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

Thrawn doesn't trust Konstantine in the slightest as we see in where he's assigned an itty bitty boat during the Sato Nephew mission.

Thrawn just cant FIRE Konstantine.

At least like Vader.

 

Well....Thrawn has to keep Konstantine around. But he clearly doesn't think that Konstantine will disobey a direct order either. If he did, he could easily have stationed a couple Death Troopers aboard the Interdictor, presumably for Konstantine's "protection". That way, when the Admiral tries to disobey, Thrawn's men just point their blasters at him and tell him to obey the Grand Admiral's orders. Easy fix.

 

I admit, I like to think of Thrawn as living in an Imperial version of The Office.

I'd love to see a movie or series of him struggling to iceskate uphill against Imperial cronyism and incompetence.

 

Spoiler

Thrawn was given command of the Noghri by Vader in Legends, right? And since he does not meet Vader until after his promotion to Grand Admiral, that would explain their absence in the novel.

 

Why can't Thrawn just fire Konstantine? This is the same guy who shot up subordinates in Heir to the Empire for tractor beam mistakes.

I actually miss the original Thrawn a bit, he was a villain you loved to hate. Blowing up Wayland settlements until the Guardian of the Mountain showed up, plotting how to kidnap a pregnant woman and her babies for abuse by an evil old man, telling Rukh to shoot down underperforming conscripts, poisoning the planet of hapless aliens, and being upfront about his goals: "The conquering of worlds, of course. The final defeat of the Rebellion. The reestablishment of the glory that was once the Empire's New Order." This was the Thrawn I remember hoping Luke would bring to justice while reading the old paperback version of Heir to the Empire in 1992 as an 8 year old boy.

Ever since the Thrawn Trilogy however, Thrawn has been "whitewashed" (yes I know this term has been used a lot in this thread). We're beaten over the head again and again and again that he's this tragic hero/martyr who justifies everything he does to save the Chiss. We do see a bit of the more villainous Thrawn again in Rebels when he threatens to kill Kanan. Considering the contempt Thrawn has in the Thrawn Trilogy towards Cris Pieterson (the tractor beam guy in Star Wars who wouldn't think up his own solutions), one wonders why Thrawn is so patient with the Chiss who need to think up their own solutions on handling the Unknown threat too.

I missed the Thrawn who loved the Empire for what it was, not just was acting, "Ok, I need to side with these people to help the Chiss." This is the Thrawn who'd be right up with Snoke and Hux in the First Order (which is really what he represented in the Thrawn Trilogy), not the whitewashed version now that many are saying would never join the First Order, even though they both have the same goals: The reestablishment of the glory that was once the Empire's New Order.

 

double post, never mind

 

Eh, Konstantine is an Admiral and apparently a former rival of Thrawn.

Even Vader had to find an excuse to kill a flag officer.

 

Haha this got me curious, can you elaborate further on that?

 

http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Cris_Pieterson

Sent from my GT-N8013 using Tapatalk

 

I need to come around to read the Thrawn Trilogy comic adaption..

 

Notably, he killed the tractor beam operator's SUPERIOR for the fact he hadn't trained the man properly.

 

The thing with Cris Pieterson is not just the fact he failed. Thrawn would have overlooked that, but Pieterson also refused to take responsibility and tried to blame others for his mistakes.

Conversely, when Ensign Mithel fails in a similar situation, he takes full responsibility and tells Thrawn he tried to change tactics, showing Thrawn that Mithel had the ability to adapt to circumstances. That's why he not only wasn't executed, but was also promoted to lieutenant.

Basically, Thrawn can overlook failure as long as the subordinate doesn't try to make excuses and be defiant.

 

No he didn't. He had Pieterson killed, not Colcazure.

"Dispose of it," the Grand Admiral ordered them, turning away from Pieterson's crumpled body and pinning Colclazure with a stare. "The error, Ensign," he told the other softly, "has now been corrected. You may begin training a replacement."

 

I remembered it as Thrawn killing the guy because he stated he wouldn't train a conscript as well as a true Imperial officer.

 

Yeah, but this is also the older Thrawn, constricted by tight resources, a much reduced navy and trying to overcome the odds against him. His... pragmatism took quite different forms compared to the younger Thrawn-novel version. Morals go out of the window in that context (queue some of the things Rebellion agents such as Cassian Andor did in the name of freedom).
I guess it is easier to be forgiving and magnanimous when you have near endless resource at your disposal.


Sent from my Nexus 6P using Tapatalk

 

I've never killed someone when I've experienced rough times with the odds stacked against me. I've been through some doozies too.

That's just how I roll though...Not killing people and all that.

Sent from my XT1575 using Tapatalk

 

He trusted his subordinates just fine (where it was warranted), in fact he states in Side Trip that loyalty is one of the two things he values most in his officers (the other being competence). And there are quite a few references in TTT and other stories where it becomes clear his crew are not just following orders but rather follow him as a leader. Apart from Rebels obviously where he only has incompetent people or traitors to work with...

Side Trip was actually a fun collaboration of Timothy Zahn with fellow author Michael Stackpole; the reason Thrawn does the mission himself (apart from Timothy and Mike having a blast writing it) was to help Vader undermine Prince Xizor with a complicated scheme on Corellia. It was paramount that no Imperial involvement was suspected. So he couldn't have sent anyone else. Interestingly, his reward for that mission was getting overlordship of the Noghri... Not a good deal!

Sent from my Nexus 6P using Tapatalk

 

Come to think of it, neither have I.

We are talking Star Wars and Star Wars villains in particular, they are not like you and me. Which is why I don't have to fear getting stabbed in the back.
For the record, I just meant both Thrawns are viable; as Timothy Zahn said on his Facebook account recently, people change and get tougher / softer etc. And TTT Thrawn definitely had it coming by the end of the trilogy.
I just happen to be touched by the tragedy of seeing how he started off and where he ended up at.

Right, I am waffling - time for bed!

Sent from my Nexus 6P using Tapatalk

 

So what happened to Rukh in legends after he killed Thrawn?

 

It's a long time since I read it but HoT had it as shot while trying to escape the Chimaera.

 

WEG said the stormtroopers which rushed in killed him as Pellaeon said, "He paid with his life."

 

My point is he's pretty malevolent as fits his agenda. He starts off the Thrawn book

Spoiler

killing people pretty randomly [\spoiler].

As you said... He's a vilian. Pretty clear cut one too. Zahn's challenge is to get the reader to root for the bad guy. He succeeds pretty well at that, IMO.

Sent from my XT1575 using Tapatalk

 

In fact, it's when circumstances are most dire and all other options seem ill-advised that morality is most important. It's easy to be a good person when things are going well. But how a person behaves when the chips are down and the pressure's on is the true indication of their character.

Take Obi-Wan for instance. He returns from Utapau to find everything he cared about is gone. Destroyed by the hand of the boy he trained, a man he considered a brother. It would be so easy to sink into despair, to be angry at Anakin for betraying the Jedi so much. But Obi-Wan shows in that moment that he is, above all else, a good man with a strong moral core. He give Anakin every chance to stand down on Mustafar and only delivers the maiming blow when it's maim or die.

Anakin by contrast doesn't have as strong of a sense of morality. When his mother dies in that Tusken camp, he doesn't try to arrest the Tusken chief. He just gives into rage and kills them all.

Thrawn's not a moral person. He doesn't believe in doing the right thing above all else. If he was, he would have found a way to make peace with the New Republic so they could face the Vong as a united front. Instead he ends countless lives in a bloody war the he propagates. The New Republic wasn't attacking the Empire's territory by 9 ABY. Thrawn chose to renew hostilities by attacking the Republic. All the people that died in that conflict, Imperial and Republic, owe their deaths to Thrawn. If he's really just trying to build a unite government to resist the extra-galactic threats, then the way to do that is by building alliances and spreading the word.

As sidv88 said, Thrawn has been whitewashed into being a "anti-villain". At the end of the day, he's still an amoral man serving an evil regime. He's not a hero and he's not a good man.

 

Was there any interview with Zahn on Celebration? He posted something about that on facebook but I din't find anything online...

 

He was shown the new Black Figure of Thrawn by Dave Filoni and the Hasbro guys, so they may have had a thing they'll put up about it.