The Last Command by Timothy Zahn
the conclusion
My rating: 4.25/5
Pub Date: April 1993
Legends/Canon: Legends
Timeline: 9 ABY
Welcome back to the Star Wars Book Club! Today is the thrilling conclusion to the original Thrawn trilogy by Timothy Zahn. The Last Command takes all of our plot lines that have been building throughout the first two books and manages to effectively resolve them all. I was overall happy with the way things ended. I think each character ended up in a good place, meaning they did have good character growth throughout the trilogy. That character growth is going to be the main focus of this review because at this point the plot lines are all pretty spoilery and I want to keep my reviews as spoiler free as possible.
First up, I want to acknowledge that not every character had big growth arcs. Lando is almost exactly the same through all three books. Despite Han finally becoming a father, he doesn’t do anything plot wise that would be considered out of the ordinary for his character. Leia is similar to Han in that regard. She definitely grows in the Force, and her connection to the twins was an interesting aspect of the Force to see, but she’s really just the same political entity for the duration of the books.
On the Empire’s side, Thrawn stays the same to me. He starts off as a crazy good strategist and leader, and that’s where he ends as well. He puts up a good fight and is far and away one of my favorite characters/villains in the whole Star Wars universe. Captain Pellaeon, who I haven’t talked about at all up until this point, is simply the loyal underling to Thrawn. Pellaeon can never quite grasp Thrawn’s tactics, and that’s actually a really funny little subplot, watching Pellaeon being unsure but trying to follow orders to the letter anyway.
Jedi Master Joruus C’baoth has a not very slow descent into complete and utter madness. This descent hits its lowest point by the end of The Last Command, and when the inevitable fight between Luke, Mara, and C’baoth comes it’s really something. The Star Wars universe is fictional, and even knowing that, I was still scared of C’baoth’s level of Force mastery paired with his insanity. It got intense.
The Noghri were probably my favorite addition to the series as a whole. They have such a unique culture and watching the main characters try to figure that out was great. The Noghri addressing Han as Lady Vader’s consort was more funny than it needed to be. The political shifting that the Noghri people go through has big implications that I somehow didn’t see coming, which made for a very surprising ending that must remain vague because spoilers. Let’s just say that the payoff for including Noghri in the series was excellently done.
Moving on to our big bad Jedi Luke Skywalker. His character arc was the foil to C’baoth, and I think it worked really well to do it like that. Where C’baoth wants nothing more than to be the high and mighty teacher and leader of a new generation of Jedi, Luke is completely unsure about his own ability to teach and lead. I think that C’baoth is exactly what Luke fears he will become as a teacher. But by the end of the series, and this might be a little spoiler, Luke starts to teach Mara how to use the Force like a Jedi. That decision right there is what gives Luke all of his growth in the series. He finally decides to trust himself, and the Force, with the responsibility of teaching, even knowing that it won’t be perfect.
As for Mara, I actually want to talk about her last, so I’m going to give her compatriot Talon Karrde his paragraph first. All Karrde wants is to stay neutral and run his smuggling ring, but somehow he keeps getting pulled into the action. Karrde’s dealings were my favorite plot/subplot of The Last Command. He takes it upon himself to try and create a coalition of smugglers to fight the Empire. This is his last ditch effort to fight the Empire without actually joining the New Republic. Seeing his not so merry band of smugglers and the tensions between them and all of them trying to find their place in this weird new galaxy made me want more. If you gave me a book, or even a book series, exclusively about smugglers and pirates and gangs running around the galaxy, I would read it in a heartbeat. So if that exists, someone please tell me! I will read it! Now, I loved Karrde’s character so much that I did a thing I never do. I thought about it hard enough to make a fan casting for him. Introducing Freddy Carter as the one and only Talon Karrde.
Finally, we have made it to Mara Jade. In case you somehow missed it, or maybe forgot, or blocked it out on purpose, this Substack doubles as a small stan account for Mara Jade. I’ve already listed a few of my favorite things about this series, but far and away my top favorite thing to come out of this series is Mara Jade. Emperor’s Hand turned smuggler turned hesitant ally to Luke, she’s been through it all. I absolutely loved how her command to Kill Luke Skywalker was resolved. That was a stroke of genius from Timothy Zahn if I do say so myself. She’s one of those characters that’s trying so hard to be bad that you know she has to be good, and that’s my favorite kind of character to read about. I love her relationship with Karrde. It’s like it almost wants to be something more, but never quite gets a chance. Then you throw Luke into the mix, and how much she hates it that she needs to keep asking for his help. She’s stubborn and smart and really lonely. Ever since the Emperor died, she’s been lost, and by the end of this series it was great to see her finally starting to find her footing. Here’s my second call for book recommendations: anything that Mara Jade appears in, let me know about it! I must read it! And here’s my second fan casting of this review. Introducing Sadie Sink as Mara Jade.
I really enjoyed my time with this series. It was the first Star Wars series, opposed to standalone books, that I’ve read, and I was impressed by it. It’s hard for me to decide what to rate each book, though. The conclusion hesitantly came to is that I liked Dark Force Rising the best, then The Last Command, then Heir to the Empire. But they’re all quite close to each other. I would recommend this series to anyone who wants to read Star Wars books. It has all the classic Star Wars elements: politics, lightsabers, smugglers, aliens, and a big bad Empire.
Thanks for reading! I hope you’re enjoying the Star Wars content because I know I am.
Up next is Dark Disciple by Christie Golden. I’m planning to have that review out sometime between March 10 and 15, so stick around for that!
Until next time, may the Force be with you.