Fictional Women Around the World: Sana Starros

Sana Starros occupies many roles in the Star Wars universe - academic, smuggler, hero, and also Han Solo's first wife. Sort of. We unpack her origins, her accomplishments and some chaotic romance.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:05):
Hey, this is Anny and Samantha and welcome stuff I've
never told you production if I heart radio, and a
welcome to another sub sub sub sub sub segment of
fictional women around the world. I'm excited about this one.

(00:27):
I was thinking about who we could talk about for
Black History Month, and I had a couple of ideas,
and then this one just kind of came to me
like a bolt of lightning. Sana Starros and I feel like,
not a lot of you know who this is. I
do not exactly, so it's gonna be very fun. This
is a character from the Marvel Star Wars comic books,

(00:50):
and before we get started, spoilers for the recent run
of those comics, and disclaimer that, like a lot of
big franchises, Star Wars canon is instantly constantly my god changing,
is Last Jedi even canon anymore? We don't know. No
one knows. Like literally, when Disney purchased it, they retired

(01:11):
the old canon as legends, but now they're still using
some of it and not the same. It's very confusing,
and the comics are ongoing, so this could change anyway.
With that being said, this is what I have for
you today. So I've told the story before, but during
the pandemic, I got really into Star Wars comics. I

(01:34):
had read them during the time of Legends, but this
was my first foray into the Disney version, and I,
like many people reading these comics, was shocked to find
out that Han Solo had a secret first wife named
Sana Starros. I'm yes when she first debuted in twenty

(01:55):
fifteen or did he? Okay? So, Sauna, also called Snissi
by her family, is a human woman born on Narshada,
which is also called the Smugglers Moon to give you
kind of a vibe for that planet. It's very lawless
or that moon. I always get that mixed up during
the time of the Galactic Civil War, so this is

(02:17):
when the time of the Empire and all that. Sauna
grew up wanting to see the galaxy and she applied
for the archaeology program at the University of bar Leth
and there she met doctor Chelly Afra and you can
see our episode on Afra for more. I love Afra.
But Afra would go on become a rogue archaeologist that

(02:40):
worked for Darth Vader and then with Luke and she's
got two like murdered droids. It's very fun. Saana and
Afra started a romantic relationship that ended abruptly when Afra
up and left didn't say anything, which obviously led to
a lot of resentment on Sauna's end, and I'm just
gonna say a grudge. Uh. Afra still had feelings for

(03:04):
her though, but more on that in a second. This
is also one thing that stuck out to me. I
remember reading these I was like, oh my god, it's
a queer relationship. These two women kissing in this comic book,
and I couldn't leave it in Star Wars. They're going
to do it anyway. Sauna then got tangled up in
trying to hunt down information on a filength Redex transmitter

(03:28):
and runs into none other than Han Solo and Jubakup.
She offers them half of the cut if they help her.
This whole situation is kind of complicated, but to just
simplify it, they're about to finish the job when bounty
hunters arrive looking for them. Sana tries to like bluff
their way out of it, but Han misunderstands the bluff

(03:48):
and takes her seriously, and he shoots the cargo out
of the airlock and all of the bounty hunters go
after it, and there goes their their money. Saana informed
him that she never should have hired him fair. However,
that apparently didn't stop them from working together again a
bit later, where they got married to pull off a heist.

(04:11):
Turns out she was right about Han because he absconded
with her half of the cut and kind of left
her high and try. Indeed, another grudge is developed. Sauna
decides that Han was only good for lying, and Han
decides rightly so she is dangerous and he needs to
avoid her. But it's easier said than done because sometime

(04:35):
around the Battle of Yavon, which is when the first
test Star was destroyed at the end of a new Hope,
she set out to find him, and she basically put
out a reward for anybody who could help her find
her a wayward husband. Some Rhodians confront her, demanding that
she pay up without giving her the information, but she
shoots them all in the knees and says she'll kill

(04:57):
them if they don't inform her that after Han killed Gredo,
Holly's fave, also a Rodean, but like the Han shot first.
Whole thing that's about gredo on Tatouine and then he
left the planet. From there, Sauna follows a bunch of
leads that eventually lead her to a planet with a

(05:19):
dangerous electrical storm atmosphere kind of thing, where Han and Leyah,
who are on a mission together, are hiding out because
the Imperials are too afraid to pursue them through the storms,
but they're like hanging around and waiting for them to
try to escape. Sauna doesn't care, though, and navigates past
the Imperials and through the storm, Landing next to Han's ship.

(05:41):
She confronts Han and Leya, introducing herself as Sauna Solo
and demands to know who Leyah is. I'm telling it
in linear fashion, but this is the first introduction you
get to her, by the way, like the backstory comes later.
So it was. It was a real shocker, and Leia
was indeed shot by this whole thing, and Han he

(06:02):
rushes to deny it. Heated words are exchanged, Sna slaps Han.
Leah pretty much throws her hands up in the air
and says this is none of my business and tries
to walk away. Han yes, and Han tries to stop her,
and then Sna realizes who Leyah is and just how
big the imperial bounty is on her head, and so

(06:24):
she destroys their ship, which was their only chance of escape,
and by the way, perhaps obviously it was not the
Millennium Falcon, it was a stolen Imperial shuttle, but anyway,
she destroys it, and she tells them that she's going
to turn Leya in and take Han with her. As
Sana is trying to contact the Imperials to tell them
about this, Lea kicks Han into her and grabs a

(06:47):
weapon of her own. But then the Imperials are already
on their way, and so they're tie fighters land and
those are the smallish shuttle things, by the way, So
soon there's a fight that's breaking out. Lea's shooting and
Hans shooting, but he's also telling Sauna that he's part
of the rebellion too, so if they come for Leya,
they're going to capture and execute him as well. So

(07:10):
Sona relents and the three of them board sauna ship
and escape the imperials. Leya then demands that Sauna set
course for Narshada, her home planet, because Luke Skywalker has
been captured once again and is being held there and
they need to rescue him. Sna refuses at first and
turns down the credits that Leah offers her. Instead, she

(07:34):
says all she wants is her husband, and Leia is
like fine, So they head to Narshada and chaos ensues.
As for usual, I actually love this. This comic arc
is one of my favorites. But anyway, chaos and through
all of this, Sauna ends up buried under some rocks

(07:55):
and Lea saves her, and this is when Sna reveals
to her that the marriage with Han was fake and
tells her the whole story, and they kind of form
a bond, kind of jokingly teasing about Han and how
he's not so good at a lot of things. But anyway,
as is the persuasive way Leah has with smugglers, she

(08:17):
convinces Sauna to help work with the rebellion. As luck
would have it, Sanna's first mission is transporting wouldn't you
know it, her former lover Afra to the Alliance's sun

(08:40):
Spot prison, which is a mission that Leah hired her
for and joins her on, and it goes about as
well as you might think, which is actually probably worse
than you I think badly. It goes badly. Sana threatens Afra,
telling her that she hopes that she gets killed, and
refuses to help her escape when Afra ask The prison

(09:02):
is then intact and Sona and Leya have to work
together to save the prisoners, despite Sna kind of thinking
that they should be killed, and they do save Afra.
They give her a blaster. At one point, Sana attacks Afra,
but Leya intervenes to stop them. It was kind of warranted,
but anyway. They argue, with Afra telling Sna to get

(09:25):
over a crush and something that happened a long time ago,
and Sauna telling Afra to learn how to stab someone
in the front. Turns out this whole attack was about
killing Afra, and Sauna is about to do it, despite
Leya and Afras please otherwise. And then Leya gets to
R two D two and is able to disable the

(09:46):
artificial gravity. So now they're all floating about and violence
is going on, obviously, and through the chaos, Sonna and
Afra are fighting, and Afra apologizes for tying her while
Sauna is choking her. Sauna is still mad, but the
three women work together to defeat those who had attacked

(10:08):
the prison in typical Afra fashion, she takes the opportunity
to escape, and Sauna actually helps her. She kind of
like kicks her into an escape pod and says, I
never want to see you ever again. Get out. From
then on, Sauna takes various jobs with the Alliance, at
times working with Han, Leah Lando, and yes later on

(10:30):
Afra again. She helped steal a star story, which is
a huge deal. She helped rescue Han and Luke where
she shot Afra, but then made up with her. She
always claimed that she was in it for the money,
but Luke disagreed and thought there was more to her
than that, which is funny because he said the same
thing about Han and Lando and Afra, and he was

(10:53):
right once again, because it turns out a lot of
those credits she'd been getting she was giving to a
hospital on her home planet. She really did a lot
of stuff. It was hard for me not to just
go into every mission she did. But she went on
a rescue mission to save Afra with the help of
Afra's X and Current Situationship I don't know, helped smuggle Han, Luke,

(11:15):
and Lea away from the Imperials, was captured during torture
during the process, and she did reveal their location, but
together they managed to escape. So that's just some of
the highlights. She's a really interesting character. She's chaotic emotionally,
but she has she has growth, and she's extremely competent
when it comes to smuggling and all the skills that entail.

(11:38):
She's got a lot of cool gadgets. She's good at
piloting weapons, bluffing, and I do kind of love her messy,
wild relationship with Afra. She got her own comic miniseries
in twenty twenty three with the release of Star Wars
Santa Starovs Number one, which I have not read yet,

(11:58):
but I am excited too. I am so behind on
my comics. Oh but I am very excited. This is
fun to remember all of this. Yeah, I remember where
I was when I read that. Yeah, she's fun. She's fun, messy,
very bud that's going on in our life. She does

(12:20):
she does, but I like it. I appreciate it anyway. Listeners,
as always, would love to hear your thoughts on this
or if you have any suggestions for future characters we
should feature. Please let us know. You can email us
at Hello at Stuff Inever told You dot com. You
can find us on Blue Sky, at momsa podcast, or
on Instagram and TikTok at stuff I Never Told You.

(12:42):
We're also on YouTube. We have merchandise dot com hero
and we have a book you can get wherever you
get your books. Thanks, It's Always too our super duce Christina,
our executive Prius and your contributor Joey. Thank you, and
thanks to you for listening Stuff Never Told You structure
of I Heart Radio. For more podcast in my heart Radio,
you can check out the heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts
or reul listen to your favorite shows. Ye