Thrawn: Alliances

This book takes place in two time periods.

In one, set during the Clone Wars, Thrawn meets and assists Anakin Skywalker. Their mission is a little convoluted, involving a substance that can make armor immune to lightsabers and blaster bolts. The big thing is that Thrawn gets to know Anakin before the whole Darth thing.

In the second period, Thrawn and Vader are working together at the behest of the Emperor, who wants them to track a Force disturbance. The two timelines intertwine and by the end Thrawn knows that Anakin became Vader.

The book offers interesting insight into Vader’s mind. He refers to Anakin as “The Jedi.” He doesn’t identify as Anakin at all, even when he remembers things he experienced as Anakin. I never considered that Anakin died–in a certain way–when Vader took the lead (though Anakin’s redemption at the end of “Return of the Jedi” shows he was still in there all along). There was much more of an Anakin/Vader mental break than I realized.

I hope Thrawn is playing a very long con against the Emperor, but I’m concerned that’s not actually the case. Knowing what we know about the end of the Skywalker saga, I don’t get the impression the Emperor was thwarted in any meaningful way until the very end. But maybe we’ll discover that Thrawn set in motion a series of events that culminated in Rey holding Luke and Leia’s lightsabers at the end of “Rise of Skywalker.” (And if Thrawn turns out to be associated with the Blade of Ochi, that’ll make the blade 100% more interesting.)