Lando Calrissian's Sexuality
- Thread starter LJones41
- Start date
A reciprocal Lando/L3 romance has been all but confirmed by the Kasdans, and it stands to reason that said romance involved sex.
Yet we've never actually seen BB8, Chewie, or R2 get killed or damaged to the point of being unsalvageable. I'm only speaking in that context of losing a beloved friend or a loved one. To me, it was the way Lando went after her when she went down, the way he freaked out, the way he held her and cradled her in his arms as she was about to die (or go offline). L3 appeared to be more than just a property to Lando. It was as though she were another person, an organic sentient being to him. Maybe that was all she was to him, a companion, but his feelings of compassion, if not passion, were profound.
Wow, I swear I hadn't read your post before I posted my reply, but you and I were on the same page.
They may not have been sexual, but it really seemed to be something more than friendship.
On second viewing, that's how the L3 / Lando relationship comes off. His concern was born of friendship, similar to the way Luke panicked about R2 when he thought the droid was swallowed by the swamp creature on Dagobah.
So if it just reads as a close friendship, one could say at the end of it all, Jonathan Kasdan's pre-release comments caused an unnecessary brouhaha in a part of the fanbase; if--for argument's sake--Lando did have a firmly established romantic relationship with L3, it would be a throwaway character change, as Lando's on-screen future personality would not hint (obviously) that he ever had such feelings, in other words, there's no natural thread / connecting behavior. If Jonathan Kasdan were able to get his wish to have--
--it would have been effective to create a new character--one who has no preexisting future, and if TPB allowed, could be brought back in another film (e.g. episode 9 of the sequel trilogy or another off-Saga film) as some surprise ally. At least in that case, his life as an older man could callback to an established earlier appearance, or simply pick up where the younger self left off in terms of personality, sort of like Michael Corleone in The Godfather Part III, where that plot takes place 19 years after the events of the Part II, but Michael still has an emotional to attachment / interest in Kay, even though their relationship ended with his forced separation from her two decades earlier.
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It sounds like you're saying that non-hetero characters need to have their non-heterosexuality established from the get-go; otherwise it constitutes "a throwaway character change" (emphasis mine).
What evidence were we ever presented with explicitly indicating that Lando was hetero? A whopping one film where he hits on one woman? That's hardly persuasive evidence, especially given the circumstances at the time.
Heck, perhaps Cloud City was a fairly socially conservative environment and Lando was making a point of only flirting in circumstances where it wouldn't cause a scandal.
What evidence were we ever presented with explicitly indicating that Lando was hetero? A whopping one film where he hits on one woman? That's hardly persuasive evidence, especially given the circumstances at the time.
Heck, perhaps Cloud City was a fairly socially conservative environment and Lando was making a point of only flirting in circumstances where it wouldn't cause a scandal.
Or maybe he just fancied her and didn't see a reason to say "Just so you know I also like guys. And Droids"
Or maybe he didn't fancy her at all and was just trying to (playfully or otherwise) irk Han. Or keep his non-heterosexuality under wraps by recognizing that hitting on Leia might be a good cover.
In any case, Lando hitting on Leia doesn't tell us anything beyond the fact that he hit on Leia.
I hit on women all the time, with no expectation of, nor interest in, it going anywhere.
Maybe, but how does that invalidate this option?
What hint would you have liked? Maybe an affectionate kiss? Some reference to a night they spent in a favourite restaurant/mechanics yard? He could deliver a somewhat creepy line about alternate realities and then try again when it falls flat, L3 is revolted and everyone else laughs at him?
Because people are dodging saying out loud what their real issue is and trying to intellectualise it away with nonsense arguments about the structuring of the film.
We knew very little at all about Lando Calrissian beforehand, but for some reason the six seconds or so of screen time he spends flirting with Leia completely informs our understanding of him to the point where we are fully aware of his relationship history and sexual preferences. Anything else is just twisting the franchise to suit a political agenda.
I seem to remember some of these same arguments as to why Prime Sulu couldn't be in a same-sex relationship. Because we saw him flirt with a woman once or twice.
Jesus I flirt with everybody. God knows what conclusions these people would draw about my sexuality.
It was just funny watching the argument from folks that Prime Sulu had to be straight because he had flirted with a female, even though Abrams Sulu was in a same-sex relationship.
No confirmation bias there at all
The only time we see Sulu in TOS show any interest in women, was in the Mirror Universe. So really, the only thing we know is that Mirror Sulu was straight, and even that I'm not 100% sold on. Mirror Sulu if anything comes off as someone trying to hide their homosexuality by overcompensating and acting too straight. But yeah, canonically, we know nothing at all about Prime Sulu's sexuality.
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