I was always curious what Han’s plan to bring back his son was. Surely there wouldn’t be a “happily ever after” scenario. Kylo had killed a lot of innocents, he was pretty much in the same role as Vader, as in, right hand man of Snoke at that point.
Would Kylo ditching his dark side philosophy actually matter? He’s still have to be tried by the Republic, and made an example out of.
Or are we assume Leia would pull some strings and make certain exceptions? I mean, how much of the galaxy knew who he was under the mask?
I’m very interested in how Han and Leia would’ve treated him had he come back.
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Son of the Princess and the War Hero, nephew of the Jedi Master….
Ultimate Nepo baby right there…
He’d be making an album with JJ’s other child!
Well the new Republic is essentially dead by then. I’m sure most people would want his head on a pike but given his family’s connections and his mother’s people bringing down the star killer base he’d probably be able to disappear. Wouldn’t be welcome into formal society but at least allowed to live on the fringes or return to Luke and help rebuild the Jedi. And while Leia is respected in some circles she’s mostly reviled around the new Republic political circles for being the daughter of Vader and seen as an opportunistic schemer thanks to First Order sympathizers. Kylo being related to Han holds better weight than Leia in getting favorable treatment.
In the novels Leia had to leave politics when it was revealed that Vader was her father. So there’s hope he’d face some justice. But probably not.
How are defectors typically treated?
They’re in a war and he’s an extremely powerful force user. Any punishment would at least be postponed until after the war, and mitigated by how much he helps.
Assuming Han would hand Kylo over to the Republic? I don’t think that was part of Hans plan. Han is a smuggler by nature, he likely went have went underground with Kylo as long as Kylo stayed away from the First Order and dark side stuff.
Exile.
The problem with trying a jedi, or force user in general, is they have magic and no one else does. You aren’t going to be able to put him on trial and get a result you can trust because he’s going to manipulate the judge/jury.
So you exile him.
If Han still had him, they just go on the lam. While we know Han, he’s so far past his prime that no one else is going to. There would be some concern from bounty hunters, by and large if Han went off to the outer rim with Kylo… no one is going to bother them. Outside of Mandalorians and a few of the really big criminal organizations, no one wants to tangle with a jedi. I doubt anyone would offer a bounty nearly worth the expense of getting Kylo and there would be the concern of having the mission fail.
“What do you mean the mission failed, they demanded half of the 100,000 credits up front!”
“Kylo Ren killed all of them.”
“That’s annoying.”
“No, what is annoying is that he used some Jedi technique to read the mind of one of them so he found out who paid them.”
“Which is why we used a cutout to avoid this being tracked back to us.”
“And then he used another Jedi technique to figure out who hired the cut out.”
“Which is why we used a second cut out!”
“Look, he’s outside with his lightsaber and just killed all our guards, so you explain to him how the three cut out and a droid was supposed to prevent him from finding you, I’m going to go eat my blaster.”
Han, Chewbacca, and kylo board the Falcon and travel to outer rim and have adventures and try to lie low, and Leia might join them. Maybe Kylo does thing to be considered a hero eventually and all past mistakes are ignored.
With the New Republic decapitated it would be relatively easy to keep Kylo Ren from New Republic war crimes tribunals.
But being the son of Leia, daughter of Darth Vader, would not help him. Part of why Leia was forced to create the Resistance to fight the First Order instead of wielding the powers of the New Republic was because she had been all but exiled politically as the daughter of Darth Vader. Its part of why Luke Skywalker was also treated with a high degree of suspicion by the New Republic once their parentage was outed.
Ben could not have simply returned from the clutches of the First Order without consequence, and like Ulic Qel-Droma its likely he would be the target of opportunists looking to make a name for themselves, or people looking for revenge for the crimes of the First Order