They did explain that Thrawn is the last surviving Grand Admiral. That would signify importance to a causal viewer. Ezra is also introduced as a hero who defeats said Grand Admiral. In one episode Sabine has to both KILL a bad guy and watch as her friend dies to a different bad guy. This shit ain't Blues Clues, baby.mit joins the ranks of Thrawn in Rebels is objectively a less capable commander than Legends Thrawn and even Thrawn portrayed in the new books. We see that a number of his distinctive abilities as a commander have diminished. Concern for casualties, both civilian and military. The Seventh Fleet regularly loses cruisers, ground installations, and even Star Destroyers Thrawn's there. Ezra's there. Kevin Kiner: So, yeah, I pretty full-on play his theme there. That's one of the few times I play Ezra's theme, and that was so freaking awesome. 'This is a really dangerous, bad guy'. We need to add weight to it. We need to inject fear into just hearing that one note." That's how we kind of Grand Admiral Thrawn is the Best Star Wars Villain. I'm watching Rebels for the first time and honestly season 1 and 2 were meh mostly because I found the main villains to be just all around pretty boring BUT season 3 has made me fall in love with the show because of Grand Admiral Thrawn. This villain has to be my favorite villain in the Enter Grand Admiral Thrawn (Lars Mikkelsen), the evil big bad that Ahsoka has been teasing for weeks. Here he is! Here he is! Thrawn is menacing with his promises to destroy all the good guys, sure. According to The Mandalorian movie director Dave Filoni, Star Wars Rebels' big bad Grand Admiral Thrawn will seemingly serve as the MandoVerse crossover film's primary villain. When asked in the summer issue of Empire Magazine if he saw Thrawn as "the big bad of this New Republic era," Finloni responded, "Definitely, in my eyes:" "Definitely Mikkelsen, as it just so happens, is a very accomplished actor in live-action as well, having starred in House of Cards, The Witcher, The Team and quite a few movies over the years. Plus We get our first live-action appearance of Thrawn, Shin continues to be a fun bad guy sidekick, and other lesser bad guys were introduced as well, like Enoch (pictured at the top of this post Thrawn was actually created by author Timothy Zahn for his Star Wars novels in Filoni brought the character into the mainstream and back into canon by making him his big bad guy in Rebels, That pattern of bad behavior eventually catches up with him, and Thrawn is apparently exiled by his own people. KcJhd.