Star Wars: Rebels

[Adam Reynolds]

I haven't seen much of the show lately, so I won't comment on its portrayal of Thrawn specifically, but I do think Thrawn's prowess has been inflated over time in the minds of some fans. TTT Thrawn made mistakes, or lost battles because of events outside of his control. He underestimated the threat, and overestimated the loyalty, of the Noghiri. He failed to change the codes on those devices he stole from Lando, as I recall, which allowed one of his plans to be sabotaged. He vastly overestimated his ability to control C'baoth. He's good, but he's not infallible.

Edit: He's also got a mixed track record handling Jedi in general. Like I said, he couldn't ultimately contain C'baoth. And he couldn't stop Luke and Mara when they were on his own damn ship, if I'm remembering the trilogy correctly.

While he certainly made his share of mistakes, he at least won as much as he lost and adapted nicely to failure. While he was never portrayed as unstoppable, he was a serious threat based upon his actions rather than his reputation, which was nonexistent until later in the series. While Jedi were indeed his primary weakness, he was not actually defeated by them, he was defeated by his miscalculated trust in the Norghi. But what was also clever about that was that he was defeated by the one thing he could not determine, that Leia was Vader's daughter and that the Norghi could determine this by smell.

Part of the problem is that they made Thrawn an enemy too early in the development of the Rebel Alliance. At this stage, we know that he can't stop the Rebellion or do all that much damage to it, given that they ultimately build up enough to take on the Death Star and even overthrow the Empire. Given what we see in the post-ANH comics, it is also unlikely that Thrawn is alive and loyal to the Empire at that point.

Though the idea about him having a different motivation than the Empire is somewhat interesting.

Seems kind of obvious that Thrawn is letting them run so he can keep track of them until they lead him to a big group of rebels and he can swoop down and bag them all at once. It's the only thing that really fits.

The problem with that idea is that it means that his grand gambit absolutely has to fail, meaning that he will fail to accomplish anything at all. It is the problem with works of fiction always maximizing the stakes, meaning the bad guys are required to fail.

[Imperial Overlord]

It's not a failure if he totally defeats a major rebel offensive and some survivors get sprung when he's moved onto the next mission.

[NecronLord]

Quite. No one calls Rommel a bad general because people on the other side escaped from his victories and later fought in the war on the victorious side.

[Burak Gazan]

Quite. No one calls Rommel a bad general because people on the other side escaped from his victories and later fought in the war on the victorious side.

Excellent point. And it should be noted, that several of Rommel's junior officers went on to become extremely skilled Battalion and Regimental Commanders. Just because you on the 'wrong' side doesn't mean you aren't very very good at your job

[Lord Revan]

It really depends on how that final "defeat" happens if it's like Hoth where our heroes survive but in reality it was an imperial victory (just not a total victory), that's really not bad thing as it shows that Thrawn/Empire is dangerous while at same keeping our heroes alive.

[eMeM]

Seems kind of obvious that Thrawn is letting them run so he can keep track of them until they lead him to a big group of rebels and he can swoop down and bag them all at once. It's the only thing that really fits.

The problem with that idea is that it means that his grand gambit absolutely has to fail, meaning that he will fail to accomplish anything at all. It is the problem with works of fiction always maximizing the stakes, meaning the bad guys are required to fail.

But Thrawn lost in the old EU as well. Most of his victories was accompanied by a defeat and in the end his big gambit failed, he wasn't winning the Battle of Bilbringi when he got backstabbed.

Quite. No one calls Rommel a bad general because people on the other side escaped from his victories and later fought in the war on the victorious side.

Exactly, people call Rommel a bad general for different reasons, like the complete lack of understanding of the concepts such as "strategy" and "logistics".

[Elheru Aran]

Frankly the problem with Thrawn is he's gotten his reputation inflated to a ludicrous degree since TTT came out. That's as much the fault of the EU as it is fandom-- half the time he's mentioned it's along the lines of "Thrawn would've never been this dumb" or "a tactical gambit worthy of Thrawn" or whatever... he became a benchmark for tactical/strategic genius, when in fact he was simply another Imperial Grand Admiral. But he had the misfortune to appear in some of the earliest published EU material, and that became a point of reference for the rest of the EU.

[Dartzap]

What's with the irritating one week on, one week off thing?

[eMeM]

Dunno, Hidalgo said on twitter that "there's always a few gaps here and there every season".

[bilateralrope]

Frankly the problem with Thrawn is he's gotten his reputation inflated to a ludicrous degree since TTT came out. That's as much the fault of the EU as it is fandom-- half the time he's mentioned it's along the lines of "Thrawn would've never been this dumb" or "a tactical gambit worthy of Thrawn" or whatever... he became a benchmark for tactical/strategic genius, when in fact he was simply another Imperial Grand Admiral. But he had the misfortune to appear in some of the earliest published EU material, and that became a point of reference for the rest of the EU.

That sounds very similar to how the EU/fandom wanked out Boba Fett and the Mandolarians.

[Elheru Aran]

Frankly the problem with Thrawn is he's gotten his reputation inflated to a ludicrous degree since TTT came out. That's as much the fault of the EU as it is fandom-- half the time he's mentioned it's along the lines of "Thrawn would've never been this dumb" or "a tactical gambit worthy of Thrawn" or whatever... he became a benchmark for tactical/strategic genius, when in fact he was simply another Imperial Grand Admiral. But he had the misfortune to appear in some of the earliest published EU material, and that became a point of reference for the rest of the EU.

That sounds very similar to how the EU/fandom wanked out Boba Fett and the Mandolarians.

Pretty much the exact same phenomenon, yeah. Fett appears in all of four or five scenes, and in the majority of them he just stands around. The extent of his 'action' is popping off a few pot-shots at Luke and jetting about uselessly at the Pit of Carkoon. He could've got Luke with the rope-- probably borrowed that trick from Jango-- but apart from that? He wasn't *that* impressive. And then the EU... went slightly nuts. Mostly the comics. To a lesser extent, his rare appearances in stories and novels. Then Jango showed up, and he was a bit more impressive, but then Travissty had to get involved...

[Imperial Overlord]

Boba Fett is impressive in Empire. He's the guy Darth Vader speaks to with respect while treating other people like trash and leaving their bodies sprawled on the floor. He's the dude who manages to track down Solo so Vader can have him, have Vader take his concerns seriously, get paid twice for the same job, notice Luke Skywalker sneaking up on him and thwart Skywalker's rescue attempt. He gets bullhshit fan wanked up to godlike prowess, but the core of "very good at his fucking job and a dude so dangerous Vader has to tell him to chill" is there. ADB has a section on his blog where he explains why Captain Phasma is no Boba Fett where he goes into detail on why Boba is indeed such a badass. https://aarondembskibowden.wordpress.com/page/2/

Thrawn's the same deal. Both are highly capable individuals in their original appearances, appropriate threats to the heroes. Both get fan wanked into godless prowess just like say Wolverine and its just as bullshit but they were original cool and capable characters. That's why the fans latched onto them and started inflating their prowess in the first place.

[eMeM]

Vader has to remind a "professional" bounty hunter that if he wants to capture someone alive disintegration is a bad choice, that doesn't paint Fett in a particularly positive light

[Imperial Overlord]

It means that Fett usually kills his targets and Vader really wants Solo alive.

[eMeM]

Yeah, because that's much simpler.

[Imperial Overlord]

Fett's a violent criminal who works for crimelords. No one, with the possible exception of Karen Traviss, is trying to convince us he's a good guy. He is, however, good enough at his job to find someone who is able to elude the Imperial military.

[bilateralrope]

It means that Fett usually kills his targets and Vader really wants Solo alive.

At best it tells me that Fett has a habit of killing targets when the bounty specifies 'alive'.

At worst, it suggests a lot of 'disintegrations' because Fett has a habit of claiming the money without killing or capturing the target.

[Imperial Overlord]

It tells us he's in the habit of killing his targets when he can get away with it and still get paid, but he's in the room with Vader because he can actually deliver. The fine details of the sleazy ways a violent professional criminal cuts corners and still manages to get paid aren't important. The fact is that he does deliver. Fett is good at what he does and we see that in Empire and the same thing applies to Thrawn. They are both competent opponents who are not invincible who then latter get wanked up to be awesome foes, but the core that attracts the fan boys is that they are competent antagonists. It's the same way Batman and Wolverine go from cool characters who are elevated into ridiculous demigods

[NecronLord]

Exactly, people call Rommel a bad general for different reasons, like the complete lack of understanding of the concepts such as "strategy" and "logistics".

Yes, very few historical personages are without flaw. And the comparison is deliberate, Thrawn is actually based on the Rommel Mythos of the Clean and Effective German General, he's also based on Robert E Lee, and no doubt if I'd used him as the example you'd give some snark about Lee.

Thrawn is coincidentally, exceedingly inept at both of these things. Thrawn did after all manage to lose to the New Republic because he could not seemingly be bothered using reinforcements from the Empire of the Hand, and was almost comically oblivious to the fact that the Empire still had the strength to crush the New Republic with ease, not under his command. If Thrawn had even the most basic grasp of Logistics he'd notice that 98% of the Imperial Navy had gone missing including all the heavy ships.

Though only one of these is Zahn's fault.

[Elheru Aran]

Zahn really seems to have drawn a *massive* blank on what resources the Empire really had available to it. It's fricking absurd, honestly.

I suppose a lot of that can be blamed on him using mostly WEG sources for his references, so a certain degree of minimalism was unavoidable. But really. Did he never sit down and work out what an Empire that could build a Death Star in four years-- bigger than the first one, even!-- could have to deploy against a revolution in its midst? Even taking into account losses from a galactic civil war... Thrawn being a formidable threat to the Republic with only a few Star Destroyers is simply ludicrous.

[RogueIce]

Zahn really seems to have drawn a *massive* blank on what resources the Empire really had available to it. It's fricking absurd, honestly.

I suppose a lot of that can be blamed on him using mostly WEG sources for his references, so a certain degree of minimalism was unavoidable. But really. Did he never sit down and work out what an Empire that could build a Death Star in four years-- bigger than the first one, even!-- could have to deploy against a revolution in its midst? Even taking into account losses from a galactic civil war... Thrawn being a formidable threat to the Republic with only a few Star Destroyers is simply ludicrous.

They were "evenly matched" at that point, and Zahn never went into that great of detail on the overall state of the War.

As far as the Big Ships from DE and such, that is pretty much because he used WEG sources (an ISD being the "most powerful ship" when one went up at the Katana Skirmish). But he's hardly the only one to have gone with that assumption, as well as the whole SSD being super-rare thing.

Of course, given the "entire Rebel Fleet" at Endor had only a handful of ships in the ISD weight range, while the Empire had entire blobs of ISDs, why should he assume they even needed larger ships than those in any significant number?

[Elheru Aran]

I suppose. Largely, I'm mainly just frustrated that the logical extrapolations from canon hadn't quite permeated what little EU there was at that point. Twenty (or is it thirty?) years down the road, it's a much bigger universe, yet by comparison TTT tries to draw the belt tight.

[NecronLord]

Zahn really seems to have drawn a *massive* blank on what resources the Empire really had available to it. It's fricking absurd, honestly.

I suppose a lot of that can be blamed on him using mostly WEG sources for his references, so a certain degree of minimalism was unavoidable. But really. Did he never sit down and work out what an Empire that could build a Death Star in four years-- bigger than the first one, even!-- could have to deploy against a revolution in its midst? Even taking into account losses from a galactic civil war... Thrawn being a formidable threat to the Republic with only a few Star Destroyers is simply ludicrous.

Even Zahn later wrote that Thrawn had another whole empire sitting there.

Imagine if Lucas later said that Yoda could have cast the Excellent Prismatic Spray (a massively lethal spell from the Jack Vance books) at any time and just didn't bother when fighting Palpatine. It'd make him a retroactive idiot.

The Empire of the Hand was just sitting there, waiting for orders from Thrawn throughout his campaigns. Thrawn could have called on them to send a force any time he pleased but never bothered. Two hundred fifty sectors standing idle.

Thrawn does not understand strategy. Thrawn's understanding of strategy is worse than Joffrey Lannister.

[Crazedwraith]

I suppose. Largely, I'm mainly just frustrated that the logical extrapolations from canon hadn't quite permeated what little EU there was at that point. Twenty (or is it thirty?) years down the road, it's a much bigger universe, yet by comparison TTT tries to draw the belt tight.

The question is: why does it matter?

Close your eyes and pretend every time a number of ships is mentioned the word 'hundred' or 'thousand' is written after it.

Does it make the story better?

[Crossroads Inc.]

IS it sad that I want to say yes?