Favorite "Bad Guy" from Star Wars

[Fire Fly]

He had more than just military failures: he failed to recognize that the Nogri where slowly turning against him, especially when he visited Honoghr and felt they were acting weird, he failed to see that C'baoth was indeed a threat to him and failed to appreciate how clever he could actually be, he failed to retrieve the ships he wanted at the Sluis Van shipyards and I personally think that he would've failed at Bilbringi, even if he had not been assonated. He knew that the New Republic was going to attack Bilbringi yet he didn't have such a huge numerical superiority to crush them so badly; had he had huge numbers, Pellaeon should've been able to keep his cool instead of giving the enemy one of their largest ship yards by performing his special maneuver: retreat.

Anyways, from the EU, I would have to say that Thrawn was my favorite. Of all the EU villains, he had a certain personality that was lacking in many other villains and he stood out.

From the movies, I have to say Vader, although I do like Palpatine, but Vader is more 3-dimensional. He had a reason for being evil, a reason that I think many of us understand. Who wouldn't go to great lengths for the ones they love the most?

[Perinquus]

He never makes a mistake. Never makes a tactical blunder. Never suffers a temporary reverse. EVER. Not even small ones. This looks like Zahn wanking over him to me.

This tells me that you didn't really read the Heir to the Empire trilogy. You're exaggerating big time.

I really did read it. I'll admit it's been a few years though. And I am exaggerating, but not that much. The reverses he suffers are minor. Like at Sluis Van. He fails to achieve his objective, but he's not actually defeated. It just got a little tiresome, after three books, reading over and over again how, no matter clever the rebels were, no matter how superior their forces were, no matter the competence of the guys they sent out against them, Thrawn wins again! Usually almost effortlessly. I mean come on. Even Rommel, Napoleon, Caesar, Hannibal, et al. suffered stinging defeats, got overwhelmed by superior forces, or simply found themselves in untenable situations. Not Thrawn though. When he is killed, it's by treachery, not because he was actually beaten.

What really irritated me about is that the means he supposedly used to so infallibly predict his opponents' moves. Sorry, but the idea that you can practically read an enemy's mind after studying his culture's art is just silly.

[Noble Ire]

I really did read it. I'll admit it's been a few years though. And I am exaggerating, but not that much. The reverses he suffers are minor. Like at Sluis Van. He fails to achieve his objective, but he's not actually defeated. It just got a little tiresome, after three books, reading over and over again how, no matter clever the rebels were, no matter how superior their forces were, no matter the competence of the guys they sent out against them, Thrawn wins again! Usually almost effortlessly. I mean come on. Even Rommel, Napoleon, Caesar, Hannibal, et al. suffered stinging defeats, got overwhelmed by superior forces, or simply found themselves in untenable situations. Not Thrawn though. When he is killed, it's by treachery, not because he was actually beaten.

What really irritated me about is that the means he supposedly used to so infallibly predict his opponents' moves. Sorry, but the idea that you can practically read an enemy's mind after studying his culture's art is just silly.

Ah yes, we are given accounts of ever single battle Thrawn ever implemented.
Honestly, what is your problem with a gifted militry commander? Certainly is methods are unorthodox, although I dont really think they're silly or anything. You also seem to be persitantly ignoring the failings many have pointed out, discounting them as inconsiquential or something. You are certainly free to dislike Thrawn, but doing it simply because he is competant seems a bit....off.

[Perinquus]

I really did read it. I'll admit it's been a few years though. And I am exaggerating, but not that much. The reverses he suffers are minor. Like at Sluis Van. He fails to achieve his objective, but he's not actually defeated. It just got a little tiresome, after three books, reading over and over again how, no matter clever the rebels were, no matter how superior their forces were, no matter the competence of the guys they sent out against them, Thrawn wins again! Usually almost effortlessly. I mean come on. Even Rommel, Napoleon, Caesar, Hannibal, et al. suffered stinging defeats, got overwhelmed by superior forces, or simply found themselves in untenable situations. Not Thrawn though. When he is killed, it's by treachery, not because he was actually beaten.

What really irritated me about is that the means he supposedly used to so infallibly predict his opponents' moves. Sorry, but the idea that you can practically read an enemy's mind after studying his culture's art is just silly.

Ah yes, we are given accounts of ever single battle Thrawn ever implemented.
Honestly, what is your problem with a gifted militry commander? Certainly is methods are unorthodox, although I dont really think they're silly or anything.

They are silly. How the fuck much could you possibly tell about how an individual thinks, or what his actions are likely to be from the art of his entire culture? Diddly, that's what. It's silly. It works in the books because Zahn makes it work. That's all. It's just like Sherlock Holmes being in infallible detective. He was because Arthur Conan Doyle wrote him that way, not because those methods would work nearly so well in real life.

Don't get me wrong, in Holmes' example, you can use deductive reasoning in detection (I do myself, and I am a police detective). The difference is that Doyle makes it work more unerringly and unambiguously than you can ever make it work in criminal investigation in real life. Here's an example of what I mean, taken from the home page of Steven Dutch, a professor at the University of Wisconsin. He sums it up better than I could. It concerns why Doyle, a man who wrote about such a logical, methodical, and scientific detective, was, in real life, so gullible regarding the claims of mediums and spiritualists:

From a lost hat, Holmes deduces that the wearer was intelligent, preferred a certain type of hair dressing, has grizzled hair, was once prosperous but has fallen on hard times, has no gas lines in his home, and has marital problems. The inference of intelligence comes from the popular 19th century notion that intelligence correlated with brain size, but a large hat may signify nothing more than bushy hair. The inferences about hair style are based on bits of hair and hair cream on the hat.

The elaborate scenario involving the man's life style is based essentially on the hat being a recent and expensive style but now in poor condition. Holmes never really considers the very real possibilities that the hat might have been stolen, lost and then found by someone else, or given away.

I have to insert my personal heresy here. I have never been particularly impressed with Sherlock Holmes. Most of the stories I have read involve banal and inconsequential mysteries. Furthermore, the stories are rarely mysteries in the modern sense, where clues are presented that challenge the reader to solve the problem as well. Mostly the evidence appears without warning, Holmes explains what it means, and follows it to a conclusion of Doyle's own choosing while myriad other possible interpretations of the evidence are simply ignored.

Holmes is infallible because Doyle writes him that way. He scans the evidence, zeroes in unerringly on the correct interpretation, and rarely has to revise his hypotheses. That's part of his immense appeal. Holmes invariably arrives at the correct solutions, rarely examines alternative explanations except to dispose of them, never encounters evidence that is so ambiguous it cannot be used, and generally views formulating a plausible hypothesis as the solution to the problem.

Given this essentially mystical view of the scientific method, where intuitive methods are infallible and never need correction, it is no mystery at all how Doyle could be a credulous spiritualist. Holmes embodies Conan Doyle's fantasies of omnipotent scientific intuition, which Doyle acted out himself in his investigations of spiritualism. The contrast between Holmes and Doyle is the contrast between how well this approach works in fantasy versus how well it works in real life.

Thrawn's method of reading his opponents' intentions via their art wouldn't work any better than Holmes' methods would work so infallibly in real life. In fact, they would work even worse. There is no fucking way you could read a specific individual so accurately from studying something so general as the art of his entire culture. I actually like the explanation Mike came up with in his fan fiction -- Thrawn wasn't really doing that, he was just pretending to use that as his method in order to build a mystique among his followers. That makes sense, and it makes the character less pretentious and artificially mysterious. However, that little detail was not Zahn's, so it isn't official.

You also seem to be persitantly ignoring the failings many have pointed out, discounting them as inconsiquential or something. You are certainly free to dislike Thrawn, but doing it simply because he is competant seems a bit....off.

Not just competent, infallible, or nearly so, at least militarily. And again, the means by which he reads his enemies is just so implausible that it grates on my nerves.

[Lex]

Alexander the great never suffered from any defeat either, no matter how large the opponent force was.

But he as well died of an overstimation of his abilities. Thrawn was killed by the Noghris, and Alexander fell to a disease... neither of them was ever military defeated.

Besides that, even if thrawn had survived the Bilbringi assault, the loss of the shipyards and the cloning cylinders would definitly have been a huge loss for him anyway.

[Aki-Wan Hanabi]

Vader is the MAN!!

[starfury]

vadar or thrawn for individuals, the empire for the group

[THEHOOLIGANJEDI]

Besides Vader, Count Dooku is my fave Villain. There is so much mystery to Him.

[Isolder74]

I'd have to say Vader. I loved that man in black the moment he strolled onto the Tantive IV

[Noble Ire]

You make some good points Perinquus. I doubt anybody could write Thrawn as well as Zahn, or perhaps really at all. I'm kinda glad he killed him off, so no other author could mess with him. Nonetheless, I find Thrawn an enjoyable character, for his manner of doing things, relating with his underlings and such. His tactics are interesting (although I'll admit Mike's idea does hold water, and if it is true in some form, it makes Thrawn a bit more believable character) but there's more to him than that.

[Spartan]

I you want to talk villains then you begin and end with the Sith.

Palpatine - Sinister manevolent evil.
Vader - His presence screams villain, and the voice.
Dooku - He has the one thing that Vader lacks...charm.
Maul - A swirling storm of death.

After them Tarkin, that is one evil bastard. Unlike Jabba there is nothing comical about Tarkin. You get the sense that he would have you tortured to death while, he watched with out batting an eye. He also gets points for not being Snidely Whiplash.

[Sir Sirius]

Movies only, don't really care about the EU.

Favourite:

1. Darth Vader
   Menacing, cool and still somewhat tragic. Easily the Best.
2. Count Dooku
   Sinister, elegant and isn't quite as clearly "evil" as other SW bad guys. Plus I like his sabre.
3. The Emperor
   Archetypal evil overlord with a strong death motif, a bit of a cliche, but a well executed one.

I also liked Grand Moff Tarkin, Jango Fett and Jabba the Hut.


Least favourite:

1. General Grievous
   A silly toy design combined with a totally uninteresting personality. I mean really, the guys arms split in to two parts, his chest opens up to reveal his heart and he can crawl around like a spider. Did they design him as a toy and then decided to add him to the movie or was he specifically designed with an action figure in mind? Even his name is silly "grievous", why not just call him General Evil, that way you could be sure that even the dumbest members of the audience would know that he is a bad guy.
   By far the worst character in Star Wars ever! Worse then Jar Jar even.
2. Darth Maul
   Simply an uninteresting and cheesy character and I hated his lightsabre.

[Darth Yoshi]

Darth Vader. Duh.

[Thanas]

EU: Thrawn, definitely.

Movies: Count Dooku. Unlike Palpy or Vader, he had style.

[RedImperator]

EU: Thrawn, definitely.

Movies: Count Dooku. Unlike Palpy or Vader, he had style.

Vader had plenty of style. "Bulldozer" is a style.

[Noble Ire]

EU: Thrawn, definitely.

Movies: Count Dooku. Unlike Palpy or Vader, he had style.

Vader had plenty of style. "Bulldozer" is a style.

And Palpatine had style. "Devious Bastard with a pool cue."

[Ender]

Warlord Zsinj. I don't know what it is, but a short, fat, balding socipoath who will be cracking jokes as he has you killed just appeals to me.

After that Darth Tyranus. I just like him.

[Thanas]

EU: Thrawn, definitely.

Movies: Count Dooku. Unlike Palpy or Vader, he had style.

Vader had plenty of style. "Bulldozer" is a style.

By style I mean "devious, well mannered, charismatic, killable villain", whose actor actually has a screen presence. Which rules out Vader.

Ian McDarmid actually did a fabulous job on Palpy, however I maintain that Dooku had more style.

[Thanas]

You make some good points Perinquus. I doubt anybody could write Thrawn as well as Zahn, or perhaps really at all.

Troy Denning.

[Vympel]

By style I mean "devious, well mannered, charismatic, killable villain", whose actor actually has a screen presence. Which rules out Vader.

You're saying David Prowse / James Earl Jones didn't have screen presence? Are you on crack? Or did you mean w x y and z plus screen presence?

[The Grim Squeaker]

Just about every character from the Kotor games was cool,
(even if some names (Nihilous) were as bad as general grievous)

[Stofsk]

When he is killed, it's by treachery, not because he was actually beaten.

I remember thinking that the battle between the Rebels and Thrawn at the end of "The Last Command" wasn't cut and dry, and I don't know if Thrawn would have won it - I actually got the impression that the Empire was outnumbered (because Ackbar could spare several assault frigates to take out a battlestation, which Thrawn couldn't do anything against - it's a bit hard to not notice several mainline capships withdraw from battle and go against the asset you were defending, and if you can't stop them... says a lot about the disposition of your forces compared to the other guy's, in my opinion).

So yes, he was killed due to treachery, but here's the thing; at the same time as the Battle of Bilbringi was taking place, the Mount Tantiss installation was in the middle of being destroyed by Luke and his compatriots. (well, Lando was the guy who set the charges, Luke was busy with C'baoth) So even if Thrawn had won at Bilbringi, he in fact would have lost the war. And I don't think his victory was assured in that Battle anyway.

What really irritated me about is that the means he supposedly used to so infallibly predict his opponents' moves. Sorry, but the idea that you can practically read an enemy's mind after studying his culture's art is just silly.

What irritates me is the Thrawn fanwhores who consider Thrawn to be undefeatable (I'm not talking about you, since you don't actually like Thrawn, I'm talking about the people who think Thrawn was the Best Grand Admiral Ever... which completely ignores the books). He isn't unfallible, he isn't undefeatable. He loses in the end. Quite shockingly, indeed, and due to strategic oversights. To Thrawn's credit, on the eve of battle he recognised Mount Tantiss' strategic vulnerability, and he was ready to disperse the Spaati cylinders to multiple locations as a means in which to prevent a catastrophe... too little, too late unfortunately.

Personally I like Thrawn because of his flaws, not despite them. I don't think he's this guy who will always win a fight. I think he's a guy who thinks he will always win a fight, and there's a subtle difference. Namely, Thrawn's weakness is his own overconfidence.

[Lonestar]

Warlord Zsinj. I don't know what it is, but a short, fat, balding socipoath who will be cracking jokes as he has you killed just appeals to me.

.

Reminds you of your LCPO?

[Thanas]

By style I mean "devious, well mannered, charismatic, killable villain", whose actor actually has a screen presence. Which rules out Vader.

You're saying David Prowse / James Earl Jones didn't have screen presence? Are you on crack? Or did you mean w x y and z plus screen presence?

I'm saying Hayden Christensen hasn't got a screen presence. And actually, I meant wxy and z plus a screen presence.

[Thanas]

When he is killed, it's by treachery, not because he was actually beaten.

I remember thinking that the battle between the Rebels and Thrawn at the end of "The Last Command" wasn't cut and dry, and I don't know if Thrawn would have won it - I actually got the impression that the Empire was outnumbered (because Ackbar could spare several assault frigates to take out a battlestation, which Thrawn couldn't do anything against - it's a bit hard to not notice several mainline capships withdraw from battle and go against the asset you were defending, and if you can't stop them... says a lot about the disposition of your forces compared to the other guy's, in my opinion).

I don't think so. TLC doesn't give us a lot to work with, however X-Wing Isards revenge gives us Corran's perspective:

..but he didn't want to kid himself about the chances that such an assault would force the empire to break of its attack on the rebel fleet. Thrawn might not like what we are doing, but he can deal with us later, when he's killed all the other ships

After Thrawn is killed an Peallaeon issues the retreat:

The imperial bowl, which had been contracting arount the rebel cone, was coming apart

This means that the Imperial formation was not breaking up because of the assault, and was quite happily pounding on the NR ships until then.
Later on, Ackbar confirms that the attack was not that dangerous to the Imp fleet:

Wedge: "I can't believe, though that our assault was what frightened Thrawn off"

to which Ackbar replies:

"It wasn't - which is not to diminish what you and your people did"

I therefore believe that Pellaeon lost his nerves, and the battle.