To defeat an enemy, you must know them.

Entry posted by Bfahome October 16, 2016

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Rebels stuff:

While I've never had any experience with Thrawn before, I am really enjoying they way they're playing his character in Rebels. I've seen some people express concern that having such a legendary character as a season-long villain would lead to a spoiling or weakening of his capabilities, similar to what happened with Grievous in The Clone Wars. However, it's clear from his appearances so far that the only reason he hasn't demolished everyone in the main cast is because he just doesn't want to.

One of my biggest gripes with Young Justice is that the episodes would spend 21 1/2 minutes showing the heroes laying a smackdown on whoever was invading or attacking on that given day, and then in the last 30 seconds it would cut to The Light's secret base to have them discuss amongst themselves how this was such a victory for them because of some heretofore unknown contrivance. For me that really took away from the show, because it made it seem like nobody was gaining ground in any real way.

Thrawn isn't like that, though. From the start it's clear that his first, and possibly only, concern is information. No matter what happens otherwise, his win condition is "TIL". His first appearance has him letting a detachment of rebel cruisers flee, knowing that simply eliminating them would just be to destroy a promising lead. While the rebels fought hard and gained some ground, so too did Thrawn. The rebels got some ships, Thrawn got some information.

Hera's Heroes nicely sums up what makes it an interesting dynamic, as opposed to how Young Justice did it. Throughout the episode Thrawn is more curious than anything. He just wants to learn. He practically baits Hera into sneaking into his base, he figures out who she is (no doubt immediately, though he doesn't make this clear right away), and at the climax he sets up a situation where he has a chance to study what actions Hera would take. He even refers to it as an "experiment", not giving any false impressions that he hadn't thought through everything already. And when Hera destroys his base (which he had set up in her childhood home) and escapes, he allows them to leave unimpeded, stating that they had "earned their victory". It wasn't Thrawn revealing some secret or trying to salvage pride, it was simply another piece of the puzzle put in place. The rebels freed an ally, Thrawn got more information.

This is the way to do it. Having the villain come in at the last second to declare that they were the real winner is meaningless and boring. Having the villain use the knowledge from the heroes' victories to further their ultimate goal is cool.