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As with Luke, we don’t get to actually see Ben Solo – aka, Kylo Ren – in Star Wars: Bloodline. But we do get some meaty bits from which to draw inferences. We’ve included all the excerpts from the novel that we think have any bearing on what we could learn about Ben below.
Have a listen to the podcast as we put the following into context…
Luke’s last message to her had been a while ago, and badly corrupted by radiation interference; wherever they were in the galaxy, they were cut off from communication for the time being.
Han was teaching these kids the same lessons he’d so badly wanted to teach his son.
This was Leia’s cue to ask whether Han had heard from Ben or Luke (though she knew he wouldn’t have)…
The truth of Vader’s identity had shattered [Leia]; she could not imagine what it might mean to Ben. At least Luke could tell Ben the most important part – that Vader had, in the end, been redeemed.
Skywalker had been so long away on his strange quest for the lore of the Jedi that he no longer had much influence outside his own acolytes. He was a figure of myth more than one of flesh and blood.
[Leia] needed to explain to Ben that they’d kept from telling him because they’d wanted to find the right moment. She realized now that she’d been fooling herself. Luke, too. There could be no good time to learn news this devastating.
…never before had [Leia’s] separations from Han, Ben, and Luke been more difficult to bear.
“Never imagined this,” Han had murmured, sitting up in their bed late at night, Ben’s tiny head resting in the crook of his father’s arm. “Having a kid. Even wanting a kid. But now he’s here, and-”
“And you’re a dad.”
[Leia] was thinking of a sublight run they’d undertaken together early in their marriage, which had begun with a great deal of bickering. However, all that time alone, with no one to interrupt them, had eventually led to much more enjoyable pursuits. Given the timing, she was fairly sure those pursuits had directly led, some months later, to Ben’s birth.
[Ben] running in after an afternoon of roughhousing with his friends, hair mussed, absolutely filthy, and proud of himself.
“You [Leia] must succeed Lord Mellowyn, just as your son must someday succeed you.”
For a moment Princess Leia looked weary, as if she had aged between one sentence and the next. “I can’t see Ben taking an interest in the governorship, either.”
[Leia’s] message to Ben would be about comforting him, not finding any consolation of her own.
Trivia Time!
Test your knowledge of the Star Wars universe!Yesterday’s answer: Lowering the Starkiller Base shields
Today’s question: What does Kylo Ren do to keep from getting shot by Poe Dameron?