tfw you realize chewbacca probably loved ben almost as much as han did.
he was probably ‘uncle chewie’.
and chewie had to raise his gun against him.
chewie’s a good marksman. he was probably entirely capable of hitting kylo lethally. but he couldn’t. because he held ben as a baby and put him up on his shoulders and let ben pull on his fur because human babies all seem to go through that awful hair pulling phase.
how could he kill ben, who had been so small in his big wookiee arms when he was brand new that chewie had almost been scared to hold him for fear of breaking him.
But considering Obi-Wan felt Alderaan’s destruction so keenly, do you think Luke, too, felt the loss of the New Republic planets?
Did he feel all those voices cry out in the Force?
Did he, hours later, feel guilty that all those beings had been erased, and yet it only took one light, one blazing soul in the Force extinguishing to finally bring him to his knees on the grassy mountaintop, his hands trembling?
I’m already seeing a lot of portrayals of Finn’s backstory as a Stormtrooper hinging on wanton violence and trauma. But I wonder if anyone has considered that the way Troopers are conditioned might be by an excess of care/attention, not by violence? I mean, we have evidence of that reading in the fact that Finn’s negative reaction is noted and pursued by his commanding officer. That demonstrates a heightened awareness of each of the troopers, not a lack of care. I wonder if maybe the medical care for troopers–as an example–was absolutely the best that money can buy, but not offered with pleasantries. Like, maybe Finn has had medical care thousands of times but usually he was put under sedation at the drop of a hat rather than allowed to stay conscious and engaged with the medical process. Like, maybe the biggest difference between his current medical care and what he experienced as a trooper is that they’re going to explain what they’re doing at every step now and he’s going to have to push himself to heal, not rely on them making it easy on him.
Like, if a trooper got a spinal injury, wouldn’t it make sense for the clearly affluent First Order to simply replace the spine and, like, build new muscle tissue or whatnot, rather than putting a trooper through longterm physical therapy and making him choose which course of treatment he wants.
Also, I think it’s worth thinking about how everything is easy as a trooper, but nothing is personal and that might be another key difference. I totally buy the idea of Finn being chronically touch-starved and unable to assert choices, though. I am loving that trend in the fic. I bet other key differences could include:
- now he has to own things and remember where they are. Like, he takes off his shoes outside and then forgets that, you know, they’re his and he has to come back barefoot to find them later
- also remembering how stuff belongs to other people too. Like, he doesn’t recognize the gesture as significant when Poe gives him the jacket. It’s not until Poe says it, maybe even later when he thinks about it again, that it’s a gift.
- having to remember names is probably very hard. and then finding out people have two names each, that probably frustrates him and blows his mind equally.
- it might take him a while to understand how different people’s backgrounds are. like, maybe he assumes everyone knows how to use a lightsaber because Rey was good at it. If Rey knows it, he just assumes everyone knows it. That’s the way it was for troopers: everyone knew exactly the same things. You never chatted about your childhood because it was exactly identical to everyone else’s. He probably grows to really love hearing people talk about their pasts. He probably makes a lot of friends by being just utterly charmed by the most prosaic of stories.
- i bet the messiness of the base bothers him. i bet he has to keep telling himself it’s fine that no one has scoured that wall over there, it’s totally fine. because he clearly wants to go find a bucket and a sponge and just bleach the fuck out of that mold.
- god, he is actually probably the neatest ever. once he gets a hang of the idea of this being his room, he probably keeps it fucking spotless
See, I have NOTHING against the idea of people wanting to see what happened to Luke, Han, and Leia next! I just…I just wish it had been something more cheerful, I guess. The ending of Return of the Jedi is so important to me! So important! I mean, I always knew that the Empire couldn’t possibly disappear just like that, I always knew that it was never a given that Han and Leia’s kids would turn out okay…but I wish it had been. I wish they’d all gotten to go off and live Happily Ever After.
He put his hands on her shoulders, and thirty years fell away in an instant. “Leia, there’s something I’ve been wanting to say to you for a long time.” Fighting to hold back tears, she put a finger to his lips. “Tell me when you get back.” He started to object, caught himself. There’d been too much arguing over the years, he knew.
This time he really might not come back; the last thing he wanted was to part on even a semblance of a spat. Instead, he took her into his arms, which really was much better than arguing, or even talking. They stood like that for a long moment, holding tightly to each other.
The Force Awakens (novel) by Alan Dean Foster
“Chewie, we’re home!” was such an uplifting line in the TFA trailer, but it suddenly becomes really sad in the context of the actual movie
The Falcon isn’t Han’s home anymore. His home was with Leia and his son, and now they’re both gone to him in different ways, so all he can do is run back to his old life, and convince himself that’s all he needs. It’s great to see Han in the Falcon again, but that’s not remotely where he should have been….he wasn’t actually home at all.
aaaaah what the hell Harrison Ford’s actual son is also called Ben
