What REALLY happened at Luke's Jedi "Let's Not Call it an Academy" Place...your thoughts?

Night Huntress wrote:

Cowgirlsamurai wrote:
I don't want to say it seems out of character of Han and Leia to do nothing, but... Han Solo who risked his life to free the Wookies? Saved Leia in Bloodline? Helped the Rebels when he didn't have to? Wouldn't go on a mission to retrieve Ben from the First Order? The "Too much Vader in him," line makes it seem like Han feared his own son. Maybe that explain some of it...
I can't believe Leia was scared of him though. She seems like the type to go after him as well, although maybe that's what she wants Luke to do.

@Cowgirlsamurai

That's what I don't get at all- why didn't they try to retrieve him from the FO? Even if they can't turn him back, at least that would prevent him from doing more damage.
I'm really pissed at Han, Leia and Luke for that and hope they'll come up with a good explanation.
Maybe they couldn't find him or something like that- but it was never mentioned they even searched for him at all.
Han didn't say "We've been looking for you so long- finally I found you..." or he could have said to Leia when they met on Takodana "Leia, I found him! He was here!" No, it sounded somewhat... I don't know. I don't know what to think at all.

@Night Huntress

I don't think that Han or Leia knew that Ben was with the First Order for a long time. For all we know, they have tried to contact him after the massacre but have not been able to - for years - and have no idea where he is until shortly before the events of the Force Awakens. For all we know, the discovery that Ben is with the First Order as Kylo Ren might be the impetus for Leia's renewed attempt to find Luke.

fuhry wrote:

Night Huntress wrote:

Cowgirlsamurai wrote:
I don't want to say it seems out of character of Han and Leia to do nothing, but... Han Solo who risked his life to free the Wookies? Saved Leia in Bloodline? Helped the Rebels when he didn't have to? Wouldn't go on a mission to retrieve Ben from the First Order? The "Too much Vader in him," line makes it seem like Han feared his own son. Maybe that explain some of it...
I can't believe Leia was scared of him though. She seems like the type to go after him as well, although maybe that's what she wants Luke to do.

@Cowgirlsamurai

That's what I don't get at all- why didn't they try to retrieve him from the FO? Even if they can't turn him back, at least that would prevent him from doing more damage.
I'm really pissed at Han, Leia and Luke for that and hope they'll come up with a good explanation.
Maybe they couldn't find him or something like that- but it was never mentioned they even searched for him at all.
Han didn't say "We've been looking for you so long- finally I found you..." or he could have said to Leia when they met on Takodana "Leia, I found him! He was here!" No, it sounded somewhat... I don't know. I don't know what to think at all.

@Night Huntress

I don't think that Han or Leia knew that Ben was with the First Order for a long time. For all we know, they have tried to contact him after the massacre but have not been able to - for years - and have no idea where he is until shortly before the events of the Force Awakens. For all we know, the discovery that Ben is with the First Order as Kylo Ren might be the impetus for Leia's renewed attempt to find Luke.

@fuhry

Maybe, but what is Han guilty about, and why did he run off? If they thought he was dead, wouldn't they comfort each other? Also, if Leia can sense Kylo in TFA, when he's pretty deep in the dark, why couldn't she sense him earlier when he was probably more shaky during that reprogramming/indoctrination stage? I mean if she didn't feel her son dead, they should have kept looking, and even if he emerged from the FO after a time as Kylo Ren, they should have suspected indoctrination and tried to get their kid out of the cult of Snoke.

She was mission first in TFA, both with Finn in "sorry about your friend, sounds like a nice girl from what my husband says, but BTW Poe says you have the 4-11 on how to get in to that place." Like she KNEW that Ben was there. And that he had Rey with him. She does admit to Han that she'd like him to try and drag Ben's a** back if he sees him and that she knows she screwed up sending him off to Luke. But lady is all mission first and foremost. She had no problem blowing up the place with Ben on it.

snufkin wrote:She was mission first in TFA, both with Finn in "sorry about your friend, sounds like a nice girl from what my husband says, but BTW Poe says you have the 4-11 on how to get in to that place." Like she KNEW that Ben was there. And that he had Rey with him. She does admit to Han that she'd like him to try and drag Ben's a** back if he sees him and that she knows she screwed up sending him off to Luke. But lady is all mission first and foremost. She had no problem blowing up the place with Ben on it.

@snufkin

Exactly! There was no "you must find Ben." FFS, Han was planting bombs in a place where he knew the son might be around. I'm not saying they were evil or anything because SKB was set to blow up D'Qar, but this is some ugly hardcore "family on opposite sides of the war" sith.

snufkin wrote:She was mission first in TFA, both with Finn in "sorry about your friend, sounds like a nice girl from what my husband says, but BTW Poe says you have the 4-11 on how to get in to that place." Like she KNEW that Ben was there. And that he had Rey with him. She does admit to Han that she'd like him to try and drag Ben's a** back if he sees him and that she knows she screwed up sending him off to Luke. But lady is all mission first and foremost. She had no problem blowing up the place with Ben on it.

@snufkin

Exactly! Leia says If you see our son- bring him home - and if not, well then go about your day, blew up the station and whatever..
First I was shocked and angry at Kylo for killing Han- but the more I thought about it in retrospect the more I want to kill him off myself.  
I LOVE the original characters - Han and Leia in particular, but what the hell is wrong with them???
Luke didn't know his father, wasn't raised by him- and he was 100 times more bad than Kylo is- but he couldn't bring himself to kill him and wanted him redeemed.
Kylo was raised by Han and Leia - he spent a few years together with his uncle... and they just seem so indifferent about him.

@SoloSideCousin @Night Huntress - the leaked children's book pages about Leia made me laugh with the picture of Kylo as the bad guy who wants to stop the Resistance, because he's her son! Like "Kylo wants to consolidate his place in the Dark Side and destroy the Resistance, but his mom won't let him!"

Carrie Fisher did make that one joke about how he's an a**hole, but that okay I gave him a good upbringing but neglected him. So we'll see what that means, especially knowing that she had a hand in the script.

Night Huntress wrote:

snufkin wrote:She was mission first in TFA, both with Finn in "sorry about your friend, sounds like a nice girl from what my husband says, but BTW Poe says you have the 4-11 on how to get in to that place." Like she KNEW that Ben was there. And that he had Rey with him. She does admit to Han that she'd like him to try and drag Ben's a** back if he sees him and that she knows she screwed up sending him off to Luke. But lady is all mission first and foremost. She had no problem blowing up the place with Ben on it.

@snufkin

Exactly! Leia says If you see our son- bring him home - and if not, well then go about your day, blew up the station and whatever..
First I was shocked and angry at Kylo for killing Han- but the more I thought about it in retrospect the more I want to kill him off myself.  
I LOVE the original characters - Han and Leia in particular, but what the hell is wrong with them???
Luke didn't know his father, wasn't raised by him- and he was 100 times more bad than Kylo is- but he couldn't bring himself to kill him and wanted him redeemed.
Kylo was raised by Han and Leia - he spent a few years together with his uncle... and they just seem so indifferent about him.

@Night Huntress

I know! I have a child myself, and when I see this seeming indifference, I am always inwardly yelling, "WTF are you doing?"

And to make matters worse, two of them had good parenting.  Han appears to be an orphan of some kind,  so maybe you could say he would stumble pretty badly as a parent. But Luke ... Luke may have whined, but the aunt and uncle were good to him.  I mean they patiently put up with his whining didn't They? Lol.

And Leia ... If you read Princess of Alderaan, she practically had the nicest parents in the universe. She gets all worried about them not spending all kinds of time with her anymore when she's 16, yet she doesn't plan on visiting Ben when she retires?

I actually went to Dragoncon with @iojovi, and when I was asking Claudia Grey a question, I mentioned something like how it looked bad that Han and Leia didn't plan on visiting Ben in Bloodline. When I said that she got a more serious and maybe even apprehensive look on her face. Now maybe that was because LF's insistence on keeping Ben Solos story secret (she said that she had to work hard to get the Ben mentions she did) caused there to be a flaw in her story.  Or maybe I got close to something hidden with that.  We'll never know. I just know that the OT3 are probably not going to come out smelling like roses with Ben's parenting.

SoloSideCousin wrote:

I know! I have a child myself, and when I see this seeming indifference, I am always inwardly yelling, "WTF are you doing?"

And to make matters worse, two of them had good parenting.  Han appears to be an orphan of some kind,  so maybe you could say he would stumble pretty badly as a parent. But Luke ... Luke may have whined, but the aunt and uncle were good to him.  I mean they patiently put up with his whining didn't They? Lol.

And Leia ... If you read Princess of Alderaan, she practically had the nicest parents in the universe. She gets all worried about them not spending all kinds of time with her anymore when she's 16, yet she doesn't plan on visiting Ben when she retires?

I actually went to Dragoncon with @iojovi, and when I was asking Claudia Grey a question, I mentioned something like how it looked bad that Han and Leia didn't plan on visiting Ben in Bloodline. When I said that she got a more serious and maybe even apprehensive look on her face. Now maybe that was because LF's insistence on keeping Ben Solos story secret (she said that she had to work hard to get the Ben mentions she did) caused there to be a flaw in her story.  Or maybe I got close to something hidden with that.  We'll never know. I just know that the OT3 are probably not going to come out smelling like roses with Ben's parenting.

@SoloSideCousin

After watching TFA I often wondered what could have happened that Han and Leia where so uncaring about Ben.
But I didn't want to judge too harshly without any backstory.
After Bloodline and Leia Princess of Aldeeran I was even more confused. I really hope we get a better backstory and understanding when all the movies were released. Maybe even in TLJ... at the moment I have a hard time finding any explanation or excuse for Han and Leia's behavior- or Lukes for that matter.

SoloSideCousin wrote:

Night Huntress wrote:

snufkin wrote:She was mission first in TFA, both with Finn in "sorry about your friend, sounds like a nice girl from what my husband says, but BTW Poe says you have the 4-11 on how to get in to that place." Like she KNEW that Ben was there. And that he had Rey with him. She does admit to Han that she'd like him to try and drag Ben's a** back if he sees him and that she knows she screwed up sending him off to Luke. But lady is all mission first and foremost. She had no problem blowing up the place with Ben on it.

@snufkin

Exactly! Leia says If you see our son- bring him home - and if not, well then go about your day, blew up the station and whatever..
First I was shocked and angry at Kylo for killing Han- but the more I thought about it in retrospect the more I want to kill him off myself.  
I LOVE the original characters - Han and Leia in particular, but what the hell is wrong with them???
Luke didn't know his father, wasn't raised by him- and he was 100 times more bad than Kylo is- but he couldn't bring himself to kill him and wanted him redeemed.
Kylo was raised by Han and Leia - he spent a few years together with his uncle... and they just seem so indifferent about him.

@Night Huntress

I know! I have a child myself, and when I see this seeming indifference, I am always inwardly yelling, "WTF are you doing?"

And to make matters worse, two of them had good parenting.  Han appears to be an orphan of some kind,  so maybe you could say he would stumble pretty badly as a parent. But Luke ... Luke may have whined, but the aunt and uncle were good to him.  I mean they patiently put up with his whining didn't They? Lol.

And Leia ... If you read Princess of Alderaan, she practically had the nicest parents in the universe. She gets all worried about them not spending all kinds of time with her anymore when she's 16, yet she doesn't plan on visiting Ben when she retires?

I actually went to Dragoncon with @iojovi, and when I was asking Claudia Grey a question, I mentioned something like how it looked bad that Han and Leia didn't plan on visiting Ben in Bloodline. When I said that she got a more serious and maybe even apprehensive look on her face. Now maybe that was because LF's insistence on keeping Ben Solos story secret (she said that she had to work hard to get the Ben mentions she did) caused there to be a flaw in her story.  Or maybe I got close to something hidden with that.  We'll never know. I just know that the OT3 are probably not going to come out smelling like roses with Ben's parenting.

@SoloSideCousin

It's really interesting when you think about Leia's upbringing(I'm not going to mention Han's because his backstory is a mistery and the one he had in the EU might not be the same in the new canon).Like you said she had such great and caring parents and you would think that after being so insecure about them keeping secrets from her and ignoring her and then after loosing them she would do her best to be there for her son and raise him with the same love and devotion she received from her parents especially when she knew that there will come a day when she has to tell him the truth about Vader and he will be full of doubts and angry for keeping it a secret from him for such a long time but instead she puts her work ahead of him and sends him away to his Jedi hermit uncle to apparently help him.I'm not saying Leia should have quit her job I know helping people while raising a family of your own can be tricky but this indifference towards her own son and unwillingness to put on hold her work for the Senate to help her child when she had done that for Han in RTJ just make her look bad and what's interesting is that Leia had the same problem in the EU with her kids especially her daughter Jaina too(the kids were actually closer with Han,IMO) so them going down that route with her wasn't character assassination by any means.And like if I was in Leia's place even if I knew that if we didn't blow the planet the Resistance would be destroyed I still wouldn't be able to live with myself knowing that I was indirectly responsible for my child's death when I was aware that there was still hope for him to come back to the light.Hell,Luke felt guilty as hell for Ben's fall to the pint of runing away and becoming somewhat crazed yet Leia's ready to sacrifice him for the ''greater''good if that's necessary....that's very Vaderish.
I know we don't have the whole story yet but sadly I think that Han and Leia never out him first which makes the Han's death scene even more poignant since it was most likely the first time he put his son first and decided to try and bring him home even if that meant dying.

One of my favorite writers on sci-fi/fantasy is Emily Asher-Perrin at Tor.com and thought this was an interesting detail to pull out of her slightly tongue-in-cheek takedown of how Obi-Wan screws up as a mentor. Come to think of it, maybe part of how the ST ties in with both the PT and OT is about fixing the chain of errors he put into place with various half-truths and lies

5 Things That Obi-Wan Kenobi Should Have Told Luke Skywalker (Instead of LIES)

3. Here’s Some Background On the Jedi Order and the Empire

This isn’t a lie, but it is a gigantic omission that contains a lot of vital information. This is what you get for being shortsighted and short on time. Obi-Wan (and Yoda too, for that matter) give Luke practically zero background information on the war he’s entering into. It’s obvious why; they want Luke to do something very specific, wiping out the Emperor and his right hand guy. They’re not in education mode, they’re in weapons-making mode. As a result, Luke gets no rundown on the Jedi Order, their downfall, or the rise of the Empire. He gets the micro tale over the macro one — the Empire is the reason your dad is evil. Care about that part.

But the rest of that stuff? Is kind of important for the future that will come about if Luke is successful. If he doesn’t know much about the Jedi, he’s stuck putting the pieces together after the fact. Which could cause all the same problems that led to their destruction and a mega-evil Empire all over again. Case in point? From what we know about Luke post-Return of the Jedi, his whole new Jedi school kinda blows up in his face. When he fails to prevent the fall of his nephew. Does this sound familiar? I feel like I’m repeating myself. I feel like this also could have been avoided if you’d given him some Jedi books from the Jedi library. (I know, they’re gone now. But people have some holocrons of knowledge squirreled away and Yoda was old enough to have a lot of facts stored up that in green brain.)

snufkin wrote:One of my favorite writers on sci-fi/fantasy is Emily Asher-Perrin at Tor.com and thought this was an interesting detail to pull out of her slightly tongue-in-cheek takedown of how Obi-Wan screws up as a mentor. Come to think of it, maybe part of how the ST ties in with both the PT and OT is about fixing the chain of errors he put into place with various half-truths and lies

5 Things That Obi-Wan Kenobi Should Have Told Luke Skywalker (Instead of LIES)

3. Here’s Some Background On the Jedi Order and the Empire

This isn’t a lie, but it is a gigantic omission that contains a lot of vital information. This is what you get for being shortsighted and short on time. Obi-Wan (and Yoda too, for that matter) give Luke practically zero background information on the war he’s entering into. It’s obvious why; they want Luke to do something very specific, wiping out the Emperor and his right hand guy. They’re not in education mode, they’re in weapons-making mode. As a result, Luke gets no rundown on the Jedi Order, their downfall, or the rise of the Empire. He gets the micro tale over the macro one — the Empire is the reason your dad is evil. Care about that part.

But the rest of that stuff? Is kind of important for the future that will come about if Luke is successful. If he doesn’t know much about the Jedi, he’s stuck putting the pieces together after the fact. Which could cause all the same problems that led to their destruction and a mega-evil Empire all over again. Case in point? From what we know about Luke post-Return of the Jedi, his whole new Jedi school kinda blows up in his face. When he fails to prevent the fall of his nephew. Does this sound familiar? I feel like I’m repeating myself. I feel like this also could have been avoided if you’d given him some Jedi books from the Jedi library. (I know, they’re gone now. But people have some holocrons of knowledge squirreled away and Yoda was old enough to have a lot of facts stored up that in green brain.)

@snufkin

Those are all really excellent points--I know we've talked about some of that here. I do wonder if one of the ST themes will end up being how you have to understand the past if you don't want to repeat it.

@ISeeanIsland - that's the central theme of Bloodline, so I suspect it will be critical to all of the characters. Although that's what makes Finn so unique and a clear new path forward - he's not beholden to his past because he was taken from his family and had an identity imposed on him.