Thrawn is alive, he was just pulled into some Force whale/tentacle shenanigans and hyperjumped into the Unknown Regions. Kinda a convoluted way to put him out of ROTJ, but yeah.
Still if both he and Tarkin were alive by ROTJ, then the Rebellion surviving...most likely not. Though Tarkin isn't really needed.
Honestly, if Thrawn and Tarkin had still been in the picture by the time of RotJ, it's unlikely that there would have even been a Rebellion left to challenge the Empire.
__________________
"I am tired of Earth. These people.
I am tired of being caught in the tangle of their lives."
Yeah. Tarkin was good as a military tactician and leader, but not so much of a strategist - his military doctrine is actually one of the things used by Rebellion against the Empire with their space tactics. He wasn't bad, but the Empire had lots of better military strategists imo.
I'm trying not to compare Tarkin directly to Thrawn, simply because Thrawn makes even the best minds in the Empire look like infantile buffoons when it comes to the art of warfare... But even with Thrawn off the table, Tarkin still just comes off as a fair military strategist/tactician at best, imo. That massive ego of his was a huge weakness/character flaw, and was ultimately responsible for his untimely death.
Even though Tarkin had absolute dominion in both arenas, he was much better suited for the political/bureaucratical side of things. /shrug
__________________
"I am tired of Earth. These people.
I am tired of being caught in the tangle of their lives."
Last edited by Galan007 on Apr 21st, 2019 at 04:32 PM
I don't know. Think Thrawn might be getting a little too much hype.
He suffered a horrible defeat at Attolon which pissed the Emperor and Vader off immensely. Yeah some of it was due to a force user intervening but still. He also failed to stop the Rebels long before that battle even happened.
Why do you think he would all of the sudden be able to beat the Rebels in ROTJ?
Firstly, Thrawn allowed the individual Rebel cells he engaged beforehand to survive -- he wanted to discern the location of their base and wipe out the entire Rebellion in one fell swoop. That being said, his 'failures' to stop the Rebels prior to the battle of Atollon were, in actuality, part of a much larger strategy.
As for the battle of Atollon itself: bear in mind that Thrawn could have destroyed the Rebels during his aerial bombardment of the base: (please log in to view the image)
However, he stopped his bombardment before killing them because a bit earlier in the episode, Tarkin(ironically enough) had explicitly ordered him to take the Rebels' leadership alive:
If Thrawn had his way, he would've just killed the Rebels then and there, and been done with it... But he was obligated to follow the orders of his superior officer(Tarkin.)
...And I really hope you aren't trying to pretend like Bendu is just some simple, run-of-the-mill "force user", right? Bendu is more akin to an elemental force god -- of course a being on his level is going to turn the tide in a battle, lol. Despite this, Thrawn was still able to figure out a way to 'beat' him on the fly, so there's that. /shrug
Anyway, put Thrawn as commanding officer in RotJ, and I have no doubt that he would have crushed the Rebels. As I said before: if Thrawn wouldn't have been removed from play, it's unlikely that there would have even been a Rebellion left to challenge the Empire by the time of RotJ. As a strategist/tactician, Thrawn was so far above everyone else in the Empire(including even its 'great minds', like Vader) that he would regard certain people as stellar tacticians if they were able to simply comprehend his plans... Even after they had been explained, lol.
tl;dr Believe the hype.
__________________
"I am tired of Earth. These people.
I am tired of being caught in the tangle of their lives."
Last edited by Galan007 on Apr 23rd, 2019 at 07:43 PM