After waiting for five whole episodes of Ahsoka, the Star Wars galaxy’s most infamous blue man has finally arrived. That’s right, we’re talking about Grand Admiral Thrawn, played by Lars Mikkelsen. Who, of course, also voiced the character on Star Wars Rebels. The search for Thrawn has been the basic plot of Ahsoka, with former Nightsister Morgan Elsbeth (Diana Lee Inosanto) searching for her former master. Ahsoka Tano (Rosario Dawson) and her allies have been trying to stop Morgan from finding Thrawn and reigniting another galactic war.
Grand Admiral Thrawn Was in Exile on the Planet Peridea
As we learned from previous episodes, when young Ezra Bridger commanded the space whales called purrgil to yank Thrawn and his Star Destroyer away from Lothal into parts unknown in the finale of Rebels, they wound up in another distant galaxy. The only way to access that galaxy was with a hyperspace ring, which Morgan Elsbeth built above the planet Seatos. Via an ancient star map, Morgan discovered the exact coordinates of Thrawn’s current whereabouts: a planet called Peridea where Thrawn was in exile for a decade, since before the events of A New Hope.
Once Morgan Elsbeth, ex-Jedi Baylan Skoll, and Shin Hati arrive on Peridea, three Dathomirian Nightsisters greet them. The episode revealed Peridea is where the Nightsisters came from, long before migrating to Dathomir eons ago. And some still remain on Peridea. That’s when Thrawn’s Star Destroyer appeared above them all. Thrawn painted the Chimaera with the symbols of the Chiss, Thrawn’s people from the Unknown Regions. It also looked terribly damaged, no doubt from the purrgil who brought the ship there in the first place over a decade earlier.
Thrawn’s Star Destroyer and Stromtroopers Have Seen Better Days
When Thrawn first appeared, he was wearing his standard white Grand Admiral uniform, and didn’t look worse for wear after a decade in exile. His fleet of stormtroopers however, were much worse for wear. Red bands held the armor together, and strange gold material sealed the cracks, like kintsugi. The troopers seemed to have a cult-like devotion to their commanding officer, chanting “Thrawn! Thrawn! Thrawn!” as he walked the deck of the Chimaera to greet his rescuers. One of the stormtroopers, Enoch, seemed to be his right-hand man. This character wore a gold mask superimposed on an old stormtrooper helmet. We’re not sure if he’s a former trooper, or something else.
Although Thrawn agreed to help Sabine Wren, now a prisoner of Elsbeth, find her old friend Ezra Bridger, he claimed to not know where Ezra was. Or if he was even still alive. But he gave Sabine their last known intel on where they thought Bridger may be. However, Thrawn asked Baylan and his apprentice to kill both Sabine and Ezra once Sabine found him. But he seemed far less concerned with getting revenge on the Jedi who stranded him than with getting back home. The Mandalorian’s third season showed us the Imperial Shadow Council is patiently waiting for Thrawn to return and rebuild the Empire.
Thrawn Sees Himself as the “Heir to the Empire”
A decade in exile didn’t seem to crack Thrawn’s cold and collected demeanor. He still came across as the calculating tactical genius from Star Wars Rebels, not to mention several Timothy Zahn novels. He’s never been the kind of character to lose his cool, even in the most dire of circumstances. We’ll see if that changes when he faces off against Ahsoka Tano, who is now hot on his trail. She’s made it her mission to stop him from returning to the galaxy we know, and naming himself “Heir to the Empire.” But we have a strong feeling Thrawn isn’t going to let any Jedi stop him from achieving his goal.
