I see him as an antagonist. I don’t think his intentions, as shown in the Thrawn Trilogy and company, which is canon, can be boiled down to the title of villain. Is he a “villain” to the Rebels and Ahsoka? Yes. But I think it’s all about what perspective they’re telling the story from (which presumably, is Ahsoka’s perspective, so I suppose it makes sense here). In the Thrawn Trilogy and Co. it’s a story about Thrawn, so his intentions are explained, his actions have a motive, etcetera. But in Rebels he’s simply an imperial, a villain to them — and we don’t see much, if any, of his motives being explored as they are in the novels. Don’t get me wrong, I love both iterations of Thrawn, but I can’t break him down to the sum of his parts and call him a ‘villain’.
Ok, I understand. Thanks for explaining. (I never watched Rebels so my opinion is only based on novels.)
It is nitpicking for sure, but I see an “antagonist” as someone who has opposite goals from his opponents but is not necessarily morally corrupt or doing evil, while “villain” does immoral things regardless of the point of view of his opponents.
And while I certainly love Thrawn as a character and have moments when I genuinely feel sorry for him and want to protect him from everyone (he sitting alone at the table as a cadet and no family there to support him breaks my heart) I see him ready to do genuinely evil things.
He’s certainly not like the Emperor, evil in a selfish and self-absorbed way, but I still don’t see his reasons as an excuse for what he does. Am I making any sense?
He sees non-Chiss as assets, not people.
He avoids collateral damage but is fully ready to kill as many innocent non-Chiss civilians if it suits his goals.
He joined a dictatorship, supported it by climbing to the highest military rank there was, cooperated with Vader and Arhinda fully knowing what they did, manipulated his human friends to help the Chiss, promoted slavery:
So, even if he’s always working selflessly for the Chiss, not for his own personal gain, I still can’t see him caring only about Chiss lives and being ready to commit genocide or bring into slavery everyone else, as anything short of evil.
Thus, the villain.
Not to mention that his arrogance and inability to listen to others brought the biggest evil to the Chiss - Qilori figuring out sky-walkers were children and giving that information to Grysks which was what they needed to tear the Ascendancy apart.
(I love blabbering about Thrawn, if this wall of text is too much feel free to ignore it, it’s just my opinion).
The Chiss sent Thrawn out to get some milk thinking he’d be back in a year tops and a decade later they get a call, like, “Yeah so I run all the grocery stores in this sector now. Btw can you look after my favorite bag boy? K thnx miss you kiss kiss.” Perfection.
You know, I don’t think I’ve seen any fandom hate the target of their fanning like the Thrawn fandom. And I don’t mean comments like “you magnificent bastard, you!” (because if there’s anyone deserving of the moniker, it’s Thrawn, lol) I mean things like “he’s an arrogant piece of crap and deserves to be mocked” or “I hope Filoni humiliates him” or “he’s a moron and I hate him.”
I think part of what’s happening is that he’s a morally complex character in a time where moral nuance is deeply unpopular. People see the world in terms of heroes and villains. Good and evil. Luke Skywalker and Emperor Palpatine. There’s no space for someone who isn’t exactly good but isn’t entirely evil, either (which is not only more reflective of how human beings actually work, but was the entire POINT of Thrawn in the first place, lol). He works for the empire? He’s evil. 100%. His reasons for doing what he does don’t matter, he’s scum.
That and people really just don’t “get” him. It makes sense—within Jungian typology he’s the archetypal INTJ, leading with subjective, seeminingly mystical and otherworldly visions/ideals only he understands; he uses impersonal and unfeeling logic as his main tool; he refuses or is unable to understand/acquiesce to societal pressure; and his emotions, motives, and values are very private. I suppose it’s no surprise, then, that fans gravitate toward conventional, familiar, “safe,” ISTJ Everyman characters like Eli and Samakro. Even if they share Thrawn’s values, even if they ALSO work for authoritarian regimes, the ever-important S groundedness is going to make their motives make more “sense” to most readers (hence their placement as audience surrogates).
And lastly there’s also the assertion that he’s “just a male power fantasy” for “obnoxious nerds,” as though there aren’t women (like myself) who find him inspiring, too.
The bit about Eli and Samakro sharing his values is the part that really made me go !!!! These two are, personality-wise, very conservative characters. It takes a lot of coaxing to get them to accept the new and unusual; they’re not naturally open-minded. But they are very grounded in their feelings, especially anger and outrage, which makes them more relatable for a lot of people. Thrawn is more open-minded and curious by nature, and a lot more flexible/tolerant than other Chiss, but at the same time his emotions are opaque; he’s never going to vocalize it when he feels outraged or saddened. It makes him harder to grasp, intentionally; and on top of that his emotions are always filtered through the lens of a supporting character who might not understand him fully or at all — Ronan’s POV on Thrawn is very different from Faro’s; Pellaeon’s is different from Car’das’; Samakro’s is different from Ar’alani’s. The reader has to comb through all these different perspective and set aside the POV character’s interpretation to find their own. And there’s an additional layer when you listen to the audiobooks; now you, the reader, have to deal with Samakro’s judgments of Thrawn, and you also don’t get to decide Thrawn’s tone, which is a big part of the fun. Marc Thompson decides the tone for you. He tells you unequivocally, with his acting, that Thrawn’s tone was condescending here, soft there, amused or cruel or friendly, etc — when on your own, you might have interpreted his words in a totally different way.
ok but like. As a neurodivergent, I absolutely and unabashedly identified with Thrawn way more than with Eli or Samakro. Don’t get me wrong, I love those characters … but if anything, I found it frustrating that it would take them so long or it would take so much convincing to get either of them to see things Thrawn’s way.
Thrawn just processes a bunch of information in record time and finds how things fit together before the others have even opened up the box of puzzle pieces. He’s dedicated a tab in his brain to all possibilities before deciding on the best one, and then has to wait for everyone else to catch up. How many of us have also suffered through that? The moments in Lesser Evil when Thrass realizes that Thrawn is disappointed because no one else around him can see things like he does is just so so relatable.
You know what? I’m GLAD he’s a protagonist who makes Disney too much money to be thrown away on punishment for being “evil”. I’m glad he’s got plot armor. I’m glad people are going to have to be confronted with a popular morally gray character more and more, especially with a live action role. I only hope that Filoni doesn’t mute Thrawn into being a simple adversary for Ezra et al. We deserve our on-the-spectrum protagonist with his moral ambiguity to be a popular character.
I love Thrawn as a character. I read all the books again and again, and I empathize greatly with his inability to fit in. His competence is so much fun and I feel sad when his slapped in the face with things he will never be able to understand let alone be competent in.
But I don’t understand how people can think someone who
actively engages in enslavement and supports slavery
doesn’t see other species as people but only as assets
is totally ok with wiping out whole planets of innocent people to protect his own
is totally ok with joining forces with people like Arhinda and Vader to get what he wants
wants dictatorship and authoritarian regime
is just morally gray. That’s not grey. That’s not morally complex. That’s not moral nuance. That is evil.
He’s just justifying evil by believing he’s doing it for a greater cause, justifying means with an end, which isn’t even that great of an end because caring only for your people and seeing EVERYONE else as lacking personhood is the equivalent of worse of the worst racism.
Yeah, Thrawn is not selfish in a way Palpatine and Vader are, but serving the Empire because he thinks it will protect his people is no excuse.
Justifying Thrawn’s actions because he’s doing it to protect the Chiss while breaking all their rules and ignoring their wishes is just like justifying Anakin because he’s doing it to protect Padme, also against her wishes.
Every person who is not a Chiss is a tool for him. Even Eli. And to bring home just how wrong this is, Zahn wrote it so that using Qilori as a tool, brought the Ascendancy down to its knees and exposed their biggest weakness. It’s Thrawn’s fault Grysk learned about sky-walkers and are tearing the Ascendancy apart.
So he’s not even succeeding in protecting his own people.
I would love to see Thrawn get a redemption arc, but for now he is what he is. Evil.
Just thinking about how the end of Lesser Evil re-contextualizes Thrawn and Ar'alani meeting up in Treason. Like they’ve obviously communicated since he was “exiled” as she knew Eli was coming, but this may be the first time they’ve been face-to-face in like 17 years. And when he left, he said he’d only be gone a year…
And I do not go back with Admiral Ar'lani when she asks me in Treason. I was not done.
