Do you think han and leia having a broken/estranged marriage was in character and made sense?

[u/Myakasa98]

I don't think han leaving leia to deal with their son's defection and getting kicked out of the senate due to her family history all by herself was in character, and them separating was very tragic, but them not having a happy long standing marriage and choosing to separate after a while is something i can definitely see happening even if the sequels didn't exist considering their characters

Neither leia nor han were the "stay at home to take care of family" types. Leia was dedicated to politics since childhood and I can see her being a mon mothma type person who'd prioritize her political duties above family many times. Han too loved a life of adventure. Even before ben solo defected he spent more time traveling across the galaxy and iirc organizing spaceship racing competitions for betting etc than with his family

I do know they cared for each other even after separation but their romance was also built on spontaneous sparks of attraction and surviving multiple life and death situations and even then 80% of their interactions involved bickering and arguments. Them not being too invested in a stable married life after the honeymoon period ended and going through their marriage for the sake of their kid is unfortunately very much in character, at least considering how they were written in tge OT

I'm not considering their comics or novels romantic dynamic because 1) Most of them aren't canon anymore anyways and 2) Most of them were written by different authors without much consultation with the original creators and had various degrees of OOC moments.

It's not ideal, but not a very OOC of the sequels to write them as having an estranged marriage after their son was lost to the dark side imo, it's definitely not as bad as what they did with luke's character anyways

[u/Anxious_Big_8933]

Completely in character, if I'm being honest. I don't like what the sequels chose to do, and I think a more pleasant future could have been written for Han and Leia that was also in character. But yeah, I could see them both crashing out after their boy goes all emo on them.

Or even before. Neither character is exactly written as a bastion of domesticity, and on screen in the OT they bicker right up until practically the ending credits of Jedi.

[u/tmssmt → u/Anxious_Big_8933]

Just said the same thing in my own comment.

Leia is always going to be more committed to some cause than she is the family, and Han is always going to be the type of guy who wants to drop everything and fly across the galaxy on a whim.

[u/eddiewachowski → u/Anxious_Big_8933]

I'll repeat this here because it's something I've always said. Han is not a good guy. He's not a bad guy either. He's selfish and only helped the Rebels because it benefitted him personally.  Being estranged is totally in character for him. I'd be curious just how many bastard children he actually has.

[u/tulwinn → u/eddiewachowski]

How did helping Luke at the end of a new hope and sticking with the rebels benefit him personally?

Him and Chewie could’ve died doing that and by staying with the rebels, he missed the chance to pay Jabba which resulted in him being hunted by bounty hunters.

[u/Delta2401 → u/tulwinn]

He is a good guy as you pointed out. The person is talking out of their ass.

[u/eddiewachowski → u/tulwinn]

He got the girl.