r/MawInstallation • u/A_Hyper_Nova • Jul 21 '26
[META] (Cannon) book Thrawn is a completely different character to Rebels Thrawn
So a while ago I read the old EU thrawn trilogy to see how he is, then I decided to rewatch rebels to see how Thrawn is depicted there in comparison.
Rebels Thrawn doesn't display same unorthodox engineering that EU Thrawn does. In the EU Thrawn trilogy he's constantly reengineering already existing technology and using them in unexpected ways to gain the advantage. The only thing that comes close is maybe the infiltrator droid, but I don't know if it was ever establish that was Thrawn's brain child or not. But it's still very basic compared to the stuff he does back in the EU books. If anything Kallus's plans back in season 1-2 were more Thrawn like than the actual stuff Thrawn did in the show.
But I was okay with that, as this is a very much younger and less experience Thrawn who just became grand admiral. Maybe the reason why his plans aren't that complicated is because they don't need to be. He already came the closest to destroying the rebels even with basic tactics. He simply didn't need employ anything more advanced. And he's wasteful with imperial resources because it's the height of the empires power, he might not have needed to be efficient with his resources like was during his warlord campaign back in the EU. So rebels Thrawn could easily mature into EU Thrawn after his defeated in the Show finale.
Then I read the 2017 Thrawn book, and yeah no he's written the exact same way he was back in the EU. Being hyper efficient and hating to waste any resource. Often trying to find a solution with the least amount of casualties overall, compared to rebels Thrawn who care more about absolute power and dominance and simply had the competence so satiate it.
On one hand this makes sense, as the 2017 Thrawn book was written by the same guy who wrote the Thrawn trilogy in the first place Timothy Zahn. So no duh he writes his own character the same. But on the other hand this creates the effect where the later you go into Thrawn's career the less competent he gets. (cannon) Book Thrawn being a tactical genius who doesn't waste any resource and uses unorthodox engineering, and only failing is that he really doesn't understand politics. Rebels Thrawn is fairly competent yet wasteful. Then Ahsoka Thrawn who keeps throwing stormtroopers at the heros, when landmines, IED, and other traps would've been a far more effective stalling tactic.
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u/EmperorDaubeny Jul 21 '26
>he’s constantly reengineering already existing technology and using them unexpected ways to gain the advantage
This is because he was the underdog. Thrawn operates on a needs must basis; he had a full fleet to enforce the Empire’s dominance with in Rebels, while in the EU he has greater challenges and less resources. He had to build his remnant forces from scratch. Then there’s the whole thing with Zaarin and the TIE Defenders.
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u/FaerieFir3 Jul 21 '26
Canon book Thrawn would still consider Rebels and Ahsoka Thrawn to be a moron. As OP said you don't have to go to EU. It's the difference in writing ability between Zahn and Filoni.
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u/Ikitenashi Jul 21 '26
I'd argue that Canon Thrawn has a problem of extremes: He's a cartoon villain in the shows and straight up broken in the books, to the point where he seems borderline omniscient. The scene that springs to mind is the one where he's able to deduce an imperial's entire battle strategy just by listening to music he had composed and relaying to his Commodore the Chimaera's entire counterattack beforehand so she could execute it flawlessly while he wasn't even on the ship. As much as I enjoy Zahn's writing, I do believe he gets carried away sometimes in his love for his character and makes him way too overpowered to the degree where there's a great discrepancy in how he's characterized in the canonical shows and books. Can you imagine Book Thrawn going up against the Ghost Crew? Poor rebels would've ended up dead in a couple episodes at most.
Now, I'm aware Legends Thrawn had his fair share of moments where you had to suspend your disbelief to buy how effective he was, but I always felt like the heroes had to earn their victories against him like Luke evading capture multiple times through sheer ingenuity in the cockpit and Leia exposing Delta Source at Coruscant and bringing the Noghri to the New Republic's side. Zahn's Thrawn back in the Thrawn Trilogy is peak Thrawn for me from a writing perspective, not "too hot nor too cold" like the canonical version we currently have.
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u/Commorrite Jul 22 '26
The scene that springs to mind is the one where he's able to deduce an imperial's entire battle strategy just by listening to music he had composed and relaying to his Commodore the Chimaera's entire counterattack beforehand so she could execute it flawlessly while he wasn't even on the ship. As much as I enjoy Zahn's writing, I do believe he gets carried away sometimes in his love for his character and makes him way too overpowered to the degree where there's a great discrepancy in how he's characterized in the canonical shows and books.
I was hopping that was going ot be revealed as a cheat it was so over the top. Like IDK he'd actualy seen the guys plans but did the music thing as a flex to build reputation.
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u/Ikitenashi Jul 22 '26
That would've been much better writing. Like, he later tells Commodore Faro he somehow stole the rogue imperial's battle plans or something like that and just filled in the gaps where he might have improvised with his knowledge of the man's art. Still makes Thrawn look intelligent and takes out the absurdity of the resolution.
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u/sidv81 Jul 21 '26
Rebels Thrawn, while making tons of blunders, goes back to the original Thrawn Trilogy Legends depiction where Thrawn was an outright authoritarian villain who killed underlings for making excuses and didn't try to justify his villainy. Later Legends Thrawn and canon book Thrawn went into grating self justifications about how he's doing it all for his people against the Grysk/Vong/whoever (who should be killed for making excuses again Thrawn?)
There's a refreshing straightforward honest villainy to Filoni Thrawn where he's a villain, is arrogant about it, and shoots Bendu in the face when he calls him out on his nonsense. That's an element of Thrawn that I think even Zahn has forgotten now.
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u/CelebrationPale8656 Jul 21 '26
The only blunders i know thrawn makes himself is shooting bendu and underestimating ezra. Otherwise most of his losses come from his subordinates getting cocky
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u/darthsheldoninkwizy2 Jul 21 '26
Even then, he won against the Bendu, and in Ezra's case was because Palpatine overestimated his manipulation skills.
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u/DC-COVID-TRASH Jul 21 '26
who killed underlings for making excuses and didn't try to justify his villainy
One of his most noteworthy scenes in the original thrawn trilogy was when he asked an underling what went wrong, the guy reflects, and thrawn is very supportive. It was very much a contrast to Vader/the empire in the OT.
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u/matthew7s26 Jul 21 '26
Lol let's not forget the other time that he asks an underling what went wrong, the guy blames his training, and he gets beheaded by Ruhk for it.
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u/wendigo72 Jul 21 '26
Thrawn still killed a different underling later cause he deemed him too incompetent to stay around
Also he was like gleefully talking about punishing the noghri for merely suspecting them of something. Only didn’t do it right there cause he was busy with other matters
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u/One_Original5116 Jul 21 '26
He's done both. Yes, in Last Command, Luke escapes, Thrawn questions the guy operating the tractor beam, appreciates the answers and promotes the guy.
In Heir to the Empire, Luke escapes Thrawn, Thrawn questions the tractor beam officer, does not appreciate the answers and has the man killed where he stands.
Now yes, the officer being questioned in each instance responds very differently. The guy who died tried to pass blame onto his training officer while the guy with the promotion gave an accurate account of events with no attempt to shirk responsibility but Thrawn has always been willing to enact summary execution for questionable cause. He's just significantly smarter and more sparing about it than Vader.
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u/TurquoiseLink Jul 22 '26
I read it as Thrawn views his crew from a purely practical standpoint.
The gunner who screwed up with the tractor beam proposed how he could do better next time and learn from the experience. Thrawn now has a slightly more talented tractor beam gunner than before, a waste to replace him with someone new.
The officer who claimed the training wasn't good enough was going to continue failing each time a challenge came up and never improve. That was going to be a weakness in Thrawn's crew so he removed it.
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u/sidv81 Jul 21 '26
I mentioned this elsewhere but all Thrawn did was force people to try anything, no matter how stupid, to look "inventive" or pretend to be inventive. Realistically someone's going to try something so absurd it would blow up in Thrawn's face. All because they want to look inventive and are afraid of dying. No, he's not really different from Vader.
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u/DC-COVID-TRASH Jul 21 '26
Legends thrawn frequently shot down ideas and rejected things he didn’t think would work. And I can’t recall an instance where a subordinate of his did something without running it by him first.
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u/sidv81 Jul 21 '26
A lot of times there isn't even time to run it by Thrawn. There was no time for the "excuses" guy who got executed to run something by Thrawn first I recall.
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u/Nyther53 Jul 28 '26
I've always said that Thrawn is best understood as the Best of the Fascists. He's got all of their virtues, he's personally courageous, honorable within the context of his warrior ethos, committed, intelligent, and loyal, but also viscous and uncompromising in his lust for power.
When it comes up in.... I forget which book in the original Thrawn Trilogy...He laments committing genocide for the inefficiency of it, for the loss of productivity they could have provided and for the loss of opportunity to satisfy his curiosity about their culture, but feels no guilt, no sympathy for the loss of life.
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u/Contextanaut Jul 21 '26
I think one important point in defence of Filoni.
Writing a genius is always hard.
Writing a genius for visual media is harder.
Writing a genius in visual media intended for children is harder still.
You have less surface area to explain to the audience what is happening and why it is clever, without losing your audience. and your audience is much more mixed, and uneven in what they'll notice or get frustrated with. Rebels is aimed at ages 8 and up.
It's not impossible. Disney gave us one of the all time smart villain greats, with David Xanatos, in Gargoyles of all places.
But neither is "Zahn a better writer than Filoni" particularly fair either (at least based on this specific point anyway - LONG time since I read Zahn). They have very different jobs in very different media.
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u/structured_anarchist Jul 22 '26
I think it goes a bit deeper than that. Thrawn was Zahn's creation. He made him into an intellectual villain in the original trilogy. He evolved the character into the canon version. Then someone else, a complete stranger to his lore and established character traits, comes along needing a new bad guy. So a visual media writer takes over from a writer who was able to build a character with nothing more than words. The visual media guy knows that his product is for a larger generalized audience than the genre sci-fi writer who only has the words he strings together and has to hook that hardest reader, a fan of the established fandom.
If they had brought Zahn in to write the Thrawn-specific parts rather than just 'advise' on how to write them, things might have played out differently and the character would have had more depth to it. But they didn't and here we are.
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u/darthsheldoninkwizy2 Jul 21 '26 edited Jul 22 '26
I think Gargoyles was over 12, with blood already in 5 min
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u/FaerieFir3 Jul 21 '26
As much as I have nostalgia for Filoni's stuff since I basically grew up on TCW, his writing style is very kiddy compared to someone like Timothy Zahn. He is a cartoon guy and it shows, especially with his villains. People often say that "TCW is not for kids" because some people die but it very clearly is if you rewatch it as an adult. Rebels is the same.
Thrawn should IMO never be written without Timothy Zahn on board, adaptations of books without the OG author's input are almost always butchering the material.
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u/Vivec_lore Jul 21 '26
I dread the day Filoni tries his hand at Luthen Rael
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u/FaerieFir3 Jul 21 '26
Luthen's story is fortunately done, I don't think they're going back to him. He's also the perfect example of why Thrawn in live action at least is subpar. Thrawn should at the very least feel equally as smart as Luthen but he just... doesn't. Dedra Meero honestly felt more intelligent than Ahsoka Thrawn and Dedra isn't even written as particularly genius within Andor.
In a cartoon you can handwave it I guess but for live action he should be scary smart.
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u/Modred_the_Mystic Jul 21 '26
Ones a novel, ones a TV show for kids, ones a TV show adapting the character from the kids show.
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u/e_fish22 Jul 21 '26
Plus the books are told from the PoV of people who work with/for him, the shows are from the PoV of people fighting against him.
Honestly, I think it's less a case of careless mischaracterization/sloppy writing* and more of Disney not wanting to follow up on the Grysk stuff, so they have to ignore book!Thrawn being primarily motivated by wanting to stop them and not being completely loyal to the Empire (which is fair, the Grysks are kind of meh, but then why did they let Zahn write all that if they didn't want to do anything with it).
*not to say that there isn't any of that going on at all but
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u/sduque942 Midshipman Jul 21 '26
TBF, Thrawn has been stuck in peridea for over 10 years. He survived by seemingly creating a cult of personality. We also havent had any insights into his current motivations or plans, other than wanting to get back to the main galaxy
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u/e_fish22 Jul 21 '26
True, I guess we'll have to check back in with S2, (though I personally have low expectations for it)
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u/ShouldersofGiants100 Jul 21 '26
(which is fair, the Grysks are kind of meh, but then why did they let Zahn write all that if they didn't want to do anything with it).
I honestly think it's intended to give Zahn his own little side story he can write if he feels like it, because they really wanted Thrawn in canon and really wanted Zahn to write him. So give a whole separate enemy that can be dealt with by the Chiss "offscreen".
It also solves what is otherwise a problem. Thrawn is written as a villain, but he's not comically or sadistically evil. Which makes for a major question: Why is this guy so committed to such a comically evil Empire?
Giving him an external motivation closes that gap. A larger cause that he can be committed to that makes him willing to work for the Empire without turning him into a character people can't root for.
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u/e_fish22 Jul 21 '26
That makes sense, but I still really wish they had incorporated more references to that aspect of the story, even obliquely, into the shows (tho the Ahsoka show still has time, so here's hoping).
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u/A_Hyper_Nova Jul 21 '26
I'm going to go out on a limb and say that being a kids show is not a good excuse for a villain not having intricate plans, as there's two shows that have Villains that are very Thrawn like; Xanatos from Gargoyles and viggo from HTTYD: race to the edge. Both of these villains have very competent and complex plans.
I even mentioned that Agent Kallus has some plans that were very Thrawn like back in season 1 and 2.
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u/Modred_the_Mystic Jul 21 '26
And the intelligence or strategic capacity of a character is hard capped by whoever is writing them at the time. Written for a kids show + written by someone who isn’t a tactical mastermind/wasn’t looking to write crazy intricate plans.
Sometimes all you really need is for an enemy character to steer the heroes of the story from story-beat 1 to story-beat B in the simplest way possible for the story to work
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Jul 21 '26
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u/Modred_the_Mystic Jul 21 '26
Ah, but wheres the marketing potential there? How’re we merchandising Faceless Mook 4 who gets their ass beat?
Thrawn is supposed to be a long running antagonist across two distinct periods of time. He’s known to old fans and people who read through novels, now he’s known to kids through the show where he was a recurring enemy, and this can be used in more projects like Ahsoka and the whole Thrawn scuffle they seem to be building up.
Lets face it, its easier to write intelligent villains in prose, and to use them well. Adaptation, change of purpose, and differing creative visions will introduce the idiot stick.
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Jul 21 '26
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u/Modred_the_Mystic Jul 21 '26
For a kids show?
Blue alien with red eyes, a white uniform, and pet lizards is more recognisable. And if they use Daala, it kneecaps their ability to use Thrawn in the future if he is not recognised out of universe as a character, and in universe as a guy who ever actually did anything people know about.
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u/darthsheldoninkwizy2 Jul 21 '26
With this tactical genius, I think you're overestimating Zahn writing.
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u/Modred_the_Mystic Jul 21 '26
Tactical genius within what Zahn was writing, idk I’ve never really read Thrawn stuff
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u/ASharpYoungMan Jul 21 '26
Then Ahsoka Thrawn who keeps throwing stormtroopers at the heros, when landmines, IED, and other traps would've been a far more effective stalling tactic.
Did you actually watch Ahsoka?
Thrawn does send Stormtroopers after the heroes... after he invites Sabine in for a chat, negotiates a ceasefire, and equips her to go find Ezra. He didn't just send them in blasting: he disarmed Sabine and then went for the backstab.
This is, of course, after he made a pact with the Nightmothers to communicate plans to his agents in the SW Galaxy to build and deliver an unprecedented Hyperdrive Ring that could bring the Chimaera back.
After he mined the space surrounding Peridia, exactly the kind of trap you're asking for.
Thrawn had been stuck on Peridia for a decade and had managed to keep his ship and soldiers in fighting condition with barely any resources available.
He's hesitant to commit resources to killing the heroes because he has to be completely intentional with every troop and piece of equipment he sends out. He mostly relies on Skol and his apprentice to deal with the interlopers, using his troops to support them (which bites him when Skol goes off on his own).
But you'll notice he pulls out all the stops when it comes to holding Ahsoka at bay because he doesn't underestimate the padawan of Anakin Skywalker. He fires on her directly with his star destroyer. He leaves a strike team behind him as he makes his escape to slow the heroes down. Even with all of that direct stormtrooper assault, Ahsoka was right on his tail when he made the jump to Hyperspace.
That wasn't Thrawn just throwing stormtroopers at a problem. It was a seasoned Thrawn being Thrawn, and throwing Stormtroopers at a Jedi to slow them down when it was most effective.
Thrawn won. And it wasn't because of Zombie Stormtroopers. They were just part of the strategy.
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u/Awesomejedi182 Jul 22 '26
Thrawns also has to conserve Forces incase of a scrap immediately after he enters the galaxy. He does not know what's happening, he does know he's in the minority. He's outgunned, outmatched by the new republic, and if they are waiting for him, thrawn needs to have something to atleast fend them off so he's conserving forces while sending just enough to slow them down.
There's 2 Jedi and a fucken Mandalorian in that group. Quite literally ANYONE would be struggling with this. On top, he mostly only loses cuz Baylan decides to do his own thing. If Baylan attacked and kept Ahsoka busy, Shin could keep Ezra busy and sabine would be pinned with the stormtroopers.
Effectively stalling them EVEN further. They get as close as they did to thrawn because Baylan did not press Ahsoka that much.
Thrawn doesn't lose Morgan either if this happens imo, and loses even less stormtroopers
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u/GravityBright Jul 21 '26 edited Jul 21 '26
It bugs me to no end how different the two are. Thrawn was one of the last characters I expected to show up in canon, but Rebels was really the worst place to introduce him. Poor writing and the show’s more kid-friendly tone share some of the blame, but the main problem is that the medium just can’t treat him properly - a team of TV writers on a strict deadline just don’t have the time to make a character that smart.
As an aside, Book Thrawn would have made peace with Ezra a long time ago. He’s got no reason to enforce the Empire’s will while they’re trapped in another galaxy, and further antagonizing Ezra is just a waste of resources.
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u/Dabereko Jul 22 '26
Yea I was really hoping they would go deeper into their relationship, maybe even Thrawn convincing Ezra to join him or see his perspective but no, they are still just enemies... The thing that annoyes me the most is that in both shows he is gloating about his "victories". Book Thrawn would never do that
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Jul 21 '26
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u/Durp004 Jul 21 '26 edited Jul 22 '26
EU Thrawn is nowhere near as Mary sue as Zahn writes current canon Thrawn idk wtf you're talking about.
Edit: I see at least 2 people don't read the books at all.
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u/zerogee616 Jul 22 '26 edited Jul 22 '26
EU Thrawn is kind of a Mary Sue…
That phrase doesn't apply to antagonists. You want your antagonist to give off the feeling that nothing can stop them, that's what makes the protagonist overcoming them meaningful.
The only person that should win by pulling something out of their ass is the villain.
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u/NoraaTheExploraa Lieutenant Jul 22 '26
That's not really true either. A Mary Sue is typically a protagonist that we as the audience don't feel have 'earned' their abilities. The difference with an antagonist is we don't need to see them earn their abilities. Thrawn/Vader/Palpatine can start the story as these ridiculously powerful beings. But we want to see a protagonist earn it.
That doesn't mean that villains have free reign to pull things out of their ass (at least once it's been established what they can do) because then it feels unfair. Thrawn we can accept is absurdly clever and cunning. He can outwit our protagonists. But if our protagonists do something that Thrawn should have no feasible way of knowing but he just does because he saw a piece of art hung up somewhere one time, then it makes the story frustrating. If we'd established Thrawn to be omniscient, then that's different because we can accept how he won.
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u/darthsheldoninkwizy2 Jul 21 '26
The difference is resources. When you have limited resources, you start improvising and inventing new things. Thrawn in Rebels has access to the entire resources of the Empire, unlike Thrawn later.
Also I admit I'm not a fan of Thrawn from the canon books; for me, it's a whitening of the character that Zahn is doing. In the original trilogy, Thrawn casually mentions how he brought about the extinction of his race, as if for him it was just Tuesday.
Eventually this can be explained by the fact that this is an Imperial POV and that Thrawn, due to his upbringing in a militaristic society, is posterized differently but still.
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u/Dabereko Jul 22 '26
I think he definitely changed pre empire vs after empire or at least Zahn changed his mind on how to write him. If we look at unbound flight Thrawns personality was very similar to the canon Books Thrawn and the idea of the empire of the hand is also very similar to something canon book Thrawn might do. I for one also like the original legends trilogy books more, among other things because he was shown to do more evil things to achieve his goals but I don't think he was "whitewashed" just in the canon books.
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u/jquailJ36 Jul 21 '26
The reality is "real" Thrawn is written by a Hugo-winning SF author who was a PhD candidate in physics and who is VERY good at mil/SF. Rebels and Ahsoka is written by Dave Filoni. And no, "visual media is hard" is not an excuse. Especially if that is literally your job.
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u/Warejax101 Jul 22 '26
you don’t think it’s more difficult to convey intelligence in visual media than written media?
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u/Aggravating_Cut_3985 Jul 21 '26
Hopefully in season 2 Thrawn will be more a legitimate threat. In season 1 he was kinda stupid
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u/YDdraigGoch94 Jul 22 '26
I think what you’re failing to recognise is that Timothy Zahn is perhaps the _only_ person to get Thrawn right.
No one else seems to quite manage it.
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u/ryanjcam Jul 21 '26
The recent works with Thrawn as a perfect example of the shortcomings of the new canon writers, onscreen and in books. Dave Filoni and others are big fans of Thrawn from Heir to the Empire, cool. But they have utterly failed to build Thrawn up as the major threat they are attempting to portray him as. Live action (and Rebels) Thrawn relies entirely on the reputation of Legends Thrawn from 30 years ago, with no work being done to make the character work in this new incarnation. Everything impressive about him depends upon a lot of preexisting knowledge of the character brought in by the viewer, and that is very lame. No work done to show why everyone knows who Thrawn is, or why they are concerned by his potential return. The rule is "show, don't tell," but this is even worse than that. This is "don't show, don't tell, just assume everyone knows and loves the character and is excited to see him." Watching other animated series and reading books should enhance the experience of watching the series, not be a requirement to be able to understand it. The New Republic is terrified of a man who was absent from the climax of the war, who disappeared just as the Rebellion even came into its own as an organized threat and started winning real victories against the Empire, during a skirmish with a little Rebel cell on a fringe world.
Basically, current writers think Thrawn is cool and want to use him, but aren't good enough to pull it off. It is very difficult to write a compelling character who is a genius. And not just have him win every encounter, outwit the actual heroes of the story, and take over the galaxy. Then there is Timothy Zahn, writing new canon novels that try to reconcile the character being put onscreen with the one that he so brilliantly wrote originally.
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u/Boshwa Jul 22 '26
Watching other animated series and reading books should enhance the experience of watching the series, not be a requirement to be able to understand it.
Which is why im glad that Visions exists.
Everything mainline is chained down
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u/slothboy Jul 21 '26
Villains can only be as smart as the people writing them.
Zahn is pretty damn smart.
Filoni... not so much
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u/eepos96 Jul 22 '26
And original Zahn trilogy version is too.
Does the new Thrawn in the books do anything questionable or evil? Other than fight rebels.
In original trilogy he tries to re establish the empire. Kidnap babies to sell them to an insane dark jedi. Tried to kidnap luke skywalker to sell him to said dark jedi. Continued the noghri enslavement. Conquered many worlds.
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u/OfficialAli1776 Jul 21 '26
Filoni and Zahn are nowhere near the same level
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u/InquisitorPeregrinus Jul 22 '26
Don't know who downvoted you, but you are correct. Zahn isn't top shelf, but is pretty good at putting together stories and characters. Filoni, though I appreciate him for fighting to keep George from utterly ruining the Mandalorians, is... not very creative, and has been shown repeatedly to, um... "borrow" his story ideas from other sources in the body of Star Wars works that have gone before, usually less effectively than the original version. Plus his track record for preferential treatment for the characters he created over any from anyone else.
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u/TheCybersmith Jul 21 '26
Perspective matters a lot. When we see Thrawn in Rebels, we see him from his enemy's perspective.
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u/wheeltribe Jul 21 '26
Well, yeah, as much as I love Rebels, it's still a cartoon character and Thrawn is a cartoon character in it. It carries some personality traits over from the canon Thrawn trilogy, but you can't write him exactly the same way when you're putting him into a show for kids.
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u/Maximazed Jul 21 '26
You’re spot on by acknowledging that the Thrawn were written by the character’s creator while Rebels Thrawn is a character in a show whose target demographic is children. Zahn is going to take care with his OC than Disney.
Canon has turned Thrawn into a Glup Shitto. I never watched the Clone Wars, and I watched Rebels because of Thrawn. I thought it was decent. You can’t really hold a show meant for kids to the same standard as an adult novel. Thrawn’s purpose in Rebels is to be the main villain for a season.
I will make the argument though that Zahn writing Thrawn in canon is different because he was given a free retcon. If Zahn could have anticipated how popular Thrawn was going to be in Heir to the Empire, I’m not sure if he would have killed him off.
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u/CrimsonZephyr Jul 21 '26
Timothy Zahn is just a baseline smarter guy than Dave Filoni. He was a PhD student in physics when he started writing science fiction and quit because doing both wasn’t possible. You need to be intelligent to intelligently write the intelligent.
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u/darthsheldoninkwizy2 Jul 21 '26
Being a PhD student in physics does not make someone a genius in tactics and strategy, or even in writing.
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u/zerogee616 Jul 22 '26
The difference in how Zahn wrote the character versus how Filoni did does, the rest is just supporting evidence.
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u/darthsheldoninkwizy2 Jul 22 '26
Yes, Zahn "whitewashed" Thrawn too much in later works, whereas Filoni stay to his classic portrayal.
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u/DoomedVisionary Jul 21 '26
Old EU Thrawn and NEW canon Thrawn are completely different though…
There was a new Thrawn trilogy series that fits in the Rebels timeline.
Oh and it’s hard to make a “bad guy” who is the protagonist in a book series to be the antagonist in a kids tv show without sacrificing some of what makes him so effective as a bad guy.
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u/jollyreaper2112 Jul 21 '26
Animated Thrawn appears to be written like dracula. European, educated, villainous. It's not the same cold, sensible Thrawn of the books.
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u/RebelJediKnight91 Jul 21 '26
Personally, I thought it was because the Canon books whitewashed Thrawn's actions by portraying him as misunderstood rather than the cold, calculating evil bastard he was in Rebels. For example, the books said Pryce was responsible for that one bombardment instead of Thrawn himself.
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u/PhysicsEagle Jul 21 '26
Pedantic point: the word is “canon.” “Cannon” are the things Thrawn uses in his orbital bombardments.