Lit Darth Vader or Grand AdmiralThrawn who is the more compelling villian ?

Eh, that's why henchmen exist.

The mastermind and the Oddjob.

 

Exactly. When Sauron was the henchman, we did get to see him in action.

 

Yup- The Silmarillion describes a few things, and I think one of the History of Middle Earth books goes into more detail, in verse, on those scenes.

 

In fact, I remember reading a post that's anti-Revan to the point of hoping that Disney decanonizes his existence.

 

OT Vader beats Thrawn easy.

PT Vader? Gets beaten by Thrawn.

 

A villain who does things himself is more impressive than a foe that spends all his time sitting on his throne and commanding his minions.

That's why I liked it when Palpatine fought Mace and Yoda in ROTS and I absolutely loved it when he showed up in person in Lawless. A villain who spends all his time in one location and just issues orders is pretty boring.

Vader is more compelling, seeing as he's always hounding the heroes and is so powerful that he can beat the hero in single combat.

Thrawn just issues commands from his Star Destroyer and for the most part, never really leaves it, in fact, he's still there when Rukh kills him.

 

There is a case to be made that Thrawn is smarter than Vader but that's only because he doesn't let his passions guide his actions, which is the entire running game of the Sith. Thrawn can kill you in 8 different ways through a variety of scenarios and variable lengths of time, Vader will kill you extremely nasty and very rapidly.

 

In the end they both suffered from the same fate, they became basically redeemed good guys.

So the answer is clearly Darth Sidious.

 

But there is not just Sauron (who PJ basically turns into an evil lighthouse) their is also Saruman (PJ's decision to leave him out the theatrical version of RotK was inexplicable) and you also had the Nine Riders and of course Gollum.

 

The is a difference though. Thrawn was not redemmed in the TTT. He was just clever warlord who was killed, it was only afterwards begining with HoT etc that Zahn has wrapped himself in knots trying to say Thrawn was not really bad and merely working for a greater good.

Vader was redemmed and RTJ was meant to bring about the return of the good man Anakin Skywalker. The PT was meant to show the tragedy of Darth Vader and for the audience to think "their but for the grace of god" the problem was Lucas screwed up big time and basically just wrote a creepy pyscho without a mask and not tragic at all. Which is the reason why he had the character re-written in TCW and given Ahsoka as an apprentice, which was Lucas recognising that and trying to fix it

 

Working for a greater good by utterly amoral means doesn't make Thrawn a hero.

 

Indeed, he could be said to be "Fallen" in just the same way as many other ex-heroes.

 

Oh, Timothy.

Been disrespeckin' Vader for 2 decades. He's still the greatest villain of all time.

 

Agreed and that's how Thrawn was written in the TTT, a clever but amoral villian. The problem is since then, what with the various short stories (Thrawn the bounty Hunter/Thrawn protecting the galaxy from evil warlords etc) and through to SQ about how Thrawn was really a great guy who was trying to protect his people, creating a "good" Empire while uniting the galaxy to fight evil threats like the YV (who are soon to be retconned) in which Zahn pretty ties himself up trying to say no Thrawn is a great guy he just didnt think the New Republic was great. A similar knot tying occurs with Mara albiet from a different angle.

In terms of compelling villians, Stawars came out in 77, ESB in 80 and RTJ 82. We are now in 2013 yet to this day Darth Vader always wins the greatest villian awards and polls everysingle time. There must be shall we say a compelling reason that is the case

 

Which is the point he is not meant to be tragic hero but Zahn has been trying to make him one.

 

Zahn was the one who came up with him in the first place- so if Zahn thought Thrawn The Villain had "good-ish" motives all along to go with his evil methods, why can't he do what Lucas did with Vader, and write a prequel showing them?

 

He already did. It´s Outbound Flight. Thrawn was a bit more compelling, as he explained how he won battles instead of the "art = military thinking" BS, and he isn´t yet a cruel bastard who thought himself good for being polite.

Thrawn vs Vader? If we follow The Clone Wars, Anakin was more or less a decent commander when his emotional issues didn´t get in the way. Vader hadn´t said issues, and had Force prescience. I doubt any plan is any good if your opponent has a fair idea how it´s going to develop. Sidious >Vader>>>>>>>Thrawn.

 

Yup- which was the point of my comment- a counter to the argument that:

since we cannot know whether Zahn "meant" him to have originally been a tragic hero. Though the 20th Anniversary book might give us clues- however, I haven't got that one.

 

To be fair one of the groupies in OBF was Car'das and Thrawn likes him too since the plot of Choices of One is pretty much all set up by Thrawn to cheer him up