RANDOM QUESTION SUNDAY 023
“What is your favorite Grand Admiral Thrawn moment?”
Hello there! The Corellian Korean here with the twenty-third RANDOM QUESTION SUNDAY! And the question is:
What is your favorite Grand Admiral Thrawn moment?
WARNING POTENTIAL SPOILERS AHEAD
FOR THE EXPANDED UNIVERSE MATERIAL
"HEIR TO THE EMPIRE" & "THE LAST COMMAND"
AND PERHAPS FOR FUTURE STAR WARS SHOWS OR MOVIES
THIS IS YOUR LAST CHANCE TO TURN AWAY
YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED...
Grand Admiral Thrawn is one of my favorite characters from the Expanded Universe. One of the things that made the Grand Admiral so cool and formidable is his brilliant intellect. Thrawn used his mind with surgical precision to analyze his allies' and opponent's culture, motivations and thought process. The blue skinned red eyed Chiss was able to use every piece of data to interpret and find patterns or meaning where most cannot. With this understanding Thrawn can exploit vulnerabilities in his enemies' behavior or bring out the full potential in his subordinates and allies.
In one example, Thrawn was able to garner the respect and pride among his subordinates demonstrating his worthiness to lead the remnants of the Empire in HEIR TO THE EMPIRE novel trilogy. He once turned a botched operation to capture Luke Skywalker in X-Wing into an lesson.
After the defeat of the Empire, there were very few trained officers and soldiers remaining. Without a central authority to coordinated and lead, the Empire fractured into smaller factions led by warlords, top ranking officials that consolidated as much power in warships and resources for their own purposes. Only the loyal few that remained followed the new warlords. The warlords had skeleton crews running all operations on massive Star Destroyers since there was not enough manpower or trained personnel for that matter. There were attempts to train new recruits but they did not live up to the glory days of the Empire's peak as Captain Gilad Pelleaon would attest.
Most would blame the inexperience or the lack of training of the officers aboard the Imperial I-class Star Destroyer, The Chimaera, for allowing a single X-Wing to escape from a routine tractor beam operation. Probably Lord Vader would have killed the those responsible for letting Luke Skywalker escape. He would lead with fear to motivate all who witnessed his ruthless low tolerance for failure. Darth Vader would Force Choke an officer to death if they did not meet his expectations in front of all to see. The dread of failing Vader drove all under his leadership to work harder for fear of their very lives. During the height of the Empire, there was a high supply of officers, Vader cared little if there was one less bumbling fool on his bridge. Vader's way worked well for him. No one doubted his ability to lead. But there are more ways to leads.
Thrawn was feared but not in the same ways as Vader. All respected him, even his enemies. All that experienced Grand Admiral Thrawn's brilliance, understood that he was a very capable leader and more. He lead with more than fear, he inspired loyalty. He was the kind of leader you wanted to rally behind.
On the Chimaera, there was a tractor beam operator at the controls when Luke Skywalker barely managed to escape aboard his X-Wing. Luke used a maneuver that involved using proton torpedoes to break the tractor beam lock, damaging his starfighter but escaping. Thrawn was familiar with the maneuver and asked why the tractor beam operator did not anticipate this kind of situation. To which the operator denied responsibility and blamed his superior officer for not training him for this kind of scenario.
These were Thrawn's last words before executing the operator on the spot.
"Do you know the difference between an error and a mistake, Ensign?"
"Anyone can make an error, Ensign. But that error doesn't become a mistake until you refuse to correct it."
Grand Admiral Thrawn
Initially, the crew of the Chimarea feared Thrawn's rule similar to Vader. But the same situation occured again, Luke escaped another tractor beam lock from the Chimaera with a modified maneuver similar to last time. This time an Ensign Mithel was operating the tractor beam. When Thrawn asked why Luke escaped, the Ensign tried to compose himself to explain what happened.
At first the Chimaera had a tractor beam lock on Luke's vessel then the Jedi pilot unleashed his modified maneuver. The modified maneuver involved two steps. The first part involved particles that can disable a tractor beam. The second step involved Luke's X-Wing being stored inside a larger vessel. At the right time, Luke released the particles which disabled the tractor beam lock for a brief moment then he sacrificed the larger vessel to the tractor beam so he can escape in his X-Wing. The Ensign tried to compensate for the bold maneuver with his own creative effort but to no avail. He concludes that there was nothing in the manual that covered this kind of situation.
Thrawn coolly concurs with the Ensign stating there is no concrete counter measure for this maneuver. To the Ensign and the crews' disbelief, Thrawn praises the Ensign's quick and creative mind. Furthermore, Thrawn promotes Ensign Mithel to lieutenant then assigns him the task of finding a way to defeat a "covert shroud". Not only did the crew of the Chimaera trust and respect the Grand Admiral but now they were ready to die for him.
When I first read Timothy Zahn's Thrawn trilogy, I became an instant fan of Thrawn. For me, this was one of my favorite moments from the chronicles of Thrawn. I hope we get a similar awe inspire moment in Star Wars where we will view Thrawn as a worthy successor of the Empire. So far, I like the direction they are taking Thrawn. Definitely, an upgrade from the REBELS Thrawn but Lucasfilms need to take it up another notch in terms of being a brilliant leader. May the Force be with Dave Filoni. You're doing a great job!
That's all the time I for this RANDOM QUESTION SUNDAY. I hope you enjoyed #23. If you did enjoy this post then please consider subscribing to receive notifications for future content. Also leave a like and comment. All of your support and viewership is greatly appreciated. Until next time, may the Force be with you. Always!
Comments