Lit Heir to the Empire, Dave Filoni movie Title

I thought the canon Thrawn books established that he joined the Empire to gain more power and resources to fight the Grysks? I think they’ve basically replaced the role of the Vong in canon, though who knows if that will carry into live action.

 

Haven't read the new canon Thrawn books. But are the Grysk really a galactic-level threat that warrants this?

 

Grysks.
And yes. He sends multiple humans to the Chiss to help both the Ascendency and the Empire strategize against the Grysks.
(I just finished the first written canon trilogy so it's fresh in my mind)

 

They’re not as big and existentially threatening (or as interesting) as the Vong were.The comparison between the two that elements of the fandom have pushed online is only skin deep really. It’s not really leading to some massive crossover pseudo-NJO event.

The last couple of novels have even just outright said that Thrawn’s misguided and probably more than a little sociopathic for what he’s doing. He’s enabling one tyrannical Galactic superpower to eventually use it to kill another one, all so that he can save the Chiss and to hell with anyone else who becomes collateral damage under the Empire’s boot.

 

There are a few issues with the Grysk as a major threat. First and foremost is how they almost always lose. The YV decimated half the galaxy and eliminated a number of longstanding characters before they eventually began to suffer significant defeats.

Second is that they were just not as well developed from the start as the YV had been. They were too enigmatic/faceless in the first few books, then when we started seeing Grysk with names, they didn't have much of a personality or culture that distinguished them from general run-of-the-mill baddies. Even low-level nameless Vong had cool weapons and a fanatic obsession with going wild on the battlefield. Grysk were not a whole lot different than say, a group of renegade humans or an Imperial warlord-of-the-week trying to dominate everything and failing at every step.

I agree with the above posts that Thrawn has been shown to have somewhat shifting goals, depending on the story (and the period when Zahn wrote it). Rebels-Thrawn is like vanilla TTT Thrawn, he's trying to impose his own sense of order on things. But after TTT-Thrawn there was a period where it seemed Thrawn was preparing against the Vong, which more recently has become the Grysk in the new trilogies. I suspect this wasn't an intentionaly plan on Zahn's part, more that he was adapting to the changing situation in the other books (late 1990s, 2000s, Disney-era).

 

I think Zahn’s even recently mentioned the Grysk are more Unknown Regions villains he can use in Thrawn-adjacent stuff he has plans for.

Will they be mentioned in the live action stuff? I don’t know. It wouldn’t surprise me, considering they brought in Cobb Vanth when they really didn’t need to and they’re actively speaking with Zahn about this stuff. Mikkelsen’s alluded to having some understanding of it. But I personally don’t imagine if it’s brought up that it’s anything other than a vague allusion. They certainly wouldn’t be the big bad of the movies.

 

Why not just keep Thrawn as someone looking to impose THEIR idea of order (ie their own rule) on the galaxy? He thinks he is smarter than others so he should rule, simple.

 

Getting hot babes

 

Power to impose his will on others, to ensure HIS views are the ones people follow.

 

Not so sure Thrawn goes that far, that sounds like Sidious.

Thrawn is more 'do what you are told'.

 

I always got the sense that the threat Thrawn poses, and Rebels I think has highlighted this, is that he’d essentially be feeding worlds and people into the war machine. People pressed into work building armaments, natural resources being plundered to make Star Destroyers. Very industrial nightmare, desecration of worlds etc.

But I’ll point out, several of the Ahsoka cast and crew had comments about the character coming out of Celebration that did imply there’s going to be some nuance to the live action depiction. The picture they seem to paint is a villain who is ruthless and scary when he has to be, but also a great leader and not completely bloodthirsty like Palpatine and Vader.

 

I think people misunderstand Thrawn profoundly. As does the Emperor and the Chiss.

Thrawn is no Champion of the Empire as he joined it for reasons other than furthering the Empire. It is merely a means to his ends. Same for the Ascendancy and his service to it. Or the Empire of the Hand, which is a mergere of the two kinda and closer to some ideals of him fairness-wise to Aliens and Women in the Empire.

But in all this, Thrawn is always used as a tool by those that try to control him, like a supermagical calculator they cannot fully control. Yet nobody asks what Thrawn really wants or would do had he full reign. And that is the interesting point here. Thrawn does not see the Empire as evil, yet would reform it EotH style to be more fair to Aliens etc. He ignores rules he does not think do compute and make sense in his mind. He did that for the Ascendancy, he did that for the Empire. He is a Solutionist that sees flaws and erases them or exploits them. In that regard he can be brutal, brutally efficient, or he can be merciful and fair both. He can lead from the front, inspire and unite people, even those at odds initially as he did with his Chiss Crews.
Yet at the same time he can slaughter millions and entire populations for the bigger picture. Innocents even. He has no hero complex, no intent to save everyone. As a practical man, he deals with the situation at hand and can easily ignore anything else going on around him or elsewhere. He can see and work for the big picture or the small picture depending on his surroundings as he seemlessly can integrate anywhere and further any cause with his logic.
But that is also his flaw, he compartmentalizes and looses sight of stuff as others noted. Politics is one field he is not as adept in despite similiar logics at play. Likewise social interactions sometimes are confusing him if outside the logical spectrum and category thinking he follows. When he joins a small unit, he excells to unify and lead it, but may miss the larger picture they are embedded into. Same the other way around when he looses sight of the little people and individual fates whenever working the big picture and sacrificing many for the benefit of many more.

But what does he want? Retire in peace? Create peace? A working government and society?
He wante to protect the Ascendancy from the UR threats initially, sought the Empire as a means to help, yet ended up trying to protect the galaxy from harm by improving the Empire and its defense.

Ultimately, Thrawn has no endgame. He wants idealistic goals that are impossible to reach and will keep soldiering to reach them till infinity or death. Benevolent as the goals are, brutal as his methods can be, Thrawn is a chess player that sets up pieces for eventual futures until his own flaws catch up to him. Even, oblivious of the Force, Forceusers and Force gambits are in his game as he employs them like chess pieces rather using logic to outsmart them or prevent any from rising up again against him, not realising that he can be played like any other piece of the gameboard so long he commits to a cause not his own.

 

Yeah - even back in the day, I think it was clear that Thrawn and his followers were concerned about multiple potential threats, not just the Vong. The same is true with the Grysk now - they are the main focus, but it is clear that the Chiss have many enemies that Thrawn seeks to form alliances against, and the Empire is the strongest potential ally around (and one of the biggest potential threats - all the more reason to keep an eye on them and try to sway them to the Chiss' side)

And I agree - I doubt the Grysk will play a major role, particularly as the true big bads of the time period, but I would not be remotely surprised if Thrawn at some point mentioned them as an example of the type of threat he is worried about.

 

Yeah I would imagine any Grysk reference would probably be along those lines, a mention during one of Thrawn’s monologues. Maybe a retooling of the “Hundred things that would turn your blood to ice if you knew about them” line from the 90s.