Books Thrawn - New canon Star Wars book by Timothy Zahn (Spring 2017)

He's a bit more "gloating" in Zero Hour Part one, than in The Last Command - but that might have been because he already had a surrender at this point:



"We will lower the planetary shields, Chimaera, as a gesture of good faith," dosLla said at last, his tone defiant but with a hint of defeat to it. "But before the generators and ground/space weaponry can be turned over to Imperial forces we shall require certain guarantees regarding the safety of the Ukian people and our land."

"Certainly," Thrawn said, without any trace of the gloating that most Imperial commanders would have indulged in at this point. A small act of courtesy that, Pellaeon knew, was as precisely calculated as the rest of the attack had been. Permitting the Ukian leaders to surrender with their dignity intact would slow down the inevitable resistance to Imperial rule until it was too late.


Compare:


"General Dodonna, Commander Sato, Captain Syndulla, at last we meet in this theater of war, however briefly. There is no escape and your forces are badly outnumbered. This Rebellion ends today."
"We'll never surrender to you, Thrawn."
"You misunderstand, Captain. I'm not accepting surrenders at this time. I want you to know failure, utter defeat, and that it is I who delivers it crashing down upon you. Now, let us proceed."

 

They even don't exist in canon and therefore don't matter. We're talking here about the canon book "Thrawn", where Thrawn has been infinitely honorable so far.

 

I don't know, Thrawn strikes me from the novel as "from a certain point of view" and "exact words" person (you know what I mean since you've read the book). Even Luke was not impressed with this type of "truth telling" from Obi-Wan.

Hapless Thrawn opponent: You said you would let me go free!

Thrawn: Yes I am, I am honorable and I am keeping my word that you will go free (jettisons opponent into space)
(spoiler for Thrawn novel)

Spoiler

Thrawn: See Emperor, look at this Chiss exile order. I was really exiled! You can see it right here...
Emperor: Grand Admiral Thrawn, please don't insult my intelligence. I should have you punished for blatantly lying to me. No one does that to the Dark Lord of the Sith and gets away with it... For your insolence, I will blow up Csilla and make you watch!!!
Thrawn:

 

To be honorable doesn’t mean to always say the truth (this would be just stupid - no one tells only the truth all the time!), this means to keep one’s word, which Thrawn does. Thrawn proved to Anakin that you can trust his word (we just don’t know how he did it yet).
Thrawn promised those pirates their freedom - they got it. They didn’t ask him to leave them alone after that, so no obligations there. Yes, "exact words" kind of way, but the pirates are enemies - and that was more than enough amount of respect for one's enemy.

 

Thawn is polite. He'll apologize for the knife sticking out of your back like a gentle-being, but that doesn't mean he isn't the one that stuck it there. Deceit is very much a tool in his toolkit, and we see him employ it often to great effect.

 

Not only this, but no matter how "honorable" Thrawn is, he ultimately answers to a commander infamous for "altering the deal, pray that I don't alter it any further." And everyone knows this. In-universe, I'll bet there are more than a few who see Thrawn as a hypocrite. (The galaxy saw the Jedi the same way for serving a corrupt Senate, one of the reasons they fell back in the prequels).

Say what you will about the other caricature mustache-twirling Imperials, they were at least upfront about their villainy. Thrawn puts on a show about how honest and honorable he is, while lying to others and definitely himself (he genuinely believes he is honorable etc as such people are prone to do. And that's what makes him dangerous--the worst sort of deeds are done in a way that is morally justifiable to his point of view).

 

Canon Thrawn joined the Galactic Empire as a double agent for a foreign power.

 

And was pretty upfront about it, when he joined.

 

Also plotting to murder the Emperor or move against him as well as other stuff.

Thrawn is many things but honorable?

No, he is as honorable as Doctor Doom or the Klingon High Council. He talks a good game about it but it's all about the APPEARANCE of keeping your word.

Ned Stark he is not.

 

That wasn't the impression I got from his conversation with Nightswan - sounded more like he was going to wait for the Emperor to die of old age.

 

Actually I'm pretty sure that was a big part of his character in the old EU as well (HOT duology I think?). IIRC it was one of the main reasons Zahn would give for Thrawn being "banished" to the UR, along with being an alien. It definitely wasn't invented for this novel.

Anyway people complaining that this book has changed his character are on crack

on the contrary, the original post complaining about Thrawn being a liar was referring specifically to the old EU

 

Yes I also got the impression that Thrawn was waiting for the Emperor to die, not assassinate him.

However the strange thing is that in the new book Thrawn is completly naive about politics, while in Outbound flight he could easily understand Formbi's politics manoeuvers (and it's not so different from Imperial politics), and in TTT he's really good at manipulating politicians, understands perfectly how Fey'lya thinks and how the politicians will react, etc... so unless Pryve gave his express politics lessons after the season 3 of Rebels, I don't know how you can go from "very naive Thrawn" to "very skilled at politics Thrawn" of TTT. Ok, there are 10 years between the 2, but it means that he learned to be an expert very fast. (and don't say "it's a different Thrawn it's Legends: Zahn said it was the same Thrawn but at different periods of his life and so the character could evolve)

About the lies in Legends: in TTT I only remember the time when he lied to Mara saying he would give her 8 days to give him the Katana fleet coordinates, but in fact followed her, but it's because he felt she would not be loyal to the Empire. About C'baoth, Thrawn tries very hard to keep his promise to give him the Jedi, that's why he wasted so much time chasing after them.

Spoiler

But in the new book the difference is that I also felt betrayed at a reader, I don't understand why the first POV in his mind/journal says he is exiled, and then to Nightswan he says he's not. I guess now that "it's a certain point of view", he's really publicly exiled but some Chiss gave him a mission. And yes the difference between his motivations in the Legends and this book, is that before it felt more like he wanted to protect both his people and also the Empire (his fleet, his Empire, with imperials in it, not only Chiss). Now he seems to be wanting to protect only the Chiss. And also the new thing compared to before is that he did not decide alone to join the Empire, now it's supposed to be a mission given by other Chiss! I prefered when it came from him (even if the others can help him afterwards). Also, in Legends, there was never question to sacrifice the whole human civilization (and other alien's) in order to protect only the Chiss and to use all the non-Chiss as a prey for the Vongs/invaders. That is new. I find it really excessive.

Wanting to protect his people, I understand, but all that "undercover mission" "sacrifice all the non-Chiss" ideas are extreme and I don't like them, that's new compared to before.

- SyndicThrass: In fact everything depends on "would have Thrawn really done what he said (sacrifice the rest of the galaxy/the Empire, sabotaging it from the inside to use it as a prey for the invaders) if the Empire was weak and not strong? Was it just an idea of the other Chiss, something he would refuse to do or at least would do eveything to avoid? in that case, that's better. But I wouldn't like it if he was really ready to do it.

- Jello: that's funny, you always tried to portray Thrawn more evil than the Emperor. I don't think Zahn sees his character the way you interprete it, as he is trying so hard to show his noble side in his recent books. You just remember the bad side and always brush off the goods things the character can do like if it never happened.

 

I think noble Thrawn is only coming from Zahn. (spoiler for Thrawn novel)

Spoiler

With the new revelation that Zahn had no input in Season 3 of Rebels at all, I'm thinking Filoni and the Rebels team completely intended for Thrawn to be a civilian slaughtering warlord per his opening episode regarding Batonn. There is nothing in Season 3 at all to indicate Pryce is the one behind the civilian losses, or that Filoni intended any sort of retcon to clear Thrawn's hands.

Zahn can write a book where Thrawn is noble and honorable, but then the Rebels team can have Thrawn wiping out Caamas in Season 4, or something. Filoni is the one calling the shots for the character, and I don't think his Thrawn is as noble as Zahn's Thrawn. Zahn just retcons what he can after the Rebels team have had their say.

 

Jello likes to portray everyone as more evil than the Emperor - it's kind of his hobby

 

Well, I think that is a little harsh. All we had in that first Rebels S3 episode was one throwaway comment from Kallus (he's the right one to talk about killing... but that is another story). And throughout the rest of the season Thrawn never once showed these supposedly bloodthirsty tendencies. They could have had him butcher lots of innocents if they had wanted to.

Plus, Zahn had to work with the story group for his book and given that they ok'ed his story I would not call it retconning. It did not contradict anything said in Rebels and made Pryce herself far more interesting (to me anyway).

Spoiler

And ultimately, Thrawn WAS responsible for the deaths as the commander of the mission - whether it was actually Pryce pulling the trigger or not. In some way it is implied that he got his Grand Admiral rank at least partially because of it. Which is ironic.

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I do think that Thrawn actually is noble and honorable, he just is so sure of himself and focused on his end goal (A stable authoritarian state allied to the Chiss.), that hes incapable of noticing the rabbit hole of moral compromises hes falling down to continue to justify himself.

Spoiler

One of my favorite examples of this is in the book when he discovers the Wookie slaves, hes clearly uncomfortable with the concept and knows its evil, but immediately rationalizes it as "well this is a bummer, but they are imperial resources now. what can you do." and just kind of shrugs it off. Then at the end of the book with nightswan we can see just how far hes deluded himself, hes fully aware that the empire is evil but would rather keep serving it than destabilize the galaxy, rationalizing it with "Maybe when Sheev dies I can put an emperor that isn't evil on the throne." As if the alien admiral that sucks at politics will ever have that kind of influence.

I guess he just would rather lie to himself than admit as he said "gambled and lost" by dealing with The Emperor.

 

But Zahn says that TTT Thrawn is still "the same Thrawn but years after", like an evolved/older/more experienced version of it, and TTT Thrawn is skilled at politics, so he learned how to understand them during the years between this new book and TTT (well, if he survives to season 4 of Rebels). That means that when the Emperor dies, maybe yes, Thrawn would be more skilled at politics and may find a way to replace Palpatine (but I've not read the other newCanon books so I don't know what happens after, I guess he failed or decided to do something else, or left with his part of the fleet in the Unknown regions to create his own Empire of the Hand-like)

I also don't think that Filoni clearly says that Thrawn killed civilians. To me, it always looked open to interpretation, as Thrawn doesn't say anything and Pryce suddenly cuts off the conversation and talks about it quite passionately, like if she had some role in it. I always had that feeling and I knew that Thrawn couldn't have really done that because it sounded quite unlike him. Maybe Filoni just wanted the children to interprete the scene "most obvious way" without thinking, and the adults would interprete the scene with more subtility.

 

Thrawn almost gave babies to a literal insane man.

He enslaved the Noghri.

He bombed that agricultural world.

He destroyed a Kahleesh colony world.

I liked the opening because the idea of Kallus being repulsed by Thrawn's disregard for civilian casualties was a good moment and established his danger. He's a "results first" sort of man.

 

He'd have been waiting a long long time. And the only person that succeeds the Emperor is another Sith Lord. Speaking of the Sith, does Thrawn know Palpatine is a Force-Wielder? Are there any hints he knows the Emperor's true nature?

 

You know, I never got the sense that he would ever keep his word with C'Baoth. He clearly hated the guy, so I have to imagine that there would have been some kind of betrayal at somewhere down the line when Joruus wasn't immediately necessary and the Solo twins would have just become Imperial assets for him to use.

And on that note, bring back C'Baoth. The insane hybrid offspring of Santa and Arnold Schwarzenegger needs his own animated appearance and canon book.