That's a good issue that I never even touched on. Han's gone to the edge--he's died. How does that change a person? How does that impact how your view life, and your friends, and how does it change your philosophy about things? Maybe it would make Han a bit more sullen, more introspective about things, though he tries to mask it with his humour to make light of it. I think maybe that could have played a part in his decision, ultimately, to get himself killed so that his friends could live. That, even if he maybe tries to shrug off the experience at the beginning, at the end he knows that to feel the cold, creeping in of death and face that blackness is painful and terrifying and he would rather face that again, knowing what is there but now brave enough to embrace it, than have all of his loved ones do the same. In the second film, the Empire kills him, so that his friends could live; in the third film, he kills himself, so that his friends could live. Its repetitive a bit, but that crucial difference--that its a choice he makes for himself and accepts, not one thrust upon him--is enough to make it interesting.