Secret Super Power Helped Han Solo Evade The Empire?
By now, most film fans are likely aware of plot armor, the seemingly indestructible meta-textual understanding that the main character is able to withstand any and all odds in service of their necessity to their respective story. Breaking Bad simply doesn’t function if Walter White dies, Bugs Bunny can’t be outsmarted by Elmer Fudd, and Han Solo cannot perish in the original Star Wars trilogy. According to some eagle-eyed fans however, that may be more than a bit of impenetrable writing.
Han Solo seems to maintain an uncanny capability to evade certain death at every turn in the original Star Wars trilogy, leaning on his unshakable charisma and daring flight strategy to beat the odds, and marking the character as the king of cool. Thanks to a Reddit theory, fans have begun to wonder if Han Solo is actually invisible to the dark side of the Force.
Fans are wondering if Han Solo is actually invisible to the dark side of the Force
The theory sounds a bit contrived at first, but actually holds a lot of supporting evidence from the films. For starters, as a successful smuggler Han Solo is able to frequently come and go with illegal cargo on board the Millennium Falcon, despite the highly militarized state of Tatooine when we first see it in the original 1977 Star Wars film.
Later in the film, when his ship is being tractor-ed into the awaiting Death Star, Solo somehow shelters his passengers from the detection of even Darth Vader, who is known to have the best Force sense abilities of almost any Force user.
The Star Wars fandom is rife with heated debates about hundreds of minor details across the franchise, with Han Solo’s perceived plot armor having garnered a great deal of discussion over the years.
Of course, this newfound theory that Han somehow has the superpower of anti-Force detection led to a great deal of speculation among the many users of the Star Wars message boards. There is certainly no canon confirmation of such an ability in the original Star Wars’ IMDb trivia section, but it could help to provide an in-universe explanation of why Solo holds this plot armor within the narrative.
Signs Of Han Solo’s Potential Powers Were On Display In The Sequel Trilogy
When Han Solo finally meets his match, many years later in the Star Wars franchise, he is tragically killed by his own son, Adam Driver‘s Kylo Ren. Before he is killed, Solo successfully sneaks up on Kylo Ren, who is actively searching for both his parents.
While some commenters are willing to chalk Ren’s failure to sense his father up to lazy writing, others were quick to point out that this confirms the idea that Han Solo repels the Force, perhaps without even being aware of it.
Unfortunately, due to his death in The Force Awakens, it seems unlikely that we’ll ever see Harrison Ford pick up the mantle of Han Solo again. Furthermore, there is no mention or supporting evidence of this Force repulsion theory in 2018’s Solo: A Star Wars story, meaning fans will likely never get a canonized version of this theory in the Star Wars expanded universe of films and Disney+ series’.
Still, this theory seems to be one of the most concrete in the long and storied history of Star Wars fan discussion.
