Novelização Foster confirma isso - ele só fez isso porque Leia pediu.
Basicamente, a única razão pela qual ele não disse a ela: "Não, que glitterstream você está cheirando?" é que ele estava com medo que ela iria jogá-lo novamente, permanentemente.
He wanted to laugh derisively. If he did, he knew she might never speak to him again. “Me? No. If Luke couldn’t reach him, with all his skills and training, how can I?”
She was nodding slowly. “Luke is a Jedi. But you’re his father. There’s still light in him. I know it.”
Isso é confirmado quando ouvimos seus pensamentos quando ele está debatendo se vai confrontar Ren ou não quando ele se depara com ele:
A chance, then, to make it back to the Falcon before everything on this planet went to hell. A chance later for another reunion, on another world. A face swam before his, its features aged but still soft, the voice that emerged from between so-familiar lips biting yet always affectionate. Forming words that lingered in his thoughts. Forming, at last hearing, a request.
A request that wouldn’t go away, he knew. It would never go away. He made up his mind. Instead of retreating, he advanced. Instead of running for safety, he took up the challenge. There was no real choice, he told himself as he advanced to the edge of the walkway. And called out.
“Ben!”