#thrawn treason is my favorite book thanks for asking

[zeb-z]

the starship battle between the Steadfast and Grysk warships with the 12 TIE defenders is the coolest battle I’ve read in a long while what the fuck. the usage of the slingshot strategy with masses and a tractor beam as shown previously in the book, along with a cloaked gravity-well generator? the way they use it to functionally teleport the defenders in and out of the battle to tear the ships to shreds, using Eli’s intelligence? tanking the fight that was basically 3 to 1 with odds not in their favor??

the fact that it takes place at the same time as the standoff between Faro and Thrawn against Savit? bringing back the little Checov’s gun of Savit’s music connections? even Ronan’s move with his stupid cape. phenomenal. Thrawn and Faro as well as Ar’alani and Eli, taking on incredible odds, and outsmarting them in a way that is believable (or believable for Star Wars lol) and just absolutely epic?? space fights can be difficult to read through but holy shit this one was so cool

[thrawns-backrest]

Listen, what do you think about how the fandom perceives Ronan? This may be a strange question, but I saw post here about how Thrawn is an ambiguous character, he does both good and bad things, he is not an innocent kitten, etc. And I completely agree with this. But it seems to me that in relation to Ronan, the opposite situation very often manifests itself. If Thrawn is sometimes too idealized by the fandom, although he is a more complex person, then Ronan often appears as some kind of universal evil in posts and fanfiction. And…I don't know, it just doesn't seem right to me. He has a adverse nature, that's true, and his loyalty to Krennic sometimes pushes him to do not the best things, but there are enough moments in the canon that show his good traits too. At least he is really loyal man and not as stupid as he might seem. I just saw your post recently where you talked about him, so I was interested to ask your opinion!

Thank you for your attention and sorry if I disturbed you :c

please don't apologize, I love asks like this!!! If anything I should probably apologize because this is about to become ridiculously long :D I really like Ronan as a character, he's one of my favorites from Treason. He's entertaining, competent, somewhat churlish and has that posh attitude where you really want to ruffle his feathers to see what he'll do.

Those last two are part of the reason why it's fun to make him the butt of the joke and why the fandom does it so often. But having said that... you're absolutely right. I've also noticed that the fandom tends to be excessively antagonistic towards him (as it is with some other similar characters but more on that later).

And you're right to bring up Thrawn because he's the golden child here, him and Eli, and any character that disagrees with or doesn't like him automatically gets blacklisted. Which is odd to me since Thrawn is supposed to be controversial and Zahn does a good job of portraying that by giving us different characters' perspectives and reasons for liking/disliking him.

Sadly for Ronan he's very unfriendly towards Thrawn and Eli and ends up making a decision that goes against Thrawn's goals which now garners him a lot of hate. An interesting development given that Thrawn himself doesn't begrudge him for it in the books and even trusts him enough to send him to the Chiss. Which honestly means so much coming from Thrawn? It's as close to a stamp of approval as you can get from him, be it of Ronan's trustworthiness or simply his skills.

So if people really hold Thrawn in such high esteem, they shouldn't forget that his own assessment of Ronan was ultimately positive. No matter what role he plans for Ronan to play in the Ascendancy (even if that role is for Ronan to come to specific conclusions he can then take back to the Empire, ie feeding him some kind of information) Thrawn trusts him enough to, again, send him to his own people. People with lost of secrets that make them vulnerable.

And it's honestly a shame because as you say, Ronan has so much going for him as a character. The very idea of someone who's loyal to the Empire while being critical of Palpatine is so cool. It's literally something that can get him killed yet he's ready to face that danger if it means adhering to his principles.

Of course loyalty to the wrong party makes him pretty culpable but regardless, there is a good basis for him to grow as a character. As already mentioned he's loyal, he's competent, he disapproves of Palpatine and all the petty political games that dominate the Empire's higher echelons. He feels guilty for tricking Eli despite believing that he's a traitor. He even comes to respect Thrawn's skills by the end and modifies his answer when reporting to Tarkin so as to ensure Thrawn isn't accused of treason.

So very good foundation to build from. There's still his loyalty to Krennic (who is a pretty damn morally corrupt guy from what I've read) but an overzealous attitude like Ronan's understandably makes him liable to blind idolization so we can't really say for sure that he has a nasty motif for admiring Krennic.

From what Zahn tells us, Ronan seems to admire Krennic for his, quote, leadership, competence and brilliance and he does so to an excessive degree. He sounds pretty starry eyed is what I'm trying to say. Enough to cloud his better judgement perhaps.

Moral or immoral though, he's still a pretty cool character. Which is the same thing you can say about Thrawn. Funnily enough they're almost parallels of each other - Thrawn has honorable end goals that he pursues through corrupt means and Ronan (unwittingly or not) works toward a corrupt end goal but is pretty morally upright in the way he does it.

And come on you can't tell me he doesn't have one of the coolest descriptions (like Savit noting his eyes look older than he does) or some of the coolest inner monologue (like the "half a victory is still half a defeat" line). I also love how he hates politics yet ironically those political mental gymnastics are exactly what he's good at.

But I digress. My point is that you hit the nail on the head when you said the fandom idolizes Thrawn to the point of having a skewed perception.

Another character that I personally like a lot and whose standing in the fandom is very similar is Thurfian. Thurfian doesn't do anything overtly evil in the books and yet he's very often demonized as some kind of villain. Which I bet you is because he's in opposition to Thrawn and other fan favorites like Thalias (something that annoys me because people tend to victimize Thalias so much in their dynamic when she's actually a very brave and resourceful character. Who once held Thurfian at gunpoint might I add).

The thing is, people need to stop the whole pigeonholing characters into 'good' and 'bad' categories. Because especially with Zahn, things are rarely so black and white. Our prejudices as readers can be influenced by both limited and omniscient povs.

In Ronan's case, seeing him from the pov of beloved characters who he opposes is what paints him in an overly negative light. In Thurfian's we forget that these characters don't have the same insight into Thrawn's motives and logic as we do and that Thurfian is perfectly justified in thinking that Thrawn will one day overthink and overplan to the detriment of many. And if those words sound familiar it's because that's what Ar'alani herself says to Thrawn at the end of the book.

But to cut a long story short, I don't think Ronan deserves the hate he's getting. He's a very interesting guy - he's got a good foundation of principles, a quick mind and an amusing personality. Sure, he's prone to extreme bias, both positive (Krennic) and negative (Thrawn, Eli) that can cloud his judgement but barring that he's displayed an impressive amount of competence. Impressive enough to catch Thrawn's eye and we know Thrawn has a good sense for these things.

So basically love Ronan y'all, he's really neat. Even if he's not some paragon for moral goodness which honestly few of Zahn's characters really are.

(Thank you for this ask, I had a lot of fun answering it! If I get my act together, I'll hopefully finish my fic about Ronan where I plan to explore more of his motivations and how he could potentially find a place for himself in the Ascendancy. So fingers crossed for that!)

[amikoroyaiart]

Bookish Ask Game Time! What's your favorite book? 🥰

Hi there! Thanks for asking! <3

My favourite book in general is

Pet Sematary by Stephen King

My favourite Star Wars book is

Thrawn: Treason by Timothy Zahn

[lilac-vode]

Hi there! Your excitement over the new thrawn book has piqued my interest lol. Would you have any suggestions on where to start reading? I only ask as I know there are canon and legends books and I think (?) comics, so I'm not sure where I should jump in to best understand the story. Thanks!! :D

OH?? 👀👀👀

okay so!! i haven’t actually read any of the books from the legends continuity yet, but i’ve read all the new-canon material and here’s what i have to say!!

Thrawn (2017) is the first book in the first new trilogy, the other two being Alliances (2018) and Treason (2019). This trilogy is set in the Empire era, beginning a while before the Rebels timeline and running right up to be concurrent with Rebels S4 by the end (it ends just before the last ep of s4). I will say, about half of the story of the 2017 book focuses on Governor Pryce’s backstory which is something that has turned some people off LMAO. just be ready for that if you start with this one! the thrawn and pryce stories come together partway through the book. Alliances has a side story (again about half the book) set during the Clone Wars era which was fun to read!

The canon Thrawn comic (2018) is a graphic novel adaptation of the 2017 book. It has some abridging to fit in the 6-ish issue format it was published in, but it’s still really text heavy lol! i like the art, it’s fun to be able to see the characters. i personally would suggest this as a supplement to the 2017 book rather than a replacement for it but to each their own :-)

The Thrawn Ascendancy Trilogy (beginning with Chaos Rising, 2020) is a completely separate story from the Empire trilogy; it’s set during the Clone Wars era, with some flashbacks to even earlier, but there’s not really any Clone Wars content since the Chiss Ascendancy is located in a much different part of space. (there is one tiny crossover with one chapter of the TCW era part of Alliances which i thought was cute :))

Personally, having read all the books that are out so far, I would say you can start on either trilogy without being confused. it’s really up to you! my personal favorite is Chaos Rising so i’m trying to get everyone i know to read it :), but the other trilogy is very good too! i’m partial to the ascendancy stuff because i find the chiss lore/worldbuilding SUPER intriguing (and love the chiss side chars) so if you’re feeling that, start with CR! if you’re interested in learning how Thrawn climbed his way through Imperial ranks first, you can start with the other one!

if you have any more questions or if my rambling was confusing, feel free to ask for clarification 🥺

[legobiwan]

What do you think of Thrawn as a character? Tbh he's rightfully earned the spot of my favorite "bad guy" in Star Wars, even though he isn't an inherently evil or malicious person. Treason is AMAZING so far, I'd say it's a step up from the last book. I love your blogs, and your review of the book was very accurate!

First of all, thank you for your kind words, friend :)

Secondly, I love Thrawn, especially in this new incarnation. 

It’s been a long time since I read the original Zahn novels (like, probably close to 20 years), but from what I remember, Thrawn was a good villain then, someone to match Sidious’s level of threat while being a different type of bad guy for Luke and the gang to match up against, someone who wasn’t a Force user, which seemed to be the most important aspect of Thrawn in that iteration.

But with these new novels (and Rebels, to a degree)...it throws an entirely new light on Thrawn. Yes, he works for the Empire, but he’s doing so for a reason. He operates on his own plane of morality, which seems to be a mix of Chiss culture and Thrawn’s own idiosyncracies. He is highly logical, values loyalty, effort, and strategic thinking over many other characteristics and - this is what i find fascinating - creates a culture of respect and loyalty within the being that serve under him where they are free to express their opinions (within the proper boundaries) and even make mistakes, as long as they show effort to fix and learn from those mistakes. Like, I’m the kind of person who chafes under most authority figures but even I feel like I’d be okay working under Thrawn.

It’s funny, because he really exhibits a lot of the characteristics the Jedi purported to be their behavioral baseline (and I am certain this is done on purpose, especially in Alliances). Thrawn is able to - by and large - manage his attachments, he operates on logical and loyalty rather than passion, he sees the larger picture, and is rather dispassionate (which is not to say he doesn’t care, but rather he doesn’t exude illogical emotion). This, honestly, was what prompted my original ask if Chiss could be Jedi because if Thrawn were Force-sensitive??? He would wipe the floor with the Order, I’m certain. 

And the way it’s set up in the books, he works for the villains without becoming the villain himself, which I find fascinating. (Rebels is another story, but now I admittedly have to go back and watch it with this new information in mind.) Yes, he kills people and aids Palpatine and Vader but as you said, I don’t feel like he’s inherently evil, and not even evil in being amoral because he tries to avoid unnecessary loss of life in battle. He just...again, exists on a different plane where very few people get him. And I think a lot of us can, in a way, get that.

Plus, his relationship with Eli Vanto might be one of my favorite things in the world and I am going to have things to say about Treason after I go on my run today :D 

[justkeeponsimming]

Get to know me tag! :D

Wow, I can’t believe that so many of you tagged me in this, so special thanks to: @simalienn, @sapphiresims, @popisims, @carmysims, @blackholesimmer, @storylegacysims, @itstwina, @kotiij. You guys are so lovely! :D

Rules: Tag 9 people who you would like to know better.

Relationship Status: In a relationship, almost 5 years (so long now!) Last Song I Listened To: We Don’t Run - Bon Jovi according to Spotify! I have set playlists for when I’m writing :) Last Book Read/Listened To: Thrawn - Timothy Zahn (SUCH A GOOD BOOK) Favorite Color: Green! Top Three Shows: I don’t watch much TV soooo... Star Wars Rebels, Ghost Adventures, Barefoot Contessa Top Three Characters: Kanan Jarrus (Star Wars Rebels), The Doctor (Doctor Who, either Peter Capaldi or David Tennant!), Obi-Wan Kenobi (Star Wars Clone Wars) Top Three Ships: Kanan/Hera (Star Wars Rebels)...that’s about it for mainstream TV! I ship a lot of sims couples though! :3

Rules: BOLD the statements that are true for you!

APPEARANCE: I am 5'7" or taller I wear glasses I have at least one tattoo I have at least one piercing I have blonde hair I have brown eyes I have short hair My abs are at least somewhat defined I have or have had braces PERSONALITY: I love meeting new people People tell me that I’m funny Helping others with their problems is a big priority for me I enjoy physical challenges I enjoy mental challenges I’m playfully rude with people I know well I started saying something ironically and now I can’t stop saying it There is something I would change about my personality ABILITY: I can sing well I can play an instrument I can do over 30 pushups without stopping I’m a fast runner I can draw well I have a good memory I’m good at doing math in my head I can hold my breath underwater for over a minute I have beaten at least 2 people in arm wrestling I know how to cook at least 3 meals from scratch I know how to throw a proper punch HOBBIES: I enjoy playing sports I’m on a sports team at my school or somewhere else I’m in an orchestra or choir at my school or somewhere else I have learned a new song in the past week I work out at least once a week I’ve gone for runs at least once a week in the warmer months I have drawn something in the past month I enjoy writing FANDOMS ARE MY #1 PASSION I do or have done martial arts EXPERIENCES: I have had my first kiss I have had alcohol I have scored the winning goal in a sports game I have watched an entire season of a TV show in one sitting I have been at an overnight event I have been in a taxi I have been in the hospital or ER in the past year I have beaten a video game in one day I have visited another country I have been to one of my favorite band’s concerts RELATIONSHIPS: I’m in a relationship I have a crush on a celebrity   I have a crush on someone I know (does the boyfriend count?) I have been in at least 3 relationships I have never been in a relationship I have asked someone out or admitted my feelings to them I get crushes easily I have had a crush on someone for over a year I have been in a relationship for at least a year I have had feelings for a friend MY LIFE: I have at least one person I consider a “best friend” I live close to my school (Not that I go there anymore because I’m old, But I live close by to the high school I did attend) My parents are still together I have at least one sibling I live in the united states There is snow right now where I live I have hung out with a friend in the past month I have a smartphone I have at least 15 CD’s (No idea where they are though..) I share my room with someone RANDOM SHIT: I have breakdanced I know a person named Jamie I have had a teacher with a last name that’s hard to pronounce I have dyed my hair I’m listening to one song on repeat right now I have punched someone in the past week I know someone who has gone to jail I have broken a bone I have eaten a waffle today I know what I want to do with my life I speak at least 2 languages I have made a new friend in the past year

I tag the following people: @simsoflove, @108sims, @simmeronnie, @tacha75, @squeamishsimmer, @pooofy, @pixelddump, @blueossa, @ladyrosedeversailles, @vividlore, @swinnykins, @impishlyxpervertedxsims, @ricagrim, @myopiccc, @treason-and-plot

[commanderfoxy]

HELLO HI HELLO i just saw your post that you finished chaos rising :-) what did you think!??! (lilac-vode's main if you couldn't tell)

Hello! Hi!!!! LMAO yes! tHAt post oops. Brain said QUICK! make a silly joke post so no one will know how sad you are about Star War book :c

But THANK you for asking me my thoughts! <3 that is my favorite thing to be asked! I might put this under a read more because I am.... very chatty! Sorry if it's too much ahaha

I really enjoyed it!!! Like... my brain wants to compare it to Treason and Alliances, but they feel too different? This one is probably my second favorite of all of them? (First place goes to the first "Thrawn" novel. You just... can’t beat Eli being present for all of it. Hmmmm..... Them <3 )

Chaos Rising tho... okay I think this will probably be true of Greater Good when I read it as well? But I feel like these books do the thing that all my favorite Star Wars stories do where I KNOW things are going to end in a metaphorical train crash because of everything I know about the franchise/canon that already exists. But the whole time I'm reading/watching, there's still part of me that's hoping the train won't crash?

That feeling of foreboding! Like sure I know Thrawn ends up in the highest ranks of one of the most powerful, terrifying, evil forces in the galaxy, actively fighting against the good guys. but I'm still reading like "Hmmm... what if... he will... make better choices??? perhaps this won't end in misery." It’s basically me just constantly setting myself up for disappointment watching this man fall. He is a troubling character ;-;

And the Ascendancy series is especially good about giving Thrawn fun new characters to inevitably let down so.... yeah :( I also finished this book around the same time I stumbled across the logline leak for the Ahsoka series? So I'm DEEPLY worried about the future.

ALSO: Ar’alani: I adore you!!!!!!! Ma’am!!!!

Also Also: Wutroow my BELOVED I miss Hammerly but I will accept Wutroow as replacement for Short Queen with limited dialogue but who may possess my entire heart ❤️

(I am sorry it took me so long to answer this I couldn’t figure out how to do a Read More on my phone and I didn’t want to inflict this upon anyone who didn’t want to read it RIP)