The Bespin Cafe - The Han/Leia Fanfic Index - We've Moved to Version 2.0!!

Right away, in 1977. I always thought Han should get the girl! People would say the good guy gets the girl. I just felt that Luke was just a kid, and Leia needed more than that. Add that to their legendary arguments, and Han's being overall good, but not a "goody-goody," and there you have it! (Not to mention Han is, well, all grown up and doggone good looking!)

LP, you write those zingers so well, too! I can imagine you having a great time with them!!!

 

Yeah LP is great with the zingers, I'm looking forward to December hoping that maybe they'll be a Morning After (yup I stole that from PonyTricks). Anyone else have problems when they're writing H/L?

 

I have a problem writing kissing scenes. I mean, if I were writing a movie script, I could write, "They kiss," and you'd get the point. But no, I have to write stories! So I'm required to add some other words! It really sucks. Read my viggy, "A Day with the Scoundrel," to see what I mean.

 

I think when it comes to romantic parts, PM chapters or not, description is what makes or breaks it; description of how the action feels, and what?s running through someone's mind. Now I'm probably one of the few writers who likes to change perspective so you can experience scene's like this from both sides. I think it gives it depth and allows you to go on the journey with the couple. However, I know a lot of writers who don't like that.

 

I like to do that!

 

So when you're writing a romantic scene between these two do you go under the assumption that Leia is a virgin?

I always thought she was a little experienced, but obviously not as experienced as Han.

 

I always got the impression that she was, but I grew up with the idea that you could only love someone that way in marriage, so most of my romance style is inspired by that.

 

Yeah, I have the same impression as DarthIshtar, but not for the same reasons. I think she basically didn't had the time or the opportunity to fall in love. And of course, she didn't find a man to whom she was really attracted (le movió el piso ) till she met Han.

 

Anyon else have thoughts about Leia's romance experince pre Han?

And how the heck can we get more discussion in here. I know there are more crazy H/L fans out there besides the 6 or 7 of us that post.

 

I've assumed that Leia is a virgin. Mostly, for a few reasons. Like DarthIshtar, part of my belief stems from the idea of that kind of love going with marriage. And, like Golden_Jedi, I don't think Leia had the time to to meet and fall in love with a man (whom she wanted to have a physical relationship). I also don't think she had an interest in that sort of thing before Han came around.

 

I have to agree with the majority. I don't picture Leia having any really romantic relationships before Han.

On an unrelated note, I have a request. I was wondering if the authors of H/L stories would just do an individual post whenever they start a new story - announcing it, more or less. I always used the index kept here to keep up and now I know I miss new stories and this might be a realistic alternative. Just a request. Thanks!

 

OK, this is my new:

Title: The Best I Can Do
Author: Golden_Jedi
Timeframe: ESB
Characters: Leia, Han, Chewbacca
Genre: angst/mush
Summary: My version of what happened on their way to Bespin

http://boards.theforce.net/the_saga/b10476/22094651/p1

And that's the reason I'm not posting much here, all my ideas about Leia's past and wheter she's a virgin or not would be poured there.

 

Can we have a H/L Challenge for December Pretty please with sugar on top!

 

IrishEyedJedi: Ask and ye shall receive; the new December challenge is up on the first post of this thread. Enjoy!

 

*in Mr. Burns Voice* Excellent

 

Here's my stab at it...

Title: Lost...In...Space...
Author: Josh-Halcyon
Characters: H/L/Chewie/Others-TBD
Style: WIP story
Timeframe: Post-ROTJ, married

http://boards.theforce.net/the_saga/b10476/22494094/p1/?0

Comments welcome!

 

Well, since you're soliciting opinions from the peanut gallery...

Yes, I believe Leia was a virgin before Han, but not due to the prudish reasons I often see ascribed to her in fanfic. She is an educated woman of some sophistication, and too often I've seen her treated more as "ignorant" than "inexperienced." There's a distinciton.

Before her capture in ANH, I feel that she simply didn't have time for serious relationships with men. She had her political career keeping her busy enough, and then quietly helping the Rebellion in the background without arousing suspicion probably took up all of her time and energy. Sure, she was probably seen on the arm of men of wealth/nobility/political standing at social and political functions, but it was probably more of that Hollywood/politics kind of thing where it was "good for them to be seen together" vs. anything serious. In the meantime, she was probably well aware of her own sexuality, but just didn't consider it a priority.

After her rescue in ANH and the subsequent destruction of Alderaan... Well, anyone in that situation would be gunshy about getting close to anyone. She probably felt guilty about the destruction of her homeworld despite any attempts to convince her otherwise. She probably felt a kinship with Luke because he'd also lost his home and family. I see her as someone who would devote herself to the Rebellion even more completely and try to bury herself in her work to keep from having to confront any pockets of grief remaining inside her, and I think that Han stirred up some things inside of her that she hadn't felt in a long, long time and that frightened her. She was inexperienced, but that didn't mean she'd lived in a sexual vacuum without urges and feelings until they hooked up.

Just some loose change from an opinionated stranger, lol.

 

*lousy Elvis impersonation* Thank you, thank you very much!

 

I have to say, I'm not especially interested in the whole romance/couple approach to these stories, or in fiction in general. But when I was a kid, I rooted for Han and Leia and I still have a soft spot for the two of them. So why not?

As far as this current discussion goes, Leia was twenty in A New Hope, right? I would put the chance of her being a virgin at a little less than zero. The civilization of a galaxy far, far away is many, many tens of thousands of years older than our own, and so many tens of thousands of years more sophisticated. Furthermore, it's certainly post-industrial and, I would argue, probably post-feminist. Our concepts of sexual purity, particularly as a precept of feminine virtue, would seem quite arcane. And so while George Lucas imported the prejudices and mores of the 1970's*, dressing his "Princess" in virginal white and setting her in innocent juxtaposition to renegade, skirt-chasing Han Solo, I don't think this is really the long and short of it. She's twenty years old-even in a life of politics and court intrigue, I've always assumed she found time to fool around.

If anything, her position as a Princess and as a Senator make it likely that she's not only had a sexual partner prior to Han, but several. Ambitious women, like ambitious men, tend to have large appetites for more than power-and her idealism would make her susceptible to trysts with her fellow travellers. Who's to say that she would only have a sexual relationship with someone she loved?

'Course, that's a man's perspective. My childhood idealization of Princess Leia probably differed quite a bit from all of yours.

*There are no female officers on either side of the Galctic civil war, and no female soldiers either. There are no women visible on the Jedi Council in the PT. Men outnumber women among visible Jedi and Senators many, many times over. Etc., etc., etc.

 

In the real world I would totally agree, especially since the rich and powerful have a tendency to get away with things and keep them quiet, sexual trysts and all.

But Star Wars is a heroic tale built around archetype characters, which were presented to us with corresponding visual cues to drive the point home--Vader in all black armor, such a monster we can't even see his face; Leia dressed in all white, etc. So it's easy for a fan--especially one of the romance angle--to look at Leia and infer that she is a woman of virtue, sexually and otherwise, because she's presented in a way that almost tells us we're meant to think that.

 

Aquarius:

It's definitely a subject on which people can disagree. I imagine the majority of folks seeing Star Wars in the '70s took Leia's dress, demeanor and position to mean she was a virgin, but she certainly wasn't sexless. And I think her personality-far more than her, as you say, archetype-has serious bearing upon her sexual life. Insofar as the Star Wars universe we're given in the films, and most of the novels, is sexual at all-that too is a factor.

She's strong-willed, independent, intelligent and powerful. She's also quite worldly-in one sense, infinitely moreso than Han Solo, but in another the two have such chemistry not for the juxtaposition-the virgin and the scoundrel-but because theirs is a relationship of equals. They have the same experience, they've both been routinely placed in mortal danger, they've both seen the galaxy. Leia's experience is perhaps more cerebral, but it's telling that our first experience of her is not in the Senate chamber or on a throne but in the back of a warship with a gun in her hand.

To Lucas' credit, considering how badly he portrays women otherwise, Leia is at least as responsible as Han and Luke for her escape from the Death Star. And she's the one who knows, instinctively, that they were allowed to escape and are now leading the Death Star to Yavin. In the Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi, she fights, commands, kills. She sneaks into Jabba's palace, threatens a room full of bounty hunters, puts on that slave girl outfit and blasts Jabba's sail barge to hell-this is no demure damsel. Her archetype is not the virginal princess but a hero in her own right, and I think it's only our contemporary prejudice that associates a strong female character, even in a morally rigid universe, with sexual reticence. We certainly don't do that with strong male characters.

I would say it's far more likely that, between the twins, Luke is the virgin, not Leia.

 

That's the clue to Leia's character in my view: she never "fools around". In everything she does, she's dead serious. And she's not ambitious: she has a huge sense of duty, which is enhanced by the fact that she's been adopted in the Organa family and feels that she has to live up to that.

Although, I agree with you that love is not needed to get sexually involved, in the case of Leia, I think she must be very deeply attracted to someone to give in to her desires. And, also, it must be someone she respected. And someone who would challenge her. What in short, leaves only one option: Han Solo.

 

Don't forgot Leia was a teenager too - lol. I think that because she was involved in the Rebellion at such a young age she knew how precious life was. I wouldn't be surprised if maybe she fell in love with a fellow conspirator in the Senate and maybe they "fooled around" or went further, and he Empire killed him. She was facing death much earlier than the Alderaan's destruction. Maybe the guy she had fallen in love with was on Alderaan.

 

Precisely. More importantly, though, I think that she's even more serious about the Rebellion, so any political ambition she displays is more or less because the higher she can go and the better she is at her job, the more she feels she can to do to effect change, both on the senate floor as well as in the shadows.

I guess I just feel that Leia posesses a certain single-mindedness, which Han needed to break through, too.

I also want to address a point Contador made: while the character of Leia does display post-feministic qualities and had an equal hand in her rescue, this by no means has any bearing on whether or not she'd had sex prior to our meeting her. I know lots of "strong" women who did not lose their virginity before they were twenty, and Leia strikes me as the type of woman who would just as fiercely defend a choice NOT to have sex as she would a decision to do it, or any other aspect of her life. Leia makes up her own mind about things, even if it means ignoring what her body is telling her (case in point: her first kiss with Han).

A woman can be liberated and sexually enlightened and still be a virgin.