If you're going to introduce a popular Legends character, Thrawn is a very safe choice. I liked Mara Jade and I like the idea of Emperor's Hand characters but the window for introducing her is closed. That said, I approve and 13 year-old me from 1991 approves.

Even in the original EU, Thrawn's "exile" story was a cover for an actual mission Thrawn was assigned in the Unknown regions. Namely as a vanguard against the Yuuzhan Vong.

*blargh!*

The Yuuzhan Vong fall so far outside of the central narrative theme of a fairy-tale space fantasy that I'm still baffled that, as a concept, they made it past Lucasfilm's book group. Jaxxon the Space Rabbit was awful as well but he (sort of) fit the milieu.

I wouldn't say the book on Mara Jade is completely closed, but I will say, she would't fit into Rebels . Mara was an extremelt popular character. In fact, she was the only EU character to ever make the Top 20 list of all time favorite SW characters. Even Thrawn didn't make that list.

Imagine that, a bunch of Star Wars nerds voted for the stunning red head in tight pleather as one of their favourite characters..

[yoda]and wrong with that, what is, hmmm?[/yoda]

[yoda]and wrong with that, what is, hmmm?[/yoda]

Didn't think it would be possible, but you just made Yoda-speak into perverted-speak.

I like the xenophobia in the Empire. It fits! The sexism on the other hand, is just boring. I have lots of female imperials in my game, both troopers and high ranking officers. Kind of because one of the PC's in my game has Tarkin as his last name and his ISB agent sister and her stormtrooper clones are his main antagonists... And the adversary cards have female army troopers and others, so I am reminded to throw in some bad women here and there . .. I do miss hermaphrodite hutts though..

Tarkin is a heavy name to carry.

Feel free to elaborate on anything about the Tarkin family that could help me make the game more interesting for my players. .. He is in hiding and using a fake name though.

Other than beeing hated by all peaceloving people of the galaxies, because Tarkin was "framed" to take the total blame for destroying Alderaan which was as peacelovin world without weapons?

...

Oh if you are considering "EU/Legends" Admiral Daala had a love affair with Tarkin so she could be an interessting encounter... while on her revenge path, meeting a heir to her beloved... well that would mean that her beloved had also another beloved...

Tarkin's homeworld was a world where the trains ran on time, and the people ran in fear, not of the Empire but of Tarkin. He's a massive monster to his world, and if word got out that there was an heir, there's a lot of people that lost family to his purges that would love a piece of payback, if only by proxy.

If you're going to introduce a popular Legends character, Thrawn is a very safe choice. I liked Mara Jade and I like the idea of Emperor's Hand characters but the window for introducing her is closed. That said, I approve and 13 year-old me from 1991 approves.

Even in the original EU, Thrawn's "exile" story was a cover for an actual mission Thrawn was assigned in the Unknown regions. Namely as a vanguard against the Yuuzhan Vong.

*blargh!*

The Yuuzhan Vong fall so far outside of the central narrative theme of a fairy-tale space fantasy that I'm still baffled that, as a concept, they made it past Lucasfilm's book group. Jaxxon the Space Rabbit was awful as well but he (sort of) fit the milieu.

The Vong as a concept works. The actually execution, like almost all of the NJO series, however, was horrid. Between the torture porn aliens, an author actually trying to justify Palpatine, and the utter angst wafting off of Clan Skywalker. Good god, that series was cancer, but even worse fed into the next series that started by turning Jacen Solo into a Sith Lord clutching an idiot ball tighter than Gollum with his precious and ended with ADMIRAL FREAKING DALLA as the Head of the New Republic!

The amount of stupid in those books almost killed Star Wars for me, but Zahn coming back, especially since he did a decent job trying to bring the Jedi back down to earth instead of trying to turn them into demigods like everybody else (not that it worked in the long run, mind you).

I like the xenophobia in the Empire. It fits! The sexism on the other hand, is just boring. I have lots of female imperials in my game, both troopers and high ranking officers. Kind of because one of the PC's in my game has Tarkin as his last name and his ISB agent sister and her stormtrooper clones are his main antagonists... And the adversary cards have female army troopers and others, so I am reminded to throw in some bad women here and there . .. I do miss hermaphrodite hutts though..

I always thought the Empire's sexism in Legends was stupid as well. It was just an attempt by KJA to make his female Imperial admiral extra special, a poor copy of Thrawn being an alien who became a Grand Admiral And thanks to either his horrible writing or his sexism she comes off as sleeping her way to the top because she has a very high ranking lover and can't score a tactical victory against the New Repulic without an asurd advantage in military strength.

Well, to be fair, remember, even in the original movies, all of the Imperial Military personnel shown were male . Granted, this was the late 1970's and early 1980's, but still. Also, it goes back to the Nazi parallel, which was also rife with sexism.

I like the xenophobia in the Empire. It fits! The sexism on the other hand, is just boring. I have lots of female imperials in my game, both troopers and high ranking officers. Kind of because one of the PC's in my game has Tarkin as his last name and his ISB agent sister and her stormtrooper clones are his main antagonists... And the adversary cards have female army troopers and others, so I am reminded to throw in some bad women here and there . .. I do miss hermaphrodite hutts though..

I always thought the Empire's sexism in Legends was stupid as well. It was just an attempt by KJA to make his female Imperial admiral extra special, a poor copy of Thrawn being an alien who became a Grand Admiral And thanks to either his horrible writing or his sexism she comes off as sleeping her way to the top because she has a very high ranking lover and can't score a tactical victory against the New Repulic without an asurd advantage in military strength.

Well, to be fair, remember, even in the original movies, all of the Imperial Military personnel shown were male . Granted, this was the late 1970's and early 1980's, but still. Also, it goes back to the Nazi parallel, which was also rife with sexism.

As opposed to Leia and less than five mins of Mon Mothma? The Rebellion didn't even have any non human members aside from Chewie until RotJ.

I like the xenophobia in the Empire. It fits! The sexism on the other hand, is just boring. I have lots of female imperials in my game, both troopers and high ranking officers. Kind of because one of the PC's in my game has Tarkin as his last name and his ISB agent sister and her stormtrooper clones are his main antagonists... And the adversary cards have female army troopers and others, so I am reminded to throw in some bad women here and there . .. I do miss hermaphrodite hutts though..

I always thought the Empire's sexism in Legends was stupid as well. It was just an attempt by KJA to make his female Imperial admiral extra special, a poor copy of Thrawn being an alien who became a Grand Admiral And thanks to either his horrible writing or his sexism she comes off as sleeping her way to the top because she has a very high ranking lover and can't score a tactical victory against the New Repulic without an asurd advantage in military strength.

Well, to be fair, remember, even in the original movies, all of the Imperial Military personnel shown were male . Granted, this was the late 1970's and early 1980's, but still. Also, it goes back to the Nazi parallel, which was also rife with sexism.

As opposed to Leia and less than five mins of Mon Mothma? The Rebellion didn't even have any non human members aside from Chewie until RotJ.

I like the xenophobia in the Empire. It fits! The sexism on the other hand, is just boring. I have lots of female imperials in my game, both troopers and high ranking officers. Kind of because one of the PC's in my game has Tarkin as his last name and his ISB agent sister and her stormtrooper clones are his main antagonists... And the adversary cards have female army troopers and others, so I am reminded to throw in some bad women here and there . .. I do miss hermaphrodite hutts though..

I always thought the Empire's sexism in Legends was stupid as well. It was just an attempt by KJA to make his female Imperial admiral extra special, a poor copy of Thrawn being an alien who became a Grand Admiral And thanks to either his horrible writing or his sexism she comes off as sleeping her way to the top because she has a very high ranking lover and can't score a tactical victory against the New Repulic without an asurd advantage in military strength.

Well, to be fair, remember, even in the original movies, all of the Imperial Military personnel shown were male . Granted, this was the late 1970's and early 1980's, but still. Also, it goes back to the Nazi parallel, which was also rife with sexism.

As opposed to Leia and less than five mins of Mon Mothma? The Rebellion didn't even have any non human members aside from Chewie until RotJ.

<tongue on a cheek>

And one blatant example of speciesism is when Chewie (or R2D2) wasn't awarded a medal at the ending ceremony of New Hope.

</tongue on a cheek>

But on more serious note: I just watched the ending ceremony of ANH, as a material for this post, and noticed Leia is only female in ceremony. And Chewie only obvious non-human.

And back to topic: I have no any specific thoughts about Thrawn. I have only read one SW book in my life, and was very low scale action (Luke went to somewhere and something happened, I read it over 20 years ago). But, now I'm reading the Last Command comic book, and in it Thrawn seems fairly good antagonist. Competent, but not omnipotent. So, I'm hopeful about Thrawn in Rebels.

I take you're not counting droids then.

Droids aren't people.

I actually have a hard time with R2-D2. Assuming he hasn't had his memory wiped, which judging from the early conversations between him and C3-P0, he's got some explaining to do about why he never mentioned anything he knew.

But than so does Chewie for never taking Han aside and saying "Hey, I served in the war. With THE Jedi Master. Show some respect."

R2 knew how to keep secrets, something 3PO could never do. This was why Abil Organi ordered 3PO's memory wiped at the end of RotS and not R2. He trusted R2 to guard those secrets.

R2 knew how to keep secrets, something 3PO could never do. This was why Abil Organi ordered 3PO's memory wiped at the end of RotS and not R2. He trusted R2 to guard those secrets.

On a side note - completely unrelated - this reminds me that every time C3PO said, "Oh, thank the Maker!" he was really saying "Oh, thank Darth Vader!" without actually knowing it.

Again, slight offtopic. Maybe non humans are demonized to make them look dangerous, so when they are used as imperial inquisitors or other tough guys, they are more frightening than humans.

I take you're not counting droids then.

But than so does Chewie for never taking Han aside and saying "Hey, I served in the war. With THE Jedi Master. Show some respect."

R2 knew how to keep secrets, something 3PO could never do. This was why Abil Organi ordered 3PO's memory wiped at the end of RotS and not R2. He trusted R2 to guard those secrets.

On a side note - completely unrelated - this reminds me that every time C3PO said, "Oh, thank the Maker!" he was really saying "Oh, thank Darth Vader!" without actually knowing it.

Huh. Never thought of that.

I was pretty upset that so much canon was thrown away in the Disney take-over, so I'm quite pleased it's being re-built.

The Vong as a concept works.

Not really. Star Wars is about white hat wizards (and their allies) fighting black hat wizards (and their allies). Stories about heavy metal biotech alien-demon invasions with anti-Force powers that make me feel we'd be better off with the Empire fall outside of that motif. In another pulpy story, they'd be fine. They'd work in Trek but they're definitely not SW. SW has a literal black/white morality scale.

Well, to be fair, remember, even in the original movies, all of the Imperial Military personnel shown were male. Granted, this was the late 1970's and early 1980's, but still. Also, it goes back to the Nazi parallel, which was also rife with sexism.

Episode I had at least one lady-pilot in the Battle of Naboo sequence which is 100%+ more female piloting than the original trilogy. The lack of female representation in the original trilogy was due to sexism in the movie-industry ("No one is going to believe in a girl pilot/soldier! She should be a virgin princess!") rather than some sort of intentional comment on fascism. On the other hand, Episode VII stuffed the background with female Resistance and First Order fighters. And a lady stormtrooper captain. After 40 years, I'm happy to retcon a significant female presence into the Rebellion and the Empire.

Episode I had at least one lady-pilot in the Battle of Naboo sequence which is 100%+ more female piloting than the original trilogy. The lack of female representation in the original trilogy was due to sexism in the movie-industry ("No one is going to believe in a girl pilot/soldier! She should be a virgin princess!") rather than some sort of intentional comment on fascism. On the other hand, Episode VII stuffed the background with female Resistance and First Order fighters. And a lady stormtrooper captain. After 40 years, I'm happy to retcon a significant female presence into the Rebellion and the Empire.

It should be noted that Star Wars was an indie production and as such not beholden to the gender policies of the industry. So George Lucas was pretty much free to do whatever he liked. As much as we like to see him as an innovator, he was quite conventional in many ways.

However, whatever you think of the general lack of female representation, by the time of Return of the Jedi, we've seen female pilots (pretty sure there has been at least one in an A-Wing or B-Wing*), the Rebellion was lead by two women and one of them fought back against her abuser and strangled him without any outside help. (However, we've also seen her previously - literally - stripped of her power and dignity and turned into a sex slave, who in her metal bikini is offered up to the male audience's gaze. It's a bit of a toss up.)

*Edit: Apparently their scenes got cut and/or redubbed with a male voice. Yup, that's the Patriarchy for you.

Episode I had at least one lady-pilot in the Battle of Naboo sequence which is 100%+ more female piloting than the original trilogy.

That was Celia Imre, as “Fighter Pilot Bravo 5”. See http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0408309/?ref_=nv_sr_1

1) It's my Star Wars Campaign and I'll decide 'What Is Canon And What Is Not!'

2) Seriously though, I've never read Thrawn and probably never will *ducks behind sofa*... I understand that some people think the trilogy is well written, my bone of contention: A blue skinned (humanoid) alien rises to a position of power in the (implied) speciesist Empire....

1 extra) see 1) and 2) as to why I won't allow Thrawn in 'My SW Universe' (and if I did I'd make him a Human... so there!!)

It should be noted that Star Wars was an indie production and as such not beholden to the gender policies of the industry. So George Lucas was pretty much free to do whatever he liked. As much as we like to see him as an innovator, he was quite conventional in many ways.

Note that I didn't say cigar-chomping studio executives, I said movie industry. Indie directors are part of the industry. Independent creators of any stripe are still a part of their industry as they put out work for consumption.

Skywalker/Starkiller was originally a teen girl, but, yeah, Lucas was a little too slavishly devoted to the orthodox Hero's Journey.

1) It's my Star Wars Campaign and I'll decide 'What Is Canon And What Is Not!'

Yep. It's mildly interesting to see what EU elements are brought back, but canon has no impact on our games. I assume other GMs who want to use Mara Jade or Jaina Solo or whoever may do so.

I had very definite ideas when setting up the factions for our game, and the Empire was basically WW2 tropes turned up to 11, with a bit of 40K thrown in. Species-ist, sexist, old-school-tie white guys in charge, mindless, faceless space-marine type troops, heavy emphasis on fleets, ships, technology, and winning battles through meat grinder tactics and no Force-sensitives (aside from a small but dangerous Imperial Hand cult, who act as protectors, agents and assassins rather than on the battlefield). The PC who leads our Alliance faction only joined because she'd never have been anything beyond a glorified secretary in the Empire. She doesn't oppose them on moral grounds, but is mostly doing this to prove them wrong. With the Imperium all but shattered into warring sub-factions, it now has that last-days-of-WW2 feel, with the Fuehrer in his bunker, shouting orders to fleets that no longer exist...

Thinking about it, Mara Jade could fill a spot in my setting. Of course, in my setting Luke died when the DS II blew up over Endor, so she's going to develop quite a bit differently.

Mara Jade already fits a role in our setting; set around the period of empire strikes back she is part of a secretive inquisitor cult only known as the Cabal. She was the member most directly involved with force users outside of combat; she trained my character to serve as an effective agent and on a separate occasion fought two members of the party by savataging the turbo lift they were in while they fired wildly. More recently she took my apprentice, another PC known as Jacen, used his hacking skills to serve her into getting inside Darth Vaders personal vault and seems to have taken up a different agenda from her copatriots; all very interesting stuff, just a pity not a lot of characters in this setting actually know about that. XD

I never really got into Star Wars non-film stuff (except for recently and some of the comic lines years ago) so I've never read a Thrawn novel but I've heard of him.

I wonder if ultimately fans are going to be disappointed.

It looks like he'll make a great villain for Rebels but given the canon already out there we already know he's not a big player in the post-Return of the Jedi era. He's not leading the "remnant" and unless some author adds a different imperial faction he's not really there at all (or such a small player none of the big players have mentioned him).

So, he gets added to the list of growing Rebels characters like Kanan and Ezra who probably have to die or disappear in some fashion at a certain point in the timeline because they don't exist in other canon. Which is fine with me but it seems to place his character completely out of the context in which most fans loved him.

Well, in Thrawn's original debut, it was explained that he wasn't around for RotJ because the Emperor had sent him off to the Unknown Regions on what amounted to a glorified snipe hunt.

Honestly, I think fans are more excited that Thrawn is back, even if it only winds up being for a single season of Rebels. And it's quite possible that his exit from the series could be left open-ended, much as Ahsoka Tano's was.

Also, worth pointing out that Kanan and Ezra do exist in canon, it's just that we don't see them during the original films, which is an entirely separate matter. It's been postulated that the reason we don't come across those two Jedi is that they're off doing their own thing during the time of the movies. With Kanan being blind, it's entirely possible that he's opted to take a back seat to active field duty, and circumstances never arose to give him a chance to take Luke Skywalker under his wing as an apprentice. Given that Ezra is going to treading a darker path this season, it's possible that he'll have no interest in taking an apprentice, especially one that's about the same age as him or may be too busy fighting the Empire in other parts of the galaxy (it is a big place after all) to even be able to give Luke so much as a pointer in how to be a Jedi.

Well, in Thrawn's original debut, it was explained that he wasn't around for RotJ because the Emperor had sent him off to the Unknown Regions on what amounted to a glorified snipe hunt.

Honestly, I think fans are more excited that Thrawn is back, even if it only winds up being for a single season of Rebels. And it's quite possible that his exit from the series could be left open-ended, much as Ahsoka Tano's was.

Also, worth pointing out that Kanan and Ezra do exist in canon, it's just that we don't see them during the original films, which is an entirely separate matter. It's been postulated that the reason we don't come across those two Jedi is that they're off doing their own thing during the time of the movies. With Kanan being blind, it's entirely possible that he's opted to take a back seat to active field duty, and circumstances never arose to give him a chance to take Luke Skywalker under his wing as an apprentice. Given that Ezra is going to treading a darker path this season, it's possible that he'll have no interest in taking an apprentice, especially one that's about the same age as him or may be too busy fighting the Empire in other parts of the galaxy (it is a big place after all) to even be able to give Luke so much as a pointer in how to be a Jedi.