Thrawn: Greater Good excerpt teases complex tensions between ruling families

Grand Admiral Thrawn is unquestionably a fan favorite among Star Wars fans. Introduced in the Star Wars Expanded Universe back in 1991’s Heir to the Empire, Thrawn was one of the first characters to be reintroduced into canon after Disney’s decision to rebrand the Expanded Universe as Legends in 2014. And there was no better person to bring him back than his creator, author of Heir to the Empire, Timothy Zahn.

Thrawn has since appeared in Star Wars Rebels, his own canon trilogy of novels, and just last year, Zahn released the first in a trilogy of novels to explore Thrawn’s origins before he even came to the known Star Wars universe. Thrawn: Ascendancy – Chaos Rising showed Thrawn’s homeworld and his place in it, as well as his tendency to make enemies even among his own people.

Greater Good, the second novel in the Thrawn: Ascendancy trilogy, continues the story of Thrawn and the Chiss Ascendancy as they try to uncover and an enemy working to undo the Ascendancy from within.

IGN recently published an exclusive excerpt of the novel, which looks at the character of Captain Lakinda, a colleague of Thrawn, whose opinion of Thrawn is less than flattering. In the excerpt, Captain Lakinda reflects on a battle that occurred in the previous novel, one in which she should have been hailed as a hero but failed to do so because of some unfortunate happenstance that occurred to her ship, the Grayshrike, in the midst of the battle.

Instead, Thrawn received all the honor, leaving Lakinda sulking alone and relegated to playing messenger for Admiral Ar’alani.

Thrawn Ascendancy: Greater Good excerpt explained

Chaos Rising introduced us to the concept of the Chiss’ Nine Ruling Familes, but this excerpt delves deeper into the complex politics of these families. Lakinda, it turns out, is a member of the Xodlak family, a family that was once part of the Ten Ruling Families but is now just part of an obviously lesser Forty. The Xodlak have the support of the Irizi family, however, who are bitter rivals of the family Thrawn comes from, the Mitth.

Lakinda suspects that Thrawn is trying to keep her and, by extension, her family down anyway that he can. She reflects on Thrawn’s successes, one after another, and begins to suspect the relationship between Thrawn and Admiral Ar’alani is one of unfair favoritism, though she’s certain that she can’t prove anything yet.

Greater Good promises to show us more of this very different part of the galaxy of Star Wars. And we get to see Thrawn in a much different light; not as a decorated Imperial military leader, but as an envied part of his own people. Similar to the way the story was structured in the previous novel, Greater Good seems to focus primarily on other characters other than Thrawn and their interactions with him, which will give us plenty of insight into how Thrawn is viewed by the people in his life that consider him to be an ally or an enemy.

Greater Good releases from Del Rey on April 27. And for more Star Wars books news, keep up with the Books category on Dork Side of the Force.