As a fun side trip on the Legendary Adventures, join me as I venture off the beaten trail to compare the Legends characterization of Han Solo compared to the canon version!
In May of 2018, Lucasfilm released the second stand-alone film, Solo: A Star Wars Story. Much noise was made asking if it was necessary to explain Han Solo’s origin story, especially as a stand-alone film rather than a book or comic series. What some may not know is that Legends covered Han Solo’s life pre-Yavin in depth, releasing almost a dozen novels, ranging from two trilogies, a handful of standalone stories, and novels where Han had some significant cameos.
For this leg of the adventure, let me act as your tour guide, bringing you to all of the milestones in Han Solo’s life in order to try and understand him a bit better.
Where does Han come from?
This is somewhere they share something in common! Both times, Han was an orphan on Corellia. But his parental figure was much different in both.
In Legends, Han Solo was an orphan who was picked up by a bandit named Garris Shrike. Shrike was the captain of the Trader’s Luck, a sort of base for his criminal empire. Shrike was a bounty hunter for a while, but he was too unevenly tempered to bring live bounties back to the people who hired him. As he built his criminal empire, Shrike picked up orphans and raised them to be pickpockets and run jobs for him. He would, unfortunately, beat the children who did not perform to his standards. Shrike taught Han a lot of tricks of the trade, which he would use when he became the smuggler we’ve all come to appreciate.
Han also had a maternal figure named Dewlannamapia, a Wookiee chef who was forced into serving Shrike as well. With Dewlannamapia, Han had a strong maternal figure who taught him everything that he would need to learn about love and forming genuine relationships. She also taught him Shyriiwook, which became helpful when Han lost his spot at the Imperial Academy in order to save a Wookiee named Chewbacca.
In canon, Han Solo was raised as a scrumrat on the streets of Corellia. The foul Lady Proxima ran a small-time criminal enterprise on the outskirts of Coronet City, using orphans to run jobs. Ultimately, she viewed the orphans as expendable, pawns to be used in her enterprises in order to profit herself. Han was surrounded by orphans like Qi’ra and Rebolt, both of whom used their skills to try and move up in Proxima’s criminal enterprises.
So, what made them run away from their upbringing?
Neither canon featured a great start for Han Solo. Or, at least, neither featured a start for Han Solo that we would want for our children, right? In both instances, Han used violence, deceit, and some ingenuity to find his way out.
Well, in Legends, Han was fed up being abused by Shrike. He took advantage of a brief scuffle and tried to run away with Dewlannamapia, but she was unfortunately killed in his escape attempt. He stole a ship from Shrike and made his way to Ylesia, where he took a job as a spice runner.
In canon, he and his girlfriend (at the time) Qi’ra finally had enough money to make their escape and find their own way. Sent on a mission to retrieve some coaxium for Proxima, Han pocketed some of the coaxium for himself. He and Qi’ra were going to use it in order to buy their ship and find their way off Corellia and into freedom.
What was his experience at the Imperial Academy like?
You might be shocked to learn that Rebel hero Han Solo didn’t always fight for the good guys. In fact, in both Legends and canon, Han served in the Empire for a while! Thankfully, Han did not stay in the Empire forever: in both canons, Han became well aware of their evils and could not participate. He looked for ways to escape in both, but one was a little more selfless than the other.
In canon, Han joined the Imperial Academy pretty quickly after escaping Proxima. See, both Proxima’s forces and Imperial Stormtroopers chased Han and Qi’ra through Coronet City, cornering them at a spaceport. There, Qi’ra was captured and Han was forced to join the Imperial Academy. At the Academy, Han was a top pilot, but he continually got in trouble for his minor rebellions. In one famous instance, he saved a downed Beilert Valance, whom the Empire had left for dead. Han was grounded and immediately sent to serve as a Mudtrooper on Mimbam. When Beckett, Val, and Rio were on Mimbam, Han saw his chance to escape and deserted with Wookiee prisoner Chewbacca.
In Legends , we don’t know quite as much! All we know is that after he was dumped by girlfriend Bria Tharen, Han went to the Imperial Academy. At the end of his Imperial career, he stopped an Imperial officer from executing Wookiee prisoner Chewbacca. This insubordination led to his expulsion with a dishonorable discharge.
What were his early exploits?
Many!
In Legends , Han immediately went to Ylesia, where he acted as a spice runner for the t’landa Til. The t’landa Til were an insectoid race who used their unique physiology to enslave humans and other sentients to become spice miners for them. After breaking up their slavers ring, he ran across the galaxy to hide from their wrath. The t’landa Til hired Boba Fett, who would chase him relentlessly. He then began working for the Hutts, who paid well but asked him to run extremely dangerous jobs. Finally, he, Chewbacca, and Lando Calrissian were robbed when they tried to help the fledgling Rebel Alliance on a supply run.
In canon, Han left Mimbam to go directly to work with Beckett, Val, and Rio. They were working for the crime Syndicate known as Crimson Dawn, which was led by terrifying villains like Maul and Dryden Vos. After a failed job on Vandor-1, Han was forced to redeem himself at the potential (otherwise it sounds like he did) cost of his life. He and the crew found unrefined coaxium on Kessel, forcing them to improvise their way through the Kessel Run, making it in a shorter distance than anybody had ever done before!
How did he get his hands on the Millenium Falcon?
Funny story: Legends wasn’t allowed to touch this story for a really long time! Really, we know that he gained the ship when he beat Lando at dejarik. It’s the same story in canon: Han beat Lando, who attempted to cheat, at dejarik on Numidian Prime. The ship was transferred, and history was made.
How did he end up with Jabba – and how did he run afoul of the Hutt?
These stories are wildly different, but both end the same way: Han was one of Jabba’s best smugglers until he was forced to dump his cargo in an effort to evade Imperial forces.
In Legends , Han’s association with the Hutts after escaping Ylesia led to a fruitful partnership for both parties. Having found success with the Hutt clans that aided the Ylesian spicers, Han sought a bigger party to work for. In light of this, Han went to work with the Desilijic clan, led by the notorious Jabba.
In canon, it’s hard to say what exactly happened. You see, the story about Han’s new relationship with Jabba hasn’t been explained. We do know how he dropped the spices, though! He faced an Imperial blockade, one which blocked him from running the spice cargo he needed to. Unfortunately, his ship was damaged in the scuffle, and he was forced to land on a planet ran by criminal leader Rekias Nodo. He orchestrated an escape from the planet, stealing loads of Nodo’s rhydonium. His good nature, and Chewbacca’s prompting, urged Han to give the rhydonium to a newly freed batch of Nodo’s rivals.
Why does he become the closed off scoundrel we meet in Mos Eisley?
Unfortunately, if not handled well, Han’s origin story has been cast as “an evil woman hurt him,” a trope which helps nobody, but hurts many. I want to be careful in the way that I describe this, as to not blame the women in Han’s life for Han’s decisions.
In Legends, Han, Chewbacca, and Lando Calrissian took a job for the growing Rebel Alliance. Their contact? None other than Bria Tharen, the former-slave-turned-Rebel-captain who recently broke up with Han on Imperial Center. Bria offered Han this job, a seeming olive branch to be shared between them. At the end of the job, though, she robbed Han and Lando blind, taking their profits, their stuff, and the proceeds from the job that Bria hired them for. Heartbreak number two. Lando thought that Han orchestrated this event to rob him blind, thinking Han and Bria to be working together. This led Lando to break ties with Han again, and the two wouldn’t meet again until Bespin. This causes Han to close himself off to everybody but Chewbacca, thinking that he had been deserted far too often. In this, he closes himself off so that he doesn’t feel any more pain.
In canon, we’re not totally sure how Han gets to Mos Eisley, but we can at least talk about how it might have began. After successfully running the Kessel Run, Han, Chewbacca, Beckett, Lando, and Qi’ra take unrefined coaxium to Savareen to be processed. There, they plan to turn the coaxium over to Dryden Vos and Crimson Dawn to repay their debts and potentially form a great working relationship. There, Enfys Nest and the Cloud Riders ambush the crew, planning to take the coaxium for themselves. Han works out a plan so that everybody can potentially be happy: he gives the real coaxium to Enfys Nest and fakes some for Dryden Vos. Of course, there are some changes in how it plays out, but in the end, it seems to work. As Han and Beckett have a face off, Qi’ra talks to Maul and steals Dryden’s ship, leaving Han stranded. He probably starts to close himself off here, but we haven’t seen it for sure yet.
So…is there one you prefer over the other?
I think both have some interesting strengths, and some big weaknesses.
Let me start with the weaknesses, which I have already mentioned in this piece. I don’t like how both stories suggest that being burned by a former lover was the reason that Han closed off nearly as much as he did. I tried to emphasize in my review that it was Han’s decision to close off, no matter what happened to him, but I’ve seen people who blame Qi’ra or blame Bria. I don’t like that much at all. I would have preferred that canon would have found a different way to address this, but these are the cards we’ve been dealt. This just means that we must be a bit more careful in the way that we discuss Han and his story in an effort to make sure we aren’t blaming the women.
I am also a bit torn on the way that canon Han’s backstory takes place over a single weekend. I understand that some people, once they make a big change, could have a lot of big changes happen at the same time, but these all seem way too close to one another. I wonder what a story about Han flying a less-descript freighter would have featured, or what it would have been like for Han to spend more time with Beckett. I do think that Legends has a better idea by spacing them out a bit further, but the motivations seem more about filling out boxes than it does about telling great stories. In this case, I prefer that canon Han’s story is based on delivering coaxium to Dryden Vos to spare his life from the wrath of Crimson Dawn, as the stakes seem higher and more dramatic.
I think Legends does a better job showing Han’s progression from good guy to scoundrel to dangerous criminal to war hero. I think that canon Han has not been developed quite well enough to say that we’ve seen him on a trajectory yet, as Solo didn’t end with a bitter Han, just one who had been spurned a few times. I also really like seeing Han take on evil organizations, but with mostly selfish motivations. This really sets him up well for his adventures with the Rebellion in the Original Trilogy. It might be unfair to say that I prefer Legends here, because canon simply has not had the time to tell Han’s backstory just yet, but I stand by it for now!
One plus that I will give to canon is that Han’s backstory is connected to Maul’s narrative arc in the canon. I think this ties Han better into the grander mythology of the canon, whereas Legends Han always seemed like a black sheep in the story. As the Legendary Adventures continue (as we will see in 2020!), Han will become increasingly harder to fit into the stories as more and more Jedi are raised and more Force-related threats grow. Canon Han has the benefit of having interacted, at least in spirit, with Maul, drawing him into the larger story of the Skywalker Saga in a cool and unique way.
Stay tuned in 2020 as we explore the Original Trilogy and see how Han changes from a regular smuggler to galactic war hero!
You can follow Chris on Twitter @ChrisWerms, and of course, you can follow the Manor on Twitter @MynockManor!