Throughout the original trilogy, the love-hate relationship between Princess Leia and Han Solo helped add tension to the movies.
From their first encounter on the Death Star while Han was trying to rescue the Princess, through helping to get the Princess off the planet Hoth, the banter between the two added to the movie and helped us root for the scruffy looking nerf herder.
In Empire Strikes Back, when Han is about to put into Carbonite, the Princess can no longer keep quiet about her feelings for Han and blurts out, “I love you”. Our dashing smuggler quips back, “I know”.
It is said that Han’s line was not scripted but was something Harrison Ford thought Han would say, and I agree with Ford.
We see the exchange again in Return of the Jedi with Han telling Leia “I love you” and she responds “I know” right before shooting the approaching Storm Troopers.
Love Communicated
How is it that Han and Leia show their love to one another? To our knowledge, they only said those power three little words once to each other.While I know that it is a movie and not real, I do know that every good story has truth in it. We are able to suspend belief about faster than light travel, the Force, etc., but the character interaction needs to relate to what we know of human nature.
The more I think about it, the more I am convinced that there are many ways to show love to one another. I was recently reminded of a book I read years ago about expressing love.
5 Love Languages
The book I was reminded of was The Five Love Languages: How to Express Heartfelt Commitment to Your Mate, by Dr. Gary Chapman. In it, Chapman outlines five ways to express and experience love. Chapman calls the five ways our “love languages”.
Chapman claims that we all have a primary and secondary love language. Those languages are:
- Gift giving,
- Quality time,
- Words of affirmation,
- Acts of service (devotion),
- and Physical touch
Han and Leia’s Love Language
While I do not hold a doctorate like Gary Chapman does, I have read his book and can make an educated guess that Han and Leia’s love language is not gift-giving nor words of affirmation ( affirming words like “Yes your worshipfulness” and “You scruffy looking nerf herder” come to mind).
Nor do I think physical touch was either’s language. (“Stop it, my hands are dirty”)
I think that both had quality time and acts of service as their main and secondary love languages. They spent time together, especially having to make it from The Anoat system all the way to Bespin (without the hyperdrive).
Other acts of service from Han would include returning to help destroy the first Death Star, getting the Princess off of Hoth, trying to protect her from Vader while on Cloud City.
Leai’s acts of service include helping with repairs to the Falcon, rescuing Han from Jabba’s palace, shooting the Storm Troopers off of Han’s back.
While they might have argued a lot during the Original Trilogy, we know that between the end of Return of the Jedi and the beginning of the Force Awakens (about 30 years), they loved each other to marry one another, start a family, and unfortunately eventually go their separate ways for a time.
Improve Your Relationships
Have you noticed that everyone in your family doesn’t always get along like Han and Leia. Sometimes it seems that all speak a different language? We do speak differently. We each speak from our different Love Language, and therefore we don’t really get through to each other emotionally.
As I mentioned above, Dr. Gary Chapman is the author of the 5 Love Languages® series(#1 New York Times best-selling). His books have sold more than 11 million copies worldwide and have spent more than 500 weeks on the New York Times bestseller list. He has traveled the world presenting seminars, and his radio programs air on more than 400 stations.
On March 27, 2017, he will kick off the 7-Day Family Challenge from Ziglar family*.
- In this free video training, Dr. Chapman will:
- Share with you an insider’s look at the 5 Love Languages.
- Suggest how you might identify the language that you, your spouse, and your children each favor
- Give specific tips for how you can learn to best speak the language of your family members.
Click here to get started with Dr. Gary Chapman and Challenge number one*.
Please join us for this free training.
* I am an affiliate for this program. If you purchase the Thrive Membership or VIP Membership, I earn a small commission that helps keep the site up and running.
