The Force Awakens - Han

The previous posts have only been spoiler-filled if you wanted to see The Force Awakens fresh and without any exposure at all. They haven't really gone into detail about the movie or what happens in it. 

This one, though, is going to be primarily about a major event near the end of the film. It may be a shocker to those who haven't seen it. 

Also, the previous post about Kylo Ren was set up to introduce significant supporting details. Take a look there if you haven't. 

Here we go....

Nomad generations, like middle-aged Generation X, and Eisenhower's Lost Generation, and Samuel Clemens' Gilded, are supposed to be savvy, perceptive, practical. They make choices based on making money, staying alive, and enjoying their ill-gotten gains - in theory.   Even if they have been Redeemed, they aren't going to be someone you want to cross - they might give you a break, or might only ensure you get what's coming to you. 

If that's correct, why does smuggler and scoundrel Han Solo think he can talk Kylo Ren out of a career path with the First Order, based on familial obligations and Doing What's Right? How does he end up close enough to be skewered by a light saber, without holding any weapon more dangerous than his grin? 

Indeed, that's a fair query even outside of what generation he might belong to. Han is a shoot-first, ask-questions-later kind of guy. Greedo was a low-rent bounty hunter waving a blaster around in a crowded room, and Han made sure he had options for handling that situation. He came out shooting against a platoon of Stormtroopers, a magnetically sealed hatch, and Lord Vader, so what held him back against someone as dangerous as Kylo Ren? 

Certainly, Kylo Ren was his son. Then again, it's a son he literally compared to Darth Vader - Han knew what he was getting into. It's also true that his (ex-?) wife asked him to bring their son home, which meant shooting first wasn't really an option.  Leia had to have been expecting a better result, though. If she had been along at that moment, she might have made another suggestion herself.

Those aren't bad justifications. They work within the story. People still complain about this exact point, though.  Since pragmatism is a Nomad attribute in this generational theory, there should be a consistent explanation that will work with it.

Pragmatic means different things in different situations. Sometimes, compromise is worthwhile. Others, nuking the planet is the only way to be sure. In one draft of Pulp  Fiction, Jules considers an alternative to handing his money over to diner robbers Honey Bunny and Pumpkin: using his hidden 9mm to kill them both. That's an equally practical response, but one that he rejects because of his new outlook.  Jules' moment of redemption, of realizing he needed to get out of a life of killing other people, is similar to that of Saul of Tarsus - "God got involved." After his conversion, Saint Paul traveled the known world, eventually carrying the Christian faith to the center of the Roman Empire, to Rome itself. If the eventual outcome was his martyrdom, that doesn't change the fact of his success. 

We don't find out if Jules has similar success, although he likely comes out better than his partner. Vincent was in that same room, survived the same hail of bullets - gets the same call - rejects it for practical reasons, ridicules Jules for it ... And ends up dead, as a consequence of being practical, of continuing down the same path. It must have seemed like an acceptable risk to him. 

It is not unusual to see Nomads taking what they consider to be acceptable risks. If it works, great. Han took a risk in chasing stormtroopers through the Death Star, in working for the Rebellion when he had a price on his head, in firing a blaster at a sealed hatch and later at a Sith Lord. They worked out okay - well, except maybe for the part where he was frozen in carbonite.  He could have convinced himself that pulling Kylo Ren from the First Order would have been a coup for the Republic. One of the strongest Force users in the galaxy, working with the Light Side, repenting of his previous persecution of the Reborn Jedi Knights...it might be a mortal blow against the First Order, much better than killing him. It would be worth the risk, especially with Chewbacca right there in case the kid tried something anyway. Smugglers and scoundrels take risks. Sometimes they pay off, sometimes they don't. 

That's one way to consider it, anyway - that Han took a high-risk/high-reward gamble, as Nomads do. And this time, it didn't work out.

For an alternative, The Tragedy of Hamlet, the Prince of Denmark can be instructive. There are three generations represented in that play: 

• Prince Hamlet's generation: includes his friends and peers, such as Ophelia, Laertes, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern
• King Hamlet's generation: definitely his brother Claudius, and his wife Gertrude, possibly others in the court
• Polonius: the only person consistently referred to as old, even though he is father to two children of Hamlet's age

If Prince Hamlet is an Artist and King Hamlet a Hero, it follows as the night the day that Polonius is a Nomad. Like Han Solo.

Although Hamlet and others refer to him as an old fool, Polonius has retained a position of power in the court.  Despite whatever intrigues were involved the succession after King Hamlet's death, he is still a trusted confident of Claudius. He makes some mistakes, of course - his insistence that Hamlet's actions are from brooding over his daughter, particularly - but the contrast between how he speaks in private and public suggests he knows what he's doing.  His doddering old man routine is at least partly an act. He puts some effort into keeping track of what his son is doing in Paris, with intrigues of his own to figure what the boy is really up to. It all seems to be working for him.

At least until he gets run through by an unhappy youngster with a sword.  

Polonius and Han are old Nomads with similar fates, then. Can we justify what happened to them based on what it means to be an old Nomad? 

Older Nomads have had to adapt a lot over the course of their lives. They were children during an Awakening, where established social order gets overturned. They have survived a Crisis where a new social order has been built, usually by means of total war.  Post-Crisis, the world has changed even more. Polonius' Denmark now includes part of Norway, Norway's prince is rabble-rousing, there are people building war machines 24-7, and the King is unexpectedly dead. Solo is dealing with a Republic unlike the one in his history books, and a First Order that isn't the monolithic Empire which succeeded it, and a war that isn't straight fighting. Neither quite gets the younger generation.  Situations that used to be manageable with a quick wit and faster reflexes are less so, and not only because of the slowness that comes with age. 

What neither Solo nor Polonius could do, was keep up with a world that had changed beyond them. They continued to act as if risky ventures always worked out, like being right in the past meant they would always be right in the future, that because the good guys had won the war, the good guys always win. 

The Nomad archetype is currently represented by Generation X, those of us born between 1961 and 1982. If this includes you, it may be worthwhile to learn this lesson from Polonius and Solo. The world has changed much in our lifetimes. It will change more before this current Crisis is over. When we come out the other side, remember that you may need to re-examine your assumptions, and unlearn what you have learned.