Star Wars Wednesday: Who the heck is Grand Admiral Thrawn?

Who the heck is Grand Admiral Thrawn?

          Who’s your favourite Star Wars villain? The obvious answer is Darth Vader, but there are plenty other baddies in the universe with their own powers, backstories and personalities that separate themselves from the Dark Lord of the Sith. Emperor Palpatine, Kylo Ren, General Grievous, and more are all beloved bad guys from the movies, and diving into the Expanded Universe digs up even more classics that you might never have known about.

          Today we’ll be talking about the cream of the crop when it comes to Expanded Universe villains, a character so beloved in his original appearance that he was almost immediately brought onboard into the new canon. I’m talking about the blue-skinned alien genius of the Empire, Grand Admiral Thrawn.

          Thrawn is a very unique situation. He’s one of the most beloved characters to hardcore fans of Star Wars, but despite this he features in exactly zero scenes of any of the movies. Thrawn was instead one of the biggest names to come out of the original Expanded Universe, with a trilogy of books named after him written by author Timothy Zahn being credited as one of the major forces keeping Star Wars alive in the over a decade spent between the Original and Prequel trilogies.

          In the original book, Heir to the Empire, Thrawn is able to regroup a small but significant portion of what remains of the Empire in an attempt to cause discourse in the New Republic. He quickly demonstrates his ability for cunning and long-term planning, launching several strategic attacks that disable crucial Republic resources and leaving them vulnerable. Over the course of the trilogy Thrawn’s power grows substantially, taking almost half the known galaxy back under the Empire’s regime, until he was finally defeated and killed by a force from within six months into his campaign.

          While his appearances were limited to the trilogy of books, Thrawn immediately became a famous face to fans of the EU. He was often seen as the EU’s own personal Vader, using his strategic expertise to outsmart his foes instead of Vader’s more hands-on method. But despite the fan outcry for more of Thrawn, he didn’t see much action after his trilogy came to a close. He popped up in a few extra books (usually ones written by Timothy Zahn) and sometimes video games as well, but other than that he remained a relic of what Star Wars was in the early 90’s before The Phantom Menace dominated the scene.

          Cut to roughly 20 years later. Disney’s purchase of Star Wars and subsequent wiping of the old Expanded Universe made some fans upset that years and years of stories had been rendered moot, but others looked at it as an opportunity to bring old favourite characters that never made it to the silver screen back to light. Chief among them was Thrawn, as fans began to campaign far and wide for his return in some way, shape or form.

          Lucasfilm heard their cries, as Thrawn returned to the spotlight in 2016 as the lead antagonist in Star Wars Rebels Season 3. Many argued his presence alone elevated the season to become easily the best Rebels has seen to date, and his role will continue through Season 4. Timothy Zahn also wrote a brand new full-length novel about Thrawn’s origins, which while I haven’t had the time to finish yet, I’ve found to be one of my personal favourite Star Wars books ever.

          Whether Thrawn will make it out of the final season of Rebels alive remains to be seen, but bringing him back out of the archives is one of the best decisions Lucasfilm has made with the new EU. Listening to fan demand and taking an old character and using him in a way that’s new and modern while still paying homage to his origins worked perfectly. If you haven’t checked out either the new or old Expanded Universes yet, Thrawn’s stories are a great place to get started.