Photo Credit: Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back/LucasFilm Ltd. Image Acquired from Disney Media Distribution
An examination of pathos in the smuggler captain
Han Solo is an icon. He is known to Star Wars fans far and wide as a rugged and roguish ne’er-do-well who through wry cynicism and a pesky heroic streak managed to help save a rebellion and win the heart of a princess. We here at the Dork Side of the Force have dedicated the month of September to examining Han Solo, his accomplishments, his accomplices, and his lasting effect on the film franchise.
As with all great cinematic and literary characters there is more to Han Solo than just the initial persona presented. Yes, he shot first, and all that implies about who he was in that moment, but there is a another dimension to him that can be read. Amongst the core three heroes of the Original Trilogy, Han Solo offers a unique opportunity to examine the concept of Pathos as it occurs in Star Wars. Below we will further explore the character of Han Solo and detail how he is especially representative of pathos in the Star Wars diegetic universe.
A note on methodology: We will be pulling evidence from the main canonical films that feature Han Solo prominently. This includes the stand alone Solo film, the OT, and the ST. Additional sourcing will include the recent threads from Jon Kasdan who co-wrote Solo: A Star Wars Story. The intention is not one of subversion or character assassination, but that of deeper appreciation for the nuance of a complex anti-hero. It is not our contention that the material is somehow hidden, or even particularly subtextual. It lies merely overlooked.
Photo Credit: Lucasfilm
Pathos and how Han Solo emerges from it:
They’re not gonna get me without a fight!
–Han Solo
In order to discuss the concept of pathos and how it relates to Han as a character, we will, of course, be required to define it. Luckily we have the dictionary (yes, those still exist) to lend aid in that objective. Merriam-Webster defines Pathos thusly:
A) an element in experience or in artistic representation evoking pity or compassion.
B) an emotion of sympathetic pity.
We first encounter a young Solo on the harsh metropolis of Corellia working for a seedy and exploitative crime syndicate known as the White Worms. While it is mentioned later in the film that Han has a father, and has some recollection of him, we do not know if his father passed away leaving Han orphaned, or if the situation with his father was bad enough to warrant Han’s escape and eventual estrangement. In either eventuality, we know that Han is essentially without family.
It’s no secret that Kasdan’s father and son referenced Charles Dickens liberally when crafting the milieu from which Han springs. Dickens, of course, is noted for crafting stories that deal in the grotesque injustices visited upon orphans and urchins struggling to survive in an indifferent world. A ripe source from which to base a childhood in the Star Wars universe.
Han, alone save for his first love Qi’ra, is relying on all the pluck and skill he can muster to keep himself and his lover alive. Despite what are clearly overwhelming odds, his faith in their attachment is what keeps him going. That Han is able to maintain the childlike innocence and belief in first love amidst the dregs of society is endearing, puckish, and hopelessly naive. That his first love is doomed and his naiveté costly is a forgone conclusion.
It is this initial juxtaposition of innocent love under dire circumstances that show how Han as a character was cut from the cloth of pathos. We experience the weight of the society crushing down on him, and we feel an emotion of sympathetic pity towards his plight. That feeling is Pathos.
Two Solos – Person and Persona:
I might be the only person in the whole galaxy who knows what you really are…
–Qi’ra
No examination of Han Solo would be complete without delving (briefly) into the topic of his psychology. That the character has a split essence is a crucial contributing factor to his pathos. This dual characterization is not relegated singularly to the film Solo: A Star Wars Story, in some form of revisionist subversion, but rather informs who he is throughout the entirety of the Star Wars saga.
Noted Swiss psychoanalyst C. G. Jung helped to pioneer and define the terms by which we examine the human condition and it’s psyche. Among the various derivations of human consciousness that he helped to map and name, two will prove useful for our examination of Han Solo. The Self (named here for convenience as person) and the Persona. The Academy of Ideas provides a helpful video and transcription of these two Jungian ideas: of the Persona and the Self Jung states the following:
"Fundamentally the persona is nothing real: it is a compromise between the individual and society as to what a man should appear to be. He takes a name, earns a title, represents an office, he is this or that. In a certain sense all this is real, yet in relation to the essential individuality of the person concerned it is only a secondary reality, a product of compromise, in making which others often have a greater share than he. The persona is a semblance, a two-dimensional reality."
"…the self is our life’s goal, for it is the completest expression of that fateful combination we call individuality…"
The Han that we first meet in the cantina on Mos Eisley is a hardened, cynical, shoot-first outlaw. He’s flown from one end of the galaxy to the next and hasn’t been particularly impressed by what he’s seen. He’s a mercenary who cares little for others and least of all for grandiose and abstract concepts like a rebellion to free the galaxy. He’s a true denizen of the outer rim territories. He is the amalgamation of every real villain Han has had to deal with in order to survive the oppressive times in which he lives. He is the persona adopted by Han Solo.
However, it’s not long before that persona is shed to reveal the true self – or person– that is Han Solo. A man who has a clear and true sense of right and wrong, a man who cares deeply about his comrades, and a man who is ultimately searching for a family to which to belong.
In his thread offering factoids about the production of Solo: A Star Wars Story, Jon Kasdan makes this dichotomy explicit when comparing Han to the character of Beckett. In factoid thirty-one Kasdan states:
"We wanted Beckett [to]embody a moral cynicism that Han would, later in his life, outwardly project but never really posses."
Fans of the films need only load up the scene from A New Hope where Han comes swooping down in the Millennium Falcon to knock away Vader’s pursuit of Luke to see the person that Han is. From that point forward, and backwards, in the films we experience the character of Han along a continuum of person and persona.
Photo Credit: Lucasfilm
We witness the persona of Han Solo when he tries to convince Qi’ra that he’s an outlaw. We face the persona in the cantina on Mos Eisley or when belittling the nascent training of Luke under Ben Kenobi. We tellingly glimpse it in The Empire Strikes Back when he antagonizes Princess Leia Organa born out of his romantic frustrations towards her.
We see him as person while distraught at the separation of himself from Qi’ra at the Coronet Spaceport. We see him as person at the final moments of the assault on the first Death Star. We see him as person as he comforts a dying Beckett whom he killed by his own hand. We witness his person upon the easy and open camaraderie developed with Chewbacca almost instantly. And finally, we see the total expression of his person upon the bridge deep in the bowels of the Starkiller Base as he tries to reconcile with his lost son Ben Solo.
That the total unification of person and persona comes at the moment of his death at the hands of his own son is deeply tragic. As viewers we experience the passing of this iconic character with a complex mix of emotions. Shock, awe, anger, and perhaps finally pity, compassion, and acceptance. We experience the final meeting of father and son as an expression of Pathos.
Photo Credit: Lucasfilm
It’s About Family:
I don’t have people. I’m alone.
–Han Solo
In the introductory text crawl for Solo: A Star Wars Story it suggests that a primary motivating force for Han Solo is to fly among the stars. This is true – to an extent. Han is thrilled to be a pilot. The sense of freedom at having a ship and the totality of the galaxy to traverse is no doubt an intoxicating lure to a former indentured child thief.
However, being a pilot and experiencing the freedom it brings is not an end in and of itself to Han Solo. For him, a man with no people, his struggle is one of finding and creating belonging. It was the forced separation from his first love Qi’ra that spurred him to enlist in the Galactic Empire. While he likely exalted at learning to become a pilot, the thought of being reunited with Qi’ra and reforming their bond was ever at the forefront of his thoughts.
Throughout the whole of Solo, Han rejects ways of living that would result in being isolated. When he reflects on Beckett’s nihilistic attitude toward trusting others, he doesn’t chastise him from a place of lofty morality; he merely remarks at the loneliness that such an ethos brings. For Han, to remain wholly alone would be no doubt similar to remaining in servitude on Corellia. A dead-end.
That he fights for familial connections is not exclusive to the stand alone film Solo. At the end of A New Hope, after having already collected his payment for rescuing Princess Leia, ostensibly fulfilling his only stated goal, Han returns at the pivotal moment to help save Luke and destroy the Death Star. Why did he do this?
Surely, Han held no love for the Galactic Empire. Having once been a member of its ranks he undoubtedly knew of their injustices and naked aggression. But since deserting the Empire, and up until that vital moment, he proved quite ambivalent towards any zealous anti-Imperialist sentiment. The goal of toppling the Empire was nebulous to him as he didn’t have any familial stake in its destruction. Up until the final moment. Up until the newly formed bonds of friendship (and possibly love) called back to his person. In that final moment the strike against the Galactic Empire had the element of intimate connection for Han.
In The Empire Strikes Back the struggle against the Empire and the struggle to protect the burgeoning love affair with Princess Leia are one and the same. In Return of the Jedi, Han has surely matured enough to be committed to an away mission on the forest moon of Endor without needing to directly volunteer his beloved friends. By then their struggle and his have become one. However, unlike Luke, for whom the toppling of the Empire brings about his status as last remaining Jedi, or Leia for whom it means the righteous course correction from totalitarianism, for Han the gains are that of the chance to begin a family.
Finally, in The Force Awakens we experience an older, wizened, and humbled Han Solo. A man for whom the legends have become truth. A man set adrift in space by the catastrophic severing of familial ties. Neither fully person or persona this aged smuggler placed himself – and his ever stalwart Wookiee companion – into a form of metaphorical island isolation.
As viewers we need only pay close attention to what – and how– he speaks of Luke’s disappearance to understand how it is of utmost personal pain. The hidden significance in the tale of an apprentice gone rogue. The sense of abandonment at Luke’s having simply walked away from everything. The familial history communicated in those few sentences carries a wellspring of emotion.
It’s true. The Force. The Jedi. All of it.
That’s Pathos.
Photo Credit: [Star Wars: The Force Awakens] Lucasfilm
Never Tell Me The Odds:
Punch It!
–Han Solo
Han Solo is an icon. He is a rough and tumble scoundrel who never takes no for an answer. He’s an accomplished gambler, smuggler, and erstwhile gangster. He’s a loyal comrade and a gifted leader. He is a man who came from the humblest of beginnings to rise to a place of prominence where his actions helped topple an oppressive Galactic Empire. Han Solo doesn’t want you to tell him the odds.
Although his character came to a bittersweet ending, we as viewers of Star Wars can always rejoice in his never-say-die attitude. That he made the ultimate sacrifice for his beloved son is a touching example of selfless love – of compassion.
While his character may have been cut from the cloth of pathos, Han Solo never let it slow him down. With a glint in his eye, and a smirk on his face, he improvised and made his own luck. His golden dice a constant totemic reminder of his ability to recover from almost any setback. Perhaps, even a reminder that a lost son can claw his way back to the light.
We as fans needn’t mourn the loss of our favorite smuggler captain. His presence looms large over the whole of the Sequel Trilogy and reaches far back to the time before the rebellion. As Luke Skywalker says at the climax of The Last Jedi – No one is ever really gone.
Han Solo is still out there piloting the Millennium Falcon. Making the Kessel Run in less than twelve parsecs.