[tps_header][/tps_header]8. A confident, law-abiding bad-ass.
If someone wants to argue that The Force Awakens relies too heavily on character archetypes, then we have a problem. Star Wars is, first and foremost, a mythological fairy tale which cannot exist (and has never existed) without characters filling certain symbolic roles. One such symbolic role is the “Bad-Ass” – the character that often serves as a counter to the main hero, who is still honing their skills. In A New Hope this is Han Solo, but in The Force Awakens, it’s Poe Dameron.
Poe is everything that Han isn’t. From the opening title scrawl, we find out that Poe is basically the James Bond to General Leia Organa’s “M”. When they need a job to get done – a job for the Resistance – he’s the one they send. He knows the importance of Luke Skywalker to the Force and the war effort. The first time we meet Han, he’s brutally shooting first to murder a bounty hunter, whereas when we meet Poe, he is sacrificing his life for the valuable intel in his BB-8 droid. He’s is confident, but he can be that without being a criminal. Try and tell me he’s Han Solo! Go ahead, try.
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