I had finally found some spare time to read the 2017 Thrawn novel and the beginning of the latest comics and found myself on a Thrawn/Eli angst train.
I’ve always liked Trawn, but was never a fan of Pellaeon (even if I tried to imagine him looking like Douglas P circa 2009) as to ship him with, so 70 percent of fanfiction was not my cup of tea. Leia and Hera are also a no, and Arindha Pryce disgusts me, as I’ve met my share of similar people. Gen is quite rare, and it suffers from influx of Mary Sues, who charm Grand Admiral with their knowledge of art and military strategy.
But the recent novel - oh, that’s exactly what I’ve been waiting for! Now I can float in rivers of angst and feels. The dynamics of Eli and Thrawn is fantastic, the book end sounded like an extract from a very subtle slash fic. And Eli himself is so adorable, he could’ve ended up a Rebel in different circumstances (now I want a fic, where he indeed becomes one). It’s such a pity there’s so little Eli/Thrawn work online, so I feel like I must contribute what I can.
By the way, am I the only one surprised at how Thrawn’s much more ruthless in the Rebels cartoons than he is in the book? And the transformation is so rapid if we believe the canon timeline! Of course, an obvious explanation is that Rebels is a series for kids, while Zahn has never been shy about adoration of his character. It’s almost as if he tried to counter almost everything the Rebels version of Thrawn personifies: “my snowflake Chiss did something evil in the Rebels? Take that, show creators!‘ Not that I mind, dear author, not that I mind.
