Chaos Rising Thoughts (10/2/20)
This is my least favorite Thrawn book; I wasn’t hooked until close to the end when it connected to Thrawn: Alliances. There wasn’t anything about the plot that hooked me.
I like how unlike in the Aftermath trilogy, the Memories interludes are in chronological order, and they’re specifically about Thrawn instead of random events, so they don’t feel like interruptions. Â
I think it would’ve been possible to write Thrawn investigating the enemy without having Thalias pose as his concubine. If the book was going to have that, it should’ve been her idea instead of his. The book doesn’t say “concubine” outright, but because of the emphasis on make-up, and the fact that that’s how female slaves are treated by male masters, that’s how it comes across. Â
I do not like the way Thalias is written. She doesn’t need to be a military-type with butt-kicking skills like Ar’alani, she just needs to have motives that don’t involve the male-lead or being a caregiver, because in the past that those were common stereotypical ways of depicting women. When she was taking the trials of the Mitth family, I thought it was finally changing, but no, it circled back to Thrawn. Â
Thrawn REALLY should’ve had Ch’eri fly for the first time in a simulator instead of a real ship. Â
Nit-picky thing: Ch’eri is 9 then 10, she’s actually too old to need Thalias to make a bath for her.
