Who Is Eli Vanto?
Image Source: Star Wars Addicted
News is swirling around the upcoming Ahsoka series, especially after the footage of a live-action Thrawn was shown at Celebration. The trailer from Celebration showed live-action versions of fans’ favorite characters like Hera Syndulla, Chopper, and Sabine. Then, not a few days later, news came out that Wes Chatham from The Expanse has been cast in the Ahsoka series as Thrawn’s right-hand man. Speculation immediately flew about what character he would play.
The chances are high that the character is Eli Vanto.
Eli Vanto is a canon character that first appeared in Timothy Zahn’s new Thrawn novel Thrawn. Eli grew up in Wild Space and worked for his parents’ shipping company. This allowed him to be exposed to and learn multiple languages, as well as become rather skilled at accounting and analysis. Eventually, he joined the Imperial Academy and while on a scouting mission, he and his group came across a hut and some crates in a language they didn’t recognize. This hut belonged to the Chiss that came to be known as Thrawn.
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Thrawn is taken in for questioning, and Eli is appointed as his translator because he and Thrawn were able to communicate through a common trade language. The Imperial officer interrogating Thrawn perceives his intelligence and potential, and sends him to Coruscant to meet with the Emperor. Eli accompanies him to translate. Emperor Palpatine is quick to realize Thrawn’s potential, and he and Eli are sent to finish at the academy. Thrawn and Eli graduated and Eli was assigned as his aide, to his dismay.
From that point, Thrawn rose quickly through the ranks due to his skill and his ability to get results, with Eli accompanying him. Thrawn is notoriously bad at navigating political relationships, so Eli provided political advice while he learned from Thrawn. In and out of political and military situations, the two eventually come to a point where Thrawn is in a position to send Eli as an emissary to the Chiss. He believes that Eli and his analytical skills could help the Chiss deal with the Grysk, a subtle but powerful enemy to Thrawn’s home of the Chiss Ascendency.
Image Source: Star Wars News Net
It has not been confirmed that Chatham will play Vanto, but given Eli’s proximity to Thrawn during his rise, important plot points suggest there’s a good chance he will play Vanto. There’s a possibility that Eli’s time with the Chiss could also mean there may be other Chiss in the show. By the time Thrawn and Eli meet again, after Eli’s time with the Chiss, the Emperor and Vader are still alive. The threat to the Ascendency that is behind everything Thrawn is doing is now encroaching on Imperial space, and Thrawn meets up with Eli and the Chiss Admiral pursuing the Grysk forces. After dealing with them, the final move of Thrawn and Eli (a Lieutenant Commander by this time) is to send another Imperial officer to the Chiss to prepare them in their fight for the Grysk.
In regard to the timeline, this is all before Thrawn disappears with Ezra. There’s no accounting for Eli’s whereabouts from that moment to Thrawn’s return in Ahsoka. At the end of Rebels, Thrawn disappears with Ezra Bridger. As we learned in the most recent seasons of The Mandalorian, however, Thrawn is back. There’s a lot of fan speculation that he went back to the unknown regions, which includes the Chiss Ascendency, and is returning from that. By the time The Mandalorian takes place, and the Ahsoka series when Thrawn returns, several years have passed. Eli’s whereabouts during that period are unknown. Perhaps he went back to the Ascendency, or perhaps he stayed with the Empire. Either way, Thrawn returning and having a right-hand man who has both visited the Ascendency and served him with the Empire makes a strong case for Chatham playing Vanto.
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Source: Wookieepedia
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