Heir to the Empire

Questions of power and control permeate Heir to the Empire, with each character exhibiting a different relationship to power, demonstrating that it can be defined and attained in a variety of ways. Thrawn and Joruus, in particular, have significant differences in their perspectives on power. For Joruus, power is more meaningful and satisfying when up close and personal:

Conquering worlds you’ll never even visit again isn’t power. Neither is destroying ships and people and rebellions you haven’t looked at face-to-face […] This, Grand Admiral Thrawn, is power. This city—this planet—these people. Every human, Psadan, and Myseyrsh who live here are mine. Mine.’ […] I teach them. I command them. I punish them. Their lives, and their deaths, are in my hands (63).

Joruus disparages galactic-level power, wishing to see the effects of his power with his own eyes. The idea of holding “distant power over faceless lives” (63) is unappealing to him, as it is more abstract and far less tangible. He is less concerned with the expansion and reach of power than he is with the tangible sense of control he gets from exerting his will over the individual lives of those on his planet.

By contrast, Thrawn cannot understand Joruus’s perspective, claiming there is not much challenge left in acquiring face-to-face power. For him, power is not power that doesn’t continue to grow and expand. He does not believe that Joruus would be content with that kind of power for long, telling Pellaeon, “What concerns me more is that we don’t give Master Joruus too much of a taste for this kind of power […] All men want power. And the more they have, the more they want” (408). Having worked his way up through the Imperial army to become the only non-human Grand Admiral, Thrawn is driven by the desire for control as a defense mechanism against marginalization. He is also obsessed with the idea of rebuilding Imperial power and defeating the Rebels that drove them further out of power. What differentiates Thrawn from other power-hungry Imperial leaders, however, is his singular focus and calculated ability both to manipulate and to remain focused on his end goal, even in the face of failures. Pellaeon observes this on the day of the Sluis Van attack; he fears retribution against himself or the crew when their attack fails, because he is used to the explosive anger of leaders like Darth Vader. Instead, Thrawn remains outwardly calm even as his eyes reveal his rage. Thrawn tells Pellaeon that the failed attack was merely a setback in his overall plan, and Pellaeon realizes just how different Thrawn is from other men: “Thrawn was not merely a soldier, like so many others Pellaeon had served with. He was, instead, a true warrior, with his eye set on the final goal and not on his own personal glory” (474).

Unlike Thrawn or Joruus, Luke, Leia, and Han are not concerned with acquiring personal power, but rather in collectively empowering themselves and others to throw off oppressive regimes, a position the series posits as heroic. The trio and their closest allies in the New Republic wish to bring freedom to all those oppressed or enslaved by the Empire. Luke himself has power through his Jedi training, and his allegiance gives the New Republic a powerful tool at their disposal, but Luke a grave sense of responsibility for this power and how he exercises it, constantly worried about the line between the light and the Dark Side. When he needs to escape Mara Jade after their ships crash and hers looks in worse shape than his, his morality does not allow him to flee before making sure she is alright, even though it leads to her recapturing him yet again. The Skywalkers and Han Solo also struggle to keep power-hungry politicians from dismantling the New Republic from within. They recognize the ambition of men like Fey’lya, and their suspicions culminate in their discovery, at the end of this first novel, that Fey’lya has instigated the arrest of Admiral Ackbar on charges of conspiracy to further a personal agenda. Thus, the trio must fight against corrupted power on all sides.