By the light of Lothal’s moons

anonymous-20-16:

Rebels Thrawn & canon books Thrawn aren’t the same

Here’s why:

Thrawn tries to give Nightswan (a thief, pirate) a CHANCE instead of just killing him like most Imperials would do, this was right after Nightswan attached the imperial head-on. (Thrawn #6)

Thrawn tries to give Grysks clients a CHANCE to take a different path. They’re incredibly dangerous creatures, but he didn’t just order the stormtroopers to kill them immediately even though no one would have blamed him, those creatures had attacked them and he would have been within reason for killing them but he didn’t.

-this happened both in alliances and treason. (i can’t find those pictures yet, but if you have read any Thrawn books you will know that this is a common pattern). Thrawn giving his enemies a chance happens many times over, it even happens during the prequel books.

He gives Admiral Savit a CHANCE after he committed treason, of stealing death star’s parts (delaying the process) and attracting their enemies the Grysks. Thrawn tried to reason with him, even Savit was surprised by that. below is a convo he has with ar'alani about giving savit a chance;

“So you’re convinced?” Ar’alani asked.

  Thrawn nodded. “I am.”

  “Yet you still intend to go through with it?”

  “He must be given the opportunity,” Thrawn said. “If he could be persuaded to join us, there would be no doubt about the outcome of the coming battle.”

  “And if he doesn’t?” Ar’alani persisted. “Do you really know him?”

  “I believe I know him well enough,” Thrawn said.“

These are just a few examples of the many, many instances where Thrawn chose to REASON with his enemies instead of just killing them, chose to work AROUND the problem instead of thinking that death solves everything. (books)

The point I’m trying to make is that Thrawn just firing on Lothal to prove a point to Ezra is so out of character for him, particularly when Ezra had already realized his mistake via Thrawn telling.

I felt like that moment was overkill, like ‘hey, look, Thrawn is such a bad guy that he chooses to fire on hundreds of unarmed civilians’ and was completely out of character for someone like Thrawn.

That scene where he tortures Hera and gloats.

since when- in what universe does Mith'raw'nuruodo gloats?! IN WHAT REALITY–

I know what your thinking, 'oh well timothy Zhan said that the show’s portrayal of Thrawn was good and he enjoyed it’ so that means they got him right.

But here’s the thing with that:

Disney owns everything. Including Thrawn.

so saying anything that is less is than enthusiasm would be getting them mad. They could easily just say 'Tim u can’t write any more Thrawn novels, he’s our property’ and that would be the end of it. so he isn’t going to get on their bad side. also, they wiped Thrawn of canon without a single thought before so…

Dave filoni said that Timothy had no creative input and that they owned the character and could do whatever they wanted.

However, that doesn’t mean you can’t like Rebels Thrawn. I loved him, the voice acting was on point. I got introduced to Thrawn via the Rebels series.

Also, this show canonized Thrawn, and thanks to it, we have new book series.

In conclusion, the Rebels version of Thrawn is different from the books. That’s all. You can like/love both. They’re different because they’re written by different writers. That’s all.

Long, TL;DR – just a different POV. Agree to disagree.

OUT OF CHARACTER:

1) This is a children’s cartoon for ~30 minutes (about 20 minutes), and points must be made quickly, unlike a book that can fully explain the story. The filmmakers choose to tell the story by dialogue, scenery, lighting, and several other ways that folks go to film school. Zahn did not go to film school. He can write dafuq outta a story, especially about Thrawn. But a full $400K+ episodic script with storyboarding and Unit Directors, camera angles and post-processing, and coordination of voice actors – no… That’s not in Zahn’s contract. It is against the Director’s Guild of America Union, and Disney Lucasfilm knows that fact. Disney Lucasfilm Limited owns the "Grand Admiral Thrawn” and “Mitth'raw'nuruodo” copyright and trademarks. not so much his likeness exactly (blue skin and red eyes), but his uniform. The name Thrawn is fair use… The book “Thrawn Janet” was written in the early 20th Century. Hey, can’t own “Admiral” because that’s household.

2) Hera and the gloating – ehhh. No one could say he wanted to stop the shocks and use the logical fallacy of appeal to emotion, but Hera was resistant to it, so he gave up. Does he condone torture? Perhaps. But he could not convince Hera to give the Rebel Alliance base, as fucked up as it was. The point had to be made for this show within 30 seconds to make him come off dickly not show his art prowess.

3) It was first written here: https://getthrawnin.tumblr.com/post/670586765941358592/to-all-those-who-say-i-intentionally-fired-on-the

One thing for sure, we speak to a shit ton of production crew and some of the writers that either confirm or deny when we ask YES/NO questions. We get answers from a few authors. Zahn is not a fan of that. He’s willing to give answers in person more than on social media, even if it’s a non-answer. Dave Filoni WILL answer questions DIRECTLY. Maybe he won’t DO what you thought for reasons, but Filoni ANSWERS questions DIRECTLY. He’s responded to SEVERAL of ours on The Clone Wars and a few on Star Wars Rebels. So take it with a grain of salt because it can ALL change.

For this firing on Lothal: Now think about it. Filoni wants fans to empathize with Thrawn even though he’s a “bad guy” (before saying he’s not, wait!). So, he has a hot new idea of a TIE Defender. And he created blueprints because he can do stuff. So he built it with no money, and it works just like he expected until you know Bridger and Sabine stole it…

ALL this AFTER Thrawn Alliances, where the Emperor was pissed off with Thrawn & somewhat with Darth Vader who wanted to choke Thrawn. But see, Darth Vader liked the TIE Defender and gave suggestions. Vader doesn’t do that. He did for Thrawn. Of course, Thrawn bitched Vader with that sky-walker precognition hyperspace thing. And IF Thrawn wanted to go hard, he could’ve killed Vader. But he didn’t. Thrawn tried to figure out if Vader use to be Anakin. Thrawn figured it out but found it odd.

So Thrawn goes and builds his TIE Defender, has Vult Skerris test it, and you know the rest.

THEN Grand Moff Tarkin says Krennic is about to steal Thrawn’s money for the Defender, and Thrawn has to justify it to the Emperor. EVEN THOUGH THRAWN WOULD NEVER SHOW HIS RAGE - Thrawn was pissed off by that. If it was in his head, Emperor Palpatine would’ve sensed it – maybe that’s why he did this wild goose chase after why there’s a “supply chain” breakdown to Stardust which EVERY HIGH COMMAND IMPERIAL in the “know” was pissed off about cost overruns. Thrawn was just caught up in the middle of it and eventually didn’t do what he agreed to do. He was ONLY given 2 weeks. And for Thrawn to figure this out in 2 weeks was INSANELY FAST in Thrawn Treason.

Giving Savit a chance is just Thrawn not fucking him over for you know let’s just Thrawn likes to watch – err – study – yeah…cos you know the Emperor and Vader would choke, slice and dice. Savit is LUCKY he got an IMPERIAL Tribunal.

But Thrawn didn’t get his money, and you know he’s salty about that. Then his boy Rukh tells him his fuel depot is destroyed because

he knows Kanan completed the Rebels’ mission even though he lost his life. Pryce is GLOATING with a celebration thinking that giving Thrawn Kanan’s lightsaber is something that only pisses Thrawn off further. And it’s only then we see some irritated rage from Thrawn, and it scared the shit out of Pryce (a callback to the difference between an ERROR and a MISTAKE).

There are other Real Life equivalent ideas, but I won’t go there.

So once he gets into the atmosphere, it takes all the calmness in the world from Thrawn to not just go in and drop bombs because he promised the Emperor to bring Bridger to whatever that rebuilt thing in his hangar.

Here’s the thing after speaking to quite a few US veterans and active-duty military personnel, they said that they’d do that, too, when the IEDs go off in the cities because they couldn’t tell the difference between the non-combatants vs. the combatants. Thrawn is MILITARY, and remember, his concept of politics is all fucked up, so he doesn’t entirely give a fuck. His fuel depot gone = his TIE defenders gone = Rebels HAVE the blueprints trying to figure out how his Defenders work to reverse engineer and this HUGE threat of Grysks in the Unknown Regions, and HE chose to return to Lesser Space when he didn’t have to. Ar'alani told him not to do it.

A red zone was marked around the Dome. IF the Rebels protected people, they’d tell them to leave the city or get into the Dome. The Rebels did not. Thrawn did not have time to explain that to Ezra. Ezra put non-combatants in danger, OR perhaps they weren’t non-combatants; they were active terrorists. A high-ranking officer MAKES THAT DECISION.

In terms of how Filoni et al. tell a story, they have built that rising action to overcome with a deus ex machina because – we fans do not know the story outside of Legends why Thrawn goes aways and returns; on whose side? All the characters have changed. And he is snatching as many people willing into Lesser Space to help him than lighting off that “item,” which he promise to use if he had to do it.

And remember those points had to be made within 20 seconds to 1 minute to tell the story on a TV show: So they decided on a shitty quip & then did it. That made the point. Does that make Thrawn a bad guy?

The goal was to get Ezra to the ship so the Emperor could do whatever. The Emperor failed. Then Ezra got out, and Thrawn couldn’t deal with that lunacy, but he figured out what would happen. How pissed off he was by that? That’s what fanfic is for.

That said. We think that Thrawn is not a villain. He is an anti-villain. A means to an end. His means are all kinda fucked up, but his endings are excellent. If you don’t ask how it’s done, or you don’t want to know how it’s done, you’ll win, but don’t ask Thrawn how he did it because it probably wasn’t heroically righteous. It was probably pretty fucked up. Like killing a sun to kill a fleet of enemies…Yeah.

New pin!

Available Thursday April 1st at 10am MST!

A good boy!

Anyone who orders Star Wars merch from my shop will get a free sticker of this guy! (while stickers last)

Loth cat commission, a companion piece to another one I drew last year

(Commissions currently closed)

Morning on Lothal

commission for legeekyliife on twitter and instagram

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cobaltbeam:

Plo and his Wolfpack!

I don’t know if I’ll ever find the time to write this, but know I need to write about Plo and his men having an emergency/crash landing on Lothal and have them run into some Loth wolves

Ahsoka and friends! ✨ Not based on any event in particular, just felt like painting a sunset scene. I drew this mostly over lunch breaks at work It was nice to mentally leave the office and visit Lothal for a few minutes every day!

Loth Cat