Minus Rebels Thrawn (He was off in that show) I think they are precisly on par with each other

I personally like Cannon Thrawn

I never read any Legends that is the big main reason why

While many villains were good I have to say Thrawn was the best villain

He had a cool and sinister personality and he worked well as a good tactician

He made out to be a good threat for the Rebels

Plus Lars Mikkelsen did a great job with the voice

I am looking for to his appearance in Ahsoka

I prefer canon. Based off the 3 novel trilogies, he has a lot more development in canon, and you see more of his character and backstory. He's a lot more than a military genius

Well, first off, book Thrawn, regardless of Canon or Legends, are basically the same character. Timothy Zahn has purposefully gone out of his way to make them work together as much ad humanly possible regardless of them being different timelines.

That said, if we do presume they share the canon books as per the authors intentions, Canon has Rebels unique to it and Legends the OG Thrawn trilogy. Of these, Thrawn is vastly superior in the OG Thrawn Trilogy.

So Legends hands down.

(I'm probably going to cop a lot of slack for this, but...) Canon by far, I was quite... underwhelmed with Legends Thrawn. In the Thrawn trilogy (which I was expecting to revolve entirely around him, like the Canon trilogies) I found his character quite... flat? And, he just didn't really have much... character depth? I found that most unlike Canon Thrawn, who would learn from mistakes and work to correct them. Or the fact Legends Thrawn was quite power-hungry, aiming to rule the (remnant) Empire, very much unlike the fairly modest-ness of Canon Thrawn. And even his analysis of art - Legends Thrawn's skills just seemed to happen, and he was right most of the time. This may be contributed to Zhan's skill improving as a writer, but I really liked the way Canon Thrawn would attempt to explain his tactics to the reader, and actually fail at times.

I don't really know how to word this, but I failed to see them as the different versions of the same character. I can understand how some people may enjoy the Legends portrayal of him, and I accept that. But, I still to this day can not understand the hype Legends Thrawn gets. Unless all of his character comes from another piece of media that I am blissfully unaware of (which is probably likely), I prefer Canon Thrawn by a mile.

I love both versions in the books and expanded material. Like people have said, they're mostly the same. I'm voting Legends here because of Rebels (which just so you know isn't all bad, just the two season finales were way off if you ask me) but I do enjoy the canon books and comic series.

Oh, and I really like the Empire of the Hand in Legends. I hope something like this turns up in the future stuff.

This one is very difficult for me because I love both versions of Thrawn very much but I think I’ll give og legends Thrawn a slight edge because he was somewhat nerfed in Rebels for me. I was particularly expecting a few major character deaths to be left in his wake in the season 3 finale when he ambushed them in Atollon. If it wasn’t for his lack of major casualties in Rebels then I probably would’ve voted for canon Thrawn.

@Lord Lothcat It's more a case that Thrawn and Pellaeon dynamic in the original Thrawn trilogy was meant to mimic Sherlock Holmes and Dr Watson. Where it's told from Watson's pov and Sherlock is this brilliant enigma that he can't ever fully figure out.

All Zahn did for later books was listen to complaints of fans who didn't like this and switch the view point to being Thrawn's, with the sidekick Eli more being the character Thrawn has to teach.

It's really the same character once you realize this. Just radically different view points.

Back in the 90s it was more common for deeper writing that you had to puzzle out, when today most books are made to be much easier to figure out. As an example, back when I, Jedi came out in the mid 90s, it was often mocked for being the very simple "first person" pov. When today, that's the majority of the books being recommend on booktok. Or from a different point of view, books in the 80s and 90s were more snobbish and trying to be like classic literature with slow burn storyline, when today they aim to be far more accessible and faster paced. Basically, it's more a marketing shift in what customers want and authors like Zahn have adapted to them.

I wouldn't say Zahn was a better writer today than he was then, or vice versa. He just was more able to focus on a single character and a small supporting cast in Canon were he reversed the view point; while back then had had an ensemble cast and lots of new supporting cast too while trying to make Thrawn as simply being beyond any of the rest of us and mysterious.

Canon because he is not dead and he can maybe get a better ending

Man, I'm just going to chicken out and say neither because they're both (I think) on the same level- the both TOTALLY in command of every situation they're placed in AND they're both HUGE threats to the Rebel Alliance/New Republic. Legends Thrawn caught Coruscant napping and Canon Thrawn had the Alliance pinned on Atollon and would've destroyed them if it hadn't been for that idiot Konstantine and "Bendu MacGuffin".

On a technicality, I might do like Thrawnyboi and go with Canon Thrawn because of Legend Thrawn's death at the hands of Rukh. That sudden, underhand killing was such a gut punch because it came out of nowhere and ended Thrawn's journey just when it felt like he was getting started. NOT a fan. He should've been killed in a naval battle with Zsinji, taking all of the warlords on singlehandedly and going down with his ship in flames.