Update on Ricky’s and my progress of the Thrawn 2017 audiobook. We recently listened to the scene at the Ascension Week party at the Alisandre Hotel where Thrawn, Eli and Yularen are discussing the situation with Cygni, the Tibana gas, and insurgent profiling. Eli was surprised to find out this type of work was going on. He and Thrawn have this little exchange:
“Really?” Eli said, frowning. He hadn’t heard anything about criminal profiling work. “When have you been doing all this?”
Thrawn inclined his head: “You sleep more than I do.”
At this point, Ricky goes, “Aww, they’re still roommates? That’s cute.”
Which was my exact reaction when I first read this scene several years ago. It makes you think of Eli snoozing away in his bunk, Thrawn sitting close by with the lights low, clacking away quietly on his datapad so as not to disturb his sleeping roommate. It is indeed a cute thought. But I thought it would only seem that way to me alone. Well, me and all the other people who read between the lines, looking for hints of Thranto. Certainly not to the “regular” people reading this book. I didn’t think your standard reader would find anything cute about this tiny bit of dialogue, and I was pleased to find out that Ricky did.
And I want to say I have never spoken to Ricky about Thranto, or implied there’s anything more to Thrawn and Eli’s relationship than what’s presented in the book. I don’t want to sway his opinions. If he wants to come to that conclusion on his own, I’ll obviously be VERY excited, but I don’t want it to be because I lead him there. And I also know that him using the word “cute” to describe something about Thrawn and Eli doesn’t imply that he thinks anything one way or another about Thranto. I just find it very interesting that he chose that word in particular, especially since the last adjectives he used to describe Thrawn’s behavior with respect Eli were “obsessive” and “manipulative.” Maybe I’m getting ahead of myself. But I’ll admit his comment made me unreasonably excited!
