Full Series Thrawn in Rebels

For me, the overall evaluation of Thrawn in Rebels will ultimately depend on how he is handled in the Season 3 finale. If he loses the battle or is even killed by the end of the episode, I'll be extremely disappointed.

 

I wonder why Thrawn is traveling to surface of Attolon ?

 

I fear there would be the same sitution similar to what often happens in episodes with clashes between Thrawn and rebels. He looks so confident everytime and never stops to assure everyone around him that he engineered events this way. So it was him who let rebels leave. But for me it really looks like a pathetic excuse.

 

I wonder why

Spoiler

he goes on the ground with his helmet and his troopers...

(in the trailers we could see of the next episode) he usually doesn't take that kind of risk for nothing.

 

Well, realistically there is no reason why a Grand Admiral would strut around on the ground during a battle. I think that would be more something for a battlefield commander or general, and well have proper support and armor support ect. Something like this is suspect, why turn Thrawn into a brawler. Some personal reason for him to be on the ground, is it after a won battle, is he inspecting an evacuated base?! I don't think they'd have him do all that physical training to not utilize him on some big fight.

 

Well I thought that his training was used already in "Through Imperial eyes", where he is using his training to survive and kill the assassin droids. I didn't expect to see him physically fight again.

It's a huge risk for him to go like this on the ground, he is an intelligent man, why would he do that? or maybe he doesn't go on the ground but aboard a ship or something. But still, it's taking a big risk... especially for a Grand Admiral... or maybe he's facing Kallus somehow.

 

Well he's surrounded by a squadron of Desth Troopers. As we saw in Rogue One, they're unlike 95% of the rest of the Empire in that they actually hit there targets.

 

Well, they hit targets... in Rogue one. In Rogue One, rebels don't have plot armor. They can die.

In SW Rebels, the heroes cannot die, they cannot even get hurt. That's a big difference so I guess the death troopers won't be able to shoot straight in SW Rebels...

 

You're right, Thrawn's a dead man walking.

 

Death Troopers got hit and killed like the rest of the Imperials, even by their own weapons(grenades). They basically were charging into enemy gunfire and getting dropped and falling(unintentionally) on their own grenades in that battle scene, was like Hollywood Waffen SS duds,lol. They did not tip the scale of the battle, especially when up against the two zen warrior monks. With Jedi on the ground, its doubtful Thrawn is well protected.

 

But I wonder if the SW Rebels team realizes that killing Thrawn now would be a real waste, it would only make the fans angry and disappointed, and also would ruin any project to publish new books, comics, movies, with that popular character in the future. Because the past of the character is already told in the book "Thrawn", so if they kill him in Rebels, nothing more can be published about him. It would be a big loss for them commercially speaking.

And I would not understand why they would bring him back for just a few episodes and killing him off just like this, not even really using his real potential.

 

I sympathize and agree Vana, but with the lousy way they wrote off a character like Maul, I do worry about them handling such another such iconic villainous character and on a show like Rebels with their team.

With Jedi, Kallus the hero, The Ghost crew's overall plot armor, and Mandalorians(and who knows what else) I think Thrawn even if he survives this season, will have trouble the next following their formula.

 

Regarding Thrawn's actions, keep in mind:

Spoiler

in the Legends novel Tatooine Ghost, it was either heavily implied or outright stated that Thrawn (unnamed at the time since it took place before Han & Leia knew about him) that he was dressed as a stormtrooper to search for the Killik Twilight. So, such a move wouldn't be without precedence, even if it's canon vs Legends.

 

They eliminated a platoon of elite rebel commandos pretty deftly (scoring a headshot on a guy a second after he sticks out of cover, IIRC, which is actually damn impressive) and only were stopped by literal divine intervention. Yeah, I'd say they're pretty badass.

Anyway...I'm hoping at the bare minimum, Thrawn wrecks a lot of rebels, including Sato and the stolen carrier (explaining why we never see the latter again), and forces the Ghost and scattered survivors into the bigger Yavin cell (and thus into a bigger rebellion, so giving a bit of hope in it all). I'd be satisfied with that. Then again, I'm also not putting it past the writing team for him to just have a pie stuck in his face because of the power of friendship or something, forget that Star Destroyers can deploy dozens and dozens of TIEs, and have them just sit there. And then die stupidly. I'll give them a chance, but part of me is kinda dreading the season finale.

I guess the thing with Thrawn is that things are interesting when he's an underdog or on par with the enemy as in his trilogy. If he's got the superior resources and military might, there's wrangling to be done...

 

Not all fans. I personally think it would be very fitting to have Thrawn die in the middle of his grand plan to entrap the Rebels. A great homage to his death in Legends.

 

But his death in Legends came about after a trilogy of events wherein he had been well established as a threatening figure to the Galaxy. So far Rebels hasn't especially depicted him as that, in terms of action or screentime.

 

They stormed off the ship firing and taking hits in the process and largely were shooting out in the open retreating and exhausted and/or wounded rebels mainly in the back. They came at the near end of the battle, and after the Empire threw what they had against a small band of rebels that are worth more than anything the Empire has. They had difficulty getting hits on Chirrut who was walking out in the open, despite all their advanced targeting and optics, and could not drop a large target like Baz who essentially wiped them all out 6 -1 or whatever. It was bad. I like the Death Troopers in concept and look but they were crap too in that film, not like the film made the Imperials look better than Rebels just one is a movie .

 

*A huge mob of angry fans with pitchforks descends on the animation studio*

Fans: "How dare you kill Thrawn in a kiddie cartoon?! Prepare for thy judgement!"

Filoni: "But...it was so artistically done..."

As I recall the rebels they were attacking were bunkered down by an installation. As for Baz and Chirrut...again, it's very very very heavily hinted they're getting just a little bit of divine help there.

 

R.D.

I watched the movie quite a few times on bootleg. They do not appear until very late in the battle(nor were they only ones that scored hits on rebels as regular Stormtroopers/Shoretroopers also kill off rebels and destroyed Rook and the shuttle). One rebel attempted to run out from the cover of the bunker to get to the console and got picked off by a DT. Not a lot of skill to do that. Chirrut only died from fire when a trooper targeted the console and it exploded. Baz never gets shot the entire time he walks over and then stays with his dying friend, he only then takes a long time to get shot when he goes to engage the DT's and still managed to inflict heavy causalities on the DT's before dying essentially he wiped them all out as we don't see them again and its all over on the ground for both sides at that point. Again, there is Jedi on Rebels, you call divine help during RO, so what do think is gonna happen when they go up against Jedi warriors or Mandalorians even (or capable Rebels like The Ghost crew)...

 

He could die in Zero Hour and still have a big win though, if he dies very late into the battle. I have a feeling that he will die, FPJ teased a couple of months ago about the Rebels overcoming Thrawn.

 

They can't. The Battle of Scarif is their first major victory.

 

Personally I'm not as worried about Thrawn dying. I mean, he just got introduced and they know he's very popular. It would make more sense to send him off and having him around to bring back at some point. I'm more worried about how Thrawn will be portrayed in the finale as in if he's able to have a major success or if he'll be humiliated in some way.

I really want Thrawn to utterly decimate the rebel fleet, with only some elements escaping, and only because of outside intervention. The protagonists should know the true meaning of despair as they're fighting to even have a chance to escape with their lives.

Maybe even being forced to split up as they have to flee, broken and demoralized. It would make for a powerful season finale. Then in the next season the main characters are each on their own and need to find each other again while being hunted by agents of the Empire.

But I'm afraid the finale will have a more lighter tone, with the rebels having relatively few losses, maybe even turning the tables on Thrawn and of course a few cheesy one-liners. I really want this finale to be their darkest hour, but I'm not sure if the writers will go or even can go that way.

It's not that I want the main characters to suffer, but more because the entire season has been building up to this moment.

 

Killing Thrawn doesn't have to be a major victory tho, if the rest of the Imperial Fleet still destroys most of the Rebel Fleet and make them flee from Atollon.
And I don't remember FPJ's exact quote but it was something along the lines of Thrawn not being able to plan against everything. And that they Rebels unpredictability and unity might help them overcome him (Not the exact quote, might've gotten it wrong, can't find the link )

 

Yes what bothers me is that until now Thrawn did not accomplish anything yet in Rebels. Killing him off now would be stupid and not a great death at all. At least in The Thrawn trilogy he did many important things before dying, a lot happened. But in Rebels? Apart from talking about his plan, nothing.

And if they kill him now or humiliate him, the fans would be disgusted and not really motivated to read the new Thrawn book, knowing where it leads anyway... Even if Thrawn does badass things in the book, it would all be destroyed by the fact that he dies like a sh*it in Rebels (if he does) against a bunch of young heroes winning with the power of friendship...