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@myevilmouse

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myevilmouse
velvetsunset
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shoulderholsterfreak

I get that this is an unpopular opinion, but I’m really not a fan of how the Chiss were retconned from being formal and professional, cool, and a bit stuck up in legends to being #relatable and essentially human (read: American) in canon. For one thing, I liked that they were alien and “other” and lived according to their own mysterious moral code outside the light/dark binary. The other issue is that now Thrawn’s personality, mannerisms, fears, and motives make no sense.

For years, Zahn said that Thrawn is the way he is because he “has an alien mind with alien morals.” Now we have the Chiss doing the pearl clutching over Thrawn’s “colder” actions, actions they wouldn’t have batted an eyelash over in legends (with the exception of his over-involving himself in the affairs of non-Chiss). Rereading Outbound Flight it’s clear how very typical his manner was among his people. His entire demeanor of formality, solemnity, hyper-pragmatism, and capacity for cool ruthlessness was due to his Chiss biology and cultural upbringing. His attitude toward preemptive strikes, his open-mindedness, and his incredible tactical skill were the only things that separated him from the rest of his kind.

I understand that they were trying to make sure that the reader would relate to the POV Chiss characters (as per a Q&A with the editor of the Ascendency novels), but what they’ve done is basically the equivalent of taking Spock, whose behavior is largely due to his (half) Vulcan biology and cultural background, and then decided “you know what? Let’s make every Vulcan but Spock Midwestern Americans in space.”

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myevilmouse
#star wars legends#Timothy Zahn#falling in love with#thrawn#to the detriment of characterization#*sips tea*#i think nu!canon is mostly ghost written#tbh