Leia's message to Ben

so in Bloodline, after Leia is outed as being Vader's daughter, she sends a very distraught message to Ben, with whom she hasn't spoken in a long while (he and Luke have been out of touch, adventuring around the galaxy)

we have no idea what the content of the message is, only that Han rushes to be with her when she delivers it, and that she's crying so much she can barely get through it.

we also have no idea if Ben ever received it.

so:

• what do you think Leia told (or tried to tell) him?
• do you think Ben got the message before finding out about Vader, after, or not at all?
• do you think we'll find out the contents of the message in the ST?

 

right??? this is kinda what i was thinking too. even if he did get the message, he might have dismissed it in a pique.
but what if it came back to haunt him? what if it haunts him now? what if he plays it over and over to torment himself?

or :

what if, confronting by Kylo Ren in TLJ, she tells him how she tried to reach him, and he says: what? i never got any message! and she either tells him what she sent, or sends it later (in IX *sob*), and it's all staticky and she's blubbering so you can't really hear every word, but she says all the right things that he needed to hear then but never did.

ugh. it's breaking my heart that she won't be in IX! : ' o (

 

i feel like Claudia Gray specifically didn't "script" it because she either didn't know what it should say, or they wanted to hold it back.
like you said, i think it could be a very powerful plot element given all the emotional stakes.
especially too, since this is the only time i know of in current canon that adult Leia has ever openly cried.

 

i want to reread it too (probably this weekend).

i would imagine that anger would be compounded by the fact that he's probably always known he was "different" but couldn't understand it and no one could/would explain it to him. that's a pretty rough thing to discover so late--not even so much that Vader is his grandfather, but that his parents allowed him to exist in this state of confusion/turmoil. for what reason? to protect him, i'm sure they were thinking. but yeah, that's doesn't really make it all right.

absolutely! but it maybe does kind of matter that Vader actually sired her in this case.
we don't know yet what she ever told Ben, so we have no idea whether she lied by omission or straight out lied, or said nothing at all.
these are some of the things i hope we find out--if not in the movies, then supplementally somewhere.

 

that would be interesting--and terrible. i can see Luke possibly thinking: oh no, let me try to "manage" this, am bungling it.
Leia never believed/accepted that Vader returned to the Light, so it would not have been part of her "narrative", but i can't imagine Luke would have wanted to have that conversation with his nephew without telling him his own side.

which i can see could get really messy: your parents lied to you, but wait, there's still more.
and now what are you really supposed to believe?

i can totally see Ben walking out to find out the truth for himself, right into Snoke's waiting hands.

 

BWHAHahahaha ~ hope he enjoys it because it probably won't happen again any time soon.

 

i really struggle with this too. i mean, i think that's why she's crying so hard: she knows she screwed up big time. so less than: "hey by the way sweetie, Vader's your grandpa", it might've been more "i'm so sorry i didn't tell you; i only was trying to protect you."

again, not that it helps. especially under the circumstances.

i found most of Leia's behavior really unflattering in Bloodline.
she's got a lot to answer for, but also she's clearly got a lot to reconcile for her own self with regard to Vader--and now with her son.

dunno if it will ever be brought up, but it feels like kind of a big deal in terms of how Ben fell.
you definitely should read Bloodline (even though i've now spoiled a big moment for you) : o p
but one of the things i think Bloodline does that's really critical to the ST is that it sets up the political landscape (and not in a boring PT way) ~ hahahaha

 

suddenly Ben's turn to the Darkside is not only understandable, but fully justified ~ hahahahaha