Lit Thrawn Trilogy VS. Duology VS. Disney Thrawn Trilogy VS. Ascendancy Trilogy

Discuss my personal favorite villain and how he's been mishandled by the mouse.

Many spoiler

I always loved Thrawn as a character, and as a villain. But my love for the character has been tarnished in the face of the now two Disney Thrawn Trilogies. It took a while. At first I thought it was just because it was so different. Didn't really love Price or any of her circle. I like Vanto, but not enough to justify the rest of it.

I realized much later something that I feel silly for not spotting right away. We get too much of Thrawn's perspective. In the original series, we saw a lot of Thrawn, but almost exclusively through the eyes of the Chimeras captain Pellaeon. Not once in the original three novels do we see directly through the eyes of our villain. Instead we see the bewilderment of his foes, and the astonishment of his allies. He was at center stage and yet was the most mysterious character involved.

This is strengthened in my opinion in the Thrawn Duology, where we see on one hand a triumvirate attempting to imitate Thrawn, and on the other hand Admiral Pellaeon actually stepping up into his role. We see the battle between the Chimera and the Kaloth Battle Cruiser through the lense of Pellaeon, aware of his Captains incredulity and struggling to maintain his composure. Again, the author isn't trying to genuinely put us in the mind of Thrawn, but to show us a glimpse of his student growing into his role. Thrawn's actual thought process remains a mystery to us.

Coming back to the first Disney Thrawn Trilogy, we almost instantly get dropped into his brain as he passively observes human behavior up close and evaluates the Imperial forces that found him. And this trend continues. The mystery is shattered and the secrets are in my opinion unsatisfying.

I don't have much to say about the ascendancy trilogy. I'm sure I'll revisit it eventually, but it really didn't pull me in. I feel the family politics are too complicated and the social conventions are too weird. Not every book has to be filled only with characters I know, but the lack of any familiar species or worlds makes the strange dynamics of the Chiss all the more alien.

 

Hopefully not too many people are turned off by your opening sentence and actually take the time to read your post where you do bring up legitimate points

I myself have a difficult time getting into Zahn's writing and have the Ascendency trilogy at the bottom of my Star Wars reading pile.

 

I found the “Imperial” Trilogy (Thrawn, Alliances, Treason) to be a very awkward set of books, but I’d actually go as far to say the Ascendancy Trilogy is the best the character has been used since the original Thrawn Trilogy.

 

I for one was drawn to Thrawn's backstory, and how he became the Grand Admiral everyone goes nuts over. Tim Zahn was always great at worldbuilding, so I enjoyed reading about Csilla itself, and I imagine it as an intergalactic version of Budapest, the Hungarian capital. (My dad used to have radio business over their at the beginning of the century, and Csilla is Hungarian for 'star'), and I walked away with the feeling that Chiss society is a mix of Ender's Game and Downton Abbey. No complaints, except I wish Thrawn had more of a love life, but that's just me.

 

Csilla is also a female Hungarian name, my mom had a colleague named like that.

 

Oh really? That's neat!

 

Well, to say that everything an author does in a Star Wars book is 100% them is a little incorrect, editorial and story group obviously have input.

Case in point, Zahn said he originally didn’t want to include Thrawn POV chapters in the 2017 novel because he prefers to write the character enigmatically and what we got was done at their behest.

 

It is a unique situation with the same author writing both sets.

I think part of the reason for the difference betwewn the works is Zahn changing over time and wanting to try something new. I can certainly see that in Ascendancy, much of it didn't work for me - but the central idea of how the Chiss are really did for others.

 

With the caveat that I haven't read the final volume of the Ascendancy trilogy, I quite enjoyed the concept of the trilogy. Just exploring a whole set of worlds and cultures not connected to anything else. Not beholden to other storytelling and more importantly opening up a whole new avenue for future tales. Especially the fact that the trilogy stil didn't come out and say that this was ALL there was to the Unknown Regions so plenty more room for all sort of other cultures and adersaries. I was reading the High Republic and got a similar vibe of discovery - the galaxy is SUCH a big place and yet often comes across as too small in Star Wars material so I appreciated the world building/expansion.

The earlier trilogy I also enjoyed well enough as a background for Thrawn - as noted, his naievte in politics sometimes is over emphasized as an achilles heel but otherwise I liked being along for the ride of seeing Thrawn grow into Thrawn.

 

That's fair, and I'm sure I overemphasized the Disney thing as the major distinction. But given that all eleven of the books in question were written by the same author, it's too easy to draw that line.

I also just thought "mishandled by the mouse" was fun and rolled off the tongue.

 

And Thrawn is still enigmatic in new books, his POV is basically just "Terminator vision with facial analysis".

Agree. On the one hand, there is a great and not too on-the-nose parallel with Anakin, since Thrawn is too a "broken Chosen One". On the other, even without him committing outright atrocities (while his virtues, in opposite, were shown constantly) , it is clear at the end of the trilogy that Thrawn is a terrifying being.

 

Man, I loved the Thrawn Trilogy when it first came out. Those stories to me at times feel like a true Episode 7-9. The duology that came afterwards were also very good and compliments the mentality and far thinking of Thrawn. The romance between Luke and Mara Jade, I mean everything. Those five books are very good. Top of the line for me and stories I still cherish. Now the ones that came out with Disney are also very good and would not dismiss them as being anything less. I am fascinated with Thrawn and the thing is that the stories were all written by Timothy Zahn whom is the true "Grand Admiral." I think all the stories with Thrawn whether legends or Disney are very good.

 

After watching Ahsoka, I was thinking a lot about Thrawn’s different appearances over the years. One big question for that show is how much of the character’s motivations from Zahn’s new books will factor into the show. The answer is that they probably won’t. Fans of the books look at Thrawn and think about all that Zahn has added over the years, but the character we met in the original Thrawn trilogy didn’t have and didn’t need all of that background material. He was an Imperial Grand Admiral who wanted to restore the Empire. Period.

To quote a malfunctioning android, “I admire its purity.” The Thrawn we were introduced to in Heir to the Empire didn’t need all that backstory and motivation. He was a complex character, but his background was mysterious, and that was part of the charm. He was an alien mind working to bring back the Empire and almost succeeding. We didn’t even have a name for his species until the Thrawn duology published eight years after the first books. Even the Essential Guide to Characters, published in 1995, only speculated that he had been stationed in another galaxy during the events of the original film trilogy. He was that mysterious, and frankly I love it.

Of course, I’m happy Zahn has gotten to continue exploring his character. And the inconsistencies in characterization can be explained away by his life experience. But I can also appreciate, and perhaps even prefer, to think about how this character was first portrayed in the book trilogy that made him legendary. He was calculating, ruthless, and inscrutable behind his glowing red eyes. Nothing quite beats how Thrawn was depicted on the cover of the comic book adaptation for HotE:

 

Definitely another one who loves the Ascendancy trilogy for using its setting to be a very different brand of Star Wars relatively unconnected to the big plot while still being very star wars in a lot of ways.

I just wish we got more visual descriptions for characters and tech and places in the setting.
...and some of the names can be silly. Your ruling class is the Ruleri?
But overall a very cool little setting. In particular, the neutral-mercenary use of the force as simple apolitical navigators is an interesting contrast with the main galaxy and its battles between good and evil kung fu wizards.

Though interestingly, the Chiss didn't strike me as that alien - pretty standard "feuding families in a byzantine political system" type setting...just with less political assassinations, affairs, and succession disputes

That is putting it mildly. Frankly, a lot of his plans in the Ascendancy trilogy seem to me to be basically political manipulation with what military action there is primarily there to force the enemy into a political blunder. Often he has already won just by getting the other side to give battle in the first place.
In particular, he has a real talent for coalition building that contrasts heavily with the galactic empire's more brute force approach.''

Not saying it is bad per say, I am definitely up for smart characters not necessarily being good at everything, but it feels pretty arbitrary for the story to insist this is all military and completely different from actual politics for some reason.

 

So…..typical Star Wars naming convention?

 

...Point.

 

I agree generally, although at times the culture felt a bit too Earthlike (what with basically pizza - cheese triangles - and Thrawn's sister on a very USA style farm, seemingly)

Family politics and structure was also interesting to delve into. Even if the feuding did become a bit too dominant. some dragging in book 2 also - which did pay off pretty nicely, in Lesser Evil.

And yes, Thrawn's lack of political savvy did seem overstated. It was framed as not fully intuitive to him - but still something he could, likely, factor in. Unclear to what extent Arr'alani and Bakif misread or not, there (and if by his design, or not)

 

As @Sauron_18 said.. I don't think the new Thrawn trilogies really fit the Thrawn that we know from the original Thrawn trilogy very well. I was highly critical of Rebels' Thrawn, but I think he was more accurate to the character, and so was the Thrawn in Ahsoka. I don't think it makes sense for Thrawn to be loyal to the Chiss. He always seemed like a bigger picture guy. I like the in-depth look at the Ascendancy, but I don't think Thrawn's the best PoV character for that. After all, he was dishonorably exiled.

Now, how I think it would fit, and where I think a lot of the nu-Thrawn characterization is coming from is Zahn's original idea of a clone of Thrawn working with Ben Skywalker. A Thrawn Clone in the Unknown Regions taking on the threat of the Grysk, eventually backed up by Ben Skywalker. Set after Crucible. I can see that being the original outline of the new Thrawn books, which were readopted for the new canon.

 

Unfortunately I am very jaded and biased but I enjoyed the entire Zahn's take of Thrawn from the Legend books to the new canon. If anything, these books make very good sequels for star wars. It's grounded like the original movies with a lot of action and exposition.

 

HTTE Trilogy,
Ascendancy Trilogy
OF/SQ
HOT
Imperial Thrawn trilogy