The Mandoverse has a villain problem, as 'Ahoska’s big bad was an underwhelming bore. Thrawn author Timothy Zahn has a solution to saving Disney+'s Star Wars shows.
The Mandoverse has a villain problem, as 'Ahoska’s big bad was an underwhelming bore. Thrawn author Timothy Zahn has a solution to saving Disney+'s Star Wars shows.
Nah, he was great. The problem with great villains is they have to lose at the end of the day. So no matter how genius and brilliant of a tactician Thrawn is, you know he’ll always end up as the loser.
Meh. The Villain always loses, but the suspense is often in how much damage they cause before that time.
For example, Thrawn could end up destroying a few entire planets or beloved characters before his ultimate demise. He could seduce a good character into joining the dark side. He can ‘win’ that way.
The whole ‘actually you’re too late’ trope is often a fun way of doing that. You can also subvert stuff. Make the villain turn out to be (inadvertently/ultimately) good and/or make the villain (inadvertently/ultimately) evil.
The problem with Star Wars, I think, is that it’s often far too obvious whether someone’s a villain or not. Characters like Baylan Skoll(Ahsoka), Luthen Rael(Andor), or Qi’ra(Solo) are far more interesting.
The Clone Wars did similar things with Doku, Maul and Ahsoka. It’s a shame Ahsoka is so obviously good in this show.
On the span of multi generations war, there are vilains who never lose.
Maybe Thrawn’s true goal, true way of winning, is to bring back the Emperor (we know he wants to bring back the Empire).
If Thrawn manages to make that whole Exogol / the emperor’s not dead thing believable, I don’t know if that makes him the ultimate villain or hero.
Since I don’t know what we know about what happened to Ahsoka and Thrawn between the end of Vador and the beginning of the New Order, I would like to make a few propositions of ways Thrawn could not be seen losing in the show.