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I will admit that I thought it was a mistake making Thrawn a grand admiral, but maybe they thought he'd be unrecognizable without his white uniform.

ray245 wrote:Blowing up the leaders is far more effective than letting them escape once again. You make decisions based on which is the best for the war effort. The allied were happy to let Hitler survive when they saw him mess up Germany's war effort.

Sure. But that doesn't diminish the severity of the Rebels' vast losses. The rest of the gripes about Thrawn notwithstanding.

I guess they invested too much in the whole Thrawn figuring out it was Kallus. I mean it was nice but it shouldn't have been the only thing... and at some point it got too heavily-delivered.

Shroom Man 777 wrote:

ray245 wrote:Blowing up the leaders is far more effective than letting them escape once again. You make decisions based on which is the best for the war effort. The allied were happy to let Hitler survive when they saw him mess up Germany's war effort.

Sure. But that doesn't diminish the severity of the Rebels' vast losses. The rest of the gripes about Thrawn notwithstanding.

I guess they invested too much in the whole Thrawn figuring out it was Kallus. I mean it was nice but it shouldn't have been the only thing... and at some point it got too heavily-delivered.

I'm not dismissing the losses the Rebels suffered. I'm simply putting Thrawn's "victory" in a wider context. Sure, it was sad that the US navy lost their ships to a sudden attack on Pearl Harbour without warning, but it wasn't a bad thing for the USN in the long run. Pearl Harbour made the Americans even more willing to enter the war and be willing to eat losses until Japan surrendered unconditionally.

You can say that for any situation where Thrawn wins but the series continues... By that logic Vader chopping Luke's arm off, after the Rebel base in Hoth was ruined and Han got stuffed in carbonite, in context, in the long run also just led to the Empire's fall

You can say that for Order 66 even

Shroom Man 777 wrote:You can say that for any situation where Thrawn wins but the series continues... By that logic Vader chopping Luke's arm off, after the Rebel base in Hoth was ruined and Han got stuffed in carbonite, in context, in the long run also just led to the Empire's fall

There is already lots of argument about Hoth being a strategic loss for the empire. This isn't a new argument. Most of the time we saw the empire constantly shooting themselves in the foot no matter how many Rebels they killed. Even the decision to blow up Alderaan backfired on them. Thrawn was well remembered as one of the very few competent Imperial leaders out there. Now he's reduced to the same level as other Imperial commanders.

You can say that for Order 66 even

Did the Rebels ever suffer a loss as great as the Jedi Order did? The entire Order leadership was wiped out, the survivors are forced into hiding. The Jedi order also lost the ability to rebuild the order for a long time.

ray245 wrote:

Knife wrote:

ray245 wrote:
But those are replaceable losses. As long as Rebel leadership survive, they can always rebuild and grow in size.

Are you sure you're not fanboi a bit here? What do you want? Thrawn to kill off the main characters and the show to end?

And villain will have the same problems in this setting. Hell, Vader had to have writers fiat to keep him from taking out all the main characters in the show. Shit, in the movies.

I don't want them to use Thrawn if they cannot find a way to make him an effective threat.

Ok, then they should not have used him then because what you want will NEVER happen in any story besides some bullshit fanfic.

Fuck Thrawn. He was a mildly interesting character in a book almost 25 or so years ago. I give Zhan credit for trying for a deeper strategic thinker in that he made a villain who could look at a Feringie and realize it was easier to bribe them than to fight them (I know, mixing shows). But then after the trilogy of books, they just kept wanking him to extremes to the point where, in a show that can make him cannon, there is no way for some to accept they did the character right if he doesn't single handedly wipe out the rebellion.

So I guess we agree, they shouldn't have used him. lol

I think Saw Gerrera should have killed him and in the process lost his legs.

In the process Tarkin loses his hand and has it replaced with a claw. We don't see Tarkin's hands in the films do we? There!

Or Tarkin loses both his arms and out of pride he won't have them replaced, not until total victory against the Rebellion... so to conform to canon, R1 and ANH will have to be edited, digitally replacing Tarkin's arms. Or just having the camera focus only on his face.

Knife wrote:
Ok, then they should not have used him then because what you want will NEVER happen in any story besides some bullshit fanfic.

Fuck Thrawn. He was a mildly interesting character in a book almost 25 or so years ago. I give Zhan credit for trying for a deeper strategic thinker in that he made a villain who could look at a Feringie and realize it was easier to bribe them than to fight them (I know, mixing shows). But then after the trilogy of books, they just kept wanking him to extremes to the point where, in a show that can make him cannon, there is no way for some to accept they did the character right if he doesn't single handedly wipe out the rebellion.

So I guess we agree, they shouldn't have used him. lol

I don't mind if Thrawn loses in the end if you ever read my comments properly. My problem is you simply can't keep Thrawn as this high ranking Imperial admiral when that implies he would have access to near unlimited resources. Thrawn is fun to read because he shows us what he could do with limited resources.

Why do you assume the rank of Grand Admiral means unlimited resources?

SAMAS wrote:Why do you assume the rank of Grand Admiral means unlimited resources?

Compared to what the rebels have? It would certainly be neat unlimited resources.

With Tarkin as his immediate superior and seemingly having a favourable opinion of you, how often is Thrawn going to be denied stuff? He got a whole new line of production set up.

As I have been saying throughout the entire thread, the writers just do not get Thrawn.

For once, Thrawn does not put himself into situations where he can be killed or is at risk unless he has to.

Fighting with a trained intelligence operative when he could just as easily have him arrested?
Leading a ground assault from the front-lines instead of coordinating from the command post?
Speaking of "Jedi devilry"?
Killing unknown creatures instead of trying to study them?
Being a major idiot in battle, aka entrusting your valuable asset to a commander who was known to be a glory hound (Constantine) or incompetent (Pryce)?
Or how about deploying your fleet so that the major asset is completely unprotected from a rear assault after you know one rebel ship has fled to look for reinforcements?

Seriously, any of those actions are what I would expect from a standard Imperial commander. But not from Thrawn, not the way his character has been established.

The only thing he did that was in any way Thrawn-like was figuring out the location of the planet. But other than that?
Put Constantine or Tarkin in command of the fleet and is there any reason it would have gone differently?

I liked the way young Thrawn was handled in the Jedi Knight Dark Forces novel, where he was the captain of Inquisitor Jerec's ship - he'd been assigned there to keep an eye on Jerec and both of them knew it.

It built up Jerec as a threat because he had a picked man assigned to his ship to keep an eye on him, and it built up Thrawn because he'd been picked to keep an eye on a powerful dark sider.

Thrawn beating up Kallus was rediculous; Thrawn's a chair-force strategist, Kallus is a front line fighter who can go toe to toe with Zeb, and what, ten, twenty years younger. Kallus should have kicked his ass; I like that the deathtroopers continue to be fucking useless and let their admiral get into a fist fight with a trained killer.

While I get that they'd established Thrawn can fight, it's just a pointless addition to his character to make him more talented.

Really absurd watching Thrawn try to threaten Kanan in person; does he not understand that Kanan would gut him like a fish, and go through the deathtroopers like a dose of salts? God help him if Ahsoka or Obi Wan had been there.

This episode - people will hate me for this - should have featured an inquisitor to lead the ground attack.

Also, just waiting for Kallus to say 'You guys know that's not my name, right? It's a code-name. My real name is Crix Madine.'

Its pretty weird that the entire Inquisition has vanished along with vader when the Empire knows full well it has two trained Jedi running around slaughtering troops on a mission ciritical area.

I'm not sure I get the Thrawn didnt win angle... he wiped out like 95% of the Rebel forces and destroyed the base... his victory would have been complete if two unknowns hadnt occured with uber mandalorians (seriously 5/6 fighters engaged the entire Imperial fleet and didnt take any casualties) and magic demon blasted the ground forces apaart (nice discipline there that everyone turns and looks at the storm letting the rebels run away when surrounded).

Although Thrawn never struck me as being the sort of commander that clears a minefield by walking his men through it.

I like the element where Thrawn was generally very interested in the Bendu and wasnt about to kill him right up till he challenged his arrogance where he loses it over the prophecy of his loss. A nice little slip at the character beneath the cool exterior.

A few things we have learnt about the Empire...
ship shields provide no defence against borders and hand weapons used by people standing on the hull can get through not only shields but the hull itself.
Grav well technology is very dangerous and explody
The empire seems to have perfected the grav well tech to get it into a frigate size rather than destroyer size platform... why such ships were not present at Endor/Hoth is a big question though as there should hvae been no problem for the rebels to flee... as they did at Hoth.
Star Destroyer firepower is pants
A base shield that stops people walking through it doesnt exist as a tech... the Scarif shield style plantey shield must be of a very different technology and not adaptable to the smaller scale.
Fighters can fly through the shield with little issue as shown by the A-wings and Ties fighting over the ATATS.

I'm not sure what the original Lothal attack plan could have been though, we know she would have had several star destroyers defending the plant (maybe all 5) so unless the Rebels were hoping to do a smash and run on the factroy and hope they can get enough past 5 destroyers to do enough damage to the facility?

I'm hoping Mandalore pays the price for its open rebellion... would be a good opportunity for Thrawn to wade in and kill everyone as some want to see.

Overall, Thrawn did win: his strategic objective of preventing the Lothal attack and disrupting the rebel cell was a success. If it wasn't for the idiocy of his commander, a stupid overhead command and Force magic in the last moment, he would have succeeded in complete capture and annihilation of the Rebel cell. There should have been a bit more focus on showing just how crippling a blow was to the Rebels (maybe have one of the two commanders captured or killed), emphasize that the entire season's efforts for the rebellion has gone to nothing, plus emotionally how damaging this was. They had to pull off after all several miracles just to get out alive.

They DID establish Thrawn being good at fighting rather it coming out of the blue, even though I agree it is an overall needless addition to his character. I think the main objective for that from a story-telling perspective is two-fold: first, allow violent meaningful confrontation and action with characters, second, is to show Thrawn as a competent commander as a master of warfare from the hands-on reality of fighting to abstract warfare. Rather than just a clever guy who can play abstract strategy games well but does not fully understand the reality of war.
Thus, while it is somewhat needless, it is in his character as someone who fully understands warfare and intellectually overwhelm his opponent. What wasn't in his nature is to personally confront the leak. THat was egotistic and unnecessary, he would have used Kallus's report against him such as sending out a fake message.

As I have been saying throughout the entire thread, the writers just do not get Thrawn.

No one will get Thrawn because a, it is tied to a specific author's style of story-building and approach, b, they are using Thrawn to draw positive fandom attention and the show will have to make compromises to fit the cartoon format.

ray245 wrote:

SAMAS wrote:Why do you assume the rank of Grand Admiral means unlimited resources?

Compared to what the rebels have? It would certainly be neat unlimited resources.

With Tarkin as his immediate superior and seemingly having a favourable opinion of you, how often is Thrawn going to be denied stuff? He got a whole new line of production set up.

He's still in a backwater sector, though. One that, as we have seen, can only deploy Star Destroyers for major operations.

Of course he has greater resources than the rebels, it's the freakin' Empire. The Empire doesn't do Underdog.

Saying he should only have fewer resources because of the Thrawn Trilogy is selling him short. Or do you think Zahn is going to get it wrong in his own novel?

Darth Tanner wrote:Its pretty weird that the entire Inquisition has vanished along with vader when the Empire knows full well it has two trained Jedi running around slaughtering troops on a mission ciritical area.

SAMAS wrote:

ray245 wrote:

SAMAS wrote:Why do you assume the rank of Grand Admiral means unlimited resources?

Compared to what the rebels have? It would certainly be neat unlimited resources.

With Tarkin as his immediate superior and seemingly having a favourable opinion of you, how often is Thrawn going to be denied stuff? He got a whole new line of production set up.

He's still in a backwater sector, though. One that, as we have seen, can only deploy Star Destroyers for major operations.

Of course he has greater resources than the rebels, it's the freakin' Empire. The Empire doesn't do Underdog.

Saying he should only have fewer resources because of the Thrawn Trilogy is selling him short. Or do you think Zahn is going to get it wrong in his own novel?

Zahn might very well fail to use him effectively because Zahn might not have the optimum setting to use this character well.

My point is certain types of characters depends on certain kinds of setting to be even semi-effective.

Zixinus wrote:They DID establish Thrawn being good at fighting rather it coming out of the blue, even though I agree it is an overall needless addition to his character.

This was established in the old EU. Prior to his adventures as a front-line stormtrooper and impersonating Jodo Kast, he went all John Rambo on the Imperials who found him during his exile from Chiss territory.

http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Mitth%27 ... #Discovery

In short, Thrawn being a capable warrior is not an invention of this TV show.

Thanas wrote:As I have been saying throughout the entire thread, the writers just do not get Thrawn.

For once, Thrawn does not put himself into situations where he can be killed or is at risk unless he has to.

Fighting with a trained intelligence operative when he could just as easily have him arrested?
Leading a ground assault from the front-lines instead of coordinating from the command post?
Speaking of "Jedi devilry"?
Killing unknown creatures instead of trying to study them?
Being a major idiot in battle, aka entrusting your valuable asset to a commander who was known to be a glory hound (Constantine) or incompetent (Pryce)?
Or how about deploying your fleet so that the major asset is completely unprotected from a rear assault after you know one rebel ship has fled to look for reinforcements?

Seriously, any of those actions are what I would expect from a standard Imperial commander. But not from Thrawn, not the way his character has been established.

The only thing he did that was in any way Thrawn-like was figuring out the location of the planet. But other than that?
Put Constantine or Tarkin in command of the fleet and is there any reason it would have gone differently?

That list kinda takes me back to my old, seemingly demolished theory that New Thrawn is not all that much of a military genius, and more a climber.

He personally apprehended the rebel spy, he valiantly led the ground assault doing the utmost to fullfill Tarkin's order to capture the rebel command... failing only due to Constantine's disobedience and Pryce's incompetence.

Obviously Thrawn deserves another promotion!

I don't think that's how they wanted to portrait Thrawn, but the way they screwed it up gives me that impression of him.

I'm still hazy on where grand admirals fit into the Imperial hierarchy now.

AMX wrote:

Thanas wrote:As I have been saying throughout the entire thread, the writers just do not get Thrawn.

For once, Thrawn does not put himself into situations where he can be killed or is at risk unless he has to.

Fighting with a trained intelligence operative when he could just as easily have him arrested?
Leading a ground assault from the front-lines instead of coordinating from the command post?
Speaking of "Jedi devilry"?
Killing unknown creatures instead of trying to study them?
Being a major idiot in battle, aka entrusting your valuable asset to a commander who was known to be a glory hound (Constantine) or incompetent (Pryce)?
Or how about deploying your fleet so that the major asset is completely unprotected from a rear assault after you know one rebel ship has fled to look for reinforcements?

Seriously, any of those actions are what I would expect from a standard Imperial commander. But not from Thrawn, not the way his character has been established.

The only thing he did that was in any way Thrawn-like was figuring out the location of the planet. But other than that?
Put Constantine or Tarkin in command of the fleet and is there any reason it would have gone differently?

That list kinda takes me back to my old, seemingly demolished theory that New Thrawn is not all that much of a military genius, and more a climber.

He personally apprehended the rebel spy, he valiantly led the ground assault doing the utmost to fullfill Tarkin's order to capture the rebel command... failing only due to Constantine's disobedience and Pryce's incompetence.

Obviously Thrawn deserves another promotion!

I don't think that's how they wanted to portrait Thrawn, but the way they screwed it up gives me that impression of him.

While its certainly not all he is, I don't think Thrawn would have survived, much less gotten where he is, as an alien in the upper levels of the Imperial hierarchy if he didn't know how to play internal politics to his advantage.

Too bad the showrunners didn't seize this opportunity to cripple the rebel fleet even more by destroying their one and only Mon Cal cruiser. That would explain why the Profundity was the only cruiser present at the Battle of Scarif.

I hope Admiral Raddus gets some development next season. It would give his capture at the end of Rogue One even more impact if we knew more about him.

Galvatron wrote:Too bad the showrunners didn't seize this opportunity to cripple the rebel fleet even more by destroying their one and only Mon Cal cruiser. That would explain why the Profundity was the only cruiser present at the Battle of Scarif.

I hope Admiral Raddus gets some development next season. It would give his capture at the end of Rogue One even more impact if we knew more about him.

That would actually have made it into some sort of significant victory. A Mon Cal cruiser might have turned the tide at several engagements against Imperial Stardestroyers. Instead, we get a bunch of Frigates (which are shown to be ineffective against Stardestroyers anyway) being blown to pieces.

They're probably saving the cruiser they showed in Secret Cargo to do exactly that at least once next season.

So, since the Grand Admiral didn't die, is he still going to be the primary villain next season, or are they going to bring in someone new?

They've already had Vader and Thrawn. I don't see what new villain they could bring in for this era who would top that, short of having Palpatine himself show up in person.