58 minutes ago, eMeM said:

In TTT he's ruthless, evil, yet still a mastermind.

Evil things he's done? Off top of my head, manipulating the entire spiecies to make them basically slaves, brutally murdering own subordinates for show.

2

1. He didn't manipulate them, he inherited the situation from Lord Vader. No real way out without the whole situation blowing up in his face, and he would lose valuable assets. **** move? Sure. Evil? Not quite

2. He had an incompetent officer (or was he a crewman?) killed after failing a highly important task, and trying to blame his superior. Again, not exactly nice, but not exactly evil either. In a similar situation, he rewarded the individual because of creative thinking. He's brutal, but not evil.

58 minutes ago, eMeM said:

Late Thrawn always acts for the greater good, and feels sad when he has to something bad in order to achieve his noble goal.

1

I wouldn't say he feels sad, more like he sees it as an unavoidable problem. I do think he had a bit of guilt lingering from Outbound Flight because of how things went down with C'boath, but instead of being a contradiction with his original appearance, it explains why Thrawn was more than willing to allow C'boath to keep pushing him when he really should have stopped him early on. He was trying to redeem a failure of his past.

59 minutes ago, eMeM said:

In Rebels we are introduced to Thrawn with a mention of one of his operations being effective yet extremely brutal to the population. Our blue friend doesn't try to deny anything, and Pryce enforces the ruthless image with her comment about acceptable casualities. He also seems pretty devoted to the Emperor.

Why do you think they introduced him this way? What was the point of the dialogue?

2

Bad writing? The fact that Thrawn in the show was introduced without Zahn's imput, and they wrote him however they felt without bothering to ask if it fit with what the creator of the character, and his sole writer up to that point, would have him do?

58 minutes ago, eMeM said:

Then Zahn goes full late Zahn to make Thrawn the good guy, he was doing everything he could to avoid casualities, it's the other Imperials who are to blame, he didn't do nothin! A complete 180, going full Rian Johnson on Rebels just so that his favourite Gary Stu can't be tainted with a single sin. He even stands up to the Emperor and not only doesn't lose his life, he doesn't even lose his job.

3

Huh? Thrawn has a history of standing up to the Emperor, enough so that his original mission into the Unknown Regions used that as the cover for his "exile."

15 minutes ago, Ktan said:

FWIW on the Thrawn thing I'm very reluctant about this characterisation of Thrawn as "not actually that bad a dude". He's knowingly working for evil space fascists and clearly revels in it. He's either Lawful Stupid (which I find impossible to conceive for a character who shows such an interest in political nuance) or he's evil.

Just because he doesn't choke out his subordinates for accidentally burning the toast that doesn't make him a dove. He's just a people person.

2

I don't mean to imply that Thrawn is a "good guy," just that he's not evil. Lawful neutral is where I'd peg him. (and your comment about his political prowess is actually not accurate for the Thrawn novel version of his character, where he is shown as politically inept) He serves the "evil" Empire because he sees it as a better force for his own purposes (which he thinks are noble) than a chaotic Republic. He's willing to play the long game, and gain enough influence in the Empire so that he'll be able to help pick the next Emperor, one he feels will be better suited to his goals. (IE, not a deranged megalomaniac with a really bad case of static electricity)

I wasn't trying to pick on anyone in particular, it's just a particular thread of discourse I see around the web a lot.

He may not have political nuance in the Thrawn book, although I gather that one's more of an origin story? From what I know of TTT and elements of Rebels he's clearly a character who has a sense of vision, strategically in the sense of both war and politics. Also, I'd argue that recognising there is nuance in politics is not the same thing as having political prowess. I see lots of nuance in politics but I know I'd be an awful politician.

Propping up a fascist dictatorship because in the long term it's easier to manipulate to your own ends? To me, that description of his mercenary nature sounds pretty textbook evil XD

The most interesting type of evil a villain can be. But it's solid Bond Movie Villain territory. I'm quite sure real historical figures have been demonised for less =P

Many people seek power or influence. That's inherently rather neutral and can depend on what you want to do with said power. The thing is with Thrawn is that he has no scruples about how he's doing that, and we've no reason thus far to beleive it's for altruistic ends. And that's an idea that you can get a lot out of as a writer.

But, to be fair, there are definitely shades of grey between 'neutral' and the 'puppy kicking evil' grade that the Sith are at. Personally I'd set him within the "evil" part of the alignment chart though. He'd need a really amazing justification for his actions to be anywhere else.*

Example from Black Panther

(I now want to do the 'Let's Go to McDonalds!' alignment chart with Rebels characters. I think both Chopper and Thrawn would occupy the "orders a single black coffee" part of that chart)

*As a side note, I strongly dislike this common trope in media (and one I know that Legends toyed with) that the only way to prepare for the Ultimate Evil " lurking just beyond the reach of the most powerful long-range sensors "** is a totalitarian fascist state/military junta but that's a debate for another time

**bonus points for anyone who gets the reference

Not wishing collateral damage doesn't make Thrawn a good guy, but I think it makes him a more interesting villain.

You can wish that people aren't killed under your rule, but still enact decisions that make their lives abysmal. He could even see collateral damage as a waste of industrial potential. There are so many possible intersecting reasons that fit his character.

If you've ever played a 4k space game such as Master of Orion, Thrawn is the player. Have you ever thought twice what the quality of life of your people is like when you order all work on a planet to industry or starship manufacturing? Probably not and Thrawn doesn't either. When you think at that strategic level, lives are resources, objects, statistics. A means to an end.

That's why he can support the Empire. He's wagering his actions will save more lives down the line against some still unknown threat. However, he believes that the galaxy can only be united through military conquest and its people kept in line through oppressive doctrine.

Lets put it like this, lets suppose Thrawn ruled the Empire tomorrow and had the personality provided the way Zahn writes Thrawn in the new Thrawn (Novel). The quality of life in the galaxy might go up compared to say Tarkin and definitely Vader and Palpatine. We may not see slavery, genocide, and the general overt evil we connect to the Empire.

However Thrawn is incredibly fascist and the general freedoms of your basic citizen would still be incredibly minimal. The military would have a tight grip on the galaxy and programs such as the Tie Defender program replacing all Imperial fighter complements and investment away from the Death Star to the expansion of the fleet would make rebellion unfeasible. Resistance would be put down without mercy or quarter.

Thrawn is a three dimensional villain, someone we can sympathize with at times, and understand and even respect his motivations, but that does not change his actions nor his allegiances.

I’m not sure I’d kill off anyone but Ezra, and I’m not certain I’d do that. If Ezra dies saving his friends he’s just mirroring Kanan. We know that Rex, Hera and Chopper stick with the Alliance. Fenn & Sabine have every incentive to go back to Mandalore and Zeb & Kalus could easily go to the new Lestat home world. ****, Kalus could stick with the Alliance too, just in an off-screen capacity (working for Airen Cracken for example). That just leaves Ezra to dispose of. What if rather than dying he falls to the Dark Side and becomes the new Grand Inquisitor? That would be a significant enough event to break up the remaining Spectre members surely?

Thrawn is kind of a psychopath. He's incredibly polite most of the time, clearly putting a large emphasis on personal civility. But there are a bunch of scenes in Rebels which really show how vicious he is. When he starts growling at Slaven over his flippant remarks suggesting they smash Hera's kalikori. When he has Morad Sumar "test" the speeder bike until it explodes. When he opens fire on their top ace Vult Skerris, knowing Hera is setting a trap.

I mean, even Imperial officers noted how civilian casualties often outnumber the deaths of enemy combatants in Thrawn's military actions. When instructed by Tarkin to capture the Rebel leadership over Atolon, he basically just ignores it and fully intends to kill everyone.

So the dude won't just use his blaster a puppy randomly . But he'd come up with a lengthy speech about why blasting the puppy in front of everyone is important. For reasons like stiffening morale, or demoralizing his opponents, or how the puppy is going grow up to kill the cat which eats the far worse rats. And he'll sound clever and wise and reasonable. But Thrawn's still going to blast the puppy.

Moreover, at least from Rebels, we've seen his viciousness sabotage his strategic goals. At Atolon, he could have just kept up the bombardment longer, but he wanted to go down and kill the Spectres personally. He could have remained on the ships, where his leadership might have prevented the ultimate loss of the 2nd Interidctor to Ezra and the Manalorians. But he wanted to kill the Spectres personally. Bah, I'm half-reusing an analogy, but he's a greedy cat playing with a rat for too long before killing it, and the rat eventually escapes and lives.

IIRC he's quite happy to obliterate Atolon from orbit, he's merely following (terrible) orders to take the leadership alive. But t's a while since I've seen Zero Hour.

If anything, Thrawn's scarier to me because he can't be played like most villains. He doesn't have a personal stake in victory, because victory itself is satisfaction enough, clean or dirty. He's a WAAC player. You can't bait Thrawn by appealing to his sense of honour because if he's allowing you to do that then you are playing his game. Perhaps the only way to beat him is not to play his game at all, which is a lot harder to do.

(I love the analogy @Forresto used of him being the player in a 4X strategy game. It's especially works in ones like GalCiv where technologies do things such as pacify the populace through media and subliminal messaging. Thrawn would probably create a society somewhere between that we see in Brave New World and 1984. He'd probably appeal to the masses through distractions and propaganda while ruthlessly subjugating anyone who didn't fall in line.)

Remember the joke about getting the villain to 'start monologueing' in The Incredibles? Thrawn feels dangerous because he's probably not egotistical to start monologuing unless doing so achieves a goal (he monologues when he meets Hera, but there's a purpose to that, he's needling her and intimidating her by contrasting who he is as a person with the inept officer next to him)

Unlike the Emperor, or Palpatine or even Tarkin, he's not driven by ego or rage. He's vengeful and spiteful, but he feels less likely to let that compromise his vision. He has the ability to anticipate that his enemies might just be as smart as they actually are, unlike Tarkin who is absolutely sitting on the wrong side of the Dunning-Kruger curve.

I am slightly worried that the finale may undo that, but I've faith they'll not do that with Thrawn.

I guess I just see things differently. I think Thrawn is a papered-over cauldron of rage and hate, one he tries to hide and often can hide well, but his core isn't nearly as calm as he pretends.

Off to the side, the most rage-filled villain in Kylo Ren is the one who does the "sensible" thing in The Last Jedi by having everyone shoot Luke. He doesn't monologue, he doesn't try to duel him, just obliterate with maximum firepower. It doesn't work, and he's got to attempt to handle things personally, but still.

1 hour ago, Alpha17 said:

1. He didn't manipulate them, he inherited the situation from Lord Vader. No real way out without the whole situation blowing up in his face, and he would lose valuable assets. **** move? Sure. Evil? Not quite

2. He had an incompetent officer (or was he a crewman?) killed after failing a highly important task, and trying to blame his superior. Again, not exactly nice, but not exactly evil either. In a similar situation, he rewarded the individual because of creative thinking. He's brutal, but not evil.

I wouldn't say he feels sad, more like he sees it as an unavoidable problem. I do think he had a bit of guilt lingering from Outbound Flight because of how things went down with C'boath, but instead of being a contradiction with his original appearance, it explains why Thrawn was more than willing to allow C'boath to keep pushing him when he really should have stopped him early on. He was trying to redeem a failure of his past.

Bad writing? The fact that Thrawn in the show was introduced without Zahn's imput, and they wrote him however they felt without bothering to ask if it fit with what the creator of the character, and his sole writer up to that point, would have him do?

Huh? Thrawn has a history of standing up to the Emperor, enough so that his original mission into the Unknown Regions used that as the cover for his "exile."

I don't mean to imply that Thrawn is a "good guy," just that he's not evil. Lawful neutral is where I'd peg him. (and your comment about his political prowess is actually not accurate for the Thrawn novel version of his character, where he is shown as politically inept) He serves the "evil" Empire because he sees it as a better force for his own purposes (which he thinks are noble) than a chaotic Republic. He's willing to play the long game, and gain enough influence in the Empire so that he'll be able to help pick the next Emperor, one he feels will be better suited to his goals. (IE, not a deranged megalomaniac with a really bad case of static electricity)

He murdered gruesomely a conscripted low level soilder, for what I'd argue was his (Thrawn's) or the commanding officer's fault - insufficient training.

Killing a person for acting by the book in a very unlikely situation is extremely evil. Killing anyone for incompetence is evil. Killing people on the very bottom of the chain of command is arguably much more evil than what Vader does, cleaning up the very top.

It's bad writing, yes. On the part of Zahn. They should naver have invited him back to write Thrawn, it's bizzare for me how could that happen, seeing how Thrawn acts in Rebels shows LFL writers understood when and how he went wrong and corrected his mistakes. Zahn himself showed complete lack of respect for canon and for Rebels writers.

Thrawn's exile was a cover story. He didn't disagree with the Emperor, let alone say it to his face, he was realising his plans.

I'm completely baffled that people had no complaints about the myriad of powerful and sometimes ridiculous things the Force was capable of in Legends canon.

But when the new canon introduces a new concept of what the Force is capable of, so many people lose their minds and complain about "that's now how the Force works!".

Even when that concept is loosely grounded on what the films have shown us (visions of the future), and has been slowly built up over the course of the entire show instead of just pulled out of thin air for plot convenience or "doing something cool".

I think the beauty is we all can have different interpretations.

I see Thrawn as having an anti-social personality disorder, BUT is that him or indicative of cultural tendencies of the Chiss? After all he is an alien.

As a side-note I think my concern with that question is that Thrawn should still remain unique even amongst his own people. Zahn may fall under the trap of modeling the Chiss as Thrawn replicas.

~

18 minutes ago, eMeM said:

He murdered guresomely a conscripted low level soilder, for what I'd argue was his (Thrawn's) or the commanding officer's fault - insufficient training.

Killing a person for acting by the book in a very unlikely situation is extremely evil. Killing anyone for incompetence is evil. Killing people on the very bottom of the chain of command is arguably much more evil than what Vader does, cleaning up the very top.

It's bad writing, yes. On the part of Zahn. They should naver have invited him back to write Thrawn, it's bizzare for me how could that happen, seeing how Thrawn acts in Rebels shows LFL writers understood when and how he went wrong and corrected his mistakes.

Thrawn's exile was a cover story. He didn't disagree with the Emperor, let alone say it to his face, he was realising his plans.

Except Zahn's current writing, unlike his later writings in Outbound Flight, is far more in line with what we see in Rebels.

See the defining character moment in Thrawn, of whether he was good or bad, was the outcome of his relationship with Eli, arguably the only person he would ever consider a friend. The end of that book demonstrates Thrawn sees him as nothing more then an asset. He's a sociopath. He's non-cannibalistic Hannibal Lecter (ala the series Hannibal, the titular role played by Mads Mikkelsen.)

Thrawn doesn't have friends, he has at best allies, but allies that are tools he will use for as long as they benefit him. That doesnt mean he'll kill them when they're no longer of use but he'll move on.

What makes Thrawn look good in the book is how standard and two dimensional a Star Wars villain Pryce is. Thrawn in that book is the banality of evil and complicity. Pryce in the book is his ultimate foil, not Nightswan.

And as a writer, i'm more inclined to support the character's creator for how the character should be handled, not a cartoon series designed for kids that often deals with broad strokes and not nuance for characterization. That's not a jab at Rebels, but its a twenty/thirty minute show that doesnt have time to demonstrate the deep interworkings of its villain's psyche in the same way a book can.

The book is from Thrawn's perspective and from Eli's perspective so of course Thrawn is going to look better, because in their perception they are on the right side. Rebels, The Thrawn Trilogy are largely from the good guy's perspective.

(Also Vader kills incompetence at all ranks. Not in the movies, but in the new canon he is shown mowing down stormtroopers and the lower ranks.)

So, I don't really like Rebels, but it seems this season inteoduces my beloved Dreadnought Class Heavy Cruisers into Disney Canon. Thats a good thing.

My view of Thrawn is slightly different; he seems less concerned about good or evil and more inclined towards establishing order in what he percieves to be chaos.

Unlike the Emperor, Vader, Krennic or Tarkin who will not hesitate to destroy a planet to wipe out a single base, Thrawn is (usually) methodical and precise. He will do what is necessary for a "lasting victory", which is something that some of the higher ups in the Empire who relied solely on fear and intimidation had difficulty grasping.

In most scenarios, he also seems to follow a train of thought: to promote competent officers (or even groom them) towars the right field, to redirect problematic elements to areas where their abilities will be of better use (or less troublesome) and as a last resort, to eliminate incompetent elements or let them fail under their own power instead of saving them. He is, like other elements of the Empire, willing to set up an example, if need be. It does not seem to be his default behavior, however.

Had the Empire being filled with like minded (and competent officers), then there is little doubt in my mind that the Empire would have been a lot more successful and stable overall. Then again, the Emperor did favor ambition, backtabbing, greed, etc (core Sith values). Thrawn is stuck in that game and as far as I can tell, Tarkin favors him slightly only because it can potentially harm Krennic.

This does not make Thrawn into a "good guy" by any stretch and he is as ruthless as other Imperial officers. He is simply more efficient and with a better overall vision and plan in mind than his peers.

Note: my views are mostly based on the books. Because Rebels is a kids' show, they do have to show the crew of the Ghost winning more often than they should.

D'YA SEE IT GUYS

D'YA SEE IT

How is Rebels going to be wrapped up decently in two more episodes?!?!

And oooo Dreadnaught

5 minutes ago, Captain Lackwit said:

D'YA SEE IT GUYS

D'YA SEE IT

.....Gunboat?

Oh hey look there's the ghost! on the side of the container ship.

4 hours ago, theBitterFig said:

Thrawn is kind of a psychopath. He's incredibly polite most of the time, clearly putting a large emphasis on personal civility. But there are a bunch of scenes in Rebels which really show how vicious he is. When he starts growling at Slaven over his flippant remarks suggesting they smash Hera's kalikori. When he has Morad Sumar "test" the speeder bike until it explodes. When he opens fire on their top ace Vult Skerris, knowing Hera is setting a trap.

I mean, even Imperial officers noted how civilian casualties often outnumber the deaths of enemy combatants in Thrawn's military actions. When instructed by Tarkin to capture the Rebel leadership over Atolon, he basically just ignores it and fully intends to kill everyone.

So the dude won't just use his blaster a puppy randomly . But he'd come up with a lengthy speech about why blasting the puppy in front of everyone is important. For reasons like stiffening morale, or demoralizing his opponents, or how the puppy is going grow up to kill the cat which eats the far worse rats. And he'll sound clever and wise and reasonable. But Thrawn's still going to blast the puppy.

Moreover, at least from Rebels, we've seen his viciousness sabotage his strategic goals. At Atolon, he could have just kept up the bombardment longer, but he wanted to go down and kill the Spectres personally. He could have remained on the ships, where his leadership might have prevented the ultimate loss of the 2nd Interidctor to Ezra and the Manalorians. But he wanted to kill the Spectres personally. Bah, I'm half-reusing an analogy, but he's a greedy cat playing with a rat for too long before killing it, and the rat eventually escapes and lives.

So, he's a Kingsman, then..!

6 minutes ago, SDCC said:

How is Rebels going to be wrapped up decently in two more episodes?!?!

And oooo Dreadnaught

BINGO

6 minutes ago, FTS Gecko said:

.....Gunboat?

It's big brother if you really think about it.

5 minutes ago, Sir Orrin said:

Oh hey look there's the ghost! on the side of the container ship.

Also true.

52 minutes ago, Captain Lackwit said:

D'YA SEE IT GUYS

D'YA SEE IT

The Ghost on the side...how has no one spotted it?

Look at all those windows on the Star Destroyer, 35,000 on board, someone has a window office, they're going to notice. Not to mention the much closer Dreadnaught.

If a ship is passing Military cordon, there will be thousands of eyes from multiple ships.

It worked for the Falcon because they hid on the one part of the ISD that didn't have windows.

Not a big deal but its one of those instances on Rebels where either due to time restraints or something else, this was a flaw not thought about on the production side.

Its a cargo ship, why not stuff the Ghost *inside* the ship.

49 minutes ago, Sir Orrin said:

Oh hey look there's the ghost! on the side of the container ship.

Guess they are pulling a Falcon.

50 minutes ago, FTS Gecko said:

.....Gunboat?

Thrawn used the Defender as a smoke screen, the true space superiority fighter is the Assualt Gunboat!

I can't believe I didnt say this before, but my god, Ian McDiarmid is still phenomenal as the Emperor.

His performance in Rebels reminded me a lot of his rendition of Palpatine in the Star Wars Shakespeare a few years back.

James Earl Jones is still alive.

We need a Palpatine/Vader stand alone movie while we have the chance.

I wonder how are they gonna explain the Dreadnaught. Is it still a pre-CW ship? Why appear now?

And why the **** did they bother to make a new model of an old cruiser to put it into the background of just two episodes, considering their super tight budget.
OK, a big leap here, but maybe like the Braha'tok gunship they had some assets from the movie? Will we see Dreadnaughts in Solo?

33 minutes ago, eMeM said:

I wonder how are they gonna explain the Dreadnaught. Is it still a pre-CW ship? Why appear now?

And why the **** did they bother to make a new model of an old cruiser to put it into the background of just two episodes, considering their super tight budget.
OK, a big leap here, but maybe like the Braha'tok gunship they had some assets from the movie? Will we see Dreadnaughts in Solo?

Possibly, I'm gonna go with the long shot that they are working on an animated Thrawn trilogy .

7 minutes ago, Animewarsdude said:

Possibly, I'm gonna go with the long shot that they are working on an animated Thrawn trilogy .

Considering Mark Hammil does television voice acting, I desperately hope Luke appears in the next series.

I would LOVE Thrawn as the final holdout of the Empire post Jakku.

8 hours ago, Ktan said:

I'll admit, most of what I know about Thrawn is via Rebels, lore overviews/wikis and cultural osmosis. That's just always been my read of the character. (Heck, it's a reading I love so much I lifted a lot of it for one of my own characters. But then Zahn clearly stole the idea of Thrawn from Sherlock Holmes, so I think I'm licensed to call it an 'homage' =P)

I am really hoping that the finale is as dark as that trailer implies.

So, full disclosure I am not a fan of how some series *cough* Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows *cough* , upped the stakes by killing a load of (minor) characters off towards the end. However, Rogue One did it very well and here it will be a bigger gut punch because we've really had time to connect to these characters, even the minor ones. It would also be thematically appropriate for quite a few of the characters.

I don't want to see Kallus go, for example, but he's probably one of the first ones I'd kill off. Especially if that's somehow worked together with Zeb. I think Ezra's due an "epic sacrifice" moment for a number of reasons.

Only Hera and Chopper are safe and honestly that's kind of exciting to me in a perverse way.

Rex is safe as well.

46 minutes ago, Animewarsdude said:

Possibly, I'm gonna go with the long shot that they are working on an animated Thrawn trilogy .

What if we replaced Prince Xisor (because according to canon now He's Dead- He was Savagely Oppressed in the clone wars) With Thrawn in the Shadows of the empire story line?

(Obviously the story elements would change somewhat because Thrawn loves art, not selling drugs. Also we could throw in Thrawn trilogy elements for a big "hey this is what our rebels did between ESB and ROTJ".)