For decades, Star Wars has had Emperor Palpatine as its primary villain, but the potential reintroduction of Grand Admiral Thrawn in The Mandalorian can finally change that. The Mandalorian season 2 invoked Thrawn – a character who hasn’t been seen since being blasted into the Unknown Regions at the end of Star Wars Rebels – as part of its reintroduction of Ahsoka Tano (Rosario Dawson). That sets Thrawn up for a major role in the future of Star Wars’ Disney+ shows, which could finally give the franchise a long-term villain unconnected to Palpatine.
From the days before The Phantom Menace through the end of the First Order, Palpatine reigned – either from the shadows or on the galaxy’s biggest stage – as the supreme bad guy of all things Star Wars. Plenty of subordinates, side villains, and antiheroes filled that span as well, but most of them played some role or other in Darth Sidious’ evil schemes. While Palpatine has done well enough as the franchise’s arch-villain, his general principles of “evil for evil’s sake” don’t necessarily make him the most nuanced or interesting character. Ian McDiarmid’s scenery-chewing performance as the Sith Lord is one of the high points of the prequel trilogy, but the scripts themselves never gave Palpatine much in the way of depth or complexity.
By bringing Thrawn into the post-original trilogy era, Star Wars can finally give itself a lead villain free from Palpatine’s shadow. The Mandalorian’s Moff Gideon serves the Imperial remnant that becomes Palpatine’s First Order, but though Thrawn was once the Grand Admiral of the Imperial Navy, he may not be as loyal in exile as Gideon. Having been flung across the universe well before the Empire’s fall, Thrawn may not have been involved in Palpatine’s resurrection and the Empire’s reconstruction. And even if he is still involved, Palpatine may not have Thrawn’s true loyalty. The character has always been loyal to himself and his own advancement over all else, with his role within Palpatine’s regime simply being the best decision at the time to further his own ends.
Outside of his broader narrative role, Thrawn’s also a very different kind of villain than Palpatine. He’s soft-spoken, precise, and calculated, lacking the Emperor’s maniacal-laughing, lightning-blasting, cliché-spouting brand of villainy. In the Star Wars Legends timeline, Thrawn hails from the Chiss Ascendancy – a galactic government entirely outside the geographical boundaries of both the Republic and the Empire. As such, Thrawn has much more complicated motivations and an interesting morality and can bring entirely new storylines, characters and worlds with him when he returns in the Mandalorian universe.
Palpatine’s surprise (but far from surprising) resurrection in Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker didn’t exactly go over well with fans. A lot of that is due to how the character was brought back (entirely off-screen and in an oddly rushed fashion), but it may also be a sign that Palpatine’s time as the series’ lead villain has passed. Thrawn can become the new main villain for shows like The Mandalorian and Ahsoka Tano in his stead, bringing a new kind of bad guy and lots of fun setup for future Star Wars stories.
