Thrawn creator Timothy Zahn on his character’s live-action debut

Hope Mullinax

Grand Admiral Thrawn. Image courtesy of Starwars.com

I had a chance to attend Dragon Con and sit in on a Star Wars Authors Q&A panel. One member of the group was Timothy Zahn, who is the creator of Grand Admiral Thrawn. With all the hype about the character’s live-action appearance in Ahsoka, Zahn’s thoughts on the matter were a hot topic.

When asked by the moderator, Bryan Young, Timothy shared that seeing Thrawn coming into live action was like sending your kid off to kindergarten.

He then joked, “But you don’t trust the kid!”

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Along with Zahn and Young, the other authors included Delilah S. Dawson, Greg Keyes, Kevin J. Anderson, and Sam Maggs. With Maggs being the newest member of the Star Wars authors on the panel, she had a cute moment prior to the panel starting when meeting Timothy Zahn and Bryan Young for the first time, as she was giddy with excitement.

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One of the other highlights from Zahn was sharing a continuity error from his Legends work. He accidentally created a 15-year gap that could not have happened in his novel. What happened was when George Lucas was creating the Prequel Trilogy, Lucas changed last minute the in-universe date on Zahn. His book was already in the process of being printed, so the mistake had to stay.

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Timothy Zahn debuted Grand Admiral Thrawn in the 1991 novel Heir to the Empire. As he stated in the panel, Thrawn was the yin to the Jedi’s yang, made to be a challenging foe to face off against. However, the Jedi had something that Thrawn could never account for in the Force. The Thrawn trilogy is one of the most beloved pieces of Star Wars media and is a pivotal inspiration for the current Ahsoka series. Thrawn first returned in Star Wars Rebels, voiced by Lars Mikkelsen, who will reprise his role in live-action.

If you wish to read about the entire panel, here is a link to the Twitter thread with all the authors’ comments. Stay up to date with all Star Wars news here on Dork Side of the Force.

Hope Mullinax

Hope is Dork Side of the Force's Site Expert. She holds a deep love of Star Wars animation after seeing The Clone Wars movie in theaters, which made her a fan. She's always been interested with fandom history, studying trends and writing fanfiction for fun. She loves Star Wars books and comics, especially the High Republic, which she got her first taste of when she managed a comic book store for years. She is also the animation staff writer for The Geeky Waffle, a news writer for Collider, and helps with Culturess. When not writing, she rolls dice on For Light and Dice, a Star Wars TTRPG podcast, and hangs out with her cat Zeb and dog Buck.