If one is to use the Space Nazi allegory for the Galactic Empire then Pellaeon would be one of the old school Prussian generals; someone who may not ascribe completely to the ideology, possesses qualities that can be considered admirable like a sense of honor and may even voice objections in certain cases, but someone who still felt duty-bound to stick with the regime regardless. I personally think that Pellaon's stance did gradually soften with regards to certain aspects like abolishing slavery and improving the overall standard of living for Imperial citizens, but it always came from a place of pragmatism rather than idealism. He would always remain an authoritarian and possibly human supremacist at heart, but he also knew that the Empire had to make certain concessions in order to survive.
I was going to say that Pellaeon is like General Ludwig Beck. He was Chief of the German General Staff for a while in the 30s during the rise of Hitler, and he was basically forced out of the army by Hitler when he showed any signs of not being a complete yes man. In 1944, during the July 20th bombing attempt to assassinate Hitler, Ludwig Beck agreed to become the new German head of state if the coup was successful. He didn't go along with this plan to kill Hitler because he was so horrified by what the Nazis had done. In fact, during the 30s, Beck was pretty much A-OK with Mr. Hitler. After all, Hitler told the German Army he was going to let them ignore the Versailles treaty and become big again. That made people like the Chief of the General Staff more powerful, and who doesn't love power, right? They were also going to get revenge on France, and what self respecting Prussian who just lost a World War to France doesn't want to get some revenge on the French, right? Oh, you want to kill all those Jews and starve all of Poland to death to repopulate it with Germans? Well, that's probably exageration... I don't need to take that seriously. Oh, you're going to invade the Soviet Union and try to exterminate world Communism? Well, who in Germany doesn't hate the Commies, so that sounds pretty cool and also it's surely going to require a MASSIVE ARMY, so yeah, seems fine to me... Beck was on board with all of that. What he wasn't on board with was that Hitler had lead Germany into losing another war. Beck didn't like that Hitler had used the German Army as a personal tool and humiliated the Prussian Officer Corp. Beck didn't like the idea that Hitler's failures were going to cause enemy troops to defile German soil when they came to stomp Hitler's guts out for starting a huge ass world war, so he despite being a prominent figure in helping Hitler rise to power and even doing a decent amount of the early war planning, Beck was willing to join a plot to kill Hitler and attempt to quickly surrender to the allies. He didn't want to do this because he'd seen the error of his ways, or because he was concerned with the evil of Hitler or a desire for justice. He did it because he hoped that being able to say to the allies, "Hey look, I helped kill Hitler and end all of this," would help him escape punishment for his own complicity. He did it to try and prevent Germany from having to fully face the consqeunces of the wars that Ludwig Beck had been more than happy to assist in starting, once he realized those consquences were going to be ashes and defeat, rather than glorious revenge. Now make him less of a coward, put him in space, and make him less overtly evil and you've basically got Pellaeon. OUCH.
There’s also a connection to be made with Hans Speidel, who was a Nazi general who nonetheless was seen as more honorable, and wasn’t involved with (too many) war crimes/crimes against humanity. He was put in charge of the reorganized West German federal military, the Bundeswher, and was an important figure in NATO.
What's wild to me is that Legends writers decided that Pellaeon was 100% correct to believe that the Republic would collapse over inter-species tensions and the Empire would one day rule the galaxy again. That's exactly what happens in the Legacy comics, where the final government we get is a triumvirate made up mostly of Imperial institutions and headed politically by an Empress (with Skywalker blood, at that).
@aldariontelcontar All history is a history of class struggle. Beyond this, it is in fact wild for a series about the fight for liberal democracy to end with an autocrat who took power after a false flag attack blamed on minorities.
The reason why he was right makes sense, though; the only thing that ever made it possible for the Republic to endure was the Jedi. Without the Jedi holding it together, the Republic was always doomed to fragment on species lines. When Luke's New Jedi Order was ultimately brought down by its own contradictions, the collapse of the Republic was almost an afterthought.
I think that many of the reforms that the Imperial Remnant underwent under Gilad Pellaeon were driven much more by a sense of desperate pragmatism rather than any deep seeded need for reform. The Imperial Remnant renounced slavery because it is a fundamentally inefficient way to organize labor. The military and government became more open towards non-humans because it no longer had the luxury of picking and choosing who got to stay when every able body was needed. Generally improving the quality of life of its citizens becomes necessary to prevent popular uprisings when the military is overstretched and cannot afford to be back at home putting down insurrections. It's less progress towards a more liberal, democratic state and more concessions to create a stable state that can survive the next five, ten, twenty, or a hundred years.
It has to be said though that slavery was only inefficient after industrialization, before it was very much efficient in economic terms. The opposition to slavery should always be moral., because different technological realities can create circumstances where slavery is economically efficient.
Yep. I like Pallaeon as a character but he really didn’t do much if anything to really reform the Imperial Remnant. Hell most of the dialing down on the specism and less heavy handed approaches to civil liberties were either started by the various warlords who either didn’t care about the whole Human High Culture crap. Or a byproduct of not having the endless troops to throw at dissenters until they won.
@@BlueOak-ym2ze To be fair outside of a status symbol, like with the Hutts, slavery in the Empire never really made any sense in a setting where you had droids. I always found it an effort to make the Empire cartoonishly evil. The idea that slavery is a moral evil comes out of the Enlightenment more than anything else. Most people throughout the course of human history would objected to that argument. Moral opposition to slavery requires a certain belief about the nature of human/sapient life that not all cultures do or have shared.
@@TeutonicKnight92 Slavery in the west was abolished on religious grounds though. It really started with the British Empire abolishing it due to Christians lobbying in the houses and then the Navy making it unprofitable for everyone else by hunting down slaver ships in the atlantic. On the European continent, it had already been mostly abolished by the end of the middle ages. In 1537, the Catholic church had already outlawed the slavery of the natives of South America on the basis that they had a souls and were capable of being civilised and peacefully converted. Basically the Enlightenment just finished the job out of civilisational inertia. And even then, Napoleon, a pure product of said enlightenment, did temporarily allow it again in the colonies out of political convenience.
Leia: What he really wants are concessions ahead of time, and then to be at the peace table when it's all over. Han: And here I was thinking Pellaeon was a good guy. Leia: I'm not saying he's not, at least not by Imperial standards. But he's also a head of state, and has to do what's best for them. He didn't agree to end the war because it was the 'right thing to do', he agreed because he said it was 'in the Empire's best interests'.
This exchange is from Destiny's Way, if I recall, right after Pellaeon proposes as a negotiating point that if the Empire were to get involved in the war, it should be allowed to keep any worlds it takes from the Yuuzhan Vong that don't have New Republic citizens on them.
@@Rogue_Nine416 I can't block people on TH-cam, but I dismiss every Geetsly's video that comes up in my suggestions ever since I saw a thumbnail from him that said "GETTING IT ON WITH PALPY!?" and showed a picture of Tenel Ka.
@@autumngottlieb3071 i haven't watched his videos in years because of how much he just obviously lies about the jedi & clone wars but that doesn't surprise me at all :/ anyway i love the lesbian ahsoka flag
He reminds me a lot of Otto Von Bismarck. Pushing reforms not out of conviction but rather necessity and pragmatism. For example, Bismarck introduced health insurance in Prussian Germany not because he thought that the people deserved it but to silence the liberal opposition. This pragmatism looks a lot like what Palleon seems to embody.
All of this is why Pellaeon is one of my favorite Star Wars characters. He is neither a holier than thou Mary Sue saint nor a darker than dark villain.
Ah, Paelleon. The man who delivered unironically one of the best one-liners in the whole of NJO. "You may win occasional battle against us Vorrik, but the Empire will always strike back."
Reminds me of the process in real life in which some former fascists and Nazis in Italy, Germany and Japan were rehabilitated as Western-friendly allies during the Cold War. Star Wars creators and authors do sometimes incorporate parallels from the real world into their stories.
Pallaeon is definitely one of my favourite characters in the EU. I always loved his perspective in the Thrawn trilogy. Was he like a really good guy? No, probably not. But that makes his character compelling in my book. He isn’t just straight up evil but he is also still an imperial so he isn’t a saint.
The Empire under Pellaeon was more lawful neutral than evil. They won't screw you over for shits and giggles like Palpatine's Empire would, but if you want their help, you have to give them something in return.
Idk but the more I think about and see how the Empire is depicted in later Legends materials it always just seems to reek of clean Wehrmacht. Like as an officer in Death Squadron he had to have been committing atrocities and in his first appearance in Heir to the Empire he doesn't bat an eye when Thrawn threatens the city at the bases of Mount Tantiss in chapter 4 so that does seem to indicate that he has no issues with standard imperial procedure. Whether it be in the fandom or among the authors (I'm not really sure) there seems to have been a fairly concerted effort to rehabilitate the Empire by contrasting the "noble" imperial military who just served honorably to the evil at the heart (Vader, Tarkin, Palpatine etc), ignoring that they are all part of the same system and support the same goals (if anything Pelleon is more of fascist then someone like Vader who really was just there because of a series of really shitty choices). Like I doubt that it was intentional to make it feel so similar but since the Empire are ascetically a Nazi stand in I find it kind of hard to ignore.
Very well put. I didn’t particularly care for it either because it just feels disingenuous. It’s trying to make the local faction that was based off a real life action circuit 1939 to 1945 in Germany seem like they were “Noble.“ Those people were not Noble. They wanted to conquer anyone and wipe out anybody who did not look like them or was not German The empire is based off of that faction anybody who supported the empire and maintained its rules were fascists and fascists in real life and infection are depicted as evil because they do not care for the individual liberties of the people or the rights of others or the diversity of a local culture or people or just anybody who does not fit in the rigid view of what is “normal“. There are no two ways around it. The empire was an is evil. It was founded by an evil man who took over a Democrat elected system, and turned it into war machine to glorify himself. No matter what kind of cleanup they try to do the fact that it remains that it was founded by an evil man to do evil things. Which makes it further infuriating that in Star Wars legacy they try to make the empire the good guys. No that’s not how it works Star Wars Legacy.
Think of Paelleon and his atrocity buddies as Otto Von Bismarck and lads, pragmatic and nasty but not stupidly blood soaked nasty. They're not good or nice people but better than the alternate and in Legends actually made what seems to be a stable state for centuries (not even Bismarck did that)
@@SudrianTales But that division is the problem. The old Prussian aristocracy and officer corp were an integral base for Hitler and he would have never become chancellor without the support of old aristocrats like von Papen and Hindenburg. Furthermore, these officers controlled the German army until 1945 and with the exception of the July plot of 1944 never opposed him (and the plotters only opposed Hitler because of how he was executing the war not really the genocide). These men executed Hitlers vision and the holocaust would not have been possible without there support and active involvement. To extend this to Star Wars, Pellaeon follows this exact mold. He was on officer from the Judicials then the Republic navy. He, like many officers, probably disliked the Republics disarmament policy, the main issue most German officers had with the Weimar Republic, and supported politically a politician who rearmed the Republic and the Empire and elevated the military to its most powerful institution, Palpatine. Because his only actual political opinion was a strong military, he didn't care about the genocide the Empire was doing, or more likely supported it as, like in Germany with antisemitism, anti-alien and anti-Jedi sentiments were extremely strong among humans in the core of the Republic and its military (again in chapter 4 of Heir to the Empire Pellaeon doesn't bat an eye "that the Jedi had to be exterminated," Thrawns words not mine). After Endor he continues this policy and never seems to have a problem with all of the evil shit the Empire does in that era (even if he is not directly mentioned its safe to assume he served the mainline Empire straight through till Palpatine's final death, with all that entails). Furthermore, by the time he takes control of the Empire, he is not interested in Justice for the crimes of the past but just getting the Empire through the next few decades so they can start the process all over again. Hell, even out of universe his rehabilitation follows the model of a Wehrmacht and the clean Wehrmacht overall. The war ends (WW2 and the Galactic Civil War) and the old enemies are needed to fight the next (the USSR and the Yuuzhan Vong). The authors then go out of there way to make the still relevant officers seem "clean" by scapegoating all of the really evil stuff on the dead leaders of the old government and claiming that these officers were actually just "loyal patriots" (which is true of by loyal patriot you mean actively supported the genocidal activity of the previous regime). Again I seriously doubt that this is all intentional and I am not blaming anyone for these parallels but when Lucas clearly intended the Empire in every aspect to be a Nazi analog and this become hard to ignore and disturbing.
@Khatep-the-Ancient Oh i agree, Ludendorff and Hindenberg backstabbed Weimar who wanted to continue WW1 by telling them the truth and urging surrender. Then they told the press the exact opposite.
One part of the Hand of Thrawn, where Pellaeon's outlining the peace plan with Leia, one of her Nohgri bodyguards (the guys whose planet was poisoned and was used by the Empire to be kept in a state of perpetual servitude) balking at his claim of the Empire becoming more tolerant toward aliens than under Palpatine. When he asks Pellaeon if he can honestly say the aliens in the Empire agree with his claims, Pellaeon reluctantly admits no.
I have a similar problem with most of the Fel family. Especially since unlike with Pellaeon, it's not just sourcebooks or fans, even the books themselves seem to forget Jag Fel used to work for the Empire of the Hand and, as he says in Dark Journey, was actively raised by his dad to respect "the ideals of Grand Admiral Thrawn".
Truth be told, the whole "Legacy" era is just as nonsensical as Disney's Sequels. Both Legacy and Sequels basically reset state of the Galaxy back to Empire vs Rebels era. EU should've ended after NJO.
@@SithEmpiredidnothingwrongI think that’s an unfair comparison. It’s similar but not the same and it’s not done so soon after Endor like with the sequels. It’s far more understandable for there to be another swing and change in Galatic politics over the course of 100 years, such is the way of things when you have two powers vying for supremacy. And even then, it’s not a 1:1 attempt at repeating ANH like with the sequels, especially TFA. Yes the empire became dominant again just before the start of the comics and yes the good guys are weaker and the Jedi got purged. But besides that, that’s it. Because this time the Jedi do survive as an order and the Galactic alliance isn’t diverted from within or blown apart by some super weapon, it’s defeated in a war and reduced to a rump state, not a rebel group. And the empire suffers a civil war and had its own rump state. And the characters and story aren’t super similar to the OT at all, so there’s barely any superficial similarities let alone bigger ones like the sequels did with the OT.
I always liked Pellaeon, mostly because someone needs to be there to remind everyone why the Old Republic fell and the massive problems within it. Idealism is good, but the old Republic was far from perfect, I think lots of characters hated the Empire, which was fair to do, but also forgot that a corporation could legally blockade a planet
I've always like Pelleon as a moderate imperial, he may not have been a Sith loyalist, a slaver, and may have been less of a space racist, but he was still a militiarist and an authoritarian. He agreed with the ideal of the New Order as replacing the "chaos" or the Republic, but not necessarily the reality of the Empire as a corrupt Sith state. So while his empire may have been better than Palpatine's empire, it was still essentially a military dictatorship. In our world during the inter war period we actually see a lot of conservative authoritarian movements which Pelleon seemed to represent, conservative, authoritarian, anti democratic, nationalist, but not fascist.
I would say even there much like Corey says in the video it isn't that he is not exceptionally racist or at least overwhelmingly tone deaf, he just thinks if he enshrines a bastion of absolutist and by extension of a racist view of cultural compatibility humanocentric policy, with as many pragmatic reforms as he is forced to undertake to survive, then his ideology will rise from the ashes when (insert the really blatantly racist stuff he agrees with in the duology around him say about the NR). Is he a fascist, kind of depends. But I think irrespective of that he is absolutely an authoritarian who does believe in some super racist shit as part of that "Law and Order" ideological system and on a personal level has some moments which seem to indicate that while he is tolerant around some individuals he has very bigoted instincts
@@Kevc00 unless he didn't treat them like some employes and shielded them from repercussion of other imperials, still makes him a slaver that's like to say that he only kicked puppys from ugly dog breads
Well at least Pellaeon was an improvement in comparison to Palpatine... then again, it doesn't take much to be an improvement in comparison to Palpatine (yet from a strategic perspective, Daala somehow couldn't even do that).
Daala, had to be the worst of all the imperial leaders, even if she had a fascinating character background. She killed all the capable commanders and then immediately lost like 3 of her 5 star destroyers in a bid for a super star destroyer and then couldn't even utilize that to maintain control. I would almost argue that Pestige was a better leader given the situation he was thrown into.
@@TheAdmirableAdmiral Sate Postage is fascinating. His portrayal in Plagueis and the other early Clone Wars books is so compelling. I have literally no clue how he fared post RotJ since he doesn't appear in any legends novels (only comics I think and I don't really read comics) but I think he lived a fascinating life.
I've been eagerly waiting for this video, which you mentioned as an aside a while ago, and it delivers. I only wish you took it all the way to its clean Wehrmacht roots.
A lot of his skills, sure... But let's not forget that Thrawn kept around a piece of art in his chambers to remind himself to feel bad about that one time he genocided an entire species because he couldn't understand them like he did everyone else he fought. With absolutely no indication that he wouldn't do it again if he felt like he had to. The Noghri certainly provide evidence that Thrawn was just the same kind of monster as previous imperial leaders, even if he was a more pragmatic and cerebral one. Thrawn was a *monster* in his original novels, and feeling bad about genocide without being willing to change does not even *try* to redeem him for it.
I like the comparison with the problematic history of Germany. While the empire under Palpatine was basically the sussy germany under toothbrush moustache, pelleaon's empire is more similar to imperial Germany. Not really good guys, very much racist, but foreigners/aliens still had some rights depending on where exactly you're from and also they were not completely opposed to working with somewhat more liberal governments if the need was there
I disagree with you calling Imperial Germany racist. I understand that for many it makes no difference, but the Germans treated their colonies much more favorably than the French or the Belgians, and the same Askari left very good memories of the times when Tanzania and Namibia were part of the German Empire. The Germans treated the Jews better than anyone in Europe, and this is one of the things that really pissed off Hitler. Women were quite emancipated and free in that society, and women's voting rights in Germany arose earlier than in Britain. In my opinion, the German Empire was a very progressive state for its time.
Actually, Germany was among the least racist of the European powers. At least compared to Belgium and Britain. Almost 27 million Indians died under British rule. That's more than the combined victims of Hitler and Stalin. Imperial Germany was no paradise, but it was very progressive for its time.
@warlordofbritannia And? All of the great powers did. I'm not excusing Germany, I'm just saying that the other powers were no better and sometimes were even worse.
Yeah I have to disagree with your interpretation of the passage at around 12:16. If you read what's on the screen it states the exact opposite of what you said, that several wealthy Pro-Imperials had immigrated TO the Remenant with their fortunes, but that despite this cash injection the Remnant still had major issues with their economy such as inconsistently developed worlds with minimal access to Core World amenites and, argueably most important, the economy was being heavily underminned through being flooded with cheap New Republic goods, that was destroying attempts to build up local industry. Given that the Remnant at this point was reduced to a clump of Rim Worlds that were probably not the most economically prosperous even before having to shoulder a major war I don't really think any of this can be used as significant evidence that the Imperial system was causing wealth inequality, merely that the Remnant was struggling with serious inherent economic issues that any government ruling it's territory would have had. This of course doesn't mean the Imperial System wasn't causing issues, there's just not really the evidence for it in that particular extract that your misread suggests it does.
It shows that military leaders who become head of a government often have the problems that they do not have straight political beliefs and mostly act as a stabilising figure. Pellaeon is here strongly comparable with Paul von Hindenburg as president of Weimar Germany.
While they're not exactly the good guys, I think Pellaeon's Imperial Remnant was not nearly as vile as the Empire under Palpatine was. The latter was basically Nazi Germany in space but worse. If I had to draw another comparion to a real-life counterpart, I'd say the Remnant was basically the Second Reich under Bismarck's leadership c. 1871-1890 (or the Kaiserreich during WW1 under Hindenburg).
Pallaeon to me is the Bismark of the Empire. Pragmatic, ruthless, and utterly committed to his idealised state. Bismark after all made the most comprehensive welfare state in Europe (possibly the world) to undercut his left wing opponents and the various socialist and communist groups in Imperial Germany. I see Pallaeon's reforms to the Remnant in a similar way. Ruthless pragmatism to undercut demands for the citizenry to join the New Republic.
Thank you. My sentiments exactly. Now please make a similar video about Thrawn not being a saviour of the galaxy just because he was militarily and managerially competent. I get so tired of his fanboys who idolize him despite him willingly and knowingly served and perpetrated evil. His insight into people should have made him realize Palpatine's New Order methods undermine the very order and structure he claimed was necessary to face off against Yuzhaan Vong, which he claimed as primary reason to join the empire.
I don't agree with you 100% but I feel like Thrawn got ballwashed so hard later in the books. He was willing to give CHILDREN to JORUUS C'BAOTH. Maybe he doesn't understand the Force very well since the Chiss have little notion of Sith or Jedi but that's still fucked. Cloning is immoral at best and straight up evil at worst (it is immensely cruel to make people solely to be soldiers, people who have not known love or family and probably never will since they will likely die long before the end of Thrawns plan for galactic conquest can come to fruition). But because there was a greater evil and the galaxy had to be unified blah blah blah. It's post-hoc rationalization because Thrawn happened to be the best written legends-original villain. I enjoy Thrawn as a leader and as a sort of foil to the Republic as a whole but he would've done far better if he'd just told the Republic high command about the Vong and tried to organize some kind of alliance between the Chiss (who would at least begrudgingly share some information about the Vong), the Empire (a very long shot, a truce is probably the best anyone could possibly hope for) and of course the New Republic. He could've likely prevented trillions of deaths if he'd been a little less Imperial in both allegiance and general disposition, but as it stands he totally failed in even his most noble goal of preparing the Galaxy for the far outsiders. But really I think the Vong stuff is ONLY post-hoc. When the Thrawn Trilogy was written, Thrawn was just a supergenius general who wanted to unite the galaxy under his leadership for reasons he doesn't fully articulate, as they aren't wouldn't be relevant until he'd already defeated the New Republic. Thrawn is kind of an evil guy. Partly because of his Chiss background, it must be said their military hardly fosters anything in the way of sentimentality, but largely due to his willingness to put the ends before the means. Maybe if he'd won his wars and saved the galaxy he could be remembered for that, but since he lost he is remembered only for the atrocity of clone-slavery, the destructiveness of his military campaigns against the republic, and his willingness to exploit the Noghri people; which ultimately killed him.
I feel like there need to be a distinction made, because there is Pellaeon the person, Pellaeon the commander, Pellaeon the leader, and Pellaeon the politican. And we also need to talk about egime was he part of, because that would explain some of his words and actions. A lot of the "pragmatic argument" is for Pellaeon the politican when he is trying to present an issue to the moffs in a way that would be pallatable to all of them bar the worst hardliners. Doing otherwise could have led to his proposals being rejected (the best case) or for Pellaeon being replaced and possibly executed (the worst case). The same goes for Pellaeon the commander, especially early on, but also later, he talked the talk of typical imperial commander because that was what it was expected from him. And then there is the Pellaeon the leader. Considering that even when he held the most power, his position was never really secure enough to allow him to do radical reforms to a system and so he went for gradual, subtler changes. And thus as far as his leadership goes he could be linked to real-life leaders like soviet general secretary and later first and only president of the USSR Mikhail Gorbachev, or czechoslovak communist leader Alexandr Dubček. These were leaders whose views were far more liberal than the regimes in which they operated (and the irony is that in both cases, their liberalism was coming out of the ideology of the regime, not despite of it), but due to nature of those regimes they had to work on a knife's edge to both placate the hardliners and to achieve a meaningful if small steps or progress, leaders who tried to build up a cadre of like-minded individuals who would help them reform their own countries for the better (much like Pellaeon, when in power, tried to put more liberal leaders in a position of influence). And in fact both Gorbachev and Dubček had their work cut short by hardliners due to being "too liberal", be it by 1991 coup that broke the USSR, or the 1968 invasion to Czechoslovakia. However, for all the good they did, and much like Pelaleon in Star Wars universe, Gorbachev from 1984 till 1991 was still overwhelmingly a totalitarian leader fully commited to the communist and marxist-leninist ideology of USSR, and Dubček never went so far as to suggest breaking the one-party rule in Czechoslovakia. As for Pellaeon's personal opinions, I don't think we saw much of them due to the regime he was part of and that he later led, and we don't see much of Pellaeon's viewpoint (and when we do, it is mostly through the eyes of others. And there is the aspect that Pellaeon couldn't really present his opinions as freely as you might think for abovementioned reasons. And thus I wouldn't be as sure whether he coated his ideals in pragmatism to make them justifiable by unjust system, or his pragmatism tore down the worst aspects of the Empire. And I chose to believe the former due to how the story presented it to me, but that isn't a justification, because some things aren't justifiable.
I already make those distinctions in the video, but then I go through the personal statements he *does* make. Yes, sometimes people can have different views from the regime for which they work but there is quite simply no evidence to suggest he does other than a feeling people have that he *might* because they like him more than Moff Disra or something. The statements we have from him during these periods do not imply he actually felt any differently. The only indication we have is one sourcebook quote which directly contradicts the more direct evidence we have. This is especially important when the topic is whether or not he "fixed" the Empire- quite simply, he did not. If it were solely about his own personal views, then we also have to contend with his past working specifically on projects like Imperial enslavement of wookiees while still deciding he supported the Empire.
While Pellaeon is by far my favorite character he has so many flaws and is not the saint so many claim him to be. He’s not the greatest of all Imperials but he’s not straight up evil like Pitta or Cronal. He’s more of a moderate between the two of extremist and complete reformist. There’s a lot of reasons why I like him as a character but he’s not a 100% good person. He was extremely loyal to the Empire and this caused him to believe many of their policies. I like him but is he the greatest Imperial or the only good one? No. No he isn’t. I don’t care what people say. Thank you for finally bringing this up.
The Empire was always a fascist hydra in Legends and new Canon alike. Pallaeon may've been a tragic visionary, but the core of Star Wars is that authoritarianism never leads to prosperity and will sooner or later cause more destruction. My personal stance is that the New Republic's greatest mistake ever, yes, even bigger than neglecting the Vong, was allowing the Pallaeon-Gavirsom treaty instead of pushing for an unconditional surrender. Why? Read Legacy comics to get the answer. But don't get me wrong, from the story-telling perspective I love all that.
Not sure how you got that conclusion from the Legacy comics given how the Fel Empire was a completely different beast from even Pallaeon’s Imperial Remnant, and even then the Sith plot relied largely on exploiting the unrest and fears of a second Vong war to weasel their way into power again.
@Chaotic_Jackal The point is, they obviously got expansionist, even in the years leading up to the Sith-Imperial War. It wasn't even about the Fels, but the power hungry Moffs. As for Darth Krayt, he would've never been able to take over had the Empire not been allowed to persist.
@ Except the Empire didn’t expand through conquest but diplomacy in those years and power hungry idiots getting manipulated by the Sith isn’t exactly something unique to the Fel Empire. Even had the Empire been completely destroyed, the Legacy Storyline still happens but just with some other regional power such as the Hapens or Confederation.
@@Chaotic_Jackal Yes, they called it victory withourlt war, but while it certainly devieved those worlds into thinking the imps were no longer a threat, it wasn't much of a difference in the long-term. The outcome was the same. Krayt already had a decades old system, all the institutions, chain of command, the military, a weaponised ideology and vast territories with Core right there on a golden plate. Had the NR destroyed the Remnant, it would've faced much greater challanges in the shirt term (bloodlier Vong war, pro-imoerial terrorism, political instability), but I doubt the Sith would've been able to take over much of the Galaxy using minor factions. Legacy arc would still happen in some form, even with the Third Jedi Purge, but it would look much closer to KOTOR2 storyline, with Cade filling the role of Meetra and the One Sith gaining some support from the opponents of Ossus Project. But the New Republic/GA (depending on whether they'd have become the the latter in this scenario) would stand. Point is, all iterations of the New Order posed threat and it was a mistake to let it persist.
Yup. Good vid. Especially like the little reference to (imperial) Star Destroyer naming. Reminds me of Wedge trying to induce an "Are we the baddies"-moment in Admiral Rogriss ;)
Great video! Thinking about aliens in positions of power, the Empire did backslide on that in comparison to Crimson Empire with their Imperial Ruling Council. Not due to Pellaeon, but still.
Pellaeons characterization is spectacular. He is a true imperial but he is also sympathetic and extremely rational, a far cry from the other comically evil imperial leaders. He shows the decency the Imperial system could foster and the merit its existence has in the New Republic dominated Galaxy.
Pelleon plays to the stuff Lucas pushed late in his career. That the Sith and Jedi were ultimately both wrong, and the whole force includes both their philosophies. The New Republic got a lot right... but Pelleon (the Empire) legitimately had a few key points too. They are a both macrocosms of the Jedi and the Sith.
We should love Pelleon as an interesting character. But not as a role model for ideology or governance. Homie was a war criminal and an apologist for space fascism
I have watched across various episodes of Tapcaf how you an Eck kinda joke that Pellaeon is kinda the boomer grandpa and it actually does fit. The Imperial Remnant honestly is weird looking at as adult as it feels like if the Allies stopped fighting Nazi Germany once all the conquered territory was returned and peacefully settled while allowing that government to exist. Its one of my problems with the Hand of Thrawn Duology, because the New Republic could have used the crisis as a means to influence systemic changes in the Imperial Remnant. I will say this though, Thrawn definitely would have chosen Pellaeon as a successor, because Gilad wasn't going to let his ego drive his decisions. He was willing to cooperate and be diplomatic towards the New Republic, which does make his character interesting, but he definitely is with the Empire for a reason. In the Hand of Thrawn Duology he even confides in Ardiff that Thrawn was an Alien with alien thoughts and even he wasn't really sure of his intentions.
That is somewhat close to history- the Allies were very willing to work with a new German government (containing many nazis) against socialism as soon as the war ended.
If you read the books you have as much a right to what you enjoyed about them as anybody. If anything, I honestly think Pelleaon is an exceptional leader and his ability to learn and grow even as an aging man at his introduction is quite striking. At the end of the day it's refreshing to see a character whose on the wrong side of things who legitimately believes both in his cause and in positive change.
It's tragic that Disney refuses to allow EU writers to continue to make EU works despite how well they sell given that by the time the EU stopped adding new entries Palleon's reformed Empire was the bulwark against the Sith's galactic tyranny.
Too many people have problems with differentiating character traits. There is a difference between an interesting and well written character and a character that is good and well intentioned.
I look forward to arguing with people in this comments section like I did in the last one on the topic. It's also probably worth articulating the differences in when this was all written in the real world- The Hand of Thrawn Duology, where the novels first really present peace and corxistence with The Empire as a worthy goal, were published at the end of the 90s, after the fall of the Soviet Union. It was a time when it made sense to be emphasizing to Western Audiences an idea of making peace with old enemies, and presenting people who took part in a regieme that had been presented to them as pure evil as not nessecarily that bad, and I think that sort of post-soviet attitude is responsible for a lot of Empire Apologia in Legends. Fast forward to the 2020s, with the Russians getting up to bullshit and fascism on the rise on the west, that all seems pretty stupid and naive, and it kinda was, but that's what a generation and a half of the constant anxiety of Nuclear Armageddon will do to people. It at least makes some sense in context with when it was written. It's a fair thing to criticize, and a fair thing to acknowledge the context of why it seemed like a good idea at the time, even if we can look back and "That's kinda some bullshit that they tried to say peace with a regime as genocidal as the Empire is a good thing."
@@darthironhand4353 Yeah, we're usually used to thinking of The Empire as being Nazis, since that's where most of their inspirations were drawn from originally, and Legends leaned into that comparison pretty hard for a lot of years, but I think the post-soviet zeitgeist leaked its way into Star Wars in the late 90s to make them at least a little bit compared to the communists, and that's why we got a lot of de-escalation and striving for peace in the late 90s/early 2000s. Well intentioned, but the take sure didn't age that well.
@@parkerdixon-word6295 tbf, the comparison is because besides the Republican Partys like Nixon for the OT and Bush for the PT, the Nazis had been the major inspiration for the Empire, but that was for George Lucas the Author for the EU in the 90s had bit other inspirations
@@enisra_bowman Part of that is true, but every time people started delving into how the Empire functioned, with things like humanocentrism and COMPNOR, they were very directly taking their inspirations from the Nazis, so it's probably better to describe the authors of the 90s as including *more variety* of inspirations than to say that they stopped using the Nazis in any way, shape, or form.
Pellion was clearly flawed but, unlike most imperials he had a realistic appraisal of his abilities. Also, his leadership role is NOT akin to Palatine's. Pellion had to keep in the high up Imperials below him happy to get his fleet supplied. If he started in with radical reforms immediately he'd likely be removed from his position. He had to walk a thin line playing politics with them. If he ended slavery that's no small accomplishment. And yeah, there's still gonna be racial tensions; you can't just pass a law that changes everyone into non bigots. Progressive attitudes take time to take hold in society over time ideally.
Mostly good points in this video here. I greatly appreciate the provided quotes straight from the books. Good stuff. I also appreciate that you didn't just speak from a pov that the character stayed the same between Heir and the Yuuzhan Vong war, but instead pointed out what the books actually portray. (Characters did change over time in Legends, and I've always felt that was an important part of what made those books great! Because the characters changed, but were also still consistent!) Personally I never read any Star Wars comics, only the novels. So when I learnt of Palps "return to life" in the comics, it felt inconsistent with the history AND narrative tone/values of the Star Wars universe to me! (Luke acting evil? The Empire being strong after Thrawn? And worst of all... Darth Vader's sacrifice being diminished/having little Galactic impact!) It all just seemed to conflict too much with the universe built in the novels (by multiple brilliant authors) so I ignored it and considered the comics a separate universe. 😎
Fantastic analysis, Corey. I am glad you are bringing such an issue to the forefront, especially because people tend to romanticize the Imperial Remnant in a waym
thank you corey, this was well crafted with great attention to detail of the eu stories, insightful and accurate....and imo shows star wars is still working. ❤️🔥
I think that's an incredibly well done take on someone who's been my favorite star wars character since I was a little kid. The reality of Pellaeon isn't really as bright as we've always tried to make him out to be as fans. Sometimes corey I feel like you're too good for just star wars lore when you can sum up and describe something that could easily be very charged in such an earnest and wholesale manner.
I think that Pellaeon doing things out of pragmatism makes his positions far more tenable. It wasn't a matter of emotion or morals, it was a matter of fact and rationality. It was unreasonable to continue a war they already lost, it was impractical and ineffective use of labor to have slavery, so on, so forth. The argument from reason and rationality will almost always make any moral stance that much stronger.
I think there's simply the fact that, for European ethinicites at least, he looks like a good old strong and protective dad or grandad -- don't neglect the big white mustache factor. Not in the same stereotype as that of the smooth-cheeked, twisted and cunning executive (Tarkin, Thrawn). There should be a name for this effect, hmm let me see 🤔... The "Your grandad's mustache bias" ? Anyway great video, very thorough on a much needed topic
Legends kind of turned the empire into the Soviet Union. Hear me out, they were depicted as the evil person and unequivocally evil. Then they started to simmer down, and they just kinda became a bit of a nuisance that they could pick off on occasion, although the Soviet Union was far from a “bit of a nuisance.” More like “we don’t wanna kill each other and nuke each other to death so we are just going to poke it each other instead of you know actually downright attacking each other.“ and then by the time of the end of the Batham era… like the Soviet Union. The Berlin wall fell, and they suddenly became nice and then “reformed.“ Now we have Russia, which is trying to reclaim its former glory in the Soviet Union, but I digress. But the thing of it is is that that doesn’t really work for the galactic empire. The Galactic empire was and truly is based off of well a certain little faction from Germany circa 1939 to 1945. And that little faction was founded on fear, xenophobia of anything remotely different, authoritarianism, eugenics, hatred and a conquering spirit that pretty much declared that they were “master race“ and everyone was to serve them whether they wanted to or not. When you consider that, yeah the empire legends comes across is not only disingenuous, but massively insulting to the original vision. But that’s just my take.
Pellaeon was a militarist fascist but finally an Imperial willing to make peace instead of bleed the galaxy dry in a forever war. Kruschev, if you will. Yeesh imagine fighting basically nonstop for 35 years.
The Empire high command was constituted by veterans from the republic navy officer corps and the stormtrooper corps mind you were a volunteer force, in which a lot of them came from mid-rim or outer-rim planets who were constantly attacked by the CIS. They don’t like aliens because 95% of the separatists military generals and politicians were from alien planets. So obviously they would never want people from their defeated enemies inside of the command structure or with any sort of influence (nor they want droids in it) within the empire. There were some pro-empire alien systems but this was the minority, so the Empire just used the umbrella term aliens in a negative light due to that. So if your sole argument is that the empire didn’t let alien species inside their ranks? Then is pretty weak.
The Wookiees and Mon Calamari were staunch Republic allies during the Clone Wars and yet Pellaeon personally worked as a wookiee slaver and Tarkin had Ackbar as a personal slave. Plenty of human planets were also Separatist and treated much better under the Empire, and there were legitimate reasons for non-humans to have not liked the Republic. This argument basically boils down to them being allowed to be even more racist because the prior government causes problems with its own racism. There were plenty in the New Republic government who didn't have the same issues with other species despite having been in the Republic's military during the Clone Wars as well.
It's also important to understand Pellaeon's reasons for sticking with the Empire and what informs his belief in authoritarianism which are both rooted in his military background. Pellaeon joined the military at a very young age and has lived his entire life within it. A military is effectively an authoritarian regime, with the Fleet being Pellaeon's one true love. To him, the military authoritarianism was not only normal, but desired. It was the abuse of this system by figures like Vader, Moffs, the Court and the Emperor that Pellaeon seems to have the most issue with. He looks at the military(the navy in particular) as an ideal model for how things should work. When this outlook is paired with Pellaeon living through the chaotic last days of the Republic with the rampant corruption, incompetence as well as the Clone Wars it makes a lot of sense that Pellaeon would see the Rebellion/New Republic as wanting to return to a state of that chaos. This would appear validated in that the Rebellion's victory at Endor ushered in the chaos of the Warlord Era and Imperial Civil War. While Pellaeon acknowledges that power hungry Imperials were a major factor in the Empire's fall, the core of his belief system still places the root of the blame on 'chaos' itself, or anything that disrupts the order of the fleet.
I'm sure a bunch of people who don't even read the material will come for Corey saying achaualle the POS racist grandpa archetype palleoneasnt that bad and such
More like he just stabilized things while the chaos elements (Moffs & others) burnt themselves out. It's very telling in story arc that he was targeted by Jacen.
You're skewing things just as hard against Pellaeon as you claim some sources do in favor of him. Look at JFK and Civil Rights. Did he not give a shit? No, but he had other things he felt were higher priority and with public sentiment being what it was, he was felt limited in how much he could (and the what value he'd get out of forcing anything). This is Pellaeon's status in the Empire. Much more complex and still in the behind-the-scenes groundwork laying stage - not yet where he can openly just declare "this is how it is; like it or I'll throw you out of power". Your comments on fellow military and moffs show - even if he has lots of support, any forcing of issue would divide/distract during key galactic events and risk a civil war or collapse of the empire and he's a pragmatic man who would refuse to cause that for a "lesser" issue. Secondly, yes he is someone who values order and will never treat EVERYONE as equal. This isn't anti-alien. It's again pragmatic. Look at Mon Mothma in Rogue Squadron series after capture of Coruscant. She even admits she understood why Palpatine did away with the senate. Too many different ways of thinking, value systems, and pettiness to ever completely agree on anything. So some voices hold no value on certain topics. Like you wouldn't ask Jar Jar to decide if an economic deal between Corellia and Kuat is fair. That isn't anti-alien. It's again just him being pragmatic. This is a big difference between him and other Imps. He will look at Traest Kre'fey and give complete respect - following his leadership to coordinate a battle. Whereas others look and go - non-human; he must be inferior. Leia will politely feign to listen to some stupid nonsensical alien idea, but ignore it. Pellaeon will simply tell them he knows a superior solution and shut them down. So it's more like Empire - -> Pellaeon -> Leia - -> true "everyone equal"
Wait, is this about Pellaeon redeeming (or reforming even) the Empire- or giving sunlight to Pellaeon's actions and opinions? Also, I think Pellaeon is more like "one of the best people serving the Empire in a position of power"; not really a high bar, but still better than a lot of the other choices.
It's about whether Pellaeon actually reformed the Empire, which involves talking about whether that is actually his goal. We don't actually see the Empire being reformed in the way he's sometimes given credit for, and we also see he doesn't particularly care to reform it in that way.
There's also a cohort amongst the fandom who whitewash Pellaeon because they are *themselves* vaguely authoritarian and don't see the Galactic Empire as being all that bad to begin with, and thus Pellaeon and Thrawn give them someone to latch onto.
It wouldn't surprise me if someone at LucasArts was at least aware of this, seeing as how Essential Guide to Warfare has a in-universe equivalent; Lenang O'Pali is a historian with very obviously Imperial views who wrote a, quote, "highly-revisionist" book that argued the Empire existed to better prepare the galaxy for the Vong Invasion and the deaths of Palpatine and Thrawn were the beginning of the end. I suspect Fry was trying to point out how stupid the argument was but I distinctly remember several Thrawn-apologists throwing this exact point around as proof several years ago, so I don't think it had the desired effect. You'd think if Thrawn was so worried about the Vong, he wouldn't lead a campaign against a peer level enemy and would instead simply tell them about it, but I guess he just had some grand master plan and was able to discern that the New Republic would desert the combined fleets, even though the inverse actually took place.
Great video! Well researched and well argued. My only assertion is that I think you use Alien acceptance (and a little bit of women acceptance) as the only metric of a better and more progressive empire. I think there's a lot to be said that Pellaeon took steps in the right direction to make the empire more meritocratic and less blatantly discriminatory. He def wasn't perfect, but he made the empire better than most imp warlords would've made it.
I think pellaenon is pragmatic. When the empire collapsed and he is left with a few hundred mostly barren planets and only 2 big shipyards, he can't defend the old imperial ideology, he has to cooperate and adapt with another factions for survival. After the bastion accord, the empire is left with only a few hundred damaged ships, most of which are trying to function with skeleton crews.
Well, he was an important and loyal officer during the Dark Empire period, too. Theocracy, World Devastators, the Galaxy Gun... That has to mean something, too. The "nice and respectable old neonazi" trope is quite funny tbh.
I think the best thing you can say for Pellaeon on the civil rights front is that he paved the way for the Fel dynasty to genuinely redeem the Imperial concept. He was better than what came before him, but that bar is incredibly low. The Empire had a loooooong way to go before it could be considered an even half-way decent government to live under
You can deal with the evil of the Galactic Empire or the equal level of evil of the New Republic's incompetence and indifference of finding themselves ruling the galaxy. Because it turns out that having a thing (governing a galaxy) is not quite as pleasing as wanting (desire to overthrow the empire).
Pellaeon seems to me as someone who would have agreed with grand admiral Raeder (who over his career served as a naval officer in three very different incarnations of Germany, from the German Empire to the Weimar Republic and finally the Third Reich), who said that politicians handle the politics and the navy fights. Policies of the Empire wouldn't have concerned him as long as they didn't affect his ability to lead his fleet, and even if he may not have personally approved of some of the Empire's worst abuses of sentient rights or had anti-alien views, he clearly didn't consider those issues as something worth protesting about. He was first and foremost a career-soldier. He fought for his nation because that's what a soldier is supposed to do, and any questions on whether that was the moral thing to do would have been irrelevant to him. The only time he really expresses opposition to the decisions of the moffs is when he feels those decisions negatively affect his ability to fight or the survival of the Empire.
Definitely not redeemed, but it’s ideology did change to a degree from a nationalistic, borderline fascist state to basically a military dictatorship. While it’s still not great, that is a major improvement than what it was under the Emperor.
The "alien-loving" Old Republic suffered it's "inevitable" collapse after thousands of years . The "ordered and stable" Empire shattered in less than three decades.
To add on to that, the fall of the Republic was brought on by just one man (arguably two if you want to count Plagueis), whereas the Empire was chipped apart over and over; Gentis attempted a coup not long after the Clone Wars ended, Trachta tried his own just before Yavin, Zaarin did the same between Hoth and Endor, those are just the ones I could recall from before the Imperial Civil War. Daala is stated to have killed the 13 most powerful warlords at Tsoss, with the notable exception of Kaine, Zsinj (who were both already dead), Kosh (who wasn't present) and many others who aren't stated to have been there and exist in canonical limbo or were already dead (Delurin, Lankin, Krennel, Gendarr, Prentioch and the Central Committee to name just a few). Even when Palpatine did return, as he likes to do, he didn't seem to punish the warlords for their previous actions and seemed to have little interest in the Imperial infighting that followed the capture of Coruscant. This isn't even mentioning the various Imperial Officials that were known for being corrupt or under the thumbs of criminal elements, Fliry Vorru being both a Grand Moff and leader of the Black Sun (although never both at the same time) is the most obvious example, but there's plenty of other Glorps known for being easily bribed or looking the other way when it comes to criminal activities. Of course, I'm not saying the Republic didn't have the same issues, I'm saying the Republic was able to soldier on despite them; Revan and the Jedi Civil War was perhaps the closest it ever came to falling, but it survived for another four thousand-ish years and endured several other crisis you could perhaps point out (TOR, for example) I'll close my point by saying this; the person who dedicated his life to destroying the Republic was, in turn, destroyed by the ambitions of the men and women he thought would make good leaders. Ironically, it was the one person who suggested the Warlords, quote "forge an alliance like the Rebels did", that would end up being the first leader of a combined Imperial/New Republic Government (I'm aware that Cal Omas was the first person to lead the Galactic Alliance, but the Imperials weren't part of the Alliance until after the second Galactic Civil War, which in turn saw Daala elected.)
I don't think anyone really think he fixed the empire. I've never seen that sentiment anywhere, but he did make it better... which us better than nothing
If one is to use the Space Nazi allegory for the Galactic Empire then Pellaeon would be one of the old school Prussian generals; someone who may not ascribe completely to the ideology, possesses qualities that can be considered admirable like a sense of honor and may even voice objections in certain cases, but someone who still felt duty-bound to stick with the regime regardless.
I personally think that Pellaon's stance did gradually soften with regards to certain aspects like abolishing slavery and improving the overall standard of living for Imperial citizens, but it always came from a place of pragmatism rather than idealism. He would always remain an authoritarian and possibly human supremacist at heart, but he also knew that the Empire had to make certain concessions in order to survive.
Reminds me of the Galactic Empire from the Legend of the Galactic Heroes series.
I was going to say that Pellaeon is like General Ludwig Beck. He was Chief of the German General Staff for a while in the 30s during the rise of Hitler, and he was basically forced out of the army by Hitler when he showed any signs of not being a complete yes man. In 1944, during the July 20th bombing attempt to assassinate Hitler, Ludwig Beck agreed to become the new German head of state if the coup was successful. He didn't go along with this plan to kill Hitler because he was so horrified by what the Nazis had done. In fact, during the 30s, Beck was pretty much A-OK with Mr. Hitler. After all, Hitler told the German Army he was going to let them ignore the Versailles treaty and become big again. That made people like the Chief of the General Staff more powerful, and who doesn't love power, right? They were also going to get revenge on France, and what self respecting Prussian who just lost a World War to France doesn't want to get some revenge on the French, right? Oh, you want to kill all those Jews and starve all of Poland to death to repopulate it with Germans? Well, that's probably exageration... I don't need to take that seriously. Oh, you're going to invade the Soviet Union and try to exterminate world Communism? Well, who in Germany doesn't hate the Commies, so that sounds pretty cool and also it's surely going to require a MASSIVE ARMY, so yeah, seems fine to me... Beck was on board with all of that. What he wasn't on board with was that Hitler had lead Germany into losing another war. Beck didn't like that Hitler had used the German Army as a personal tool and humiliated the Prussian Officer Corp. Beck didn't like the idea that Hitler's failures were going to cause enemy troops to defile German soil when they came to stomp Hitler's guts out for starting a huge ass world war, so he despite being a prominent figure in helping Hitler rise to power and even doing a decent amount of the early war planning, Beck was willing to join a plot to kill Hitler and attempt to quickly surrender to the allies. He didn't want to do this because he'd seen the error of his ways, or because he was concerned with the evil of Hitler or a desire for justice. He did it because he hoped that being able to say to the allies, "Hey look, I helped kill Hitler and end all of this," would help him escape punishment for his own complicity. He did it to try and prevent Germany from having to fully face the consqeunces of the wars that Ludwig Beck had been more than happy to assist in starting, once he realized those consquences were going to be ashes and defeat, rather than glorious revenge.
Now make him less of a coward, put him in space, and make him less overtly evil and you've basically got Pellaeon. OUCH.
There’s also a connection to be made with Hans Speidel, who was a Nazi general who nonetheless was seen as more honorable, and wasn’t involved with (too many) war crimes/crimes against humanity. He was put in charge of the reorganized West German federal military, the Bundeswher, and was an important figure in NATO.
He's like Darth Marr from SWTOR! Loyal to his side but always frustrated by the idiots around him.
Pellaeon is more like emperor Wilhelm the second
What's wild to me is that Legends writers decided that Pellaeon was 100% correct to believe that the Republic would collapse over inter-species tensions and the Empire would one day rule the galaxy again. That's exactly what happens in the Legacy comics, where the final government we get is a triumvirate made up mostly of Imperial institutions and headed politically by an Empress (with Skywalker blood, at that).
I wouldn't say that is a "wild" take. It has happened in history, time and time again.
@aldariontelcontar All history is a history of class struggle. Beyond this, it is in fact wild for a series about the fight for liberal democracy to end with an autocrat who took power after a false flag attack blamed on minorities.
The reason why he was right makes sense, though; the only thing that ever made it possible for the Republic to endure was the Jedi. Without the Jedi holding it together, the Republic was always doomed to fragment on species lines. When Luke's New Jedi Order was ultimately brought down by its own contradictions, the collapse of the Republic was almost an afterthought.
@@aldariontelcontar As has pretty much everything ever... It's not like we haven't seen plenty of authoritarian states crumble
@@dark7element The New Jedi Order collapses? Not gonna lie I'm glad I stopped reading then. Luke is my favorite Jedi ever.
Basically, Pellaeon is pragmatic, and so doesn't have time for cringe things like racism - but doesn't have time to fight it either
🗿
Pellaeon. Pragmatic enough not to engage in racism. Pragmatic enough not to alienate his racist allies by pushing back against their racism.
@@PartigradeCannonReminds me a lot of modern politicians
As least he allows it
I think that many of the reforms that the Imperial Remnant underwent under Gilad Pellaeon were driven much more by a sense of desperate pragmatism rather than any deep seeded need for reform. The Imperial Remnant renounced slavery because it is a fundamentally inefficient way to organize labor. The military and government became more open towards non-humans because it no longer had the luxury of picking and choosing who got to stay when every able body was needed. Generally improving the quality of life of its citizens becomes necessary to prevent popular uprisings when the military is overstretched and cannot afford to be back at home putting down insurrections.
It's less progress towards a more liberal, democratic state and more concessions to create a stable state that can survive the next five, ten, twenty, or a hundred years.
It has to be said though that slavery was only inefficient after industrialization, before it was very much efficient in economic terms. The opposition to slavery should always be moral., because different technological realities can create circumstances where slavery is economically efficient.
Ironically, it laid the foundation for the Fel Empire, which out lasted the Republic with Ronan Fel and then later his daughter.
Yep. I like Pallaeon as a character but he really didn’t do much if anything to really reform the Imperial Remnant. Hell most of the dialing down on the specism and less heavy handed approaches to civil liberties were either started by the various warlords who either didn’t care about the whole Human High Culture crap. Or a byproduct of not having the endless troops to throw at dissenters until they won.
@@BlueOak-ym2ze To be fair outside of a status symbol, like with the Hutts, slavery in the Empire never really made any sense in a setting where you had droids. I always found it an effort to make the Empire cartoonishly evil.
The idea that slavery is a moral evil comes out of the Enlightenment more than anything else. Most people throughout the course of human history would objected to that argument. Moral opposition to slavery requires a certain belief about the nature of human/sapient life that not all cultures do or have shared.
@@TeutonicKnight92 Slavery in the west was abolished on religious grounds though. It really started with the British Empire abolishing it due to Christians lobbying in the houses and then the Navy making it unprofitable for everyone else by hunting down slaver ships in the atlantic.
On the European continent, it had already been mostly abolished by the end of the middle ages.
In 1537, the Catholic church had already outlawed the slavery of the natives of South America on the basis that they had a souls and were capable of being civilised and peacefully converted.
Basically the Enlightenment just finished the job out of civilisational inertia. And even then, Napoleon, a pure product of said enlightenment, did temporarily allow it again in the colonies out of political convenience.
Leia: What he really wants are concessions ahead of time, and then to be at the peace table when it's all over.
Han: And here I was thinking Pellaeon was a good guy.
Leia: I'm not saying he's not, at least not by Imperial standards. But he's also a head of state, and has to do what's best for them. He didn't agree to end the war because it was the 'right thing to do', he agreed because he said it was 'in the Empire's best interests'.
This exchange is from Destiny's Way, if I recall, right after Pellaeon proposes as a negotiating point that if the Empire were to get involved in the war, it should be allowed to keep any worlds it takes from the Yuuzhan Vong that don't have New Republic citizens on them.
@@autumngottlieb3071 Exactly that. I lose track of who said what word for word, but that was what it boiled down to
Corey's the only Star Wars lore TH-camr I watch because he actually has some critical thinking and reading comprehension skills.
Little mean to other content creators but also like fair
Well, there's Eckhart's Ladder and Geetsly, but other than that, yeah.
@@sambridgers9543 geetsly's flat out lies and blatantly makes things up in his lore videos and doesn't provide sources though, he's still bad
@@Rogue_Nine416 I can't block people on TH-cam, but I dismiss every Geetsly's video that comes up in my suggestions ever since I saw a thumbnail from him that said "GETTING IT ON WITH PALPY!?" and showed a picture of Tenel Ka.
@@autumngottlieb3071 i haven't watched his videos in years because of how much he just obviously lies about the jedi & clone wars but that doesn't surprise me at all :/ anyway i love the lesbian ahsoka flag
He reminds me a lot of Otto Von Bismarck. Pushing reforms not out of conviction but rather necessity and pragmatism. For example, Bismarck introduced health insurance in Prussian Germany not because he thought that the people deserved it but to silence the liberal opposition. This pragmatism looks a lot like what Palleon seems to embody.
That opposition was very socialist and partially communist even. There was nothing liberal in those authoritarian minds.
All of this is why Pellaeon is one of my favorite Star Wars characters. He is neither a holier than thou Mary Sue saint nor a darker than dark villain.
Yeah I enjoy the complexity of normal humans in Imperial Service
Ah, Paelleon. The man who delivered unironically one of the best one-liners in the whole of NJO. "You may win occasional battle against us Vorrik, but the Empire will always strike back."
Seems more like an embarrassing groaner reference to the title of a movie you’ve seen
@@MegaZeta to each their own. I should have said that it was my opinion instead of speaking for everyone so my bad
That was one badass line from Grand Admiral Pelleaon.
@@MegaZeta only if you are boring
I don’t think you know what “unironically” means
He always gave me "Bismarck" vibes.
Same. Except aliens are treated the way he treated Catholics.
Agreed, I've always felt like that's the person he was most based upon
@@senorelroboto2 Bismarck was kind of an ass. Pellaeon is much more polite.
The mustache is a dead giveaway.
@Riftrender nice guy never finished in Real life. In Bismarck case, being nice was luxury he can't afford when all the old powers hate your guts.
Reminds me of the process in real life in which some former fascists and Nazis in Italy, Germany and Japan were rehabilitated as Western-friendly allies during the Cold War. Star Wars creators and authors do sometimes incorporate parallels from the real world into their stories.
Alright, "The Empire can't survive unless you like this video and subscribe for more'." It got me to click the button. Good work.
Pallaeon is definitely one of my favourite characters in the EU. I always loved his perspective in the Thrawn trilogy. Was he like a really good guy? No, probably not. But that makes his character compelling in my book. He isn’t just straight up evil but he is also still an imperial so he isn’t a saint.
The Empire under Pellaeon was more lawful neutral than evil. They won't screw you over for shits and giggles like Palpatine's Empire would, but if you want their help, you have to give them something in return.
Idk but the more I think about and see how the Empire is depicted in later Legends materials it always just seems to reek of clean Wehrmacht. Like as an officer in Death Squadron he had to have been committing atrocities and in his first appearance in Heir to the Empire he doesn't bat an eye when Thrawn threatens the city at the bases of Mount Tantiss in chapter 4 so that does seem to indicate that he has no issues with standard imperial procedure. Whether it be in the fandom or among the authors (I'm not really sure) there seems to have been a fairly concerted effort to rehabilitate the Empire by contrasting the "noble" imperial military who just served honorably to the evil at the heart (Vader, Tarkin, Palpatine etc), ignoring that they are all part of the same system and support the same goals (if anything Pelleon is more of fascist then someone like Vader who really was just there because of a series of really shitty choices). Like I doubt that it was intentional to make it feel so similar but since the Empire are ascetically a Nazi stand in I find it kind of hard to ignore.
very well put
Very well put. I didn’t particularly care for it either because it just feels disingenuous. It’s trying to make the local faction that was based off a real life action circuit 1939 to 1945 in Germany seem like they were “Noble.“ Those people were not Noble. They wanted to conquer anyone and wipe out anybody who did not look like them or was not German The empire is based off of that faction anybody who supported the empire and maintained its rules were fascists and fascists in real life and infection are depicted as evil because they do not care for the individual liberties of the people or the rights of others or the diversity of a local culture or people or just anybody who does not fit in the rigid view of what is “normal“. There are no two ways around it. The empire was an is evil. It was founded by an evil man who took over a Democrat elected system, and turned it into war machine to glorify himself. No matter what kind of cleanup they try to do the fact that it remains that it was founded by an evil man to do evil things.
Which makes it further infuriating that in Star Wars legacy they try to make the empire the good guys. No that’s not how it works Star Wars Legacy.
Think of Paelleon and his atrocity buddies as Otto Von Bismarck and lads, pragmatic and nasty but not stupidly blood soaked nasty.
They're not good or nice people but better than the alternate and in Legends actually made what seems to be a stable state for centuries (not even Bismarck did that)
@@SudrianTales But that division is the problem. The old Prussian aristocracy and officer corp were an integral base for Hitler and he would have never become chancellor without the support of old aristocrats like von Papen and Hindenburg. Furthermore, these officers controlled the German army until 1945 and with the exception of the July plot of 1944 never opposed him (and the plotters only opposed Hitler because of how he was executing the war not really the genocide). These men executed Hitlers vision and the holocaust would not have been possible without there support and active involvement.
To extend this to Star Wars, Pellaeon follows this exact mold. He was on officer from the Judicials then the Republic navy. He, like many officers, probably disliked the Republics disarmament policy, the main issue most German officers had with the Weimar Republic, and supported politically a politician who rearmed the Republic and the Empire and elevated the military to its most powerful institution, Palpatine. Because his only actual political opinion was a strong military, he didn't care about the genocide the Empire was doing, or more likely supported it as, like in Germany with antisemitism, anti-alien and anti-Jedi sentiments were extremely strong among humans in the core of the Republic and its military (again in chapter 4 of Heir to the Empire Pellaeon doesn't bat an eye "that the Jedi had to be exterminated," Thrawns words not mine).
After Endor he continues this policy and never seems to have a problem with all of the evil shit the Empire does in that era (even if he is not directly mentioned its safe to assume he served the mainline Empire straight through till Palpatine's final death, with all that entails). Furthermore, by the time he takes control of the Empire, he is not interested in Justice for the crimes of the past but just getting the Empire through the next few decades so they can start the process all over again.
Hell, even out of universe his rehabilitation follows the model of a Wehrmacht and the clean Wehrmacht overall. The war ends (WW2 and the Galactic Civil War) and the old enemies are needed to fight the next (the USSR and the Yuuzhan Vong). The authors then go out of there way to make the still relevant officers seem "clean" by scapegoating all of the really evil stuff on the dead leaders of the old government and claiming that these officers were actually just "loyal patriots" (which is true of by loyal patriot you mean actively supported the genocidal activity of the previous regime).
Again I seriously doubt that this is all intentional and I am not blaming anyone for these parallels but when Lucas clearly intended the Empire in every aspect to be a Nazi analog and this become hard to ignore and disturbing.
@Khatep-the-Ancient
Oh i agree, Ludendorff and Hindenberg backstabbed Weimar who wanted to continue WW1 by telling them the truth and urging surrender. Then they told the press the exact opposite.
One part of the Hand of Thrawn, where Pellaeon's outlining the peace plan with Leia, one of her Nohgri bodyguards (the guys whose planet was poisoned and was used by the Empire to be kept in a state of perpetual servitude) balking at his claim of the Empire becoming more tolerant toward aliens than under Palpatine. When he asks Pellaeon if he can honestly say the aliens in the Empire agree with his claims, Pellaeon reluctantly admits no.
I have a similar problem with most of the Fel family. Especially since unlike with Pellaeon, it's not just sourcebooks or fans, even the books themselves seem to forget Jag Fel used to work for the Empire of the Hand and, as he says in Dark Journey, was actively raised by his dad to respect "the ideals of Grand Admiral Thrawn".
Truth be told, the whole "Legacy" era is just as nonsensical as Disney's Sequels. Both Legacy and Sequels basically reset state of the Galaxy back to Empire vs Rebels era. EU should've ended after NJO.
@@SithEmpiredidnothingwrongI think that’s an unfair comparison. It’s similar but not the same and it’s not done so soon after Endor like with the sequels. It’s far more understandable for there to be another swing and change in Galatic politics over the course of 100 years, such is the way of things when you have two powers vying for supremacy. And even then, it’s not a 1:1 attempt at repeating ANH like with the sequels, especially TFA. Yes the empire became dominant again just before the start of the comics and yes the good guys are weaker and the Jedi got purged. But besides that, that’s it. Because this time the Jedi do survive as an order and the Galactic alliance isn’t diverted from within or blown apart by some super weapon, it’s defeated in a war and reduced to a rump state, not a rebel group. And the empire suffers a civil war and had its own rump state. And the characters and story aren’t super similar to the OT at all, so there’s barely any superficial similarities let alone bigger ones like the sequels did with the OT.
I always liked Pellaeon, mostly because someone needs to be there to remind everyone why the Old Republic fell and the massive problems within it. Idealism is good, but the old Republic was far from perfect, I think lots of characters hated the Empire, which was fair to do, but also forgot that a corporation could legally blockade a planet
Step aside Palleon whitewashing. It's time for Fel dynasty whitewashing to show how it's done
shut up
Pellaeon: “Ain’t nobody got time for that.”
BASED
I've always like Pelleon as a moderate imperial, he may not have been a Sith loyalist, a slaver, and may have been less of a space racist, but he was still a militiarist and an authoritarian. He agreed with the ideal of the New Order as replacing the "chaos" or the Republic, but not necessarily the reality of the Empire as a corrupt Sith state. So while his empire may have been better than Palpatine's empire, it was still essentially a military dictatorship. In our world during the inter war period we actually see a lot of conservative authoritarian movements which Pelleon seemed to represent, conservative, authoritarian, anti democratic, nationalist, but not fascist.
NJO literally talks about his career as a slaver on Kashyyyk soooooooo...
and his literal first page of content was being a space racist
@@victory1stardestroyer431 true but not to the same extent as his peers, he was Thrawn's second in command and was extremely loyal to him.
I would say even there much like Corey says in the video it isn't that he is not exceptionally racist or at least overwhelmingly tone deaf, he just thinks if he enshrines a bastion of absolutist and by extension of a racist view of cultural compatibility humanocentric policy, with as many pragmatic reforms as he is forced to undertake to survive, then his ideology will rise from the ashes when (insert the really blatantly racist stuff he agrees with in the duology around him say about the NR).
Is he a fascist, kind of depends. But I think irrespective of that he is absolutely an authoritarian who does believe in some super racist shit as part of that "Law and Order" ideological system and on a personal level has some moments which seem to indicate that while he is tolerant around some individuals he has very bigoted instincts
@@Kevc00 unless he didn't treat them like some employes and shielded them from repercussion of other imperials, still makes him a slaver
that's like to say that he only kicked puppys from ugly dog breads
Well at least Pellaeon was an improvement in comparison to Palpatine... then again, it doesn't take much to be an improvement in comparison to Palpatine (yet from a strategic perspective, Daala somehow couldn't even do that).
Daala, had to be the worst of all the imperial leaders, even if she had a fascinating character background. She killed all the capable commanders and then immediately lost like 3 of her 5 star destroyers in a bid for a super star destroyer and then couldn't even utilize that to maintain control. I would almost argue that Pestige was a better leader given the situation he was thrown into.
@@TheAdmirableAdmiral Sate Postage is fascinating. His portrayal in Plagueis and the other early Clone Wars books is so compelling. I have literally no clue how he fared post RotJ since he doesn't appear in any legends novels (only comics I think and I don't really read comics) but I think he lived a fascinating life.
I've been eagerly waiting for this video, which you mentioned as an aside a while ago, and it delivers. I only wish you took it all the way to its clean Wehrmacht roots.
I think a lot of Pellaeon’s later actions and attitudes are direct reflections of his time spent under Thrawn’s mentorship.
A lot of his skills, sure...
But let's not forget that Thrawn kept around a piece of art in his chambers to remind himself to feel bad about that one time he genocided an entire species because he couldn't understand them like he did everyone else he fought. With absolutely no indication that he wouldn't do it again if he felt like he had to. The Noghri certainly provide evidence that Thrawn was just the same kind of monster as previous imperial leaders, even if he was a more pragmatic and cerebral one.
Thrawn was a *monster* in his original novels, and feeling bad about genocide without being willing to change does not even *try* to redeem him for it.
I like the comparison with the problematic history of Germany. While the empire under Palpatine was basically the sussy germany under toothbrush moustache, pelleaon's empire is more similar to imperial Germany. Not really good guys, very much racist, but foreigners/aliens still had some rights depending on where exactly you're from and also they were not completely opposed to working with somewhat more liberal governments if the need was there
I disagree with you calling Imperial Germany racist. I understand that for many it makes no difference, but the Germans treated their colonies much more favorably than the French or the Belgians, and the same Askari left very good memories of the times when Tanzania and Namibia were part of the German Empire. The Germans treated the Jews better than anyone in Europe, and this is one of the things that really pissed off Hitler. Women were quite emancipated and free in that society, and women's voting rights in Germany arose earlier than in Britain. In my opinion, the German Empire was a very progressive state for its time.
Actually, Germany was among the least racist of the European powers. At least compared to Belgium and Britain. Almost 27 million Indians died under British rule. That's more than the combined victims of Hitler and Stalin.
Imperial Germany was no paradise, but it was very progressive for its time.
@@Крэйден_х
Bro forgot what the Germans did to the Herero in Nambia.
@@vetarlittorf1807
“Least racist” still means they did genocide 😂
@warlordofbritannia And? All of the great powers did. I'm not excusing Germany, I'm just saying that the other powers were no better and sometimes were even worse.
Yeah I have to disagree with your interpretation of the passage at around 12:16. If you read what's on the screen it states the exact opposite of what you said, that several wealthy Pro-Imperials had immigrated TO the Remenant with their fortunes, but that despite this cash injection the Remnant still had major issues with their economy such as inconsistently developed worlds with minimal access to Core World amenites and, argueably most important, the economy was being heavily underminned through being flooded with cheap New Republic goods, that was destroying attempts to build up local industry. Given that the Remnant at this point was reduced to a clump of Rim Worlds that were probably not the most economically prosperous even before having to shoulder a major war I don't really think any of this can be used as significant evidence that the Imperial system was causing wealth inequality, merely that the Remnant was struggling with serious inherent economic issues that any government ruling it's territory would have had. This of course doesn't mean the Imperial System wasn't causing issues, there's just not really the evidence for it in that particular extract that your misread suggests it does.
It shows that military leaders who become head of a government often have the problems that they do not have straight political beliefs and mostly act as a stabilising figure. Pellaeon is here strongly comparable with Paul von Hindenburg as president of Weimar Germany.
While they're not exactly the good guys, I think Pellaeon's Imperial Remnant was not nearly as vile as the Empire under Palpatine was. The latter was basically Nazi Germany in space but worse. If I had to draw another comparion to a real-life counterpart, I'd say the Remnant was basically the Second Reich under Bismarck's leadership c. 1871-1890 (or the Kaiserreich during WW1 under Hindenburg).
Pallaeon to me is the Bismark of the Empire. Pragmatic, ruthless, and utterly committed to his idealised state.
Bismark after all made the most comprehensive welfare state in Europe (possibly the world) to undercut his left wing opponents and the various socialist and communist groups in Imperial Germany.
I see Pallaeon's reforms to the Remnant in a similar way. Ruthless pragmatism to undercut demands for the citizenry to join the New Republic.
Thank you. My sentiments exactly. Now please make a similar video about Thrawn not being a saviour of the galaxy just because he was militarily and managerially competent. I get so tired of his fanboys who idolize him despite him willingly and knowingly served and perpetrated evil. His insight into people should have made him realize Palpatine's New Order methods undermine the very order and structure he claimed was necessary to face off against Yuzhaan Vong, which he claimed as primary reason to join the empire.
I don't agree with you 100% but I feel like Thrawn got ballwashed so hard later in the books. He was willing to give CHILDREN to JORUUS C'BAOTH. Maybe he doesn't understand the Force very well since the Chiss have little notion of Sith or Jedi but that's still fucked. Cloning is immoral at best and straight up evil at worst (it is immensely cruel to make people solely to be soldiers, people who have not known love or family and probably never will since they will likely die long before the end of Thrawns plan for galactic conquest can come to fruition). But because there was a greater evil and the galaxy had to be unified blah blah blah. It's post-hoc rationalization because Thrawn happened to be the best written legends-original villain. I enjoy Thrawn as a leader and as a sort of foil to the Republic as a whole but he would've done far better if he'd just told the Republic high command about the Vong and tried to organize some kind of alliance between the Chiss (who would at least begrudgingly share some information about the Vong), the Empire (a very long shot, a truce is probably the best anyone could possibly hope for) and of course the New Republic. He could've likely prevented trillions of deaths if he'd been a little less Imperial in both allegiance and general disposition, but as it stands he totally failed in even his most noble goal of preparing the Galaxy for the far outsiders. But really I think the Vong stuff is ONLY post-hoc. When the Thrawn Trilogy was written, Thrawn was just a supergenius general who wanted to unite the galaxy under his leadership for reasons he doesn't fully articulate, as they aren't wouldn't be relevant until he'd already defeated the New Republic.
Thrawn is kind of an evil guy. Partly because of his Chiss background, it must be said their military hardly fosters anything in the way of sentimentality, but largely due to his willingness to put the ends before the means. Maybe if he'd won his wars and saved the galaxy he could be remembered for that, but since he lost he is remembered only for the atrocity of clone-slavery, the destructiveness of his military campaigns against the republic, and his willingness to exploit the Noghri people; which ultimately killed him.
With a mustache like his? Ofc they were redeemed!
I feel like there need to be a distinction made, because there is Pellaeon the person, Pellaeon the commander, Pellaeon the leader, and Pellaeon the politican. And we also need to talk about egime was he part of, because that would explain some of his words and actions.
A lot of the "pragmatic argument" is for Pellaeon the politican when he is trying to present an issue to the moffs in a way that would be pallatable to all of them bar the worst hardliners. Doing otherwise could have led to his proposals being rejected (the best case) or for Pellaeon being replaced and possibly executed (the worst case). The same goes for Pellaeon the commander, especially early on, but also later, he talked the talk of typical imperial commander because that was what it was expected from him.
And then there is the Pellaeon the leader. Considering that even when he held the most power, his position was never really secure enough to allow him to do radical reforms to a system and so he went for gradual, subtler changes. And thus as far as his leadership goes he could be linked to real-life leaders like soviet general secretary and later first and only president of the USSR Mikhail Gorbachev, or czechoslovak communist leader Alexandr Dubček. These were leaders whose views were far more liberal than the regimes in which they operated (and the irony is that in both cases, their liberalism was coming out of the ideology of the regime, not despite of it), but due to nature of those regimes they had to work on a knife's edge to both placate the hardliners and to achieve a meaningful if small steps or progress, leaders who tried to build up a cadre of like-minded individuals who would help them reform their own countries for the better (much like Pellaeon, when in power, tried to put more liberal leaders in a position of influence). And in fact both Gorbachev and Dubček had their work cut short by hardliners due to being "too liberal", be it by 1991 coup that broke the USSR, or the 1968 invasion to Czechoslovakia. However, for all the good they did, and much like Pelaleon in Star Wars universe, Gorbachev from 1984 till 1991 was still overwhelmingly a totalitarian leader fully commited to the communist and marxist-leninist ideology of USSR, and Dubček never went so far as to suggest breaking the one-party rule in Czechoslovakia.
As for Pellaeon's personal opinions, I don't think we saw much of them due to the regime he was part of and that he later led, and we don't see much of Pellaeon's viewpoint (and when we do, it is mostly through the eyes of others. And there is the aspect that Pellaeon couldn't really present his opinions as freely as you might think for abovementioned reasons. And thus I wouldn't be as sure whether he coated his ideals in pragmatism to make them justifiable by unjust system, or his pragmatism tore down the worst aspects of the Empire. And I chose to believe the former due to how the story presented it to me, but that isn't a justification, because some things aren't justifiable.
I already make those distinctions in the video, but then I go through the personal statements he *does* make. Yes, sometimes people can have different views from the regime for which they work but there is quite simply no evidence to suggest he does other than a feeling people have that he *might* because they like him more than Moff Disra or something. The statements we have from him during these periods do not imply he actually felt any differently. The only indication we have is one sourcebook quote which directly contradicts the more direct evidence we have. This is especially important when the topic is whether or not he "fixed" the Empire- quite simply, he did not. If it were solely about his own personal views, then we also have to contend with his past working specifically on projects like Imperial enslavement of wookiees while still deciding he supported the Empire.
While Pellaeon is by far my favorite character he has so many flaws and is not the saint so many claim him to be. He’s not the greatest of all Imperials but he’s not straight up evil like Pitta or Cronal. He’s more of a moderate between the two of extremist and complete reformist. There’s a lot of reasons why I like him as a character but he’s not a 100% good person. He was extremely loyal to the Empire and this caused him to believe many of their policies. I like him but is he the greatest Imperial or the only good one? No. No he isn’t. I don’t care what people say. Thank you for finally bringing this up.
The Empire was always a fascist hydra in Legends and new Canon alike. Pallaeon may've been a tragic visionary, but the core of Star Wars is that authoritarianism never leads to prosperity and will sooner or later cause more destruction. My personal stance is that the New Republic's greatest mistake ever, yes, even bigger than neglecting the Vong, was allowing the Pallaeon-Gavirsom treaty instead of pushing for an unconditional surrender. Why? Read Legacy comics to get the answer. But don't get me wrong, from the story-telling perspective I love all that.
Not sure how you got that conclusion from the Legacy comics given how the Fel Empire was a completely different beast from even Pallaeon’s Imperial Remnant, and even then the Sith plot relied largely on exploiting the unrest and fears of a second Vong war to weasel their way into power again.
@Chaotic_Jackal The point is, they obviously got expansionist, even in the years leading up to the Sith-Imperial War. It wasn't even about the Fels, but the power hungry Moffs. As for Darth Krayt, he would've never been able to take over had the Empire not been allowed to persist.
@ Except the Empire didn’t expand through conquest but diplomacy in those years and power hungry idiots getting manipulated by the Sith isn’t exactly something unique to the Fel Empire. Even had the Empire been completely destroyed, the Legacy Storyline still happens but just with some other regional power such as the Hapens or Confederation.
@@Chaotic_Jackal Yes, they called it victory withourlt war, but while it certainly devieved those worlds into thinking the imps were no longer a threat, it wasn't much of a difference in the long-term. The outcome was the same. Krayt already had a decades old system, all the institutions, chain of command, the military, a weaponised ideology and vast territories with Core right there on a golden plate. Had the NR destroyed the Remnant, it would've faced much greater challanges in the shirt term (bloodlier Vong war, pro-imoerial terrorism, political instability), but I doubt the Sith would've been able to take over much of the Galaxy using minor factions. Legacy arc would still happen in some form, even with the Third Jedi Purge, but it would look much closer to KOTOR2 storyline, with Cade filling the role of Meetra and the One Sith gaining some support from the opponents of Ossus Project. But the New Republic/GA (depending on whether they'd have become the the latter in this scenario) would stand. Point is, all iterations of the New Order posed threat and it was a mistake to let it persist.
Based and republican-pilled "DEMOCRACY IS NON NEGOTIABLE" take. Liberty Prime would be proud.
Yup. Good vid. Especially like the little reference to (imperial) Star Destroyer naming. Reminds me of Wedge trying to induce an "Are we the baddies"-moment in Admiral Rogriss ;)
The New Republic Operation Paperclip-ed Pellaeon.
Great video! Thinking about aliens in positions of power, the Empire did backslide on that in comparison to Crimson Empire with their Imperial Ruling Council. Not due to Pellaeon, but still.
Fell Empire comes from the Galactic Empire. In the end, the Empire truly did win. 😊
Hail the Galactic Empire.
thank u so much for talking so much about legends stuff
Pellaeon seems good in comparison because he actually uses his brain and isn't a complete psychotic mustache twirler.
His mustache is not nearly long enough for that
I dont care they are still cool. I will still always play as them in every game.
Same. Suffer not the rebel or heretic.
Pellaeons characterization is spectacular. He is a true imperial but he is also sympathetic and extremely rational, a far cry from the other comically evil imperial leaders. He shows the decency the Imperial system could foster and the merit its existence has in the New Republic dominated Galaxy.
Pelleon plays to the stuff Lucas pushed late in his career. That the Sith and Jedi were ultimately both wrong, and the whole force includes both their philosophies.
The New Republic got a lot right... but Pelleon (the Empire) legitimately had a few key points too. They are a both macrocosms of the Jedi and the Sith.
Always love Pellaeon content, he's one of my favorite characters
We should love Pelleon as an interesting character. But not as a role model for ideology or governance. Homie was a war criminal and an apologist for space fascism
Dude it’s a fictional character chill the f out
I have watched across various episodes of Tapcaf how you an Eck kinda joke that Pellaeon is kinda the boomer grandpa and it actually does fit. The Imperial Remnant honestly is weird looking at as adult as it feels like if the Allies stopped fighting Nazi Germany once all the conquered territory was returned and peacefully settled while allowing that government to exist. Its one of my problems with the Hand of Thrawn Duology, because the New Republic could have used the crisis as a means to influence systemic changes in the Imperial Remnant.
I will say this though, Thrawn definitely would have chosen Pellaeon as a successor, because Gilad wasn't going to let his ego drive his decisions. He was willing to cooperate and be diplomatic towards the New Republic, which does make his character interesting, but he definitely is with the Empire for a reason. In the Hand of Thrawn Duology he even confides in Ardiff that Thrawn was an Alien with alien thoughts and even he wasn't really sure of his intentions.
That is somewhat close to history- the Allies were very willing to work with a new German government (containing many nazis) against socialism as soon as the war ended.
It’s so crazy how much better these videos are than pretty much anything other people in the Star Wars online community produce
I'm just choosing to believe that his empire is cool because it suits my vision of the EU.
If you read the books you have as much a right to what you enjoyed about them as anybody. If anything, I honestly think Pelleaon is an exceptional leader and his ability to learn and grow even as an aging man at his introduction is quite striking. At the end of the day it's refreshing to see a character whose on the wrong side of things who legitimately believes both in his cause and in positive change.
It's tragic that Disney refuses to allow EU writers to continue to make EU works despite how well they sell given that by the time the EU stopped adding new entries Palleon's reformed Empire was the bulwark against the Sith's galactic tyranny.
God, this is such a good video
Too many people have problems with differentiating character traits. There is a difference between an interesting and well written character and a character that is good and well intentioned.
Pellaeon was based. That's far more important than questioning whether he redeemed the Empire or not.
I look forward to arguing with people in this comments section like I did in the last one on the topic.
It's also probably worth articulating the differences in when this was all written in the real world- The Hand of Thrawn Duology, where the novels first really present peace and corxistence with The Empire as a worthy goal, were published at the end of the 90s, after the fall of the Soviet Union. It was a time when it made sense to be emphasizing to Western Audiences an idea of making peace with old enemies, and presenting people who took part in a regieme that had been presented to them as pure evil as not nessecarily that bad, and I think that sort of post-soviet attitude is responsible for a lot of Empire Apologia in Legends.
Fast forward to the 2020s, with the Russians getting up to bullshit and fascism on the rise on the west, that all seems pretty stupid and naive, and it kinda was, but that's what a generation and a half of the constant anxiety of Nuclear Armageddon will do to people. It at least makes some sense in context with when it was written. It's a fair thing to criticize, and a fair thing to acknowledge the context of why it seemed like a good idea at the time, even if we can look back and "That's kinda some bullshit that they tried to say peace with a regime as genocidal as the Empire is a good thing."
This is such an interesting take that I hadn't considered.
Well said.
@@darthironhand4353 Yeah, we're usually used to thinking of The Empire as being Nazis, since that's where most of their inspirations were drawn from originally, and Legends leaned into that comparison pretty hard for a lot of years, but I think the post-soviet zeitgeist leaked its way into Star Wars in the late 90s to make them at least a little bit compared to the communists, and that's why we got a lot of de-escalation and striving for peace in the late 90s/early 2000s.
Well intentioned, but the take sure didn't age that well.
@@parkerdixon-word6295 tbf, the comparison is because besides the Republican Partys like Nixon for the OT and Bush for the PT, the Nazis had been the major inspiration for the Empire, but that was for George Lucas
the Author for the EU in the 90s had bit other inspirations
@@enisra_bowman Part of that is true, but every time people started delving into how the Empire functioned, with things like humanocentrism and COMPNOR, they were very directly taking their inspirations from the Nazis, so it's probably better to describe the authors of the 90s as including *more variety* of inspirations than to say that they stopped using the Nazis in any way, shape, or form.
Pellion was clearly flawed but, unlike most imperials he had a realistic appraisal of his abilities. Also, his leadership role is NOT akin to Palatine's. Pellion had to keep in the high up Imperials below him happy to get his fleet supplied. If he started in with radical reforms immediately he'd likely be removed from his position. He had to walk a thin line playing politics with them. If he ended slavery that's no small accomplishment. And yeah, there's still gonna be racial tensions; you can't just pass a law that changes everyone into non bigots. Progressive attitudes take time to take hold in society over time ideally.
Corey is the only Star Wars TH-camr worth watching
Mostly good points in this video here.
I greatly appreciate the provided quotes straight from the books. Good stuff.
I also appreciate that you didn't just speak from a pov that the character stayed the same between Heir and the Yuuzhan Vong war, but instead pointed out what the books actually portray.
(Characters did change over time in Legends, and I've always felt that was an important part of what made those books great! Because the characters changed, but were also still consistent!)
Personally I never read any Star Wars comics, only the novels. So when I learnt of Palps "return to life" in the comics, it felt inconsistent with the history AND narrative tone/values of the Star Wars universe to me! (Luke acting evil? The Empire being strong after Thrawn? And worst of all... Darth Vader's sacrifice being diminished/having little Galactic impact!)
It all just seemed to conflict too much with the universe built in the novels (by multiple brilliant authors) so I ignored it and considered the comics a separate universe. 😎
Fantastic analysis, Corey. I am glad you are bringing such an issue to the forefront, especially because people tend to romanticize the Imperial Remnant in a waym
Redeem is a strong subjective word here
thank you corey, this was well crafted with great attention to detail of the eu stories, insightful and accurate....and imo shows star wars is still working. ❤️🔥
I think that's an incredibly well done take on someone who's been my favorite star wars character since I was a little kid. The reality of Pellaeon isn't really as bright as we've always tried to make him out to be as fans. Sometimes corey I feel like you're too good for just star wars lore when you can sum up and describe something that could easily be very charged in such an earnest and wholesale manner.
I think that Pellaeon doing things out of pragmatism makes his positions far more tenable. It wasn't a matter of emotion or morals, it was a matter of fact and rationality. It was unreasonable to continue a war they already lost, it was impractical and ineffective use of labor to have slavery, so on, so forth. The argument from reason and rationality will almost always make any moral stance that much stronger.
Gilchad Pellaeon is literally too based to care.
I think there's simply the fact that, for European ethinicites at least, he looks like a good old strong and protective dad or grandad -- don't neglect the big white mustache factor. Not in the same stereotype as that of the smooth-cheeked, twisted and cunning executive (Tarkin, Thrawn). There should be a name for this effect, hmm let me see 🤔... The "Your grandad's mustache bias" ? Anyway great video, very thorough on a much needed topic
Legends kind of turned the empire into the Soviet Union. Hear me out, they were depicted as the evil person and unequivocally evil. Then they started to simmer down, and they just kinda became a bit of a nuisance that they could pick off on occasion, although the Soviet Union was far from a “bit of a nuisance.” More like “we don’t wanna kill each other and nuke each other to death so we are just going to poke it each other instead of you know actually downright attacking each other.“ and then by the time of the end of the Batham era… like the Soviet Union. The Berlin wall fell, and they suddenly became nice and then “reformed.“ Now we have Russia, which is trying to reclaim its former glory in the Soviet Union, but I digress.
But the thing of it is is that that doesn’t really work for the galactic empire. The Galactic empire was and truly is based off of well a certain little faction from Germany circa 1939 to 1945. And that little faction was founded on fear, xenophobia of anything remotely different, authoritarianism, eugenics, hatred and a conquering spirit that pretty much declared that they were “master race“ and everyone was to serve them whether they wanted to or not. When you consider that, yeah the empire legends comes across is not only disingenuous, but massively insulting to the original vision. But that’s just my take.
You should make a video on Legacy era sith more. Amazing video
Pellaeon was a militarist fascist but finally an Imperial willing to make peace instead of bleed the galaxy dry in a forever war. Kruschev, if you will. Yeesh imagine fighting basically nonstop for 35 years.
Don't care. Empire kicks ass. Even under Pellaeon.
Long Live The Empire
The Empire high command was constituted by veterans from the republic navy officer corps and the stormtrooper corps mind you were a volunteer force, in which a lot of them came from mid-rim or outer-rim planets who were constantly attacked by the CIS. They don’t like aliens because 95% of the separatists military generals and politicians were from alien planets. So obviously they would never want people from their defeated enemies inside of the command structure or with any sort of influence (nor they want droids in it) within the empire. There were some pro-empire alien systems but this was the minority, so the Empire just used the umbrella term aliens in a negative light due to that. So if your sole argument is that the empire didn’t let alien species inside their ranks? Then is pretty weak.
The Wookiees and Mon Calamari were staunch Republic allies during the Clone Wars and yet Pellaeon personally worked as a wookiee slaver and Tarkin had Ackbar as a personal slave. Plenty of human planets were also Separatist and treated much better under the Empire, and there were legitimate reasons for non-humans to have not liked the Republic. This argument basically boils down to them being allowed to be even more racist because the prior government causes problems with its own racism. There were plenty in the New Republic government who didn't have the same issues with other species despite having been in the Republic's military during the Clone Wars as well.
It's also important to understand Pellaeon's reasons for sticking with the Empire and what informs his belief in authoritarianism which are both rooted in his military background. Pellaeon joined the military at a very young age and has lived his entire life within it. A military is effectively an authoritarian regime, with the Fleet being Pellaeon's one true love. To him, the military authoritarianism was not only normal, but desired. It was the abuse of this system by figures like Vader, Moffs, the Court and the Emperor that Pellaeon seems to have the most issue with. He looks at the military(the navy in particular) as an ideal model for how things should work. When this outlook is paired with Pellaeon living through the chaotic last days of the Republic with the rampant corruption, incompetence as well as the Clone Wars it makes a lot of sense that Pellaeon would see the Rebellion/New Republic as wanting to return to a state of that chaos. This would appear validated in that the Rebellion's victory at Endor ushered in the chaos of the Warlord Era and Imperial Civil War. While Pellaeon acknowledges that power hungry Imperials were a major factor in the Empire's fall, the core of his belief system still places the root of the blame on 'chaos' itself, or anything that disrupts the order of the fleet.
Changing the cover art/title card/whatever-the-hell-the-youtube-term-is from "It's not that simple" to "they're still evil". There's a story there.
How to redeem that which did no wrong？🤔
I'm sure a bunch of people who don't even read the material will come for Corey saying achaualle the POS racist grandpa archetype palleoneasnt that bad and such
More like he just stabilized things while the chaos elements (Moffs & others) burnt themselves out. It's very telling in story arc that he was targeted by Jacen.
As long as the Empire wins the rule of cool I am fine with that.
You're skewing things just as hard against Pellaeon as you claim some sources do in favor of him.
Look at JFK and Civil Rights. Did he not give a shit? No, but he had other things he felt were higher priority and with public sentiment being what it was, he was felt limited in how much he could (and the what value he'd get out of forcing anything). This is Pellaeon's status in the Empire. Much more complex and still in the behind-the-scenes groundwork laying stage - not yet where he can openly just declare "this is how it is; like it or I'll throw you out of power". Your comments on fellow military and moffs show - even if he has lots of support, any forcing of issue would divide/distract during key galactic events and risk a civil war or collapse of the empire and he's a pragmatic man who would refuse to cause that for a "lesser" issue.
Secondly, yes he is someone who values order and will never treat EVERYONE as equal. This isn't anti-alien. It's again pragmatic. Look at Mon Mothma in Rogue Squadron series after capture of Coruscant. She even admits she understood why Palpatine did away with the senate. Too many different ways of thinking, value systems, and pettiness to ever completely agree on anything. So some voices hold no value on certain topics. Like you wouldn't ask Jar Jar to decide if an economic deal between Corellia and Kuat is fair. That isn't anti-alien. It's again just him being pragmatic. This is a big difference between him and other Imps. He will look at Traest Kre'fey and give complete respect - following his leadership to coordinate a battle. Whereas others look and go - non-human; he must be inferior. Leia will politely feign to listen to some stupid nonsensical alien idea, but ignore it. Pellaeon will simply tell them he knows a superior solution and shut them down.
So it's more like Empire - -> Pellaeon -> Leia - -> true "everyone equal"
Can't wait for te Felpire vidoe
Wait, is this about Pellaeon redeeming (or reforming even) the Empire- or giving sunlight to Pellaeon's actions and opinions?
Also, I think Pellaeon is more like "one of the best people serving the Empire in a position of power"; not really a high bar, but still better than a lot of the other choices.
It's about whether Pellaeon actually reformed the Empire, which involves talking about whether that is actually his goal. We don't actually see the Empire being reformed in the way he's sometimes given credit for, and we also see he doesn't particularly care to reform it in that way.
@@CoreysDatapad Fair enough
Insert Operation Valkyrie analogy, even if not particularly analogous.
5:20 that Tarkin shade tho XD
Prllaeon shows that peoples ideology and beliefs is complex and not easily put in a grid.
There's also a cohort amongst the fandom who whitewash Pellaeon because they are *themselves* vaguely authoritarian and don't see the Galactic Empire as being all that bad to begin with, and thus Pellaeon and Thrawn give them someone to latch onto.
It wouldn't surprise me if someone at LucasArts was at least aware of this, seeing as how Essential Guide to Warfare has a in-universe equivalent; Lenang O'Pali is a historian with very obviously Imperial views who wrote a, quote, "highly-revisionist" book that argued the Empire existed to better prepare the galaxy for the Vong Invasion and the deaths of Palpatine and Thrawn were the beginning of the end.
I suspect Fry was trying to point out how stupid the argument was but I distinctly remember several Thrawn-apologists throwing this exact point around as proof several years ago, so I don't think it had the desired effect. You'd think if Thrawn was so worried about the Vong, he wouldn't lead a campaign against a peer level enemy and would instead simply tell them about it, but I guess he just had some grand master plan and was able to discern that the New Republic would desert the combined fleets, even though the inverse actually took place.
Gundam has this issue as well with Zeon fans.
If Thrawn is meant to be Rommel in space, Pellaeon is Karl Donitz.
I voted for Sheev over Pellaeon since he wasn't perfect on racism
Great video! Well researched and well argued. My only assertion is that I think you use Alien acceptance (and a little bit of women acceptance) as the only metric of a better and more progressive empire. I think there's a lot to be said that Pellaeon took steps in the right direction to make the empire more meritocratic and less blatantly discriminatory. He def wasn't perfect, but he made the empire better than most imp warlords would've made it.
I think pellaenon is pragmatic. When the empire collapsed and he is left with a few hundred mostly barren planets and only 2 big shipyards, he can't defend the old imperial ideology, he has to cooperate and adapt with another factions for survival.
After the bastion accord, the empire is left with only a few hundred damaged ships, most of which are trying to function with skeleton crews.
YT closed captions spells Pellaeon's name differently nearly every time you say it. XD
Well, he was an important and loyal officer during the Dark Empire period, too. Theocracy, World Devastators, the Galaxy Gun... That has to mean something, too. The "nice and respectable old neonazi" trope is quite funny tbh.
I think the best thing you can say for Pellaeon on the civil rights front is that he paved the way for the Fel dynasty to genuinely redeem the Imperial concept. He was better than what came before him, but that bar is incredibly low. The Empire had a loooooong way to go before it could be considered an even half-way decent government to live under
Suffer not the alien to live. The Emperor protects.
I think that a LOT of people, particularly Americans need to see this video.
Hey @Corey’s Datapad keeps referring to having reverses about the morality of the Fel Empire(in this video and others). What does he really mean?
You can deal with the evil of the Galactic Empire or the equal level of evil of the New Republic's incompetence and indifference of finding themselves ruling the galaxy. Because it turns out that having a thing (governing a galaxy) is not quite as pleasing as wanting (desire to overthrow the empire).
Yeah, the Empire's evil...but...triangle ships. Also come on, that armour wins them some points.
The nazi look cool and had cool armor but they are still nazis
Pellaeon seems to me as someone who would have agreed with grand admiral Raeder (who over his career served as a naval officer in three very different incarnations of Germany, from the German Empire to the Weimar Republic and finally the Third Reich), who said that politicians handle the politics and the navy fights. Policies of the Empire wouldn't have concerned him as long as they didn't affect his ability to lead his fleet, and even if he may not have personally approved of some of the Empire's worst abuses of sentient rights or had anti-alien views, he clearly didn't consider those issues as something worth protesting about. He was first and foremost a career-soldier. He fought for his nation because that's what a soldier is supposed to do, and any questions on whether that was the moral thing to do would have been irrelevant to him. The only time he really expresses opposition to the decisions of the moffs is when he feels those decisions negatively affect his ability to fight or the survival of the Empire.
He took an utter nightmare and made it... moderately less nightmarish I suppose?
Definitely not redeemed, but it’s ideology did change to a degree from a nationalistic, borderline fascist state to basically a military dictatorship. While it’s still not great, that is a major improvement than what it was under the Emperor.
The "alien-loving" Old Republic suffered it's "inevitable" collapse after thousands of years .
The "ordered and stable" Empire shattered in less than three decades.
To add on to that, the fall of the Republic was brought on by just one man (arguably two if you want to count Plagueis), whereas the Empire was chipped apart over and over; Gentis attempted a coup not long after the Clone Wars ended, Trachta tried his own just before Yavin, Zaarin did the same between Hoth and Endor, those are just the ones I could recall from before the Imperial Civil War.
Daala is stated to have killed the 13 most powerful warlords at Tsoss, with the notable exception of Kaine, Zsinj (who were both already dead), Kosh (who wasn't present) and many others who aren't stated to have been there and exist in canonical limbo or were already dead (Delurin, Lankin, Krennel, Gendarr, Prentioch and the Central Committee to name just a few). Even when Palpatine did return, as he likes to do, he didn't seem to punish the warlords for their previous actions and seemed to have little interest in the Imperial infighting that followed the capture of Coruscant.
This isn't even mentioning the various Imperial Officials that were known for being corrupt or under the thumbs of criminal elements, Fliry Vorru being both a Grand Moff and leader of the Black Sun (although never both at the same time) is the most obvious example, but there's plenty of other Glorps known for being easily bribed or looking the other way when it comes to criminal activities.
Of course, I'm not saying the Republic didn't have the same issues, I'm saying the Republic was able to soldier on despite them; Revan and the Jedi Civil War was perhaps the closest it ever came to falling, but it survived for another four thousand-ish years and endured several other crisis you could perhaps point out (TOR, for example)
I'll close my point by saying this; the person who dedicated his life to destroying the Republic was, in turn, destroyed by the ambitions of the men and women he thought would make good leaders. Ironically, it was the one person who suggested the Warlords, quote "forge an alliance like the Rebels did", that would end up being the first leader of a combined Imperial/New Republic Government (I'm aware that Cal Omas was the first person to lead the Galactic Alliance, but the Imperials weren't part of the Alliance until after the second Galactic Civil War, which in turn saw Daala elected.)
I don't think anyone really think he fixed the empire. I've never seen that sentiment anywhere, but he did make it better... which us better than nothing
3:37
Government does not have monopoly on legitimate use of force. That's the premise of every rebellion.
Pelleaon is Gorbachev, is he good, absolutely not, is he much better than what came before, hell yeah