Is Grand Admiral Thrawn Alive?

I just finished re-reading Survivor's Quest, so this question is fresh in my mind.

Of course we know that Luke and Mara destroyed the clone of Thrawn, but was this mearly a clone a Thrawn?

Mara comes the conculsion that Formbi could not have been the one to come of with the convoluted scheme to force the Vaagari's hand, which is somewhat baseless, unless you have read Outbound Flight, in which we see a Formbi who seems to be opposed to such bending of the rules of Chiss engagement.

What do you think? Is there a clone of the Grand Admiral running around the Unknown Regions, and the one responsible for Formbi's plan in Survivor's Quest?

And if there is, why would he not have come to the aid of the galaxy during the Yuuzhan Vong Invasion?

In my opinion, re-reading Survivor's Quest, especially after reading Outbound Flight, makes it clear that Thrawn is alive, or if not that Formbi became much more Thrawn like. But this seems to make no sense to me, as Thrawn shows up no where in the NJO, and his whole purpose in everything he did was to strenghen the galaxy for the invasion of the "Far Outsiders" aka the Yuuzhan Vong.

 

"All I know is that my gut says maybe!"

 

He has to be. Doesn't he?

 

I say no, for the main reason we don't want to turn Thrawn, one of the best characters in the EU, into Daala.

 

Well, we know that Thrawn developed a partially-successful means to reproduce his acumen in human clones. I woudln't rule out the possibility that Chak is one such clone, possibly from Baron Fel, or perhaps from a Jedi template - Vader, Obi-Wan or C'baoth...



But on a different tack, do we ever see all four Stormies with their helmets off?

- The Imperial Ewok

 

No, actually, I think we only ever have the alien stormtrooper with his helmet off in Survivor's Quest.

I am just not sure if a Thrawn clone will appear in LotF though, if there is one. Allston and Stackpole work well together, and Stackpole and Zahn in turn work well together, so we might have a conenction there, but I doubt it.

 

Thrawn survived up until Survivor's Quest-- only to slip in the shower and die just as the Vong invasion began.

 

A little jab at the death of Mon Mothma perhaps?

 

At one point in SQ all four Stormies are out of their armor, doing repairs.

 

I'd much rather he be dead than another played out clone storyline.

 

Yeah, I hate the whole "Back from the Dead" angle that gets cooked up. The Hand of Thrawn Duology was cool because Thrawn was "alive" without being alive. That was more believeable than "Thrawn hid out while he healed the gaping puncture wound to his heart." Bringing back DEAD DEAD villians gets you things like Palpatine shot in the back by Han.

Having everyone in a continous death/ressurection cycle makes all important events damn pointless. "Luke, what are you doing?" "This is the only way to save the galaxy Mara, besides, the authors will most certainly figure out a way that I did not die five novels from now." "That's right, good plan."

Carnage

 

And once more, I ponder whatever they did with his corpse. Funeral? Dumped in space?

Why was this not mentioned in the HoT duology?

 

That's the million credit question.

I don't believe the TTT sourcebook answered the question of Thrawn's body, did it?

 

Pellaeon kept it preserved and used it to understand Noghri military tactics.

 

AdmiralWesJanson: At one point in SQ all four Stormies are out of their armor, doing repairs.

You're right - it's at the end, isn't it...?

On the actual context, I think there's a difference between a "comic book death", where a character who's supposed to be dead is brought back simply because they're cool (Palpatine, Boba Fett) and situations where there's a pre-planned twist or "out" tucked away for later use... but there's also a third alternative, where there's enough deliberate ambiguity about the wider narrative context...

For example, I'm not sure George had thought of Force-ghosts when working on ANH, and even the decision to kill Ben came during shooting the movie; but there's a deliberate sense of something in the story there, allowing the development of the point in the subsequent movies...

For what it's worth, the exact mechanics probably weren't defined immedately - there were still some thoughts of having Ben and Yoda coming back "alive" again in pre-production for RotJ...

Maybe that would have been jumping the shark; no-one complains about what we got, though - even though it wasn't a fixed, pre-planned plotpoint, there was enough in the story already to make it credible...

*shrugs*

With Thrawn (especially given the Sherlock Holmes references and Zahn's reaction to DE) I definately think there are a number of obvious "outs" within the storyline - clones are the most obvious, but by no means the only one, though as Zahn has said himself, a clone isn't technically speaking a "comic book death", but a subtly different character...

And, as I suggested a while back, the "Thrawn" in the Thrawn trilogy could have been a clone all along...

Why would Thrawn return to the Known Regions and leave the Empire of the Hand without his leadership... when he can be in both places at once?

- The Imperial Ewok

 

Is Grand Admiral Thrawn Alive?

Yes. Shortly after he recieved the rank of Grand Admiral, he realized that the Noghri would some day turn against him (he had studied their art, after all), so he cloned himself. Twice. The first clone is the person we saw throughout TTT. The second clone is the one killed in THoT. Through all this, Thrawn has been hibernation, hidden deep in the Unknown Regions, where he will someday awake and lead the Empire to glory.

[/hopelessly devoted fangirl]

 

I *really* hope Thrawn is dead. Like all great villains, less is more. Its bad enough the amount of convoluted over-exposure the Chiss have had in recent years (ie. the whole "Ruling Families" retcon/debacle).

 

Thrawn, Anakin Solo, Callista, Daala, Alema Rar, another Palpatine clone, Nom Anor, and tEotH are all hanging out together somewhere in beyond the Unknown Regions, along with any other characters who are dead, MIA, or just missed. They have no plans to come back to the GFFA because they finally found an existence without a warlord of the week, superweapon of the month, religous-fanatic-extraglactic invaders, or creepy bugs and those who join with them to contend with on a daily basis. Give the guys a break.

 

Ach, come on, someone should know what happened to Thrawn's body?

I mean, there even was a bloody corpse right there for the Imperial blokes. There was nothing to suggest a possible survival for him, as far as Paellon and crewknows. No explosion to hide the evidence, no dropped in hyperspace so he could be anywhere, no sudden Force dissapearance turning him into a ghost to guide Paellon to his destiny... he was stabbed while sitting on the command chair, and the Empire had his corpse.

Now, Thrawn brought the Empire back and all, good for him and his fans. The Empire must've loved him, treasured him, saw him as the greatest thing since Palpatine. Surely they would've done some great state funeral or something to honor his passing? Or did they just drop a coffin with him in space? Or was there a TIE-Fighter-esque game-over scene where they simply vaporised his coffin with corpse and all?

Again, why wasn't this brought up in HoT? If Paellon was as uncertain as to wether it was really Thrawn or not in the HoT duology, surely he could've, or sent someone, to check upon the body?

And I'd like to kindly ask you not go with a "Well, the Noghri might've rolled a critical miss and accidently mistook the location of his heart, even though this must've been planned for some time, but Thrawn actually saw it coming a few years back, so he removed all information about Chiss anatomy and replaced it with that of a human to outwit the Noghri and as a semi april fools joke to show the crew that he does have a sense of humour"-thing. That's not part of the point I'm trying t'make or the question I'm asking.

I'm just curious to know what happened with Thrawn's body after Paellon ordered the retreat.

 

How much better would Spectre of the Past have been if you found out Thrawn was fake at the end, not beginning?

Frack the Galacticans to the Maw, I'm fed up of these undead villains. The Imass of the Malazan series know undying rage for their Jaghut adversaries, 300,000yrs since they made themselves undead to hunt the tusked buggers to near extinction. I can get my head around that, celibacy of that magnitude. But Isard's return was totally uncalled for, the prisoner cache easily obtained in his quadrilogy. What next, Zsinj? Nandreeson?

And you know what? They're out-right cardboard villains, aren't they, Preciousss? You don't really know Thrawn, you don't really know Palpatine, you don't know half of the peach-butt darlings, do we? And stop comparing anyone to Daala! She's never died. Disappeared is not dead. She's perfectly fine to return. I say stop cloning these ratter thists, that Navett's Bothan Pet Emporium didn't have, and create . . . something . . . new. A sinsiter gentleman droid; a domestic dog that no one realises is a sentient race themselves.

I've had a Thrawnful of his highness. I'm almost becomming a Blue racist. I want fresh meat, and sucked in, we're going to get it, with the Legacies and KOTOR, ha ha ha.

 

>>>a domestic dog that no one realises is a sentient race themselves. <<<

They've done that, though I think it only appears once. Cracken's Rebel Operatives had just such a character, an alien dog that spyed on his Imperial "owner."

 

Interesting . . .

 

There was also Bubo