Heir to the Empire - Part 2

[colls]

This month's book was Heir to the Empire by Timothy Zahn

1. How has the dynamic between Luke, Leia, and Han changed since the original trilogy?

2. How does Thrawn compare to the other antagonists in Star Wars?

3. What impact do other new characters like Talon Karrde & Mara Jade make on the story? How is their internal conflict similar or dissimilar from characters we already know?


Next month will be a themed month - Non-Jedi protagonist

Comments

[colls]

1. I think Zahn keeps the characterizations very true to the original trilogy. Although I will admit that this version of Luke, Leia, and Han have been in my brain since the 90's so I might not be the best judge.

2. He's more diabolical because he's so logical and presice. Palpatine literally cackled like a gleeful madman, whereas Thrawn is just... calculating.

3. I sometimes forget how much Mara Jade really hated Luke when we met her. And Karrde's conflicts are more that he's trying to thread a needle - both between the Empire and the New Republic but also between being a smuggler and having a conscience.

[brokenmnemonic]

One of the parallels I like between Thrawn and Karrde is that neither of them runs their organisations through fear. Palpatine was clearly capable of long-term planning and very skilled at politics, but I don't think he had the detachment that Thrawn has. Palpatine in the comics very much comes across as someone who's always two or three steps ahead of Vader and everyone else, but he also had that cackling I-am-the-centre-of-the-galaxy feel to him. I think he'd argue that Thrawn is limited because he doesn't understand the significance of the Force and it's importance, but I think that Thrawn's approach in this novel makes a lot of sense; he doesn't worry about the Force and Force users, he just devises a way to make it redundant, remove it from the battlefield, and is willing to cut his losses.

[colls]

Yes, Thrawn approaches the Force like he does any other obstacle. He doesn't have a religious connection, so he's more pragmatic about it. Whereas Palpatine and most Jedi all seem to be in awe of it and honestly very emotional about it.
Outside of that, Thrawn also seems to lack compassion about anything. So it's a chilling package.