What Drove Han Solo and Leia Apart Before STAR WARS: THE FORCE AWAKENS
It was great to see Han Solo return in Star Wars: The Force Awakens, but it sucked to learn that he and Leia didn't quite work out. Then it got even worse when his own son Ben killed him!
Thanks to a new excerpt from the upcoming Star Wars book Aftermath: Empire’s End, we now have some insight into why Han and Leia ended up separating. The book already gave us some info on what happened to Lando Calrissian after the events of Return of the Jedi, now we have these new details thanks to StarWars.com.
While she is pregnant with Ben, Han is going out and buying a lot of fruit, and buying fruit really isn't his style. The excerpt explains how Leia sees that Han is board with life and needs to do something. In the scene, Leia is at home with her protocol droid, T-2LC. Han Solo shows up with a bag of jogan fruit because Leia is told by a doctor that she should eat more of it while she’s pregnant. Here's the main part of what was shared:
“Dr. Kalonia said to incorporate jogan into my diet, not to replace everything with jogan fruit.”
He sweeps up on her, cradling her face with his rough hand. He strokes her cheek gently. “All right, all right. I’m just trying to do right by you two.”
“I know, Han.”
“If I think I can help, I’ll always help. With whatever you or our son needs. You know that, right?”
She laughs. “I know.”
It’s been hard for Han. He won’t say it out loud, but she can see it on his face. Her husband needs something to do. He’s bored. Chewbacca’s back home, looking for his family. Luke’s searching the galaxy for old Jedi teachings. Han Solo’s got nothing to smuggle, nowhere to gamble, no foolish Rebellion to fight for.
He’s like the Falcon: retired to a hangar somewhere, waiting for something, anything, to happen.
So he buys fruit. Lots and lots of fruit.
And, of course, he worries about her. He turns her toward the table and the star map. “You’re not still on this, are you?”
This is just one of those things that we know leads to the separation. This seed of Han being bored with life is just going to grow into a form of resentment that will eventually tear them apart after Ben turns to the Dark Side.
It's hard to imagine Han as a regular guy doing regular things like buying fruit. I'm surprised Han wasn't out doing more helping out with the resistance. Why couldn't General Leia give him some cool stuff to do to keep him busy a keep him from getting bored?
In the end, we all know what happens between the two. Luckily they weren't bitter towards each other. You could tell that even though they weren't together anymore, they still loved each other. That's the most important thing.
Maybe we'll learn more about what caused them to drift apart in the book when it's released next week on February 21st.