(Simple plans also make the character seem more plausibly competent: overcomplicated plans make you suspect the involvement of the author in keeping some random security guard from derailing step three hundred and fourteen.)
Where’s the fatal flaw then? Does he...get old? Get tired of easy wins? What happens?
The old Thrawn trilogy concludes with a major (and wonderful!) out-of-context problem for Thrawn. The new Thrawn trilogy just has him win all the time in order to set him up as a scary villain for the Rebels TV series. (I understand he both loses a bunch in Rebels and is much less well-written.)
I wouldn’t call it an ‘out-of-context problem’. Thrawn understood exactly what happened as soon as the knife started going through his chest, because he always knew what a dangerous double-game he was playing with the Noghri, and the consequences of them discovering how they had been tricked; he just couldn’t help himself, no matter how disastrous any slipup would be, because it was too clever a trick to not play. (Again, look up the meaning of the word ‘thrawn’. Zahn didn’t pick it by accident.)
Massive spoilers.
For the end of course! (Fun unintended.)
Where’s the fatal flaw then? Does he...get old? Get tired of easy wins? What happens?
The old Thrawn trilogy concludes with a major (and wonderful!) out-of-context problem for Thrawn. The new Thrawn trilogy just has him win all the time in order to set him up as a scary villain for the Rebels TV series. (I understand he both loses a bunch in Rebels and is much less well-written.)
I wouldn’t call it an ‘out-of-context problem’. Thrawn understood exactly what happened as soon as the knife started going through his chest, because he always knew what a dangerous double-game he was playing with the Noghri, and the consequences of them discovering how they had been tricked; he just couldn’t help himself, no matter how disastrous any slipup would be, because it was too clever a trick to not play. (Again, look up the meaning of the word ‘thrawn’. Zahn didn’t pick it by accident.)