Should you read the Legends or the canon Thrawn trilogy?

Thrawn is probably the best known Star Wars villain from the Expanded Universe. If you’re not familiar, Grand Admiral Thrawn first made an appearance in 1991 in the Timothy Zahn novel Heir to the Empire. This novel takes place 5 years after Episode 6 and chronicles the continuing struggle between the Empire and the New Republic formed by the Rebels. In this novel, Thrawn has taken control of the empire and is trying to put a permanent end to the New Republic. The story is told over three novels and quickly became a fan favorite.

After Disney wiped the EU from canon, people were hoping that the sequels would bring Thrawn back into canon by (at least loosely) following the events of the original Thrawn trilogy. Unfortunately, this did not happen. Luckily, Disney was able to get Timothy Zahn to return and author a new Thrawn trilogy in 2017. At this point, it was too late to have Thrawn make his appearance in the sequels, but at least he was brought into canon! The new Thrawn trilogy takes place between Episodes 3 and 4. The trilogy ends right before Rebels season 3 begins.

I read the 2017 Thrawn trilogy first as I am more interested in reading canon novels than Legends novels. I very quickly realized why people love Thrawn so much. He is an amazingly well written character. He is very smart and calculating and is able to predict his enemies’ next movies with deadly accuracy. Thrawn is able to do this by analyzing the art either made by or collected by his enemies. While he is a great strategist, he is not a great politician and the books highlight some of his shortcomings. I thoroughly enjoyed this trilogy and thought it was a great introduction to Thrawn.

After I finished this trilogy, my friend encouraged me to pick up the original Thrawn trilogy. I was excited to see how the two trilogies compared. I thought this trilogy was also really good and I plan to do a full review of both trilogies in separate articles.

I originally planned on doing a detailed article outlining the differences between the two trilogies, but to be honest, I don’t think they are similar enough for an article like that to make sense. Not only do these books take place in different times in the universe, but the focus of the novels is very different. In the original trilogy, the books focus shifts back and forth between the Empire and the New Republic whereas in the new trilogy the entire focus is on the Empire. Additionally, Thrawn is fighting a war in the original trilogy while there isn’t a war happening in the new trilogy. These two differences make for very different novels.

If you haven’t read either trilogy, and you only want to choose one to read I would recommend thinking about what about the novels interests you. If you want to read about both sides of the conflict and want to see an alternative to the sequel trilogy I would recommend the Legends trilogy. Just be prepared for some of the content to contradict canon. This trilogy was written before the prequels so some of it is fairly different. If you enjoy reading about villains and getting a great look into their head I would recommend the canon trilogy.

I think Timothy Zahn did a great job of making these two trilogies compatible with each other. I believe that if you are a fan of either trilogy you can pick up the other trilogy and enjoy it. Nothing in the novels outright contradicts each other and Thrawn is written as essentially the same character. I would highly recommend reading both trilogies.

If you enjoy audiobooks, I would recommend the audiobooks for both trilogies. They are both narrated by Mark Thompson and he does a fantastic job. I was able to get most of these books from the library using Libby!

While I overall enjoyed both trilogies, I personally prefer the canon trilogy as I really enjoyed reading a book from the Empire’s perspective. We get so much of the Rebels perspective already in Star Wars so I appreciated something different. Please let me know which trilogy you prefer and if you disagree with anything I’ve said here! I’m always happy to talk about Star Wars.