Has Thrawn been made too smart!

One of the best charachters of the EU is Thrawn but after reading Vision of the Future and a line (paraphrasing here) went along like Palpy was one step ahead but Thrawn was 2 steps ahead. This Took me back abit. Now I have defended Zhan a bit from others but is he seriously suggesting that Thrawn is smarter than a Sith Lord who got himself into power/started the clone wars/Was living under the Jedi's very noses with out them knowing (Heck he even had them in his office) then wipped them out.Converted 1 Jedi Master Into a Sith then turned there own choosen One against them.
He ruled for about 25 years.

Sorry but its going to be a bit hard to except this.
Also after reading a Zahn interview about how Mara as Emperors hand was not really on the darkside and the people she killed deserved to die. Huh She is working for a Sith lord and committing murder and thats OK.

 

I havne't read those two novels yet, but I think it is referring to the military strategy, not politicla strategy. Thrawn was a great military tactician, and many say he may have won if he had commanded the battle of Endor. For all his cunning and political and Force skill, Palpatine wasn't the greatest military commander.

 

The thing about Palpatine, he refuses to comprimise or change his view. In TLC, Thrawn mentions how he refused to follow Palpy's orders several times because it was a doomed attack in the first place and ends up Thrawn was right.

Another weakness of Palpy is, believe it or not, he's a Sith Master, and can let his emotions control him, which obviously Thrawn does not let happen to himself.

 

Thats BS. Plain and simple.

Palpatine was a Sith Lord for crying out loud! He was responsible for the Empire and ruled it absolute for 20 some years. Thrawn was a millitary Expert, but he was no Darth Sidious. If Mr. Blue had accomplishments comparable to what Palps did in the PT and OT, well, maybe then I would consider it....But he didnt!

I think Dark Empire shows that Palpatine was the one who was 2 steps ahead.

The more I hear of Zahn, the more Arrogant he appears....

Im going to paraphrase Morpheous from the Matrix to describe Zahn, and what some EU fans think of this guy:

" When the EU was "Reborn", There was a Author let inside, he had the ability to do whatever he wanted, to reshape the StarWars universe as he saw fit.....He was the one who "freed" the first of us...."

Ok, Ill stop now...

-Jabba


PS. MERRY CHRISTMAS!

 

" When the EU was "Reborn", There was a Author let inside, he had the ability to do whatever he wanted, to reshape the StarWars universe as he saw fit.....He was the one who "freed" the first of us...."

No, THAT is complete BS. There were a LOT of things that Zahn wanted to do that he wasn't allowed to do.

"C'baoth was one of the characters who originally had to be changed. My original intent was that [he] was going to be an insane clone of Obi-Wan. Lucasfilm wouldn't let me do that, so I had to make him a clone of somebody else."

"Originally, the Noghri were going to be the Sith. Vader is mentioned as a Lord of the Sith in various places. And I wanted them to be the Sith that were referred to. That was another of the ideas that was canceled by Lucasfilm."

"Another thing I wanted to do, that again they wouldn't let me do, was make Vader's mask a stylized version of the Noghri faces, that he adopted that armor in part as a gesture to them being so useful to him as the undercover death commandos. Lucasfilm would not let me do that officially, so what I did was simply take the same idea, describe their faces that way, but not make any references within the book that they reminded people of Vader's mask. But that's basically where they came from. Also, by having their gray skin darken as they get older, that would also reflect in Vader's black armor, would be an image of old and wise to them."


--Timothy Zahn, Star Wars Adventure Journal #1, Spring 94

Just a couple examples there.

 

Palpatine had nothing to do with his own ability to hide from the Jedi. It was the actions of the Force independent of its users--the Will of the Force, if you will--that caused this dynamic. It doesn't represent an active Force power of Palpatine. Thus, nothing special here.

Also, as for turning Jedi, this isn't a very big accomplishment. After all, the Sith started out as a schism from the Jedi Order, so we have to assume this was quite a regular event, at least in the early days. So again, not unique.

Further, 20 years of absolute rule isn't that special in a galaxy were single governments last for over a millenium. He was nothing but a drop in the bucket. And seeing how much technological and societal decline happened in just those 20 years, you have to conclude he was a rather inept administrator. As for manuevering himself into power, he couldn't have done it without the Senate being so corrupt, the Galaxy being in so much turmoil, and the Force acting to blind the Jedi to his allegiance to the Sith. So his accomplishments were just as much someone else's as they wre his own.

And Sith Lord? I don't really see your point here. There have been plenty of them over the centuries. It certainly doesn't mean they're smart.

So in conclusion, yes Palpatine was fairly clever, and yes he was important. But to assume that he was smarter than anyone will ever be is stupid. It's not at all unreasonable to believe that someone smarter than him might have been working for him (a la Thrawn). After all, if it was normal for the smartest people to be rulers, why hasn't Stpehen Hawking or Albert Einstein ever been President or Chancellor.

 

Greetings Jedi_Master_Ousley!

I was merely making Jest with my Matrix Esque quote....

Thanks for the info you provided though!

C'boath was originally going to be a insane clone of ObiWan!? Very interesting....

Reminds me of a old Marvel Story that had a clone or Man that looked like ObiWan. It was a cool story, Would have been interesting to see What Zahn would have done with Obi Clone!

Have a Good one!

-Jabba

 

Interesting that Thrawn was killed by a close assosiate, just like the emperour was.

As smart as they both were, neither of them say that coming.

I agree that Thrawn was an amazing tactical admiral, the best the Empire ever had, and the only non-human too.

 

For all his power and cunning, Palpatine is a stubborn dark sider whos mind is clouded at times with the dark side. For soeone as brilliant and level-headed as Thrawn, it shouldn't be ipossible to outwit Palpatine.

 

Blue Jedi brings up a good point there....Thrawn was the only non-human with command of his own ship, not to mention his own fleet.

And not just any non-human; the Chiss are known to be brilliant military strategists, and the freaky studying of the enemy's art thing is pretty crazy...remember the first time we see Thrawn in action, he lays waste to an entire battle group with nothing but a squadron of preybirds. He knows that the commander of the battle group is an Elomin just from his reaction to the preybirds' approach. Two steps ahead? I'd say so.

And the part in VotF where it says that he was 2 steps ahead... wasn't that Pellaeon's thoughts? So it doesn't neccesarily mean that its 100% true; it's just going to show Pellaeon's view of what Thrawn was to the Empire: it's last hope.

 

I think fans credit Thrawn a bit too much, which has led to his larger then life reputation. I have to agree that in HoT duology it was overstated.

But for someone so brilliant he didn't he lost as often as any of the other Star Wars villians. His major victories came from pure superior numbers after he gained the Katana fleet and took a lot of space from the NR.

But compared to the other villians in Star Wars he didn't have a long lifespan, he shone brightly, but quickly died out. Zsinj for example managed to hold 1/3 of the galaxy and keep it for several years. His tactics and strategies were very bit as clever and unique as Thrawn's in my opinion, yet he doesn't have anywhere near the same status.

 

Alot of his reputation, besides his tactical and strategic genius, comes from how different than other Imperials.

Throughout the entire TTT, when other Imps screw up, he doesn't kill them, he gives them the chance to fix the problem so it never happens again.

 

Wasn't Thrawn the one to use the yasalmira (spelling) those anti-force creatures.

This tells me he could have come up against the emperour in time.

Imagine Vader and Thrawn ruling the Galaxy that would have been quite the team.

 

Throughout the entire TTT, when other Imps screw up, he doesn't kill them, he gives them the chance to fix the problem so it never happens again.

Didn't he shoot an officer for not training his subordinates properly?

 

The idea that Palpatine was smarter because he created the Empire and destroyed the old republic doesn't hold much weight

Hitler did the same thing, but for all his political skills and cunning he was a pretty crappy military commander, his fanatic orders helped us win the war

As a military commander Thrawn was light years ahead of Palps and just about everyone else as well.

Palpatine relied so much on the force that he didn't use any of the techniques Thrawn used and couldn't see anything other then what the force told him, and Palpatine's devoted belief in his own abilities of foresight were part of his downfall

Thrawn used logic, psychology, and a deep understanding of the enemy to defeat them, a more bullet-proof strategy. Although he was so sure of himself he failed to see the threat right next to him


Imagine Vader and Thrawn ruling the Galaxy that would have been quite the team.

But do you really think Thrawn or Vader would have wanted to share the power with one another?

 

But do you really think Thrawn or Vader would have wanted to share the power with one another?

Thrawn probably wouldn't have minded, as long as he was certain Vader wouldn't kill him.

 

"But for someone so brilliant he didn't he lost as often as any of the other Star Wars villians. His major victories came from pure superior numbers after he gained the Katana fleet and took a lot of space from the NR."

How often did he lose? The only true major "loss" i remember prior to Bilbringi would be the Sluis Van battle, where a "loss" for Thrawn involved crippling a large part of the NR fleet.
So he started off with an inferior force, moved his pieces into place, secured superior numbers, and began a very efficient campaign against the NR, seizing systems by the dozen with very little collateral damage, if the examples we were shown were any indication. Pretty much every other Imperial commander in the EU hatches a mad scheme for the destruction of the NR, accomplishes very little in the process and ultimately gets killed, usually while screaming fanatical oaths and something along the lines of "No! I can't lose!"

 

Didn't he shoot an officer for not training his subordinates properly?

No, he had a noghri kill that subordinate because he had tried to pass the buck upon his superior. Thrawn had asked the Leutenent in charge why the subordinate had not been properly trained, and the Leutenent responded by telling him that the man was a conscript, someone who should have known what they were doing in the first place. The conscript was then beheaded by Thrawn?s Noghri body-guardwhile Thrawn informs the Leutenent that ?an error does not become a mistake unless you fail to correct it?, (conscript?s head rolls), ?The error has been corrected. Have your men work on finding a way to counter this maneuver.?(Last sentence not an exact quote, but pretty close.)

 

"Throughout the entire TTT, when other Imps screw up, he doesn't kill them, he gives them the chance to fix the problem so it never happens again.

Didn't he shoot an officer for not training his subordinates properly? "

like someone else said, no, he killed the subordinate for making an error and refusing to accept it. which points out an important difference between thrawn and alliance leaders like ackbar-- his ruthlessness.



"His tactics and strategies were very bit as clever and unique as Thrawn's in my opinion,"
i wouldn't say so... from what i gather from the x-wing series, zsinj, good as he is, isn't that great.... he was constantly outwitted by the likes of general solo & commander antilles. sure, he had good plans in the form of the morrt project and suchlike, but i don't think they could compare with thrawn's use of cloaking devices, Force-induced coordination and his own reasoning processes.

"The idea that Palpatine was smarter because he created the Empire and destroyed the old republic doesn't hold much weight

Hitler did the same thing, but for all his political skills and cunning he was a pretty crappy military commander, his fanatic orders helped us win the war

As a military commander Thrawn was light years ahead of Palps and just about everyone else as well.

Palpatine relied so much on the force that he didn't use any of the techniques Thrawn used and couldn't see anything other then what the force told him, and Palpatine's devoted belief in his own abilities of foresight were part of his downfall

Thrawn used logic, psychology, and a deep understanding of the enemy to defeat them, a more bullet-proof strategy. Although he was so sure of himself he failed to see the threat right next to him
"
excellent point... but while i'm of the opinion that thrawn is a superior tactician to palpatine, i think everyone's underestimating the emperor.... don't forget how he cleverly engineered his ascent to power, that feud with the yinchorri and, of course, the clone wars, among many other things. thrawn, good a military leader as he was, would've lacked the political abilities to arrange an ascent to power if he wasn't already the heir to the empire.

 

In TLC, smugglers blow up a Star Destroyer and the general in charge is given a week to create a new, better security system. Earlier in the book, when Luke escapes from the Chimera, Thrawn asks the officer in charge of the tractor beam why he couldn't stop Luke. The officer said he did everything he could, so Thrawn promotes him, giving him the task to find a way to stop that from happening again.

The reason Thrawn kills the conscript is not because he failed, but because he blamed his superior for the failure, not because he failed.

 

good points, to be sure. nevertheless, u'd never see ackbar or anyone from the alliance executing any of their crew members....

and merry christmas, everyone!

 

"Another thing I wanted to do, that again they wouldn't let me do, was make Vader's mask a stylized version of the Noghri faces, that he adopted that armor in part as a gesture to them being so useful to him as the undercover death commandos. Lucasfilm would not let me do that officially, so what I did was simply take the same idea, describe their faces that way, but not make any references within the book that they reminded people of Vader's mask. But that's basically where they came from. Also, by having their gray skin darken as they get older, that would also reflect in Vader's black armor, would be an image of old and wise to them."

Am I the only one who suddenly imagines the Noghri as a bunch of mini-vaders running around?

 

Uh....Zahn did too

 

Not really. He's not too smart. He's smart in his field. He is no politcian, so he could never ascend to Palpatine's heights. People seem to think that if they want to rule a country all they have to do is go through the motions. Well, you have to be a BS artist, and you have to have empathy, and charisma. Thrawn might have been astute, but he wasn't that endearing. He was incapable of garnering support, such as he was: an exiled unknown being from unknown parts. He was bound to fail, in any case.

And Zahn is stuck up jerk. He has me complex the size of jupiter, and his talent dos not match his ego. Shakespeare couldn't match his ego. I wish he would never have been let near SW. It would have been so much better without him and his endless string of ego stroking Mary Sues, and Gary Stus.

Wants us all to believe HIS characters are the best in the universe, with no historical support to back it up. We are expectd to just believe Thrawn is smarter than Palptine, which is a joke. No one was smarter. He did what the Yuzzhan Vong did by himself. He did it with people shaking his hand. He did it without firing a shot, with the admiration of the masses. He is so far ahead of Thrawn it's not funny. Thrawn didn't help him, he helped Thrawn. Palptine brought down an eons old institition. Thrawn lost against a weak NR. There is no comparison.

 

"Thrawn lost against a weak NR"

So did Palpatine. And Palpatine lost twice, the first time with more troops, more ships, and against an even weaker opponent.

"He is no politcian"

In fact, he admits that. And Paply's no military man, but that doesn't seem to stop him.

"I wish he would never have been let near SW"

Which leaves us with...nothing, except SW holiday specials

"He was incapable of garnering support"

Page 59 of The Last Command- "Yesterday, the crew of the Chimera had trusted and respected the Grand Admiral. After today, they would be ready to die for him."

And I suppouse taking almost complete control of the Empire in a few weeks is enough 'garnering' support. Plus, Imperials by HoT were spitting on Palpatine's name while still mourning Thrawn's murder.

Thrawn and Palpatine were both masters of their trade, but Thrawn knew his limits, Palpatine, in his mad quest for power, did not.