gffa:

Scattered Star Wars thoughts:
– I am now two and a half hours into the Thrawn audiobook and I’m still genuinely enjoying it and think it was legitimately well-done.  Yes, some of the shine has come off of it given my disappointment with Alliances but I still think this book was honestly enjoyable and well done and one of the best of the canon books.

It helps that Eli has something that Thrawn genuinely needs help with and that Thrawn seems to genuinely care about him, but also there’s the entire Pryce storyline that may intersect with Thrawn’s at times, but is forced to be largely on its own, so it’s not revolving around him.  I really should read Outbound Flight soon (it’s on my list, okay!!) just to see how Zahn does when not writing Thrawn, especially since Changing Seasons was one of my favorite short stories.  (I reread it again recently and it’s just as entertaining, hilarious, and great as I remembered.)

–okay, when I started this post, I was only two and a half hours in, now I’ve gotten another hour listened to, so I’m just past the part where Thrawn and Eli are attacked after the card game and they’ve set up the punishment of sending the attackers off-world, but not telling their friends about it, so they’ll be paranoid as hell for awhile about all of this, and Thrawn’s going on and on about it, which is sort of illuminating a thing for me.

Because he’s absolutely explaining all of this in a pretty ham-fisted sort of way, so why doesn’t it bother me the way it did with Alliances?  Why does it largely still work for me here?

It comes down to two things:  1) Deenlark was pretty quick to catch on to what Thrawn was suggesting, so there’s someone else in the Empire that’s intelligent and experienced, in a way that’s actually shown.  And 2) Eli genuinely wants to learn about why Thrawn does things, he seems to genuinely enjoy hearing Thrawn’s reasons, as well as Thrawn genuinely seems to care about Eli in return.  Well, and 3) Thrawn is constantly asking questions about what something means, because he doesn’t have that knowledge, so you get that he’s actually not perfect and doesn’t have all the answers.

Contrast this against Alliances where nobody seemed to ever catch on to what Thrawn was suggesting in a way that was anywhere near his equal, then add in that it was ANAKIN SKYWALKER and, look, I make fun of Anakin being a dumbass a lot, but he’s legitimately really fucking smart and a dumbass, so having Thrawn explain tech stuff to him or planning stuff to him, just came off as “Who the fuck do you think you are to explain this stuff to Anakin Skywalker?” and this was super super not helped by him explaining REPUBLIC POLITICS TO PADME AMIDALA, like even setting aside that this takes away a good amount from her agency of coming to the realizations on her own because that was her fucking arc in the story (and that’s a big thing to set aside), it’s also just HE HAS NEVER EVEN BEEN TO THE REPUBLIC AND HE’S EXPLAINING REPUBLIC POLITICS TO PADME AMIDALA??

In fairness, it was only one moment, it’s not like it was at the heart of the book, but it was definitely meant to be there and it was combined with how Padme’s words really didn’t make much of a difference, that her big climactic part of the book was still that she used her blaster instead of words, so I’m cranky about the whole thing.

Which is on top of how I’m cranky about Anakin never really felt like himself, like Obi-Wan and Ahsoka barely even exist in his thoughts in this book, just like Duja is pretty much the ONLY handmaiden that exists in Padme’s thoughts.

Wind those things together with how there wasn’t anyone who seemed to actually want to hear Thrawn’s explanations (or would want to) and how nobody seemed to be able to keep up with him intellectually, and it just felt heavy-handed in a way that Thrawn still works for me.  (I will say that Anakin and Vader’s annoyance with Thrawn were a lot of fun, but it wasn’t quite enough of that for me to really get all the way onboard with the Thrawnsplaining.)

Shit, that’s a lot of crabbing about Alliances when this post was supposed to be about how I’m reaffirming what I suspected–Zahn’s a writer that I enjoy a lot when his writing is framed the right way.  You get him a cast of characters that I don’t have strong opinions on, as well as frame explanations in a way that doesn’t make Thrawn the only truly special one around, and inject some genuine affection into the story, and I’m super onboard.  Either that or go full throttle “you are the most infuriating person I can’t outright kill, UGH” (which is why the opening of Anakin trying to pronounce Thrawn’s name still works for me, because that was SO HILARIOUS) but like then you have to show it’s not just Vader or Anakin who’s annoyed, you have to show THRAWN being annoyed, too.  Just like I feel genuine affection for Eli here, I needed to feel genuine UGH THAT FUCKING GUY from him in Alliances and didn’t.

This is why I’m generally pretty hopeful about Treason, because I think Eli works a lot better as a counter to Thrawn, than Anakin did.  Thrawn honestly still works for me, even when I can see the elements present there that made me so frustrated with Alliances, why I’m genuinely excited for Zahn to write more Star Wars books.  I know I feels like I’m picking on him, which I kind of am, but I think he can be a really engaging writer, he can put a lot of magnetism into his characters when he has the right framing/restraint for them.  And I am totally rooting for him to do it again with Treason!

So, while I still have another 14 hours of this audiobook to go (and I almost assuredly won’t get it finished before Celebration goes into full swing), I’m already cautiously willing to say it largely holds up to a reread and my initial feelings on it being a really good, fun book remain.

–OKAY, another half hour or so in and I’ve just gotten past the part about Eli being assigned to the Blood Crow and his initial reaction of utter fury that Thrawn would do this to him, and it’s reminding me that this is the other thing I felt very keenly in Thrawn, that Thrawn isn’t necessarily the greatest guy to be around, even if he didn’t do something deliberately.  That there’s narrative intent to genuinely find Thrawn infuriating, whereas Alliances felt more like anyone annoyed with him wasn’t understanding how helpful he was or was just too prideful to deal with someone smarter than them.  Eli, in contrast, feels much more genuine about how, yes, Thrawn really fucked over his life and maybe that ultimately turns out to something really good for Eli, but his frustration at being pulled along in Thrawn’s wake, his world-weary sigh about accepting his situation, all of that made me like Thrawn more because, okay, yes, that guy is a pain in the ass a lot of the time, and the narrative gets that.  I’m all for super genius perfect characters, but you have to balance them out somehow.  And my favorite way is usually through other people being legitimately annoyed at the effect their presence has on them.

ANYWAY, I JUST REALLY LIKE THE FIRST THRAWN BOOK AND IT’S KIND OF FUN TO LISTEN TO IT AGAIN AND REALLY UNDERSTAND WHY.  😀

Scattered Star Wars Thoughts/2019 Resolutions Update:

– The Star Wars Show 2019.04.10
Current total:  175/520