Lit The Legendary 181st Imperial Discussion Group: Choices Of One!

I like Zahn better than many, and I actually can rationalize a ton of the things people complain about in-universe. Outbound Flight and the characterization of Thrawn, for example - for one thing, he's clearly NOT the Imperial warlord he was when we first met him, that comes twenty years later. And for another, the book makes it even more explicit than it was before that Thrawn very carefully cultivates people's image of him, and therefore that a lot of the hype surrounding him is supposed to be intentional within the story, too.

That said, I do think Zahn himself's kind of turned into a massive Thrawn fanboy over the years. Last time I read an interview by him about the NJO, he mentioned something to the effect that Thrawn would've totally cut them to ribbons, and I just groaned like "oh, come on." Similarly, while it's possible that Zahn meant for me to interpret Thrawn's warning to Palpatine as "Thrawn ain't thinking right," I'm more inclined to go with the simple explanation, which is that Zahn wanted to show what a genius Thrawn was by having him predict that the Ewoks would be Palpatine's downfall. Most readers aren't going to sit around and analyze "well, now, actually, if you think about it..." and I don't think Zahn intended them to. I could be wrong.

 

Car'das thinks "Thrawn ain't thinking right" when Thrawn goes off on a spiel about the necessity for Order and of how the Republic was a failure, though. His thought was "Only a fool would think the Empire was doing better in the unity department than the Republic".

And if we go back to HoT - a big plot point was that the Fel clones were scattered about the New Republic because Thrawn thought that, even with the Empire having taken over the New Republic, and even with him in charge, there was no guarantee of victory - those clones were his contingency plan in case the Vong defeated him - to be the nucleus of anti-Vong rebellions.

 

On the tangent of Zahn, I feel like he could have fit another trilogy of the same scope as TTT and HOT before Vector Prime, as a retroactive lead-in to it with his unknown regions threats and the Chiss. Like Cloak of Deception but grander in scale.

ALAS

Also I think Del Rey kept jumping the timeline because "they" wanted to distance themselves from the NJO and it became a taboo thing.

But yeah he seems like his storytelling is better when he has grander plots. Choices of One is the largest scale story he did under Del Rey, but the action is still confined to a binary planetary system.

 

Since the Vong didn't exist yet when HoT was written, this originally referred to the undisclosed Unknown Regions threats, and Thrawn's backup system (including the Thrawn clones) was in place since anything could potentially kill him. I've heard the implication (but I think it wasn't by an author, simply by a fan on here - or was it actually from Force Heretic?) that Thrawn's little Unknown Regions Empire was fighting evil stuff far worse than the Vong 24/7, because you simply have to introduce the question why they didn't eat the Vong for breakfast if they were so good. All in all, Zahn is saying "yeah those Vong are weaksauce you should see those imaginary things Fel is fighting on Thrawn's behalf in my imaginary story".

I give Zahn benefit of the doubt on the Empire and his Empire fanboyism since he's counterbalancing his Imperial heroes with the stupid and the malicious, and the idea that evil thrives in the Empire is the main motivation behind the Hand of Justice storyline. However, I suspect the Good Imperial is an evolutionary story-dead-end for any author, since the very structure of the Empire makes people like Pellaeon or LaRone adjust to the mold to a degree. LaRone actually slips out of the mold, but seeing how much five idealistic stormtroopers are able to achieve in comparison to the rest of the Empire, and how little good is done by the Empire in summary, fighting for the Empire seems more like a lost cause than ever. Why wouldn't someone like Pellaeon simply join the Republic? And how schizophrenic is it for the Hand of Judgment to recognize what's wrong with the system, but not admit that there's something wrong with the system so they only fight against the symptoms? But there's some degree of indoctrination again, I guess.

So maybe Zahn is too smart for his own good after all. Especially since SW is always a pretty black and white affair and you need a clear white to contrast your black against, even in the somewhat more gray areas like the prequels and the NJO - you still know who the enemy is, after all. And you still understand that not all Vong are bad, but that some are. The Shamed Ones being nice guys doesn't excuse Onimi, Alpha Red being wrong doesn't excuse Shimmra, and Vua helping and respecting Anakin doesn't distract from the fact that Vua is still a superstitious, prejudiced hatecrime monger (who's pretty cool, though). And even if Vua's philosophy kind of makes more sense than Anakin's Force interpretation from time to time, and Anakin has to fall back into dogma to hold his own, it never gives you the impression that Vua's vong way is actually excusable. And somehow that's a line that Zahn struggled with, seeing how reactions to his books turned out.

 

I thought Zahn had been tipped off about the upcoming NJO saga - but I suppose he might not have known.

Agent of the Empire seemed to be working pretty well before it was cancelled.

 

It's pure fantasy in comparison to Zahn, though. It's a Bond parody. So there's never a mythical or ethical or philosophical question regarding his alignment with the Empire - it's a bleeping Bond parody. It's not "real" to the degree that any depiction of the fictional Empire can be "real". And when he's having his Bond-gets-emotional-to-get-the-girl-into-bed moment (aka crying in the shower for those who first saw Craig as Bond), it's not a genius juxtaposition of the paradigm represented by good and evil in the pre- and post-Order 66 landscapes (I don't even know what I just wrote there), it's a parody of a Bond-like hero having had an emotional moment in his past based on the toys that SW has in the box.

 

I don't know what you wrote either

 

Possibly because, at heart, Pelleaon simply doesn't believe that people wish to be free and responsible. Instead most people will sign away their agency to an external power that will protect them - cue the Imperial ideal.

Similarly, desiring to fix a flawed system without abandoning it isn't that unusual. Few people are actually inclined to practicing revolution in the office, workplace or home.

What I'd see Thrawn and co as being is Zahn's answer to the questions of: What are the Imperial ideals? What enabled the Empire to be on top for so long? The basic answer is that enough beings wanted it.

 

I really liked the scene where Thrawn goes into a monologue about his egalitarian empire in the UR and the background behind him fades out and is replaced by an American flag waving in the wind.

At least, that's how I read it.

And then a few years later he's using Noghri as foot stools.

 

and the background behind him fades out and is replaced by an American flag waving in the wind.

 

I'm not sure if that already applied back in TTT, though. While you get more loyal officers and a loyal genius madman leader, you don't really get to see people who thought about the Empire and decided they wanted it. They just stick with their team, even when they were demoted a few divisions. And this, again would be a disconnect between what made everyone react to TTT differently than to later output.

Would the two of you say that there is enough context to this to think forward to the TTT/Noghri footstool phase? Or is it something that the reader has to bring to the table, connecting the dots themselves?

 

I'd say Grey that what they have is a fantasy, but the Good Imperial must, in order to be that, believe in the ideal of a Good Empire. One that doesn't have a mechanical terror choking people to death or generally executing officers for failure, avoidable or not. The thinking would seem to go that Thrawn would have created that despite the evidence to the contrary! We know in Legends it was Pellaeon that actually does create just such a more moderate, reasonable Empire, would Thrawn ever have done so? I'm sceptical.

I'm not really convinced by the line of thought that says Zahn is pro-Imperial, what I think interests him most is why people buy into what they do and why. TTT is interesting in the sense that what motivates is the fear of democratic chaos resulting from no one signing up to a shared foundation, which we see reach a destructive level in HoT. (Though arguably NJO took that far further with the politicians being suicidally self-interested.) I think there's also a sense that Thrawn is seen as a Good Alien, like many Imperials he believes in a hierarchy, in order via chain of command - all familiar concepts. In contrast you have Fey'lya crap-stirring in the New Republic while claiming doing so is part of his cultural outlook and immune to criticism.

Not sure what G's up to with that one-liner nor what you mean by 'TTT Noghri footstool' though!

 

Tastes can change over time. One example is the film Birth of a Nation, in the US it was considered a great work when it first came out with the American President Woodrow Wilson openly praising it for it's "accuracy" I can guarantee you no one will say that now and simply see it for what it is/was, Vile rascist propaganda.

I know from my own experience when I was younger I used to love watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer, now I could barely sit through an episode while wincing at the awful and dated dialogue.

Also don't think it's because I am a Zahn hater. I'm not.
In regards Zahn the TTT still holds up and Hand of Thrawn a mixed bag with some things that do and orhers that don't. While I really liked Outbound Flight and even enjoy Choices despite the obvious character love and comparisons.
With Survivors Quest with the sole exception of the first scene and with Scoundrels as books it was more boredom over lack of an engaging story than character love. Alliegance which I do loath managed to combine all the problems into one big perfect storm.

I am curious though Grey, do you feel Jade and Thrawn are crammed down your throat as you say ?

 

Well, re Zahn criticisms, we might simply be seeing the side effect of Zahn taking his ball and going home. Despite his importance, the EU is not his personal domain, it is a franchise. Franchises always end up taking different directions, for good or for ill, because of different people taking point. If Zahn had written his NJO novel as he was offered Zahn may have been in the position to offer counterpoints for the franchise's directory. Maybe at story conference time Zahn could have pitched "Jacen Solo makes cinnamon roles as a metaphor for his interpretation of the Force" to combat Denning's "Vergere was a rat" proposition. Alas, who knows. Maybe Zahn's into bondage since this was the first Zahn book I couldn't finish.

 

I think DigitalMessiah is just exaggerating Thrawns tendency to use the nighri as just an asset that can be sacrificed without really caring about them or their culture outside of what he can use, showing his “colonial” mentality.

Just trying to joke about the tendency of U.S.A. patriotism to turn into the thing that it is suposed to stand against. Don't know if I succeed

 

I thought Thrawn's egalitarian speech at the end of this novel really clashed with his treatment of the Noghri in Dark Force Rising, and there's not really any sort of character development in that direction in any of the text; it's strictly off the page development. Thrawn and Mara Jade have been largely whitewashed in terms of their Imperial service, as has Pellaeon. Pellaeon wants to have Rukh killed in Heir to the Empire just because he doesn't like him. That's always stuck with me. Thrawn is worse than Pellaeon in those books.

My initial impression is that it's the aforementioned Thrawn fanboyism, but Denning is guilty of it too in Tatooine Ghost. He has Thrawn in stormtrooper gear "retraining" his stormtroopers incognito, and he's lecturing one of his men because they're being rude in their questioning of residents, and IIRC he strikes his stormtrooper commander and then asks if he's inclined to help him to make his point.

A year later, Thrawn is demolishing buildings on Wayland because no one is answering his questions. Maybe it's all an elaborate set up by Denning and Zahn to establish that Formbi in Survivor's Quest was actually Thrawn, and Thrawn in TTT was a mad clone. But that can't be right because then Thrawn would have singlehandedly won the Yuuzhan Vong War. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

 

There was also the "Pellaeon remembering Kashyyyk from Imperial slaving trips there." bit.

 

There's a lot of flubs. In Heir Luke can barely remember Mara from Jabbas palace yet in this he is awe struck at her mad skillz.
You think that would be something he would remember.
Also why would Palps send Mara on an Assasination job to kill Luke if she is meant to be a policeman. The two jobs are anti thetical

Then there is Thrawn the guy has his own Empire and is someone Vader has to plead and bargin with, yet he is only just a Senior Captain !

 

He probably doesn't recognize the person from Choices of One when he meets her in Heir to the Empire.

Palpatine uses Mara for a range of jobs - not just investigator, or assassin, or 'executioner' - but courier (Thrawn claims in Dark Force Rising that she was "little more than a highly specialised courier" - but Mara knows Thrawn is incorrect or lying - and proves it later by using top-level codes to get into the Star Destroyer's computer).

Thrawn being "on the surface, relatively unimportant" to the Imperial Court, was way back in Hand of Thrawn. Hence his operating in the Unknown Regions to "expand the Empire" - yet not receiving an actual promotion to Grand Admiral until the events of the TIE Fighter game.

You've said in the past that you hate the Judge Dredd parallels Zahn has made to you - but how about James Bond? Very often compared to a policeman (usually by his enemies).

"Bond as policeman" is discussed here:

http://www.mi6community.com/index.php?p=/discussion/5056/james-bond-in-the-role-of-a-policeman

and it's noted that there's certainly parallels in at least some stories - though he's closer to a private eye - albeit one working for the government rather than actually private customers.

 

I'm basically ok with him concentrating on these characters. I think it's better if EU introduces interesting starting points and then widens the net from there. Even if I wasn't really into Baron Fel in the X-Wing comics and didn't care much about the Empire of the Hand bit that was built on top of it, I really liked what came out of it through Jag Fel in the NJO and the Felpire in Legacy. That way, EU could create actually interesting, topical and potentially mythical (although I don't really have an example for that beyond combining Jacen with Vong) elements; not just one-off scenarios that would always pale next to the importance of the movie characters and their stories.

The question is, though, whether the stories told about fan-favourite characters like Thrawn and Jade make sense; especially if they make sense in the overall context of the SW universe. There's obviously things that rub me the wrong way. But I don't see this as the fault of including Thrawn and Jade (and Pelly). Actually, the Tonnika Sisters story Zahn once wrote never really interested me because thematically, I expected different from Zahn.

 

I thought that it was a good example of Zahn "stepping outside his comfort zone"- maybe a prototype for stories like Scoundrels.

 

Yeah, definitely. But seeing how it was integrated into the main storyline via Shada's entrance into Karrde's organisation, it's pretty close to Mara's storyline. Shada's storyline never grabbed me, though, so I'm wondering if Scoundrels would do anything for me or if Zahn's "thorough" approach to writing wouldn't benefit this other fringe story either, from my POV. I don't know, maybe I like fringe stories a bit more fast-and-loose.

 

Thrawn, Mara, Pelleaon are running around in the OT era so I do expect to see them at some point. Should they be interacting with each other and the main OT characters? Depends. Mara and Thrawn should not interact with the OT characters until TTT. Though if the heroes escaped from Thrawn in different ships and never find out who was chasing them or something I could buy that. Pelly could possibly see them up close. Depends on the situation. Thrawn and Pelly? Eh. Could go either way.
Thrawn and Mara? That one is the most likely to happen.

Agree with Grey1 on his first paragraph in post 45. I would like to see Zahn branch out from Thrawn and Mara but if he wants to use them, use them.
I do agree on the interesting starting points and widen the net from there thing.

 

I feel like Zahn and Stackpole's emphasis on their pet characters wasn't really an issue, because largely it's what all the authors do, to varying degrees. It may also be that Zahn chose to emphasize Mara Jade and Thrawn because they were popular. Karrde and Shada and some of his other inventions have completely fallen out of use. Mara Jade, in particular, was used extensively, even if only in cameo, between Zahn writing The Last Command and Specter of the Past, and Zahn continuing to use her was simply picking up on that level of use.

Authors creating these characters they like to use also works to expand the universe. I think part of the problem with the post-NJO is we got the same authors writing twenty-two books and it became really stagnant because they continue to use the characters they're comfortable using. I think in Bantam when we got a lot of one-off stories that were largely disconnected except with Mara Jade appearing in a few but otherwise introducing a lot of new characters with each author, and then the NJO tapping into that large cast and introducing some new characters of its own, things had an expansive feel to it.

With regard to Choices of One, I guess I'll forgive Zahn indulging himself by throwing the Big 3, Thrawn, and Mara Jade all into a pre-TESB story before they can meet, although I suppose since Allegiance was built on a similar conceit sans Thrawn, it's stretching it. I suppose a third book would have had Karrde involved but unable to meet anyone.

 

Yes and no; I think he's at his best when he's either writing grand-scale or small-scale. His short stories where Karrde or Jade does a small little mission, and his focused, minor-impact novels like Survivor's Quest and Scoundrels have all been very good. It's at the mid-scale of Allegiance and Choices of One, where he's got all these major characters running around in a multi-thread plot that's not galaxy-spanning but isn't content to just be a small little adventure either, that he's struggled to find his comfort zone.