I need to talk about Han Solo. Specifically Han Solo as a father.
This is something that has bothered me since the first time I saw The Force Awakens, but it’s also something I’ve felt reluctant to talk about because we’re all in mourning for one of our childhood heroes.
But I do want to talk about it because it hits on a fairly personal issue for me and I suspect for a lot of people.
When Han says that they did everything they could, that there was too much Vader in his son, this was a man rejecting responsibility for the role he may have played in how his child turned out. This was a man saying that that child had a fundamental flaw that had nothing to do with him.
Think about who Darth Vader is to Han Solo. He’s the man who had him frozen in carbonite. He tortured Leia and had a direct hand in the destruction of her home. He severed Luke’s hand.
He was responsible for the deaths of millions. I have a feeling that Han put about as much stock in the depth of Vader’s end of life redemption as Kylo Ren does.
Does anyone think for one second that Ben Solo was not fully aware of what his father thought of him? Children hear and understand so much more than we give them credit for. Even if young Ben never heard anyone refer to him this way, he is a powerful telepath (and possibly, despite how he tries to kill it, an empath like his mother.)
Headcanon time. My feeling is that Ben Solo was a sensitive, serious child, and that he and Han were never truly able to relate to each other. Ben may have acted out early on, whether because of Snoke’s influence or because of his own inner turmoil. (Make no mistake, even if his home was loving there is no way it was stable. He was born at the end of a war, to a family in the vanguard, and wars never tie up neatly.)
So did his parents make the same mistake so many others do when their children go astray? Instead of looking for a flaw in the child’s nurturing, looking at it as a flaw in the child’s nature? We know from the novelization that Leia was aware of Snoke’s influence but didn’t tell Han. If Han had known, would he have looked at his son differently, or would it have made the situation seem even more hopeless?
I think the reason it struck me as hard as it did is because it only took one time for me to overhear my mother telling someone how much like my deadbeat, addict father I was, for it to have a huge effect on my sense of self and personal agency.
But, hey, maybe Han didn’t think about his son this way at all when Ben was growing up. Maybe “there was too much Vader in him” is the thing he said to himself afterward, so he wouldn’t go crazy wondering what he could have done differently.
All of this. For me, so much of the power in TFA comes from the depressing realization that my childhood heroes were, in the end, overwhelmingly human. When Kylo Ren tells Rey, “He only would have disappointed you,” that sounds so much like someone speaking from experience.
I love Han Solo, I do, he’s one of my childhood heroes, like I said, but ultimately, I think as a human being, he was possibly the worst possible father a kid like Ben Solo could have had. Not out of lack of love or concern–it’s obvious that he loved his son–but just because of a lack of understanding. (I get that. I was an sensitive, shy kid and I grew up feeling like the cuckoo in the nest.) I’m sure Leia tried to help bridge the gap (of the original trio, she comes out the best, honestly), but I don’t think it was enough.
We don’t know what Luke’s relationship was to Ben. It’s one of the things I am DYING to find out, what that dynamic was. Did he try to act as a surrogate father, and if so, did Ben resent him for it? And I want a damn good explanation for why he packed up and ran away from all of his responsibilities beyond some sort of half-assed spiritual quest, because I am VERY disappointed in him.
Ultimately, that’s another reason I want a redemption arc for Kylo Ren–not just for his own sake, but as a chance for the adults in his life to fix what they helped break, and for Han, Leia, and Luke to redeem themselves too.
In 1952, the APA (American Psychiatric Association) listed homosexuality in the DSM (
Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders) I as a sociopathic personality disturbance. Of course, they changed cathegory to it by the second one (1968) though homosexuality was not anymore a disorder but a disturbance only by the 1974 edition of DSM II. (And not even that only in 1987 – DSM III-Revisited). I just find this interesting – how old was the shrink who diagnosed Sherlock’s sociopathy? And which DSM edition did he use? 😉
Of course it would be a private psychiatrist. Probably some old family contact who could be trusted to be very discrete. I’m thinking early to mid 1990’s time frame but someone who was trained decades earlier. (And now I’m thinking of the discussion of the psychiatrist in the movie Carol, but that’s not relevant.)
Mark Gatiss lived next to a mental hospital when he was a child. From wikipedia: “He grew up opposite the Edwardian psychiatric hospital where his father worked.” I can’t believe Mark Gatiss had never been curious and never looked up old psychiatric handbooks.
I know, right? It’s the kind of headcanon that’s interesting and very much hinted at on the show and not at all far fetched but most of all extremely heartbreaking.
My choir director loved to tell this story where she was in Italy singing in an Italian opera, and totally forgot the words, knowing that a horribly mean critic was watching. She just spewed a bunch of random Italian, and at one point ordered a pizza in Italian. The critic commented on her beautiful diction and connection to the text.
That is the most amazing diction substitution I’ve ever heard.
Are we talking about Sherlock being wrapped in a sheet again or does John sound even more uncomfortable than he’d be for the sheet…?
so…he was somehow mysteriously undressed again at some point very shortly after this flirty banter happened?? @asherlockstudy I’m confused.
Does he just mean get out of your pyjamas and put some real clothes on you lazy bugger?
But that’s his ready-for-anything-but-don’t-want-to-get-toast-crumbs-on-my-shirt outfit….trousers, shirt, dressing gown. No…he definitely took it all off again. But why.
Damned if I have a clue and yes you’re right I can see the shirt now… This show just gets weirder and weirder…
@phone-equals-heart Thanks for pointing this out to me, because I had completely forgotten we actually saw this blog post in the show too. Before I saw that, my guess was that Sherlock woke up and came out of his room completely naked or in his pants. But now… hehehe…. it gets really interesting….
@sherlock-little-weed Yes, I don’t think he meant the pyjamas mostly because a) they actually chose to show THIS blog post to us in the episode (and chose to show to us that Sherlock was fully dressed) and b) after the “Go and get dressed” there is no other comment that had to do with this particular matter, so why would they even add it to the blog? What’s the point of it? Clearly, Sherlock never replied to this. It’s not as if they were planning to go out for a case and John told Sherlock to get ready, for instance.
There is only one thing I can conclude from all this:
Sherlock woke up, dressed himself as always and took his coffee watching John typing innocently on his blog.
Then he went back to his room, he actually removed all his clothes (or all but his pants) and then casually appeared again in the living room, God knows with what excuse (it’s for an experiment!) or even if he bothered to give an excuse. Or he had a bath and appeared all naked. Then he sat completely casually and innocently in front of his laptop to comment on John’s blog. (”We are bros, Jawn, aren’t we? I guess you don’t have a problem with this?”) The thing is that Sherlock did that consciously and in purpose.
John had a heart attack, but initially tried to play cool. Let’s give him about 5 minutes, after which he realizes he can’t play cool for any longer. He abruptly rushes to his room, where he spends… hmmm…. 20 minutes I guess? Let’s give 5 for whatever-he-may-have-done, then 5 more minutes of helpless sobbing, then 5 more minutes of sexual identity crisis because “he’s not gay” and “wtf is happening” and “this guy downstairs is my best friend” and lastly, 5 more minutes to build up courage to go downstairs looking as if nothing happened. The last 5 minutes before 30 minutes will have passed are basically John going back to the living room, sitting as far as possible from Sherlock, taking his laptop and commenting: “Go and get dressed”.
There you go. I’m not even headcanoning right now, this is honestly the only thing I can imagine that possibly happened.
Also tagging @inevitably-johnlocked and @teaandforeshadowing because they were wondering about the 30 minutes gap! That was my guess, anyone with another idea plz tell me / send me!
This just keeps getting better.
I agree with everything (expect the “i’m not gay” from John. I believe John knows he is be)
