Full Series Thrawn in Rebels

Too much negatively here... I for one loved that imperials reaction to Thrawns recent promotion was genuine surprise. It was a great way to subtlety hint at the Empires xenophobia.

 

Yes & in that same clip it was told that there was more civilian casualties then Imperial or Rebel in the battle which Thrawn was promoted.

Say hello to butcher Thrawn.

 

Loved the way it was handled, all around. We've been introduced to his character traits and we get the gist of it. Long season.


Loved the prolonged fade away of his red eyes into space at the end of his first scene.


We know he's the new baddie, he's respected by the other imperials, he's highly intelligent and he's setting traps. We got what we needed.


And the Legends material is just that -- a non-canonical sketch to explore and expand. What happens here IS now Thrawn.

 

You guys think that when the interweb explosion of JJ saying Rey's Parents aren't in TFA was huge........

Well wait till the explosion of "Thrawn reduced to Evilly Cruel Imperial of the Season" goes boom!

 

That's true, priority during much of the war was given to the Army but even after the Fall of France, and priority should have been given to them, Hitler was turning his attention to Russia.

Perhaps but Russia would have been fighting them alone (even if they were fighting 90% anyway) and there would have been no Arctic convoys for supplies etc. Also the Japanese might have attacked Russia in the East instead of Malaya etc in the Pacific if they thought full Western attention would be given to them instead of split with Germany.

That's because Thrawn did change a bit as the books went on. In the Thrawn Trilogy he was a Clever but ruthless Warlord. In Heir he has someone murdered for not being to bright and has no trouble in ordering the kidnapping of children for a mad man. By the Hand of Thrawn duology, he's less a bad a guy and more a misunderstood hero. He has his own Empire and is trying to protect the galaxy from 1000 or so evil threats.

 

It's worth noting that we have no idea in what context the events of the Battle of Batonn happened. Thrawn himself remained silent when Kallus mentioned the civilian casualties and it was Pryce who made the justifications. Considering that the event was what won him the rank of Grand Admiral, I'm pretty sure Zahn will cover the events within the upcoming novel and provide a clearer picture. It could very well be that Thrawn had no choice in the matter, or that it's the new canon version of his old great shame mentioned in Heir to the Empire.

 

I think that Kallus mentioning civilian casualties points more to his character than Thrawn. I believe Kallus is becoming more critical towards imperial tactics and he starts to question his loyalty bit by bit. At least after that episode with him and Zeb it seems they are going to develop the character that way. But yes Thrawn was not yet much developed so it's too early to say how much he is different than in his original version in books.

 

Yes, I think that that comment was an attempt to set up Kallus for some future character development, but it also helped establishing Thrawn as a ruthless warlord. As he was, in the original books, before the whitewashing.

And still don't see what's the issue of that. I think for instance, the enslavement of the Noghri and the way Thrawn treated them made him way more of an evil jerk than “civilian casualties outnumbering insurgents”. But I also don't expect Thrawn's tactics to be like Kylo Ren slaughtering villagers for the heck of it. We know he has a different MO and a different war philosophy. We just don't know what happened in that battle yet. Maybe he had a Plan A and then he was forced to switch to Plan B or Plan C.

 

I agree and I didn't have an issue with that. In fact, for me, that was actually, one of the few good bits of dialogue in the episode and it did both of the above.

 

I really hope that Zahn will explain that story of civilians casualties, because even the Thrawn from the Thrawn trilogy did not do Mass murder of civilians like this. And it was not Thrawn in the first place who enslaved the Noghri. And capturing a baby is WAY different than killing for nothing millions of civilians.

You're free to like new butcher Thrawn, but stop saying he was a butcher in the first place, he was not. He was not an angel but not a bloodthirsty monster either.

 

Well he admitted to destroying an entire world and its inhabitants when he couldn't defeat them psychologically in Heir to the Empire, so I'm not really sure how this is different. Certainly Thrawn would prefer to subjegate worlds rather than destroy them, but he's not above doing it if he feels he has no alternative. The depiction in Rebels is no different.

 

The people who are complaining about Thrawn thought he was going to be the exact same and guess what? He wasn't and that's a good thing in my opinion.

 

It was clear that he did it ONCE and he seemed to regret it, it was not something he did everyday for breakfast. You all seem to forget everything from the other books, he was not a butcher.

As I said everyone is also free NOT to like the changes they do to the character. We are not mindless sheep supposed to like every change, right? Well I'm Happy for the people who like Disney Thrawn, but other people are free not to like it, or some parts of it.

 

And you seem to forget that as far as we currently know, the battle of Batonn was Thrawn's only "massacre" in canon. You're assuming that in nucanon, massacring innocents is a daily routine for Thrawn in canon, when you only have one event to base that assumption on.

 

I really hope, as I said, that Zahn will explain it in his book and that will be something that occured once and not something he is supposed to do regularly just to make him look more evil for the series.

 

We will know before the book comes out I'd say because the season ends in March and the book comes out in April

 

I find it a bit amusing that KALLUS is the one to speak out about the CALLOUS disregard of the Empire for the average citizen (eg. in not caring about civilian casualties during Thrawn's strike against those rebels). I sincerely doubt that Thrawn killed those people because he's evilz... probably more of a case of awesome display of firepower + shrug-that's-the-risk-you-run-by-not-turning-in-your-Rebel-neighbors.

 

...he was on screen for a grand total of twenty seconds so far with an out of context comment about some vague event that happened in the past

 

If people judged TFA off its trailer people will judge Thrawn off material that only consists of 1/3 of a minute.

 

As shallow & predictable Rebels has become you can predict the show from a 22 second clip.

Yes I know that was harsh but that's how I feel.

 

Don't forget it's an earlier point in Thrawn's history. He still can change into the man he was in TTT.

 

In the behind the scenes section of the Steps into Shadoe Episode Guide Thrawn's character model is shown with the rank insignia of a regular admiral.
I wonder why?

 

What 22 second clip?

 

It's was Thrawn with Pryce, Tarkin, Kallus, and some Admiral. Maybe it was longer then 22.

 

Also they didn't call it a "massacre." They simply said that civilian casualties outnumbered insurgents." It could be that there were simply more civilians there than insurgents at the time, or that the battle broke out in such a way that there really wasn't a way to avoid a lot of collateral damage, or perhaps the insurgents themselves did something that led to it, etc.

The point is, people are acting like it was Tarkin deliberately and intentionally having Alderaan blown up, or Kylo Ren massacring an entire village after they'd already been defeated, disarmed, and were defenseless. And we simply don't have any evidence of that yet, we have no context beyond one vague line right now.

Also Zahn is apparently involved in shaping Thrawn's character here, so I kind of doubt that he'd let them go too off-base with him (and he'd raise a stink if they did).