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Darth Yan wrote:I liked it but Thrawn's art reading was a little pushing it.

While I think he did get something of a feel for the psychology of various species and individuals from examining their art, I think most of that was smoke and mirrors to impress people with how good he was.

Thrawn reminds me of a villainous Sherlock Holmes, actually. Holmes deduced things from little details nobody else noticed, and kept dismissing their amazement at his abilities (while feeling continually annoyed/amazed others didn't pick up on the things he did), whereas Thrawn deliberately cultivated a mystique around his deductive/psychological abilities.

Such as, say, he was enjoying some nice art one time when some officer walked in and asked what he was doing. Feeling like a smartass, Thrawn said he was figuring out the psychology of the enemy by studying their art. Officer walked out amazed at Thrawn's genius, and Thrawn decided to run with it because it gave him an excuse to keep looking at pretty things while looking like even more of a genius than he really was. And, hey, it probably did give him some insight as to the character of certain people, just like rummaging through the images you save onto your computer give an insight into your personality.

Outbound Flight showed that his art reading was more of a pattern recognizing and psychological readings anyway. People keep on harping on the art reading thing when in fact he also had great manipulative skills and leadership as well.

The reason I harp on the art reading is because EVERY "Grand Admiral" is supposed to have great manipulative and leadership skills, considering the rarity of the rank. THIS particular trait is what is supposed to make Thrawn the OHMYGAWDTHEGREATESTSTARWARSVILLIANSINCEANEWHOPEVADER!!!!1!!1111.

That and the fact that it is patently "Star Trek". I.e., Ferengi are greedy, Klingons are war like, Romulans are sneaky etc.. How the flying fuck would someone who studied the Mona Lisa, David, or holy crap, a Picaso be able to figure out how Patton, Khan, Alexander, Attila, Caesar, Bonaparte, Rommel etc. would react in a given military situation? Come the fuck on.

AAAAAnd... wait for it...

It is one of the STUPIDEST fucking character traits ever given to Star Wars character. If that garbage was released today, this site would rip the character and author apart like a Karen Traviss math answer.

Havok wrote:That and the fact that it is patently "Star Trek". I.e., Ferengi are greedy, Klingons are war like, Romulans are sneaky etc.. How the flying fuck would someone who studied the Mona Lisa, David, or holy crap, a Picaso be able to figure out how Patton, Khan, Alexander, Attila, Caesar, Bonaparte, Rommel etc. would react in a given military situation? Come the fuck on.

Not from art in general except for some general traits. All the other art is things his opponents personally chose, like for example pieces personally selected and bought by Ackbar. And from that, you can infer quite a lot.

Also, it is not like it is an insta-win.

That doesn't make it any fucking better. That just now assumes that military leaders = their art collection... what? Or that they understand the art they have beyond "Oh it is pretty." or "I hate this, but it was my mom's so..." or, and y'know, this never happens, they don't view the art the same way someone else does.

You can't defend it. It is garbage to make Zahn Thrawn seem super awesome.

More garbage than jedi and sith?

Batman wrote:Zahn didn't do his homework?

Acutally he did. Remember that in Star Wars; Han Solo says:

"Hokey religions and ancient weapons are no match for a good blaster at your side, kid."

Han Solo is 29 in A New Hope.

That means that under Lucas' revised timeline of ROTS and the final extermination of the Jedi under Order 66 taking place 19 years before Yavin; Han Solo would have been ten years old; and at the proper age to have received all the inspiration propagandas about the heroic Jedi fighting in the Clone Wars at the age where inspiration brainwashing occurs the best.

Placing the rise of Vader and the destruction of the Jedi about 40 years in the past neatly resolves a lot of issues about the general galactic view of Jedi; since the New Order would have had two human generations to do their work in throwing the Jedi down the Memory Hole.

Thanas wrote:More garbage than jedi and sith?

Yes. Very much so.

MKSheppard wrote: Placing the rise of Vader and the destruction of the Jedi about 40 years in the past neatly resolves a lot of issues about the general galactic view of Jedi; since the New Order would have had two human generations to do their work in throwing the Jedi down the Memory Hole.

It unfortunately also contradicts everything we're actually told about when the Clone Wars happened in the movies.

Havok wrote:

Thanas wrote:More garbage than jedi and sith?

Yes. Very much so.

Sorry dude, seems like we just have to agree to disagree on that one.

What's garbage about the Jedi and Sith?

Batman wrote:What's garbage about the Jedi and Sith?

Nothing, the idea that Thrawn's ability is unrealistic compared to people surviving death or having TK/Speed etc however is IMO.

Sith/Jedi abilities are explained by magic The Force. Thrawn's abilities are not.

Batman wrote:Sith/Jedi abilities are explained by magic The Force. Thrawn's abilities are not.

They are explained by him being a one-off savant in a full galaxy. And the whole idea of the force and their abilities is way more ridiculous than one guy being able to get psychological profiles with regards to general traits of species.

MKSheppard wrote:

Batman wrote:Zahn didn't do his homework?

Acutally he did. Remember that in Star Wars; Han Solo says:

"Hokey religions and ancient weapons are no match for a good blaster at your side, kid."

Han Solo is 29 in A New Hope.

That means that under Lucas' revised timeline of ROTS and the final extermination of the Jedi under Order 66 taking place 19 years before Yavin; Han Solo would have been ten years old; and at the proper age to have received all the inspiration propagandas about the heroic Jedi fighting in the Clone Wars at the age where inspiration brainwashing occurs the best.

Placing the rise of Vader and the destruction of the Jedi about 40 years in the past neatly resolves a lot of issues about the general galactic view of Jedi; since the New Order would have had two human generations to do their work in throwing the Jedi down the Memory Hole.

The same goes for that Moff on the Death Star, who defiantly confronts Vader with the line: "Your sad devotion to that ancient religion hasn't helped you conjure up the stolen data tapes, or given you clairvoyance enough to find the Rebel's hidden fortress..."

The man was somewhere in his late 40's, so no amount of propaganda would have been able to cover his memories of Jedi running around and performing great feats of telekinesis during the Clone Wars. But yet when Vader chokes him, he is as shocked as everyone else in the room.

Besides, Vader under the mask in Return of the Jedi easily looked 60 years old. Zahn's 40 year gap just makes sense.

We can probably put Vader looking 60-ish down to his burns (his falling into a lava pit was established by the ROTJ novel), bad lighting, and the fact he never got any sun while wearing the helmet (an educated guess on my part: he lost all his melanin).

Despite the Clone Wars, most people in the galaxy have probably never seen a Jedi before. That probably goes a good way to explaining why people don't believe in the Force only twenty years later.

Panzersharkcat wrote:Despite the Clone Wars, most people in the galaxy have probably never seen a Jedi before. That probably goes a good way to explaining why people don't believe in the Force only twenty years later.

Doesn't canon put the number of Jedi in the Galaxy as 10,000? Given that there are millions of inhabited worlds, there are probably entire systems that haven't seen a Jedi in generations. In fact, I think I may have seen this argument somewhere before. Maybe in one of the old threads here. I can't recall for sure though.

Granted, Han is Corillean, and such a prominent world would likely get more attention.

I find it far more likely that the majority of people never really believed in the Force than that they forgot. To them, Jedi were like Delta Force or something. Sure you know they exist, and every so often you hear about them on the news, but you're never going to meet one. The magic powers can be dismissed as hyperbole (and since they're mostly used as peace keepers, not commandos, it's not ridiculous that the magic powers don't get noticed a lot). By the time of the OT, the last major Jedi vs Sith conflict is millenia in the past, if I recall correctly.

granted, Han is Corillean, and such a prominent world would likely get more attention.

Corellia, being such a prominent system, is unlikely to generate problems that require Jedi attention. They're not going to have civil wars or be invaded, and their own security forces will be adequate to handle crime and terrorism.

Kingmaker wrote:By the time of the OT, the last major Jedi vs Sith conflict is millenia in the past, if I recall correctly.

To be specific, it was around a thousand years prior (Darth Bane: Path of Destruction). That's how they reconciled Obi-wan's "thousand generations" line in ANH with Palpatine's "thousand years" line in AOTC: the Ruusan Reformations, which happened after Spoiler resulted in the Jedi renouncing all military rank among other things. Supposedly it was meant to signify the start of a new era.

Kingmaker wrote: Corellia, being such a prominent system, is unlikely to generate problems that require Jedi attention. They're not going to have civil wars or be invaded, and their own security forces will be adequate to handle crime and terrorism.

Not that I like it, but there were actually a number of Corellian Jedi who tended to stay in the Corellian systems. This is all from the wonderful mind of Michael Stackpole and his background for the Horn/Halcyon line of Jedi.

http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Corellian_Jedi

I am completely perplexed on how Zahn was supposed to know what the fuck Lucas was going to do with the prequels, 5 years before Lucas sat down to write them no less?!

From various interviews at the time and after Zahn made it pretty clear they were given some background/source books/etc and they were allowed to play free in them (although he got a 'hells no' on the clone Obi-Wan idea), and he freely accepts that since it was Lucas' sandbox, Lucas could choose to reverse his car over Zahn's sand castle anytime he wants.

And I don't really want to start this debate, but fuck it; Zahn's imaging of the Clone Wars makes a shit load more sense than what Lucas served up, but hey.

Havok wrote:That doesn't make it any fucking better. That just now assumes that military leaders = their art collection... what? Or that they understand the art they have beyond "Oh it is pretty." or "I hate this, but it was my mom's so..." or, and y'know, this never happens, they don't view the art the same way someone else does.

You can't defend it. It is garbage to make Zahn Thrawn seem super awesome.

If he made Thrawn fucking omnipresent and omnipotent then yeah sure, however it failed on numerous situations;

• The whole Noghri betrayal.
• An entire species he had to wipe out because their art gained him no insight.

The fact people bang the drum so loudly on an 'ability' that the main character freely admits isn't foolproof nor his only means to victory, and directly led to that said character fucking dieing as some sort of negative in the context of wankary is just mind boggling.

While I think Thrawn was wanked a bit I also think it was necessary. With the Emperor and Vader gone along with both death Stars and the Empire in serious decline Zahn had to do it to give the new Republic a credible threat. It wasn't as if he magically gleaned a battle plan from art either, he still had to use considerable talents to do that after he made his psychological analysis.

Crown wrote:From various interviews at the time and after Zahn made it pretty clear they were given some background/source books/etc and they were allowed to play free in them (although he got a 'hells no' on the clone Obi-Wan idea), and he freely accepts that since it was Lucas' sandbox, Lucas could choose to reverse his car over Zahn's sand castle anytime he wants.

Ha, I saw Zahn use that exact phrase at the SD COMICCON.

I listened to the audiobook excerpt and I really wish Random House would stop using Marc Thompson to narrate the Star Wars books. It makes me miss Jonathan Davis even more.