Star Wars: Grand Admiral Thrawn’s History Explained

Star Wars: Ahsoka brought Grand Admiral Thrawn to live-action for the first time. Casual Star Wars fans who follow only the live-action entries into the Star Wars canon may wonder why this caused such a stir among fans. Those who have watched the animated series may recognize the character from his stint in Star Wars Rebels but not be aware of the character’s previous history. Moreover, those who don’t read Star Wars novels may not be fully aware of the depth of Thrawn’s history in the Star Wars universe. Fans familiar with Thrawn’s entire history feel assured you that the hype around him is well-founded.

At the dawn of the 1990s, Star Wars seemed dead. There hadn’t been a new Star Wars novel since 1983’s Lando Calrissian and the Starcave of ThonBoka, and the Droids and Ewoks animated series concluded in 1986, the same year that Marvel published the last issue of its ongoing Star Wars comic book series, which marked the beginning of a five-year drought in original Star Wars stories. The original Star Wars returned to theaters in 1987, and West End Games debuted Star Wars: The Roleplaying Game, a lifeline for a starved fandom.

Soon, that fandom would have a feast. Star Wars: The Roleplaying Game’s worldbuilding helped set the stage for the beginning of the Star Wars Expanded Universe. Thrawn’s arrival marked a turning point.

Thrawn in the Star Wars Legends Expanded Universe

Star Wars came roaring back to life when Bantam Spectra announced a new novel by Timothy Zahn that would continue the stories of Luke Skywalker, Leia Organa, and Han Solo five years after the Emperor died in Return of the Jedi. However, with the Emperor and Darth Vader gone, the galaxy far, far away needed a new villain for its heroes to clash against.

Enter Grand Admiral Thrawn, the titular Heir to the Empire of Zahn’s first novel. Thrawn is a Chiss, and his full Chiss name is Mitth’raw’nuruodo. Thrawn is his Chiss “core name,” an informal shortening of Chiss full names used particularly with outsiders who might struggle to pronounce their full names (the Emperor pointedly always called Thrawn by his full Chiss name).

One of only a handful of Imperial Navy officers to achieve the Grand Admiral rank, Thrawn (whose existence and designation as a Grand Admiral were kept off of official records, making the Emperor’s secret ace up his sleeve) had been on a mission to bring the Unknown Regions to heel when the Empire fell. Upon returning, he found the Imperial Remnant fractured and failing. Resolving to restore the Empire to its former glory, he planned to replenish its ranks with a lost, experimental fleet of Starships called the Dark Force and a legion of clones created with cloning technology recovered from the Emperor’s vault. The New Republic had been regularly routing what remained of the Empire for several years. Thrawn’s arrival turned the tide, transforming a clean-up mission into a deadly conflict that would decide the galaxy’s future.

Thrawn made an instant impression on fans. His rank immediately conveyed his capabilities, and Zahn was able to write plenty of instances of Thrawn living up to the aura he projected. He remained one or more steps ahead of the New Republic throughout Heir to the Empire and into its sequels, Dark Force Rising and The Last Command. That he was an alien among the otherwise entirely human Imperial military similarly spoke to his abilities. How good must he be for the Emperor and his subjects to look past their usual xenophobia?

Thrawn also contrasted with the Emperor and Darth Vader. The Sith Lords were ruled by their emotions. Thrawn was dispassionate and devoted to strategic logic and the study of art, believing that knowing an enemy’s culture allowed him to predict their strategies in combat, which sounds esoteric but served him well throughout his campaigns. Thrawn did not command with fear, as Vader and Palpatine did, but with loyalty. That’s not to say he couldn’t be ruthless. He usually reserved such viciousness for his enemies, coldly eliminating any threat to his people, but he’d also behave similarly toward his subordinates whom he deemed unworthy of the uniform. One famous scene involved Thrawn executing a member of his bridge crew in plain view of the rest of his officers, not because they’d failed in their task but because they refused to learn.

Thrawn would ultimately be defeated by the New Republic, though only barely and with no small amount of luck on the New Republic’s side. Thrawn would go on to be a presence in The Hand of Thrawn Duology, a pair of novels by Zahn – Specter of the Past and Vision of the Future – that served as a finale to Bantam Spectra’s line of New Republic Era novels, wrapping that storyline up before Del Rey took over the Star Wars license and began its long New Jedi Order series.

Interestingly, during that original era, Zahn only hinted vaguely at Thrawn’s origin and how he came to serve the Empire. That story wouldn’t be told until the 2006 novel Outbound Flight after Del Rey encouraged Zahn to write a story set during the prequel trilogy era. In that novel, a Republic expedition led by Jedi Master Jorus C’baoth (who was on the verge of becoming a Dark Jedi) enters the Unknown Regions. Wanting the Outbound Flight wiped out, Darth Sidious manipulated Thrawn into attacking and eventually destroying the expedition. This act preemptive strike and several more that followed, each going against the Chiss’s military protocol, eventually led to Thrawn’s exile from his nation. Later, after the Republic’s fall and the rise of the Empire, Imperial forces encounter Thrawn and take him back to Imperial space. Emperor Palpatine, fully aware of Thrawn’s capabilities, orders that he be admitted into the Imperial Academy, setting him on his path to becoming the Heir to the Empire.

Thrawn in Star Wars Canon

In 2014, Lucasfilm confirmed that all Star Wars stories outside of the original Star Wars film trilogy, the prequel trilogy, and the Star Wars: The Clone Wars animated series were no longer considered canon, placing the entirety of Grand Admiral Thrawn’s existence under the Star Wars Legends banner. During the 2016 Star Wars Celebration, Lucasfilm announced that Thrawn would make his canon debut in the third season of . Though Thrawn wasn’t the first Star Wars character to make the jump from Legends to canon, he was the first to make fans take notice.

At the same Star Wars Celebration, Lucasfilm announced that Zahn would write a new Star Wars novel, titled simply Thrawn, that would tell of how Thrawn came to be a part of the Imperial Navy and his experience climbing its ranks. Similarly to events in Outbound Flight, the Imperial Navy first discovered Thrawn in exile. Emperor Palpatine personally signed off on his entry into the Imperial Academy (the sequel novel Thrawn: Alliances reveals that Palpatine knew of Thrawn’s prowess in canon because Thrawn had teamed up with Anakin Skywalker during the Clone Wars and the duo had inadvertently scuttled on of Palpatine’s plans).

The Thrawn of Star Wars canon is even more calm and more considered than his Legends counterpart. Thrawn does believe in the Empire, at least as a form of government, as he believes a strong leader is needed to control the chaos that would result from a democracy of disparate cultures (though his support of the Empire is explicitly contingent on the idea that any leader will eventually die and be replaced, unaware that Palpatine hoped to live forever). However, he hoped to wield the Empire’s strength in a way that would protect the Chiss Ascendancy.

The Thrawn of Star Wars canon also respects life, at least as a resource to be used rather than squandered. While at the academy, he arranged for a group of xenophobic bullies who had repeatedly harassed him to be transferred to pilot school because he believed their aggressive traits made them ideal TIE operators. He would also try to convert any worthy adversary into an ally and mitigate the loss of life, especially civilian life, in any situation where possible. It’s hard to see this version of Thrawn executing a subordinate on his bridge to make a point.

Thrawn played the role of the main antagonist in the third and fourth seasons of Star Wars Rebels, voiced by Lars Mikkelsen, clashing with the Spectre cell and their growing network of rebel allies. Thrawn: Alliances occurred between Star Wars Rebels Season 3 and Season 4, and its sequel, Thrawn: Treason, takes place during Season 4. Both novels see Thrawn getting pulled into politics. Thrawn’s ineptitude in that theater, allies and rivals alike had noted, was his one glaring weakness. In the Star Wars Rebels finale, Thrawn is aboard the his flagship, Chimaera, when the ship gets caught in the wake of a purrgil pod that begins its journey to another galaxy at the urging of young bokken Jedi Padawan Ezra Bridger.

Thrawn’s Role in Star Wars’ Future

Ahsoka Tano has been searching for Thrawn ever since he disappeared with Ezra. She finally found him — fulfilling Star Wars fans’ longtime dream of seeing Thrawn in live-action, here played again by Mikkelsen — in that other galaxy that the purrgil dragged him into. With only one episode left of Ahsoka, it seems unlikely that he’ll be defeated by the end of Ahsoka and will likely return to the Star Wars galaxy. Could he be the big villain being set up for Dave Filoni’s Star Wars movie?

Timothy Zahn created Thrawn when Star Wars needed a formidable villain. Dave Filoni finds himself in a similar situation. As mentioned in ComicBook.com’s review of , Filoni frames Ahsoka as the beginning of a new Star Wars trilogy, perhaps one loosely adapting the story beats of Zahn’s original Thrawn trilogy. Star Wars needs villains. Why not turn to one of its best?

Fan-favorite Star Wars hero Ahsoka Tano returns in the brand new series on Disney+. Rosario Dawson stars in Star Wars: Ahsoka, which premiered on August 22nd on the streamer. The series picks up after the events of The Mandalorian and The Book of Boba Fett, in which we saw the former Jedi searching for Grand Admiral Thrawn (Lars Mikkelsen) and helping Luke Skywalker train Grogu. Ahsoka will be joined on her new mission alongside longtime allies Sabine Wren (Natasha Liu Bordizzo) and Hera Syndulla (Mary Elizabeth Winstead) as they attempt to track down Thrawn, who was last seen disappearing to the far reaches of space after a confrontation with Ezra Bridger (Eman Esfandi). Star Wars: Ahsoka is the latest live-action series from Lucasfilm’s creative duo of Jon Favreau and Dave Filoni.