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Star Wars: Tarkin... Nature or Nurture?

Tarkin (Star Wars)Tarkin by James Luceno
My rating: 4 of 5 stars


The Star Wars book: Tarkin

This is a similar book to the one I mentioned and blogged about called "Thrawn". I think we only see this Tarkin once in the movies which the first movie simply called Star Wars, He may have been in other books and comics, but I don't recall. One always ask the question of what shapes the personality of a person or a character. In the real world is it nature or nurture?. When one reads this book one may come to the conclusion that is a little bit of both.

Like all my other reviews I am not going into the plot. These can easily be found on the internet or Wikipedia. If you haven't read the book you may want to stop here. That being said let me continue now. Is Tarkin a villain? If we saw the movie Star Wars we might come to the conclusion, yes, he was. Was he a villain because he served the empire? Or was he a villain simply because of the way he was raised? Was he a villain at all?

That is the question. I really couldn't find any valid excuse that he was evil just because he served the empire. While true he had a strict military personality I will not say that it was the result of serving the empire. After reading the book I came to the conclusion that his upbringing had a lot to do with his personality. Let me bring out an analogy that can be understood. Of course, you need to know a little bit of World War II history.

Not everyone who served in the German army even if they were Military Officers we're Nazis. They follow orders because they were more soldiers than politicians. A good example of this was Erwin Rommel known as the desert fox and his rank was field Marshal in the German army. He served in World War 1 and World War II, and he was a patriot but not by Nazi standards, even though he agreed with certain parts of Nazi politics He was not a member of the Nazi party. And he decided that Hitler really was not good for Germany. Historians believe that he was part of a plot to kill Hitler indicating that to him Germany was more important than Hitler.

Why did I bring this up? Romel formation as a military field Marshal was already in progress before Nazi Germany came to be. The same could be said about Tarkin. Tarkin formation as Tarkin, was already in development during the Republic years, Clone war years, and eventually when the Republic became an Empire. Sometimes I think that Tarkin was modeled after Rommel. It's one of those things that one has to think about to understand the individual characters and personalities of the Star Wars universe. The development of the Empire took its time, it didn't happen overnight.

If Tarkin was part of the rebellion, his efficiency would be the same. However, he was actually part of the long developing establishment. Tarkin would have been Tarkin Whether he served in the Empire, the Old Republic, or the New Republic. However, that is my personal opinion if you decide to read the book or have read it let me know if you agree with me or not. It is good to see other points of view. This being said I think I like the character and can understand his personal motivation better. What say you?

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