10 minutes ago, HappyDaze said:

What are Thrawn's flaws? Remember that having hero characters thwart his plans through plain stupid writer's fiat is not a flaw. The Thrawn in the novel is pretty much without weakness.

Here’s an interesting article which details Thrawn’s flaws quite thoroughly. Among them are a tendency to make assumptions, plot out overly convoluted plots which can be foiled by even one thread being unraveled, etc. In other words, he often thinks to much. He even did this in Rebels . He’s not invincible.

2 minutes ago, Tramp Graphics said:

Here’s an interesting article which details Thrawn’s flaws quite thoroughly. Among them are a tendency to make assumptions, plot out overly convoluted plots which can be foiled by even one thread being unraveled, etc. In other words, he often thinks to much. He even did this in Rebels . He’s not invincible.

Your article (almost 2 years old) might be true for the Thrawn of previous works, but this entire thread has come to talk about how the Thrawn of Thrawn: Alliances (released only 2 weeks ago) has become a Mary Sue caricature of his previous depictions where his few flaws are completely absent and he's shown to be So Much Cooler Than Everybody! In this book, he is portrayed as being quite invincible.

It’s also true of his depiction in current canon, including Rebels , so the flaws are still there. I haven’t read the specific novel in question, but Thrawn’ depiction in current canon is anything but Gary Stu level. Thrawn has his flaws, but a lot of fans (and in universe characters) often overlook them, they’re hidden so well.

58 minutes ago, Tramp Graphics said:

It’s also true of his depiction in current canon, including Rebels , so the flaws are still there. I haven’t read the specific novel in question, but Thrawn’ depiction in current canon is anything but Gary Stu level. Thrawn has his flaws, but a lot of fans (and in universe characters) often overlook them, they’re hidden so well.

A flaw that never shows up isn't really a flaw.

Just now, HappyDaze said:

A flaw that never shows up isn't really a flaw.

But those flaws do show up. However, people often miss them, and often second guess themselves because of Thrawn’s reputation.

Please, describe examples of Thrawn's flaws demonstrated in Rebels .

Semi-related... when I read the Heir to the Empire trilogy years ago, I liked it overall; but one thing that bugged me was that Thrawn seemed to abruptly get less intelligent about half-way through. He started out constantly being one step ahead of the heroes, and then all the sudden it was like the author realized that he was writing himself into a corner where the Republic couldn't win; so Thrawn just started making mistakes without any explanation.

10 minutes ago, HappyDaze said:

Please, describe examples of Thrawn's flaws demonstrated in Rebels .

His biggest one, and one he always had was overconfidence to the point of arrogance. He wholly believed in his own infallibility. He couldn’t fathom Ezra and the Ghost crew pulling a fast one on him like they did at the end. Not only that, but they have thwarted his plans more than once. He simply bounced back afterwards. What makes him great is his ability to learn from his mistakes. But his plots do get very convoluted and can often be unraveled if even one thing goes wrong. That’s shown in Rebels on multiple occasions.

5 minutes ago, Vorzakk said:

Semi-related... when I read the Heir to the Empire trilogy years ago, I liked it overall; but one thing that bugged me was that Thrawn seemed to abruptly get less intelligent about half-way through. He started out constantly being one step ahead of the heroes, and then all the sudden it was like the author realized that he was writing himself into a corner where the Republic couldn't win; so Thrawn just started making mistakes without any explanation.

That's a real problem in almost every case where a new antagonist is shown. The biggest example I can recall is Star Trek's Jem'hadar. When they first appeared they were unstoppable, but after two more seasons they were more or less equivalent to Klingon warriors. Oddly too, that energy weapons in Star Trek got progressively weaker the more war-focused the show became. In TNG a phaser could outright disintegrate a target but by the war in DS9, they were beams that pierced & burned. Perhaps they wanted to burden the enemy with survivors, but that doesn't make any sense against the Dominion.

In the case of Thrawn, the feeling I got from the first trilogy was that he had been making his plans for a long time before launching the first stages. Those were the brilliant victories, but as more complications arose, his projections became increasingly prone to errors and he didn't have nearly as much time to rethink them. Compare this to the current novel though, where Thrawn seems to have planned for everything, no matter how implausible.

2 minutes ago, Tramp Graphics said:

His biggest one, and one he always had was overconfidence to the point of arrogance. He wholly believed in his own infallibility. He couldn’t fathom Ezra and the Ghost crew pulling a fast one on him like they did at the end. Not only that, but they have thwarted his plans more than once. He simply bounced back afterwards. What makes him great is his ability to learn from his mistakes. But his plots do get very convoluted and can often be unraveled if even one thing goes wrong. That’s shown in Rebels on multiple occasions.

In Rebels, Thrawn fails only because of the script. Ezra and the rest had idiotic plans that should never have worked except for the writer's hand making it so.

3 minutes ago, HappyDaze said:

In Rebels, Thrawn fails only because of the script. Ezra and the rest had idiotic plans that should never have worked except for the writer's hand making it so.

I disagree. Ezra’s plan was far from idiotic. It was risky, sure, and, most importantly, unexpected . That’s why it threw Thrawn for a loop.