Jyn's Connection to the rest of Star Wars

The sad fact of movies and cinematic universes is that people feel the need to make everything connected. This is part of the reason why everyone is so obsessed with who Rey’s parents are. We have become accustomed to the idea that every character has to have a connection to the characters that started everything. It doesn’t even occur to us that Rey could possibly be her own legacy rather than a continuation of the Skywalkers, but I digress.

Rogue One created a ton of instances where connections could be made and characters have even appeared in Rebels and the ship from Rebels seems to have made an appearance in the movies, but one connection I don’t mind having is staring us right in the face, and only those who are on top of their Star Wars lore would be able to see it.

Welcome to Theory Thursday, where we take the hard questions and give them an answer, and sometimes we even make up the questions!

Spoilers for Rogue One will follow, but seriously, go see it. I give that movie my sticker of approval!

The Canon of Star Wars has changed a lot since Disney bought the franchise and as far as I can tell there are three main canons in Star Wars:

• -          Post-trilogy- pre-prequel canon
• -          Pre-Disney canon
• -          Current canon

The Post-trilogy pre-prequel canon shared a lot of similarities with the pre-Disney canon and everything that is pre-Disney and older is considered “Star Wars Legends”. In legends canon, beginning in pre-prequel days, was a character named Bria Tharen.

Bria Tharen. She was modeled after the
character "Marion Ravenwood" from "Raiders
of the Lost Ark". During the story, Han had an
alias that he set his accounts up in "Jenos
Idanian".

Bria Tharen was born in a wealthy, ruling-class family on Corellia. As time went on though, she became disenchanted with her life and wanted to do something bigger than herself. She sold all of her jewelry and followed a missionary of sorts to a planet called Ylisia where she joined a religious revival. Turns out that the euphoria feeling that she kept getting when she went to the services were the byproducts of the drugs that were being made. The entire operation was shut down by a young smuggler who was just beginning his career. The smuggler was Han Solo.

Bria Tharen fell in love with Han but felt she needed to get rid of her addiction to the drugs before she start a relationship. She eventually found the alliance. She and Han crossed paths occasionally and one day Bria insisted that Han help the rebels navigate through a planet. The rebels were going to end the slave trade on the planet and offer the freed slaves a position in the alliance and Han with his crew of smugglers were to get the drugs from off the planet and sell them becoming stupid rich. The rebels lied, took the drugs to fund the rebellion and left Han high and dry with only a fraction of a spice shipment that Han needed. He later had to drop this shipment to avoid imperial scanning.

Now here is where things get interesting: the next battle that the rebellion fought was to receive the plans to the first Death Star. Bria obtained the plans, transmitted them to the ships above and committed suicide rather than have the imperials interrogate her.

Jyn Erso is the main character of Rogue One. Her deal is that she caused a lot of trouble for the Imperials and eventually was rescued to join the rebel alliance. She then co-led the mission to get the Death Star plans from the planet Scarif. This ended with her being successful and dying.

Now it seems like I might not have a leg to stand on here, but let me show you how much there is behind this.

While not ruling class, Jyn’s father was a much-respected engineer. He would have only been chosen to work on the Death Star laser if the Emperor believed that he was the best around. This is further evidenced by the fact that The Empire specifically sought him out to finish the project rather than hire a new guy.

Now, worlds that were aligned with the Empire included most human-populated planets. Corellia aligned with the Empire and was very much human populated. They also had one of the best universities in the galaxy. Chances are that Jyn’s father was a professor there and that is how he was noticed. After Jyn was effectively left orphaned we see she met with Saw Gerrera but we don’t know the rest of her story other than she caused trouble enough that the Empire would arrest her and that she has an obvious reason to hate them for the kidnapping of her father.

Bria might have been in the movie. In an extended scene in the
cantina, Han Solo is seen with an unidentified woman. this is
where the idea for her character came from, however, in the book
she is confirmed dead by this point.

Now, Bria Tharen was a character who had major ramification through the Star Wars Legends timeline. she was in three books but her presence caused a long line of consequences that lasted all the way to the Disney buyout. she was never retconned out and whenever history was being re-written she was re-written with it almost as consistently as Mara Jade. I want to see her survive into the movies and that brings me to my theory:  that Jyn met Han Solo as she was wandering the galaxy searching for her purpose. With rumors that Felicity Jones’ contract calls for a second movie, I am willing to bet that she takes Bria’s place as Han Solo’s previous girlfriend. We will next see Felicity Jones in her role of Jyn Erso in the Han Solo Anthology film.

What do you guys think? Were you interested in Bria’s story? I would recommend that you check out the books “The Paradise Snare”, “The Hutt Gambit” and “Rebel Dawn”. These books give a lot of insight into Han Solo’s Character, Chewbacca, and Lando and how Bria held a much bigger part in the lives of the characters than we give credit for. Thanks for liking and sharing, it really helps me out when you do. Be sure to like my Facebook page and remember to always be your best self.