keep using Han's "real world equivalent" as an argument. Because Han's "real world equivalent" wouldn't have done most of the things Han does in the OT. He would've taken the money to take Obi Wan and Luke, but he certainly wouldn't have come back to help out, and he DEFINITELY wouldn't have stuck around for years to help them. I think someone else stated up there too, a lot of the character traits aren't all that well rooted in realism. Rey was abandoned at 5 and lived alone as a scavenger raising herself on a desert planet. Finn was stolen from his family and raised to do nothing but fight as a stormtrooper. But he's making jokes about whether or not Rey has a boyfriend, and both of them are remarkably well adjusted and friendly considering their backgrounds. Seriously, if neither one of them has ever had a friend in their lives (in the novel it points out that when Finn asks if she's ok she realizes it's the first time anyone has ever asked her that) then it really doesn't make sense that they'd both act much like they do when we see them in the movie. Do we care though? No, because remember, this is STAR WARS. We accept that just like we accept that Leia wouldn't be a grieving mess when Luke found her on the Death Star.

      I get that things like Breaking Bad are interesting because the characters are so flawed. But a lot of what you're arguing seems like Star Wars, and everything else really, should take the most cynical view of everything. Really, what is the point of anyone doing anything? So far all of the good guys have ultimately failed. Why do we want to watch people fail at trying to do right? Believing in Santa Claus is also a lot different from believing that anyone anywhere ever could be happy in a relationship. One exists, and the other doesn't. Whether or not Han and Leia would separate if their son went dark like that is a separate conversation, and what I'm arguing with is the idea that they were never any good together in the first place.

      Half the things you're saying are still assumptions. The fact that she hated watching him leave doesn't explain at all how often he left, or if he was leaving because he was abandoning her/them or if he was leaving to work or any number of other reasons. There could be a few reasons why they only had one kid. What if they couldn't for some reason? What if she miscarried and they were devastated and she didn't want to go through it again? Seriously, we have no idea why, and frankly maybe they DID have another kid we don't know about yet. Not even just Rey, there could be another kid somewhere. We don't know, and even if there wasn't we don't know WHY and the reason doesn't have to be because they didn't want to have the one in the first place. I mentioned in another comment somewhere about Ben being an accident and more than one person jumped in and was like, who's to say they weren't thrilled when they found out? We just don't know.

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    46. Among other things we don't know, we really don't know yet whether Ben's "disappointment" in his father was legitimate or if it was part of the manipulation and maybe had more to do with him just not being Force sensitive.

      And you know the more I write to try and counter what you're saying, the more you come back with things that are still just saying the complete opposite and I don't think you're ever going to understand what I'm trying to say. Han coming back was NOT impulsive. Was staying for THREE YEARS after that impulsive?

      I'm just sorry that you or anyone else has such a cynical view of life and relationships that we are can no longer see ANY couple working out in these stories. I think it's garbage if Leia is just a cautionary tale because if you think about it at this point, being a woman in Star Wars is BAD NEWS. Seriously, you should just run and hide alone on a planet forever if all it gets you is murdered by Sand People (Shmi) murdered by stormtroopers (Beru) a terrible relationship with a whiny Sith and eventually dying for the lamest "reason" ever (Padme) and now briefly being married to a man who made you open up to love only to prove to you why you never should've opened it up in the first place, and so you could also then give birth to the newest Sith Lord. I don't even want to know what fate is destined for poor Rey.

      Oh, one last thing that made me think of, you mentioned Leia "starting the Resistance" and that's why she was so "obviously" busy and working all the time. She didn't have to start the Resistance until AFTER Ben had turned and Han was gone.

      And again since I just read the last thing you wrote, if Kylo's turn was largely Han's fault and resentment on both sides then Han deserved to die and that moment was fairly meaningless.

      I keep telling myself I'm not going to keep getting roped into this conversation and I keep getting pulled back into the conversation.

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    47. I know Zyra. The thing is, I really do believe discussion is good. And if TFA is your cup of tea people, fine. I accept that this is the story that JJ chose to tell. But don't go down this path of it was the ONLY story to tell, because it wasn't, or that it would NEVER have worked out because, you know, "realism." I'm sorry that someone's marriage did not work out, but that does not define realism, it defines one's personal experience. And then when one starts adding crap about "dysfunctional family" because of dedicated career mother, and this causing a "complex" and "interesting" psychokiller, you lose me. you just lose me. McKak

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    48. My main issue with this idea that Han and Leia had an on and off, dysfunctional, always arguing marriage is this ludicrous idea that Leia would put up with that for over 20 years. Whomever thinks that has NO understand of Leia as a character as we see her in the OT. Leia Organa is not Carrie Bradshaw, she is not someone who is insecure with low self-esteem who would put up with Han's bullshit time and time again and keep taking him back, like Carrie did with Mr. Big while he treated her like crap for years and years. (Oh, and if you want to talk unrealistic fairy tale endings, the idea that Carrie and Big would end up happily together is completely unrealistic because unlike Han, Big never, ever changes for Carrie despite how much she wants him to. But I digress...)

      Leia is strong-willed, smart beyond her years, and independent. She has a career and a cause outside of her relationship with Han. She didn't NEED Han, she never did. She wanted him and she loved him, but she never needed him. That's actually one of the things I love about Han and Leia's relationship - they're two individuals who weren't looking for love and didn't need each other, but fell in love anyway. If Han treated her continuously like crap and walked out on her and then came back with some feeble excuse and promise that he would change, and this cycle continued over and over again with him never changing, Leia would eventually had him his walking papers and file for divorce. I could see her POSSIBLY putting up with it hoping that he'd change for a few years because she's in love with him and she wants to make it work for the sake of their son. The idea she would put up with it for over 20 years (which is how long we know they've been together before Ben went bad)? That's frankly laughable for anyone who knows Leia's character.

      Leia is smart and independent enough to know that that kind of dysfunctional relationship would be unhealthy to her and unhealthy to Ben. She'd cut ties with Han, move on with her life, maybe even find someone who treated her the way she knew she deserved to be treated and could be a good father to Ben. You really think Leia is going to think she doesn't deserve better than a husband and father who's always abandoning her and isn't around to be a good father to her son? Have you watched the OT?

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    49. By the way, regarding the discussion on when Han and Leia had Ben, Pablo has now confirmed that Han and Leia had him 9 months after ROTJ. https://twitter.com/pablohidalgo/status/691422121705078784 https://twitter.com/pablohidalgo/status/691422260163284992 Looks like Ben was a bonfire baby! ;) And I'm okay with him being an accident, if he was. I'm positive that Han and Leia would be nothing but devoted and loving parents.

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  36. I think all you people overreacting over TFA and missing the EU (did we forget COPL?!) should read this: https://hanandleiarule.wordpress.com/2016/01/20/5-reasons-why-tfa-does-a-better-job-with-hl-than-the-eu/

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    1. Meh, don't get me wrong, there was plenty I disliked about the old EU too, especially in the Bantam area and earlier NJO. Bantam had Han and Leia acting like roommates instead of a married couple a lot of the time, Han being a wuss, and I think we can all agree in COPL Leia acted like a stuck up prom queen and Han acting like a stalker psychopath. The problem with this piece, no offence to the author, is that she only appears to have read that part of the EU (which I can't say I blame her for since that part of the EU treated them terribly). A lot of the complaints are taking what happened in the Bantam and early NJO books and generalizing that to the entire EU, which is kind of misleading. For example, she complains about Han and Leia always being on separate missions but that was really only a thing in Bantam and early NJO. After Leia replaces Chewie as Han's copilot they're basically inseparable and spend every book working together as a team and going on undercover missions and such, and acting like an actual married couple with romantic scenes, innuendos, and witty banter. There's actually more books with them working together than splitting them up, so again it's misleading to say the EU split them up constantly. Then other complaints - Han being a househusband, them being absentee parents - was stuff that again was from the Bantam books and doesn't really apply once Del Rey took over the series when Han and Leia are out working as a team doing missions and have a very close relationship with both their surviving children.

      Again, I don't blame Han and Leia fans who gave up on the EU and never looked back after Bantam and the early parts of the NJO and have no idea what direction the books took after that. Things DID get way, way better for Han/Leia fans once Del Rey took over the franchise, but it's a lot to ask fans who've been burnt by seeing their favorites treated terribly for years to shell out hard earned money to buy new books. I remember being on the old mailing list Organa-zation and most of the Han/Leia fans on there had given up on the EU and refused to even buy books like Tatooine Ghost and Shadows of Mindor which had some fantastic Han/Leia romantic scenes and interaction and had their characters going on missions together because they had been so disappointed with how they were treated in earlier EU books.

      Yeah, the EU had a lot of bad in it, especially during the Bantam era. But I really appreciate what they did with Han and Leia's characters once they reconciled in the NJO (on a side note, the author of that piece doesn't seem aware that they got back together after splitting up, unlike in TFA). Leia became Han's co-pilot, they made their home on the Falcon, Leia later became a kick-ass Jedi, and they spent all their time together and working as a team. For the most part they acted in character with Han with his scoundrel wisecracking heroic personality and Leia with her warmth and kindness but still with her sarcasm and wit, with plenty of romantic moments between them during the books. I think that's as good as we can hope for any Han/Leia future. They also had books going back to their early days like Tatooine Ghost and Shadows of Mindor were chock-full of Han/Leia romantic moments.

      TL;DR The EU had some bad, some good for Han/Leia and it's not as black and white as it seems, and it's unfair to generalize when you've only read the first 1/3 of it. For the record, I didn't mind TFA either, but I also still like a lot of the EU. I'm looking forward to the new EU books that come out exploring their marriage and early days with Ben.

      - S

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    2. To clarify, some of my earlier comments are also based around another piece on that author's site https://hanandleiarule.wordpress.com/2015/12/25/a-word-on-the-hl-fandom-meltdown/#more-17 which goes on about how the EU was worse for Han/Leia fans because they were constantly split up on separate missions, Han being a househusband and so on as well as the piece linked.

      - S

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    3. I'm one of the H/L fans who liked TFA and also enjoyed a lot of the old EU (minus COPL which was atrocious), but that post seemed misinformed on what happened in their separation like the author didn't actually read the books where they separated and reconciled. They didn't separate permanently and never saw each other again (the author says that TFA is better than the EU because at least Leia saw Han before he died instead of never seeing him again). As with TFA, when they became estranged in the NJO it wasn't because they stopped loving each other, Han just had to deal with his pain over losing Chewie and took some time to go on missions by himself. Leia understood that and gave him that space. He was always in contact with Leia and contacted her several times while they were apart. Really, they were never really separated, they were just doing their own missions and physically apart with Leia giving Han his space to grieve. Their separation in TFA is much more an actual *separation* where it goes on for years and they don't seem to have had any contact in between with seemingly no plans to ever reconcile. Anyhow I agree with above poster that the author appears to have only read the Bantam books because most of her complaints aren't a thing in the later Del Rey series where Han and Leia are glued at the hip and engage in romantic banter all the time with each other...

      The bashing and making fun of the fans on this blog in other places is a little childish and immature. It's a big fandom and there'll always be different opinions. I liked the movie, but I'm not going to make fun of and dismiss those who don't. I remember a similar situation in 1999 when the prequels came out and there was a deep divide among SW fans who liked them and those that didn't. I didn't like them and was made fun of by TPM fans who criticized me for my shallowness and not "getting" a deep movie like TPM. Sometimes people just have different opinions, folks and not everyone will like the same movie you did. No need to get panties in a twist ;)

      - B

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    4. I disagree that anyone here is "overreacting." While I do think that at some point we need to stop dwelling on it and talking about the same stuff over and over again, there have been enough of us who were genuinely and painfully affected by this that it seems like a fairly normal reaction. This is a couple many of us have followed for basically our entire lives. That's a lot to suddenly have it all stomped on.

      But I should also say that I don't disagree with just about anything said in the article. I mean just read the review on this site to see what we thought of COPL. It was complete garbage. I was one of the vocal fans about their separation in the NJO back in the day after Chewie died. I never liked that they sent the kids off, or were separated a ton on missions. And I wholeheartedly agree that it was never entirely clear what exactly Han's job was during the pre-NJO years, and often if you read our book reviews here you'll see it went back and forth a lot where one book Han and Leia had dinner with their kids every night, and the next book suddenly they'd be back to not seeing them much. There was a lot of inconsistency. I'm not sure why disliking what they did to them in TFA means that we would have to them love EVERYTHING about the EU. I definitely don't love everything about the EU. But you're talking about like 50 books written by lots of different authors over the course of 20 years, often without any real attempt at continuity or writing some sort of cohesive narrative. Most of them were written to be self contained where not much changed by the end of the book, just face the enemy, defeat, end up back where you started.

      The thing about the EU though was that ultimately, they got through things together. The last we saw of them before it was all de-canonized, they had been married for like 40 years and love each other more than ever. Frankly I think in both cases they suffered a little too much tragedy (happily married but still lost 2 sons, their daughter killed their Sith son, Chewie is dead, their Sith son killed Luke's wife vs. having only one child who is basically possessed by the devil and they can't do anything about it and split up and are left suffering alone) but I still think in the end it is better if they stick it out.

      I am not asking for fairy tale (which is sort of dumb, because in a lot of ways Star Wars IS a fairy tale, but whatever) or for everything to always be perfect. And at times I've been like, well, yeah, I guess maybe it makes sense they split up because of Ben and that awfulness and whatever. But you know what? No, lately I've been more like, that is just cowardly and awful of Han (and Luke, for that matter) to just run away and "go back to the only thing he was good at." Yeah, how good is he at it if apparently he owes everyone money and they all just want to kill him? That doesn't make any sense. He abandoned Leia and left her completely alone to suffer without anyone left to turn to. I mean at least he had Chewie. Maybe doing that temporarily, but would he seriously leave her in a war without looking after her? What if she had died, would he have been able to forgive himself?

      I'm getting off track, I think. The point is, yeah, there were SOME moments in the EU that were crap and worse than TFA. There was plenty that wasn't. Hating what they did to them in TFA doesn't mean we have to love and/or accept what they did to them in the EU.

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    5. Yeah, the snide comments about the commentators on this blog by other Han/Leia fans in other places are a little too nasty for my liking and remind me of the prequel wars in the 90s/2000s. Fandom should be fun and open to diverse opinions. Some people love the prequels and I'm not going to bash and make fun of them for having poor judgment because they don't share the same opinion I do. I know some people love TFA, but not all of us do. Can't we all get along?

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    6. I tend to overreact to bad storytelling, that's true. I think it says something about us as a culture that we aren't critical about story consistency anymore, and TFA is a glaring example of it. I'm sure the EU was as well, but at least it wasn't presented as if it were any kind of great sequel to the OT. But I didn't read much of the EU at all, so I'm not missing it at all either.

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    7. I think that post is misconstruing what some people have said with that they prefer Han and Leia's fates in the EU than what became of them in TFA. It doesn't mean we think the EU was great or perfect. There was a lot wrong with it, as the post outlines. COPL was terrible, we can all agree on that, and Han and Leia were out of character in a lot of the Bantam books with Leia being a workaholic and Han losing his edge. Ultimately though, their fate ends up a lot happier than what we see become of them in TFA and I think that's what Han and Leia fans mean we they say they prefer the EU over TFA. Plus (I agree the author of the post appears to have only read the first 1/3 of the EU), for the last 25 or so books Del Rey produced they had them VERY happily married and working side by side as a husband and wife team and never leaving each other's side. They are pretty much never apart once they reconcile in Star by Star in the NJO. I would have loved to see that arrangement in TFA instead of the Han and Chewie team, but I understand that Carrie Fisher might not have been up to handling that kind of lead role and she probably wouldn't have been up to action sequences like EU Han and Leia get with Leia a Jedi Knight kicking ass with a lightsaber.

      Leia definitely gets a happier fate in the EU. She does go through losing Chewie, losing her youngest son and losing Jacen to the Dark Side and then him dying, but throughout it all she has Han and his love and support, the love of her brother, the love of Jaina her daughter and Jacen's child, their grandchild, that Han and Leia adopt and raise. There's still a lot of happiness in her life despite the tragedies she goes through. Leia in the TFA has her son go dark and massacre all the remaining Jedi in the galaxy, Luke abandon her and go into exile, Han abandon her and go back to being a smuggler, and then seeing her son go reform the Empire that her, Luke and Han worked so hard to rebuild. And then her son kills her husband before she has a chance to reconcile with him and she has no one. It's a much darker fate for Leia and Han than what became of them in the EU.

      And yeah, people who are always bashing this site elsewhere need to chill. If it upsets them so much that people don't like TFA, then they don't have to lurk at this blog.

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    8. Sorry, forgot to add that after saying Han and Leia were out of character for a lot of the Bantam books, I think they were very in character for most of the books once Del Rey took over the franchise and they were always together. Troy Denning in particular (who wrote like 12 books with Han and Leia as main characters) really nails Han as a tough-guy hero with the heart of gold and Leia as a smart kick-ass heroine with a biting wit and sarcasm.

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    9. For Han/Leia fans, I don't know how anyone could take issue with seeing them as we did later in the EU as a team, working on undercover missions using both their skills (Han as a pilot, fast shooter and negotiator, Leia as a Jedi). One thing I appreciated about the later books is that Han wasn't seen as this dumb guy getting by on luck like he was in the earlier books, he was actually shown using his skills to get out of tough situations and get the job done. Leia also became a lot more interesting when she wasn't a diplomat and she was Han's partner and using HER skills as a former diplomat and her new skills as a Jedi. They also have a TON of romantic moments, Troy Denning basically writes Han and Leia professional fan fiction. Isn't that what Han and Leia fans have wanted to see all along?! That's why we hated that they split them up so often in the Bantam books!

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    10. Well, I think a lot of the older fans who have been around forever burnt out on the EU during the Bantam/early NJO era and didn't read any of the books that came out after, so they have a skewed view of the EU. Like I said earlier, I don't blame them for not continuing to buy the books after the early ones were such a disappointment, but most of them don't know about what became of Han and Leia later on. I was an old-timer on the old Organa-zation list and most of the people there were long-time Han/Leia fans and stopped buying the books around the Bantam era because they found them so disappointing.

      Troy Denning IS a Han/Leia fanfic writer, isn't he? I noticed in Tatooine Ghost he was trying to "fix" a lot of the complaints Han/Leia fans had consistently made - about Bria, Isolder, COPL, Leia's overt devotion to her work, Han being a wimp. Was he the one that wrote about Han and Leia have cockpit sex on their way back from a mission?

      - S

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    11. That was James Luceno in Unifying Force who wrote about the implied cockpit sex. He also implied in his book Millennium Falcon that Han and Leia had sex on the way to Bespin, haha. Troy had plenty of Han/Leia innuendos in his books too - like Han wanting Leia to dress up in the Falleen costume and come back to bed with him in the middle of a mission.

      Yes, agreed about Han actually acting like the smart hero he is in the later books. A lot of author seemed to write him as this bumbling guy getting by on luck, but the later authors did him justice, especially Troy Denning.

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    12. They definitely had happier fates in the EU which is what I think people meant when they said they prefer their fates in the EU. Especially Luke suffers a tragic fate in TFA - his nephew betrays him and murders his entire Jedi Academy and possibly his wife, then he goes into exile haunted by guilt and despair for like 10 years. Pretty dark ending to the hero of the OT. In the EU, at least he reformed the Jedi Academy, trained numerous apprentices, was happily married even though he lost his wife, and had a son (Rey may be his daughter but he obviously missed out on her childhood). Han too, in the EU, suffered the loss of two of his children and Chewie, but except for a brief estrangement was never without his beloved wife and partner, had his daughter and son in law and later granddaughter that he and Leia adopted and raised. Most importantly, Han or Leia never died and as of the last book were still madly in love with each other and happily married for 40 years. Han's fate in TFA is pretty dark and tragic - he has a family, loses it all when his don goes dark and he runs out on his wife, his brother in law and best friend goes into exile, he falls back into a petty life and goes back to smuggling/swindling, loses his ship somewhere along the way, ends up in debt and being chased by bounty hunters all over the Galaxy before finally being murdered by his evil son who hates him. I think the people saying they prefer the EU aren't forgetting that COPL was awful, they're just rationalizing that the fate of all three main characters was much happier than what we got in TFA. TFA has them split up across the galaxy while the EU had them presenting a united front against adversity. And none of them died - I think that's the big difference. - Karen

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    13. Speaking of Luke, does anyone else feel terribly bad for Luke fans as well? In the EU he gets to have a successful Jedi Academy, train Han and Leia's kids and several other Jedi apprentices, get married and have a kid. In TFA he sees his only accomplishment utterly destroyed by his nephew, his apprentice falls to the Dark Side and he goes into exile. I don't think Lucas' intention was for Luke to repeat Obi-Wan and Yoda's fate, but that's exactly what happened to him! He may get some happiness in Episode VIII of being reconciled with his daughter Rey and training her, but he's had just as crappy a life as Han and Leia and the start of TFA.

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  37. I have stayed out of all this TFA discussion mainly because I just don't think it's worth the effort to argue about it. What I like is what I like and what someone else likes is their prerogative. In the end it is all just subjective opinions about some fictional movie characters and no matter how much we discuss or argue there will never be a right or wrong answer. Discussions like that, lengthy ongoing ones anyway, are pointless and unhealthy.

    But I have to say! I think the Han as a perpetual bad boy is total bullshit and ignoring the very essence of humanity which is our ability to grow as human beings. I also disagree that Han and Leia’s ‘thing” is their arguing. After the kiss in ESB they never yelled at each other ever again. They discussed Lando and Han’s leaving in Cloud City. They did not scream at each other. Marriages can start all kinds of ways and you cannot prescribe a definitive outcome over how they started. Why? Because that would be ignoring the biggest variable in a relationship: people and their motivations and their ability to change and grow. With all of that being said, this is a Han and Leia blog site. Why is it surprising that the majority of members here wanted to see a happy Han and Leia ending and are a little upset that we didn’t? And why are you reading this blog if you don’t / didn’t?

    But I digress.

    I guess for me regarding TFA, yes I was upset about Han and Leia, but also what I wanted to see was the enemy rise up in a different way. I wanted the victory at the end of ROTJ to mean something and I wanted to see the Sith struggling to come to power after having been decimated by my heroes from the original films. Even if it had been Han and Leia’s son that was seduced by the dark side and turned to be the first Sith back, I would’ve been okay with that – not happy, but ok. But show me something different, write a new story showing the future of these characters that I love, show me what they’ve grown into and become. If the EU had anything, it was new enemies. I’d have preferred something like the Vong – they were scary as shit. But they didn’t, all we got was another Death Star and trillions of storm troopers and an extremely (comically) large holoprojection of the new Emperor, a regurgitated copy of the OT storyline and (most sadly) the characters that we loved reduced to pathetic, one-dimensional caricatures of themselves.

    So, TFA? Eh. ::shrugs:: No thanks, I’ll pass. And if that makes me one of “you people” who are “overreacting” then so be it.

    My two cents on the EU? It's like fanfic to me. I like to read it when it has Han and Leia in it. Sometimes they are in character, sometimes they are not. Sometimes the storyline is good, sometime it is not. I reread what I like and I ignore the rest. The end.

    Finally, and most important and tragic for this blog, is that someone took the time to write a story and submit it for our challenge (the actual topic of this particular blog post) and we have no one commenting on that. :-(

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  38. Just FYI, so that everyone knows that this is a thing: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_troll

    The golden rule is: Don't feed the troll.

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    1. Yeah. I've been thinking that. I've done some heavy-duty feeding. I'm done.

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  39. Agree with most of what you say Push and love the new stories but the new AU of TFA is still going to be a big discussion point. And if mot here, where? Mckak

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  40. Guys, run to fanfiction.net and read Erin Darroch's Remain in Light. It will make you feel better. Erin, if you're still on this site, can I ask where you got the 18 months separated from? I thought it had been years and years, maybe up to 10 based on the novel saying Han hadn't seen his son as an adult and Han saying a "boy" massacred the Jedi Academy. Just wondering if there is any canon evidence of this I would love some good news. -Karen

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    1. Hi Karen! I made it up, simply because it galls me to think they've been separated for years and years. As far as I know, that long separation will be the new canon, which is a real shame.

      I made up my own timeline, ignoring anything "official" that I don't care for, like the statement from Hidalgo whats-his-face that Ben is 30. Nonsense. RotJ takes place 4ABY and TFA takes place 34 ABY, so Leia would have had to be pregnant during the events of RotJ or else Ben was a bonfire baby, conceived in the celebrations after the destruction of the second Death Star. For my purposes, Ben is 29 (maybe even a year younger) and he turned at around age 14-15. I know what boys that age are like, and I find that totally plausible. It also chimes with what Han said about a "boy" committing the massacre. I also think that's the last time Han or Leia saw Ben's face. It's clear from TFA that they haven't laid eyes on him at all for a long time...

      In my imagination, the Han and Leia I know would not just fall apart when Ben went bad and Rey disappeared. They would have FOUGHT for their children. They would have gone absolutely to the edges of the galaxy to find their kids. And I think that "mission" would have kept them going for a long time. Only when one (Han) begins to accept that all hope is lost, and the other (Leia) refuses, does the schism really begin to show. And even then, I think they would have carried on for another few years before parting company...

      Anyway! It's fanfiction, which means we can make it the way we want it to be. :)

      Thanks for your question. I'm glad you enjoyed the story! You can PM me on FanFiction.net if you like. I'm busy writing again (collaborating with my fanfic hero Sue Zahn! yay!) so I'm not checking boards and blogs as much just now.

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  41. Question on timelines and other stuff! I'm writing two fics at the moment and I can't figure out the timeline. One is how long have Han and Leia been separated for when TFA opens? The novelization says "years" and Han says "a boy" (Ben) destroyed Luke's Jedi Academy but do we know exactly when it was?

    The second is a ROTJ fic. Is there an official explanation why Leia is out of the loop with what is going on with the attack on the Second Death Star? Was she demoted because she left to rescue Han? I haven't read Moving Target maybe that explains it? - Karen

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    1. Separation timeline, we have no idea right now. It could've been 5 years, 10 years, 15, even 20. Or maybe a year-and-a-half. Longer seems more likely, I'm thinking 10 years at the very least, but honestly we don't know. I wouldn't necessarily take Han referring to the "boy" who turned against Luke meaning that Ben was literally a child when it happened. Even at 30 Han probably would've referred to his son as a boy, just seems like kind of a "dad" thing. We really don't know yet how long it's been.

      I was just under the impression she hadn't been briefed on everything because they had been off rescuing Han. I don't think she was punished for leaving or anything. And even in one of the new books Mon Mothma encourages her to go after him and that love is important and stuff. I just think there wasn't time yet to fill her in on everything, though I do think she knew the basics of what was going on.

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    2. There is no official number of years, but the info released by Pablo Hidalgo makes it sound like it hasn't been for very long. He said that they had "decades of peace" after ROTJ so the Jedi Massacre only occurred in the past 10 years. When asked when the Jedi Massacre occurred he said "it wasn't that long ago". He's also confirmed that Rey was dropped off on Jakku before the Jedi Massacre occurred (14 years before TFA). Then we have Jen Heddle saying that Bloodlines which takes place 6 years before TFA has some cute Han/Leia scenes "in happier times". They could be flashbacks, but if they're present day Han and Leia are still together 6 years before TFA. If Bloodlines deals with Ben going dark as I suspect it will, then Ben doesn't go dark until he's 23. That acutally makes sense since that's the same time Anakin Skywalker went Dark. Then after the Jedi Massacre, I think they probably tried to reach Ben for a couple of years and not give up on him right away, and when they couldn't find him or they found him and he rejected them things fell apart. So it may have been as little as 4-5 years that they've been separated.

      I don't think there's an official reason why Leia was out of the loop in ROTJ. That always sort of bugged me that she seems to be some sort of military leader in ESB and then has no idea what's going on in ROTJ. Though I have occasionally brought it up when people characterize Leia as being devoted to nothing but the Rebellion - I'm like, then how can she tag along on Han's mission? Sue Zahn has an interesting explanation of it in one of her fics, if I recall correctly, that Leia was essentially punished and demoted for taking leave to rescue Han, but I don't think there's an official canon explanation.

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    3. I agree that it hasn't been that long but I don't think they ran into Ben until Han sees him for the first time in TFA. Their whole conversation about Leia pleading with Han to talk to him to me indicates that there was no prior conversation. I believe that after they heard about the Jedi Massacre from Luke, Han lost all faith that there was any good left in Ben and left. Leia held out hope that there might be some left - ultimately, that might have been one of the reasons they fell apart.

      - S

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  42. Did anyone watch the X-Files premiere last night? I totally got Han/Leia vibes off of Mulder/Scully reuniting after being estranged. Even their situations seemed similar - with Scully/Leia being the responsible productive one while Mulder/Han had spiralled down into depression. With both Mulder/Scully and Han/Leia broken up, my teenage self who shipped those two is pretty devastated this month! :(

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  43. Yes. The tension radiating off them was insane. The way Dana looked at him in pretty much every scene...damn.

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  44. By the way, regarding the discussion on when Han and Leia had Ben, Pablo has now confirmed that Han and Leia had him 9 months after ROTJ. https://twitter.com/pablohidalgo/status/691422121705078784 https://twitter.com/pablohidalgo/status/691422260163284992 Looks like Ben was a bonfire baby! ;) And I'm okay with him being an accident, if he was. I'm positive that Han and Leia would be nothing but devoted and loving parents.

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    1. If that's true, looks like we're getting that shotgun wedding then, which I REALLY don't want. Ugh. I was feeling quite optimistic about the future stories about their early years together, wedding etc. Now, not so much. This sounds like a bad start to me.

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