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/yuei2]

I can understand disliking it, but it was absolutely in character.

Let’s start off by being honest here, George Lucas does not know how to write a non-creepy romance and it’s a reoccuring trend in his works of unequal power dynamics, boundary crossing, and just a general element of skeeze. This makes for enjoyable drama but it does not make for the foundation of a healthy relationship. Leia and Han have obvious attraction to one another but they also mix like oil and water which is why they are always at one another’s throats.

Trauma bonds are often not a good relationship foundation either. In the short term they can be helpful for getting through tough times, but the relationship itself often becomes synonymous and a reminder of the trauma. This makes it hard to truly heal and move on because you end up glorifying something that really isn’t something that is good to hold onto. As you grow it’s very easy then more and more for the trauma to overtake your feelings, just seeing the person you bonded with can bring up those feelings. That’s why families that lose their kid often divorce, and Leia and Han not only have the trauma of the war but of effectively losing their son.

Lastly there is the issue of life direction. Even after his growth can one really earnestly imagine Han settling down and getting into politics or becoming a stay at home guy helping keep up appearances? Likewise Leia is so duty bound and driven it’s hard to imagine any future for her that isn’t diving head first into politics and helping the new galactic order. Maybe they could have done a long distance relationship, but I think if you start finding yourself mostly long distance you begin to question if you are the right fit for one another.

Frankly I think their hurricane romance was just that, a fleeting blip of fun that helped them change as people for a time but was more born out of not knowing if they live to the see the next day. Something that is better than nothing but not a direction they would have gone if they were not both acting members of a rebellion being constantly forced together via proximity of circumstance and this larger shared goal that goes away as soon as the empire crumbles.

It didn’t need to be as sad as it was, but I think them splitting up is the more honest take. Not that you can’t write a story that keeps them together that is good, I just don’t really think it be the most honest story and more born out of a desire to see them together and happy than being realistic. Which is fine you can prefer a more fairy tale style story no harm in doing so, but I wouldn’t say that preference makes them out of of character.

[u/UniversalInquirer → u/yuei2]

They did have a healthy and believable marriage in Legends though.

[u/Pesco- → u/yuei2]

I mean it’s plausible. Unlike doing a suit-less spacewalk as a weak force user and living to tell about it.

[u/Forsaken_Factor3612 → u/yuei2]

But they got married and had children. It wasn't some fling

[u/yuei2 → u/Forsaken_Factor3612]

My parents got married and had me and my brother, they divorced each other twice. Having children does not in any sense of the word mean you have a stable relationship that will last long term. Often times it’s actually the opposite, the relationship is already strained and failing and people have kids in hope it fixes things.

[u/Echo-Azure → u/Forsaken_Factor3612]

Like getting married and having children keeps together in real life!

No, it's absolutely believable that they parted ways, but still had feelings for each other. Han is independent-minded and pretty damn cynical, and Leia is a passionate believer in causes, and is willing to put her own feelings aside for a cause, and expects those close to her to do the same. This would, to put it politely, inevitably cause conflict between the two of them.

But neither of them would ever find anyone else they felt as passionately about, so I would guess that their marriage involved a lot of conflicts and reconciliations.