Grand Admiral Thrawn Explains the Difference Between an Error and a Mistake
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- čas přidán 13. 08. 2022
- Nobody does it quite like Marc Thompson. I will NEVER try to produce my own audiobook if Marc Thompson has already done it. This is an excerpt from the unabridged audiobook, read by Marc Thompson, of Timothy Zahn's original Star Wars Expanded Universe masterpiece, Heir to the Empire. In this excerpt, Thrawn makes an example to his bridge crew aboard the Star Destroyer Chimera while explaining the difference between an error and a mistake.
I love hearing all your points of view on this incident.
All our points are true from a certain point of view.
@@hibernianperspective6183 You should watch “Hello There” on RoyishGoodLooks channel.
Snap hiss
66 thousand views !
I think a larger issue is being overlooked here. The reason why the crewman was executed over the failure instead of the ensign was that the crewman's first instinct at being questioned by Thrawn was to make excuses and deflect blame. The ensign, conversely, did not deflect blame, and all but took responsibility for what happened. Despite his obvious unease, the ensign stated the facts as well as he knew them and embellished nothing. In Thrawn's eyes, the crewman's behavior was endemic to the old Empire, and an underlying cause of its defeat to the Rebel Alliance. That kind of thinking had to be purged from the Imperial ranks if the new Empire was to have any success. Making an example of the crewman in front of the entire bridge watch drives this message home in no uncertain terms.
Well said
Agree unlike Vader who would simply have one of his tantrums an kill a soldier simply on impulse. At least Thrown gives a reason an is fair. He even admits when in the wrong an takes responsibility for it.
Your thinking like a chiss my friend
Absolutely agree & was looking for a post like this before putting up my own. The first step in preventing an error from becoming a mistake is the ability to admit you screwed up.
Yes, one cannot correct an error if one is unwilling to admit they have made it. Making excuses and shifting the blame turns an error into a mistake.
"Anyone can make an error, but that error doesn't become a mistake until you refuse to correct it."
~Marc Thompson
Thompson is the perfect voice behind so many well read Star Wars stories. I love his voice especially in all the Thrawn-related ones. Perfection.
@@gecko2.617 in times when I was down listening to his voice was comforting and helped me breathe and calm down
Decided to listen for a second time while reading some of the comments. I got to this one at that exact moment the line was read. Was this Thrawn's doing?
"There are no mistakes, just happy little errors." - Thrawn Ross
😂
🤣
The most dangerous thing about Thrawn was, and will always be, his tactical cunning, not physical strength, ability with a blaster, force abilities or willingness to perform acts of unspeakable cruelty toachive his goals, but his sheer inteligence, knowledge and wisdom, being able to make a plan where he's always 3 steps ahead of everyone else and willingness to learn from his errors and experiences and change his plans in order to achive the best outcome.
Tarkin wanted a big hammer and was more than happy to use it in every situation, beliving everyone would be afraid of said hammer.
Thrawn would rather have, and use, the right tool for the job.
I belive Thrawn would rather have 1.000 Star Destroyers than 1 Deathstar.
Well said. His intellectual curiosity, true humility, and emotional intelligence allowed him to grow by leaps and bounds. The character evolves because Zahn is a courageous writer. The Grand Admiral has his faults, but the Original Thrawn trilogy is written to fit the need for an antagonist. However, with his psy ological profile, the Thrawn of those books is a patchwork and some of his actions do not jibe with his various intelligence. His complexity is better dealt with in the newer trilogies.
I especially love how later in the book a similar situation happens but the crewman tries his best to prevent it and Thrawn rewards him
That’s what I thought this scene was at first. I’d forgotten there were two.
Thrwan rrewards him and all the crew feel a greater loyalty toward him.
@@opa633 In the second set of novels by Zahn, the same trick is tried again which the crew member was told to "solve for".
... the Imperials found a way to solve for it.
Is there a quoting of this too? If so, what is the link?
czcams.com/video/xh0DNdaMcK4/video.html
I saw part of a relatively new fan film on this novel and I was shocked to see Thrawn have a subordinate killed. Shows him and Vader are similar but Vader is venting his rage while Thrawn is “correcting an error.”
Accept Vader would choked the officer to death and promoted someone to replace him.
@@decadebird someone that also may not be fit for the roll they were suddenly promoted to.
Disagree. It’s the difference between being ruthless and being unstable. Thrawn used fear to leverage the best out of his people. He killed that crewman because he was unwilling to take responsibility for an error, but instead tried to find someone else to blame. Vader was just unstable and unable to control his anger. So he’d kill people simply because he didn’t like the outcome. That instills a sense of helplessness and despair In the people around him. So he gets far less than their best, and people who are unwilling to bring him any bad news or disagree with him in any way.
Thrawn also promotes a junior officer despite his failure in almost the exact kind of situation in the third novel.
@@JonathanLundkvist Yes. That’s when it comes full circle. Thrawn’s Empire is born.
That's why Thrawn was such an excellent leader, he's tough but fair. Also, he takes effort to see who's truly at fault instead of just executing the nearest officer or everyone involved. Thrawn expects you to succeed, or to accept blame and correct your error if you fail. He has no time for incompetent subordinates who refuse to accept blame and learn from their errors to improve. And of course, sometimes an example must be made to drive this point home.
And this is why Thrawn was a better leader than Vader.
Pellaeon: “If Thrawn had been in command of at Endor…”
He was the Empire's BEST leader. If he had run things from the start instead of Palpatine, the Empire would never have fallen and it would've been better maintained, not as cruel, and vicious. It'd be a strict government, but wouldn't go out of the way to build planet killing devices. Alien discrimination wouldn't exist since Thrawn wasn't human and he didn't like how xenophobic the Empire was.
@@coruscant100 The Empire without nepotism, xenophobia, and slavery would only strengthen it rather than weaken it, and would likely result in far more loyal and hardworking citizens.
@@coruscant100 General Maximilian Greers was his land battle counterpart.
@@coruscant100 That reminds me of the Simpson's episode where the recreate the biblical stories where David (Bart) defeats Goliath (Nelson) and everyone is mad at him.
_"Goliath brought us clean water and good roads!"_
_"He improved the school system!"_
😂
It's an interesting scene. It shows Thrawn as an evil character, but one with STANDARDS. He was the perfect Magnificent Bastard years before Xanatos was created.
Unlike so many M-Bastards, he doesn't really have a final act breakdown. That preserved his awesomeness in the audience's eyes. Even when stuff is going wrong all around him, he never lost his cool. In the end, even in death, it was so artistically done.
I've known Thompson since I was 11 years old. He is one of the most genuine and encouraging, serving people I have had the pleasure to meet.
Wow! That is so cool to hear. I’d love to meet him someday.
The thing is this scene is really just a set up which really trys to liken thrawn to Vader, a belief we have broken later when the falcon similarly escapes but in which the crewman who lost it is promoted for attempting to solve the problem creatively even tho he lost the falcon
*tries
*Thrawn
*Falcon
*though
@@mousermind Ah. Pointing out errors, I see. Now we just have to see if dear Mr. Stamm will refuse to correct them.
@@ther_ternum6712 gottim
@@ther_ternum6712 isn't it more respectful to leave them in so that mouse dosent look bad? That was my impression
And that later incident was when I got really scared. When I realized how good Thrawn was for the empire. Now they're large AND can think. Terrifying.
This is the best Thrawn voice of all time. It's suaveness, confidence and power are self-evident
Totally. No one does this like Marc Thompson.
@@decadebird agreed, I wish they'd kept him as Thrawn in all audio iterations. The Pellaeon is also impressive and how I picture how the Old Man of the Empire to sound
@@grandadmiralzaarin4962 in all of Zahn’s Thrawn books, Marc is the reader.
Heard of Lars Mikkelsan voice Thrawn. Its pretty damn good.
@@PrussianZwei Cool. When did he do Thrawn’s voice?
Timothy Zahn is a master at character writing, dialogue, mood, setting, and every other aspect of writing!
Thrawn is by far my favorite Star Wars character. Everything he does is with purpose even if others don't see it or understand it. These books may have shown a bit of a darker version of Thrawn, but he is probably the best representation of the Admiral that there will ever be.
One way or another, he NEEDS to end the war in the galaxy, so they can focus one the bigger threats in the Unknown Regions.
...these books? Created Thrawn. This is his genesis.
The Thrawn in these books is the original Thrawn. The one from Rebels is a lighter version of him.
@Alexander Kerensky Book Thrawn stole people's art too, but not as overtly as Rebels Thrawn. Spot on about everything else, though.
@Alexander Kerensky "Willing to bomb civilians"? Absolutely. Assuming you could provide a good tactical reason to justify such a thing. The reality of the situation is that the Empire's massive superweapons provided less actual offensive power to the Empire than say, the number of Star Destroyers that could be created with the same amount of money/resources. And they provided a major singular target for the Rebels. They were horribly inefficient at what they were intended to do, the later ones like the Sun Crusher even worse than the Death Star.
Thrawn didn't really have moral issues with these things, he disliked them because they were ineffective and wasteful. To use a real life example, he would advocate against torturing a prisoner for information because it is a good way to get garbage information, not because it is wrong to torture a prisoner.
Nice, can't get enough of Marc Thompson's narrations of these books!
So much character-building and passion put into this dialog, the more I know about Star Wars's books and the history before Disney's "canonical sequels" the more it infuriates me.
Timothy Zahn and Marc Thompson are still going strong.
This scene fascinated me when I first read it. It was a clever subversion of what's called the Blofeld Ploy, wherein the villain appears to be setting up someone to die, only to kill another (usually, their own guy). Had the scene played the trope straight, Thrawn would have killed the Ensign. But no, he kills the crewman, the person who operates the tractor beam.
Thrawn's line of questioning was to determine if the crewman was improperly trained (Ensign's error) or an idiot who can't accept blame (the mistake). Turns out, he was the latter. The Ensign, however, did accept responsibility that he might have improperly trained the crewman, but the standard manual included the very scenario the crewman would have known to counter had he bothered to read the damn thing.
Had the crewman accepted responsibility, he likely would have kept his life and been sent for retraining. But since his first instinct was to sputter that it wasn't his fault and cast blame to his superior, it proved to Thrawn that he was simply incompetent and would have affected his more competent colleagues. It's notable that Thrawn was very conservative with his troops, so the fact he had Rukh kill this guy should be an indicator that he has no tolerance for the incompetent, never-my-fault attitude that pervaded the Old Empire.
For the longest time I always hear Duke Devlin (Yu-Gi-Oh) and Casey Jones (TMNT 2003), when I hear Marc Thompson’s voice, but I never knew he could do this! The man is incredibly talented! 😀👍
Yes! He is my fave.
I know him more for Z-one's voice. It's a shame how the 5Ds dub was cancelled so he didn't get to voice him more.
The original Thrawn books makes Thrawn seem so much darker than the newer ones. Also in the newer books Thrawn and Anakin Skywalker spend some time together which makes me wonder if Thrawn has any reservations about going after Luke.
If you read The Hand of Thrawn, you can understand why he is so ruthless, and it kind of meshes with the new Thrawn books. I think Zahn is still telling the same story.
@@decadebird yeah I read it fifteen years ago. Maybe it's time for a reread because I don't remember it that well. Just that Thrawn was cloning himself.
@Cecil Mcadder I don't like how the new books make Thrawn seem so dumb to politics. He never seemed that way to me in the heir to the empire books.
@Cecil Mcadder *clever
A _cleaver_ is an implement for splitting meat.
Having known his father, he likely would have little emotion on the matter, but knowing full well the innate Skywalker potential.
After reading the newer Thrawn novels I feel like the crewman would have been reassigned had this scene been written today, but the ensign warned of the consequences of failing to correct the error.
These new books (and the depiction on Rebells) doesn't show Thrawn IMHO, they show a blue thing that pretends to be Thrawn...seriously, the original Thrawn would never have tried to shoot a starfighter down with a hand-blaster or gone into a physical fight, that's what he has stormtroopers and Noghri for!
@@dreamingflurry2729 well to be perfectly fair in the new books, (and Rebells) he does not have Noghri (hopefully yet?)
@@MehrumesDagon He has the Noghri Rhulk. Eg. he appears in the disruptor smuggling episode.
@@nefanyo5788 in Rebels?
@@MehrumesDagon yes.
I love this scene paired with the one where luke dips out on thrawn again and he goes to the tractor beam worker and asks him if there was anything else he could have done to stop it and he says no and thrawn is like "yep you are correct, here is a promotion" makes him such a dynamic Villain
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This is why Thrawn will always be the greatest
These books slapped. Though admittedly somewhat repetitive in formula, it was always interesting to see things unfold.
True. Especially when you compare the end of The Last Command to the end of Return of the Jedi, but that helps maintain the spirit of Star Wars.
@Cecil Mcadder Still used as a verb here. Slapped can be used slang talk for “impressed”
The problem was the massive amount of plot armor the good guys had otherwise they would never have triumphed. One of the only good things about disney Star Wars is that Grand Admiral Thrawn is still alive.
I wanted so hard for the sequel trilogy to just be these three books .
Or the introduction of the Yuuzhann Vong Invasion, something new few outside of the True Fans know anything about. Yet could easily carry a Trilogy. 30+ years after Return of the Jedi even lines up pretty well for the timeline.
Oh what's that, you like good story plotlines with smart and likeable characters? And also feel that it would be an easy thing to brink into the big screen since all the writing had been taken care of already? That's racist, sexist homophobic *insert other phobic I forget* and sexist! How dare you, a fan who has faithfully whated and waited for the next trilogy and has made countless good idea on how it should be done and what to introduce to the universe tell me a Hollywood director(enough said) on how to write a franchise which I didn't even know existed until a year ago, how dare you sir!?!?!?
Yeah, that never make any sense beyond them not wanting to pay Timothy Zahn. The books were soooooo good and would have made an extremely compelling new villain to carry more movies. You could have even altered the ending to ensure Thrawn sticks around or even combine them so that a tentative balance exists between Thrawn and the New Republic only to have them have to team up against the Vong. You could write some amazing scenes of Thrawn attempting to analyze as alien a society as the Yuuzhan Vong.
Or at least base the sequel trilogy on any of the books, or even the damn games. Marvel got its success partly by adapting successful source material, Disney should've considered adapting elements from the novels.
@@-Bill. Strange, because they later introduced Thrawn into the 'Rebels' cartoon series. I think this decision was partly not wanting to pay Zahn at first, sure... but it had a much deeper problem.
Disney bought the IP and wanted to immediately show they were going to do something with it, so they rushed into a new movie. Subsequently they rushed the next two wanting to have the movies hit a "rhythm" so a new movie could be expected regularly. This pacing of producing the movies meant the stories were necessarily "what we can get going quickly" and not really given a chance to be better than 'just get it on the screen'...
I've always considered the major failing of the sequel trilogy was in rushing them. The Original Trilogy took time to happen, three years between each of them. Principal photography on ESB, the bulk of the work shooting, started almost two years after the release date of the first movie. Between "The Force Awakens" and "The Last Jedi" it was a mere three months. This is how you get plot points which are juggled poorly, or ideas which wind up not working out but get left in. (Note: The OT had this happen too, but the longer time spent on writing allowed rewrites to fix some of them. Notably a change to merge the characters of Anakin Skywalker and Darth Vader.)
Two books later, not only was the error of the target lock loss corrected, but the error of crew members not taking responsibility.
Proof is in the pudding
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The three books written by Timothy Zahn will always be the final trilogy to me. What was done by JJ, KK, under the mouse are just a bad dream akin to Pam's night mare of shooing JR.
It feels like the writer had a thesaurus open while he was writing this.
No nonsense, just the read, and beautifully read at that. Thank you for that, @Decade Bird.
Thrawn was an amazing character wish we could have gotten him on the big screen instead we got kylo
Indeed, imagine the original Thrawn-Trillogy, including the space-battles (using Interdictors to make pin-point-combat-jumps possible and using the mole-miners to try and steal New Republic warships...) on the big screen...damned, would watch, while I have refused to watch Disney Wars (ain't my Star Wars anymore!) since their second movie (don't even remember the title, would have to look it up!), the one with the - stupid - hyperspace-ramming! :(
Kylo was a dumbed down version of Jacen Solo (Darth Caedus) and Rey was a "Made in China" version of Jacen's sister, Jaina. So, we did get characters from the expanded universe, from a certain point of view.
One thing that is often overlooked with Vader's dealing with Subordinates that failed is that, as far as the films go, he really isn't that bad. In all the films Vader only ever killed Two Imperial Officers and both had royally fucked up. Lucas even had a scene where Vader began to strangle an officer in Return of the Jedi removed because he felt it would have been overusing this trope. In short, what Thrawn does here is isn't really any different then what Vader does in The Empire Strikes Back. Someone screwed up so badly that they've either given the Rebels a fighting chance OR the Rebels just flat out escaped.
Contrast this with the First Order over in The Disney Sequel Trilogy where Hux is kept alive for the entire Trilogy after losing several ships, Starkiller Base and letting a mad man take over. Or Phasma who betrayed the First Order and yet was allowed to keep her power with no explanations unless you read her tie in comic. Or Kylo Ren, who failed so badly that he lost the entire First Order in about a Year in Universe after he took over.
The First Order is really a good example to evil Empires as to why sometimes, you really just need to kill the people that screw up cause in the end their going to cause you more problems. They don't really succeed at anything and don't learn from their mistakes and keep turning on each other. The First Order sucks is what I'm getting at here.
The simple answer is Zahn wanted thrawn to come off as logical and pragmatic, Zahn pretty much INVENTED the whole Vader kills you for bringing him bad news/ whether he feels like it, IE officiers drawing straws to go tell Vader somethings fucked up. He wanted a contrast Vader was a engine of rage and emotion, Palpy was dictated by his sadism and depravity.
Such a cool book. For all his brilliance, Luke consistently confounds Thrawn. That Skywalker mojo.
I did not know Marc Thompson was still doing voice work, and HOLY SHIT, this narration is slick and intimidating. 😳
He is still at it. He is currently doing the Essential Legends Collection of Michael Stackpole’s X-Wing Series.
Let's not forget Thrawn defeated the new Republic fleet in one battle. He said to his commanders 'learn from your defeats,
Whether you approve of Thrawn or not, he brings great value to the story.
@@decadebird I love the Thrawn character. He's very smart and very ruthless (imagine Sherlock Holmes and Professor Moriarty) mix together in one person. That's Grand Admiral Thrawn which is why he is such a well written character and one of the best Star Wars characters
I love this scene especially when looked at it together with another similar one in "The last command" where Thrawn promoted someone else who also failed but at least tried to complete his assignment. That shows how Thrawn values those who can think on the spot while dealing with uncreative blame shifters like they deserve
czcams.com/video/xh0DNdaMcK4/video.htmlsi=wP0oa7CxRDozO4jh
You'll all know he borrowed that quote, right? "An error doesn't become a mistake until you refuse to correct it." -
Orlando Aloysius Battista (A Canadian-American Chemist)
I didn’t know, but that makes it even cooler.
Been a while since I read these books. Gods these should have been episodes 7-9.
I haven't read this book in years but I still recall this scene
I like how different Mark Thompson (the best SW voice actor and the one in the video) makes his voice for Thrawn in the canon and legends books
Correct on all accounts. 👍
Well, that was a rock solid narration and sound design.
Ah yes, the perfect voice actor/reader for any star wars novel. I love his voice!
Personally I felt Thrawn was too Datk Side in this scene. I thought the author wanted to show him as a villain when he ordered the kill. if I understand the situation correctly Thrawn has already made his decision the rest is a performance for the bridge crew. His goal is the motivate his crew to adapt without an ordering them to get creative. the problem I have with it is, he doesn't have ri kill the man to discipline or make an example for others. He could have him flogged. He could have let the officer over him discipline him. its really his execution I disagree with. it also feels uncharacteristic of Thrawn who typically inspires both loyalty and courage in his followers
It comes full circle in The Last Command.
@@decadebird Tbh, the scenes should be played alongside each other for this reason. Also, I must say what I miss in Thrawns Disney-Canon appearences is the pragmatic use of evil acts.
Agreed, the Last Command scene is deliberately set up to make this one better. It shows his fairness and makes his crew even more loyal to Thrawn.
This is why Thrawn was the Empire’s hope and the New Republic’s doom.
Learn about art
@@decadebird When you understand a species art, you understand that species.
You also have to upload the part where Thrawn promotes another guy instead of killing him likely everyone expected. It is the payoff to this scene
My weekend plans are exposed. 😂
@@decadebird haha
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I'd vote for Emperor Thrawn!
Thrawn/Pellaeon, 2024
Thrawn in EU: _I am Space Sun Tzu_
Disney Thrawn: "..... My name jeff"
I dont know. Love this book.
Utterly phenomenal
This scene reminds me of a similar scene in Mr Zhan's book "Splinter of the Mind's Eye". In which an Ensign tried to catch a ship with a the tractor beam, but, could not, due to some unknown tactic that was used. He tried, on the fly, some unorthodox way of compensating for the tactic, but, failed. Thrawn promoted him for original thinking and ordered him to research for a way to improve the unorthodox tactic he had used. I has been years since I read that book, so I do not remember all the details.
Thrawn is my favorite character from the Star Wars Universe. I also found myself rooting for him against the heroes like Luke. I would love to see what would happen after Thrawn reformed the Empire.
Captain Needa would have fit right in with Thrawn's crew.
I shall assume full responsibility for losing them and apologize to Lord Vader.
He killed him because he shifted the blame on other people and he refused to take responsibility for his own mistake. An error is doing something wrong but a mistake is doing something wrong and refusing to correct it.
For some reason, I always think of Scott Pelly as Pelion
Legends gave us Thrawn, Disney gave us the Star Wars equivalent of Galvatron.
great video man!!!!!
Thanks. You’re very kind.
Thanks. You’re very kind.
Is there any audio from the follow up bit with the second tractor beam officer?
I recommend listening to the full audiobook. 😁
This is quite different to Thrawn's character in the 6 newer Zahn books. A bit too brutal for him really, as I never saw him as a villain in those books. He'd have the crewmember dismissed to a less demanding post rather than just murdered. I suppose events could have changed him to be more ruthless, but it is quite an extreme change. Not out of the realm of possibility though.
I was expecting the second tractor beam attempt to also be in this video, to show the contrast between Thrawn's first response, and his second.
Stay tuned. 😂
czcams.com/video/xh0DNdaMcK4/video.html
I can't find these types of of audio novels where can I get them? All the one's I've come across are just someone reading pages. I do enough reading on my own sometimes I just want to relax an hear a story as if watching a movie not something that's sounding like a lecture from a college professor. If someone knows of these an similar please let me know.
A couple options. I say get the Libby App and connect it to your library card. Then ask your library to purchase the eAudiobook. Or get Audible. Or buy it iTunes. Etc.
audible i have the whole series on there
You can either get them from audible or go to your local library and get audio books on CD’s
What is not being said is that Marc Thompson is the greatest performer for Thrawn
…and basically any other character
Not saying what thrawn did was right but you can definitly see the conflictions all this so the Yu zong vong dont wipe them all out when he is in control
The fact he weighed on idea of doing what vader did with the imperials before actually making the choice and you can see its not just emotional one but a choice he thought made the more efficient effect...Thrawn does not display much emotion...But emotion is the driving force for logical action and i sense desperation
Here’s hoping Luke and Ashoka face Thrawn together in there series
I feel like we need a whole spin off series about Thrawn being given overall command of everything and seeing how he wins it all. You know, without the Emperor being an idiot and meddling with the senior officers.
😂
Now that's a cool villain.
Though, I do wish he hadn't killed the tech. He had so much gravitas just talking to them, they were already crapping themselves. Killing the guy kinda... made him a little less. Whenever I see a villainous commander kill their underlings, they just seem... weak. Too weak to control people without excessive violence.
I mean think of it this way: Does anyone really respect a manager who has to scream and cuss at his employees?
Excellent addition to the SW universe, glad they brought him back out of legends continuity
Brought him back? No, they made a pale imitation, with a lot less skill and talent (real Thrawn, from the old books, would never have tried to shoot down a starfighter with a hand-blaster or gone into a brawl! He has Noghri and Stormtroopers for that!)...it's a (bad!) attempt to pull at the heartstrings of the old fans, the ones they spit in the face of and the ones they told to fuck off they owe them nothing!
@@dreamingflurry2729 I agree. What makes Thrawn such a compelling character is that he does not have force powers, he does not have special abilities, and he does not have martial prowess. He isn’t gifted with anything but a strong mind, and he uses that mind to take down people who are gifted physically and who have the force. Making him do kick-boxing, shooting at enemy fighters, not to mention illogical actions (letting the Rebels go??), undermines the entire strength of the character.
In the case of him shooting at a starfighter, that is actually an homage to the movie Patton (1970), one of the greatest films of all time about one of the greatest real life generals of all time. George S. Patton was a genius tactician, but he was also an Olympian athlete. He was bold, aggressive, vulgar, and had a massive ego. One of his more famous quotes is; “When in doubt, ATTACK!”. He led from the front lines, at times even walking through artillery fire. In other words, a complete badass if ever there was one, but not at all like the character of Thrawn. It’s very unfortunate how Disney has wrecked the character; I imagine Zahn understands the character better than we do but has orders from above to write in a certain way. Oh well, at least we will always have the Thrawn Trilogy and Hand of Thrawn Duology along with their excellent audiobook narrations.
And this is why the Thrawn in the six new novels would be a more effective leader than the original version featured here. Performance errors and making excuses do not come close to justifying execution. Making an “example” of someone by murdering them for mundane flaws will only make the rest of the crew live in constant fear. Sure, they may not deflect blame, or make lame excuses, after seeing or hearing about this. But Thrawn simply demonstrated a capacity for brutally unjust, disproportionate punishment. Is there really much difference between “viciously cruel, disproportionately unjust and unpredictable” that many of the Empire’s officers demonstrate and “viciously cruel, disproportionately unjust but predictable” that Thrawn displays here?
The newer Thrawn would never be so cruel, or waste a resource so unnecessarily. Busting the crewman down to laundry detail - and letting everyone know that this is what you get for deflecting responsibility - would have been far better. The crew would learn the lesson, not have to live in fear, and see Thrawn as tough but fair. All of this builds tremendous loyalty in people, as well as fostering a workplace where excellence is still expected, but mistakes are seen as opportunities to learn, and the crew operates out of dedication instead of fear. That is a far more effective environment than what killing people can ever engender - whether or not they are operating in a state of war.
I like to think that Timothy Zahn has read some of the research into management, evolutionary psychology, and leadership training that’s been conducted since he wrote the (undeniably fantastic) original Thrawn trilogy. The new Thrawn is the avatar of informed, outstanding management. The best managers see the success of their subordinates as among their primary responsibilities, producing as it will the success of whatever their mutual endeavor happens to be. And they have available to them information that provides a much clearer understanding of how to facilitate the growth of the people they supervise. Thrawn displays a great deal of this in the new novels.
This is why the rebels won. The imperial officers kept killing their own guys 😆
What book is the is in?
Heir to the Empire, by Timothy Zahn.
Here's a question for everyone. Only counting his first trilogy appearance and nothing that was changed or added after... was Thrawn a real evil Villian or just the antagonist? He did some things that were villainous but even before the later novels fleshed out why he was doing what he did, I never got the idea that he was trying to destroy the New Republic for fun or because he was evil mcbad guy.
It always seemed like he had a reason to me and the things we learn later actually don't seem like a retcon. This execution and the stuff with the Noghri are the only things I can think of that are really just morally wrong and even then he didn't do it without a reason
Very fair points. To me, he was the bad guy, and very good at being the bad guy...until I read Vision of the Future. That was the first time I started to consider his motives and see him as a ruthless protagonist. I don't see it as a retcon; just a revelation.
@@decadebird Yeah there's been a lot of complaining g from people in the community for years about hes personality being retconned but I agree, simply because we never got his motivation in the original books doesn't mean fleshing it out later changed the character. For all we know.Zahn could have had his back story planned from the start.
I just feel like, especially with Outbound flight and the short stories about how he joined the empire that the man was doing what he thought was best
Too bad you didn't include all that came just before this incident happened. (Haven't noticed if you did in a prior vid yet.)
The books brought to life, sort of. The last one I read was just after Luke had helped defeat Aboloth.
I have not, but I strongly encourage everyone to listen to the full audiobook, as well as all Marc Thompson's work.
I will actively turn off a Star Wars audiobook if it's not voiced by Marc Thompson. He is the best narrator ever!
Haha. Definitely the best!
Is this cannon?what time did this happen exactly
Heir to the Empire was part of the Expanded Universe Novels, and was published in 1991, so it is NOT Canon; it is considered Legends now, but with Thrawn's integration into new Canon, who knows. The book takes place five years after the Battle of Endor.
Can’t say then lets see when ashoka finds thrawn and ezra
It's original cannon, but not Disney cannon. A very good trilogy with some of the best non-movie characters from the original EU.
Legends star wars is better than Disney starwars anyway
Such an awesome trilogy, just too bad it was never turned into the actual movie trilogies instead of the recent 3.
lots of people talking like this is reasonable, but this is every bit as evil as anything vader ever did, this poor kid was just a conscript.
Killing the enlisted man serves no purpose other than making Thrawn a scary man. Well, he's a Grand Admiral so to most people (including his own captain) he's already scary, so from a storytelling perspective it's redundant. From a tactical perspective, it's a waste of the resources that went into training that crewman, and now he can't learn from the mistake. From a strategic perspective, it would only make the ass covering of other subordinates more subtle in the future. Zero tolerance policies don't work, but the rest of the book is sound so we have to give grace to the author.
Its purpose is worldbuilding, not character building. It rhymes with Vader Force-choking people left and right, and it shows how cheap human life is in the SW universe. But I too think it's a bit unnecessary.
I guess my only issue is this being used as a positive example of Thrawn. I reckon any of the times he figured something out, or didn't throw a tantrum during a loss would have been a better choice. Good books overall though, real shame Disney decided to axe all of the decent storylines that were available.
Hm...strange, then Thrawn should have executed Paelleon, too because while a by the book officer, he was never the most adaptable commander and never the greatest tactician! As for error and mistake: Well, what should the conscript have done? Gone to manual and maybe do even more damage, especially since his computer confirmed to him that he had a lock again (so from his POV everything was OK, till the proton-torpedo detonated!)! How should he have known?
I do like Thrawn, but sometimes imperial culture sadly has corrupted him into killing when it wasn't neccessary or even called for! Yes, you don't undermine an Admiral on his bridge ("Wasn't me, Sir!" - despite it being your fingers at the controls!), but disciplining enlisted (conscripted or volunteers doesn't matter!) men shouldn't be done by having them killed even during war time!
The conscript could have not started with "it wasn't my fault". Trying to get to shift the blame for the situation to someone else is the reason he got killed off, not the fact that his training was (or wasn't) incomplete.
But in the end, Thrawn is still a bad guy. Likeable, and very intelligent bad guy, but a bad guy netherless.
i thought a mistake is not so bad as an error
could be because english is not my mother language
Semantics.
This is how you write a story. No political issues no gender problems.
It’s just pure story driven novel.
It’s a shame this will never been shown on the big screen.
Please tell me what you mean by gender problems. I could use a laugh
Like, you need to understand how STUPID your "if it treats issues I don't face, then it's worthless" take is
You're also talking as if Star Wars isn't political at its very core (it's always been)
EU >>>>>>>>> mouse canon
Worst thrawn moment
posting a link to a website to download a pirated copy of an audiobook is a very bad idea mate. not only can you get your own channel banned but you are also taking money of the pocket of both the author of the book and the narrator by telling people how to get it for free. very bad idea mate!
Thanks for the advice. Deleted.
@@decadebird I love how basically all the audiobooks are easily found free with google searches lol
@Sabizos *B A S E D*
The original EU contributors don't see a single cent of payment from Di$ney anyway. Look it up, it's been kind of a big deal for the past few years, and it's probably one of the reasons why the Mouse canned the EU in the first place: so the company wouldn't have to pay royalties to the creators of these works. At this point, it's literally more ethical to pirate than give money to the Rat.
Phew too bad its just read by one guy instead of a whole ensemble