Chiss
Chiss in the Star Wars Black Series — the blue-skinned, red-eyed species of the Unknown Regions, represented entirely by Grand Admiral Thrawn across Rebels and Ahsoka. Species guide, Black Series coverage, and what Thrawn means for the line.
The Chiss are one of Star Wars’ most distinctive species — blue-skinned, red-eyed, highly intelligent, and culturally defined by an emphasis on tactical precision, long-term planning, and the kind of patient strategic thinking that makes them exceptional military commanders. In the Black Series, the Chiss species is represented entirely by one character: Grand Admiral Thrawn, the Imperial officer who has appeared in Rebels, the Thrawn novel trilogy, and the live-action Ahsoka series. Two figures cover two versions of Thrawn, both significant, both capturing different points in a character arc that spans the original Legends continuity, the Canon reinvention, and an ongoing story that isn’t finished yet.
Chiss in Star Wars
The Chiss Ascendancy is the Chiss government — a sophisticated interstellar civilisation based in the Unknown Regions, operating according to a strict social hierarchy and a set of cultural values that place significant emphasis on intellectual excellence, tactical capability, and the long view. Chiss children with navigational Force sensitivity — called ozyly-esehembo, or sky-walkers — are used to pilot ships through the dangerous hyperspace routes of the Unknown Regions while their ability lasts, typically fading as they enter adulthood.
The Chiss are not part of the Republic or the Empire in the conventional sense. Thrawn’s presence in the Imperial military is an anomaly — a Chiss officer who has risen to Grand Admiral through merit in a human-dominated institution that has significant cultural resistance to alien advancement. The specific circumstances of how he came to serve the Empire, explored in Timothy Zahn’s novel trilogy, involve his assignment to the Unknown Regions as an Imperial asset tracking threats that the Empire’s mainstream leadership doesn’t take seriously enough.
Physically, Chiss are humanoid with blue skin ranging from pale to deep navy, glowing red eyes with no visible white or iris, and black hair. They’re long-lived compared to humans and maintain a composed, precise bearing that reflects their cultural values rather than emotional suppression. They feel things — Thrawn’s appreciation of art, his respect for worthy opponents, his evident investment in outcomes — but they express them with a discipline that reads as coldness to species who don’t know them.
Grand Admiral Thrawn
Thrawn is the most significant antagonist in Star Wars animation and one of the most significant in the franchise’s publishing history. Created by Timothy Zahn for the 1991 novel Heir to the Empire — the book that effectively launched the Expanded Universe and demonstrated that Star Wars could sustain serious adult fiction — Thrawn was designed as everything Darth Vader isn’t: a villain who wins through intelligence rather than Force ability, who studies his opponents’ art to understand their psychology, who plans five steps ahead and executes with methodical precision.
He was beloved by the Legends continuity’s readership for decades before his Canon reinvention in Star Wars Rebels. The animated series introduced him as the primary antagonist of its final two seasons, and the adaptation was careful and respectful of what made the character work: the art analysis, the tactical patience, the specific quality of menace that comes from an opponent who has already thought further ahead than anyone else in the room.
His Canon arc continues to develop. Rebels ends with him and Ezra Bridger apparently lost in the Unknown Regions after Ezra called the purrgil to Lothal. Ahsoka reveals he’s been in Peridea, the galaxy beyond the galaxy, for years — waiting, preparing, using the time productively. He returns to the main galaxy at the end of Ahsoka season one. What happens next is unresolved at the current point in the story.
The Rebels Figure
The Rebels Grand Admiral Thrawn is a Walgreens exclusive from 2019 — a specific retail channel exclusive that makes it one of the more challenging Chiss figures to source at retail price. It captures Thrawn in his white Imperial Grand Admiral uniform, animated in the style of Rebels’ slightly stylised aesthetic, and it was produced at a point when the line was producing more Rebels content to support that series’ final seasons.
For collectors who want the Rebels version specifically — the animated design, the specific uniform of his Imperial antagonist role during the Lothal campaign — this is the definitive representation, and sourcing it requires either Walgreens availability or secondary market purchase.
The Ahsoka Figure
The Ahsoka Grand Admiral Thrawn from the Galaxy Collection 2025 release is the live-action version — Thrawn as portrayed by Lars Mikkelsen in the Disney+ series, with the Photo Real face printing and the specific costume of his Peridea appearances. This is the more recent figure, the more accessible release, and the one that reflects the character’s current status in the Canon timeline.
The live-action Thrawn carries the visual weight of years on Peridea — the specific look of a commander who has been operating without Imperial supply lines while maintaining his force’s effectiveness and his own bearing. The figure captures that distinctive appearance: the same white uniform, marked by the specific wear and context of his exile circumstances.
For the Peridea Ruins display, the Ahsoka Thrawn is the correct figure. For a Rebels display or an Imperial era Chiss representation, the Walgreens exclusive covers that configuration.
The Chiss in the Black Series Collection
The Chiss species entry in the Black Series is, for now, a single-character species — both figures are Thrawn, covering two production eras and two versions of the same character. That’s not a limitation of the species so much as a reflection of how the Chiss function in the current Canon: they’re primarily a backdrop for Thrawn’s story rather than a populous species with multiple named representatives in the main narrative.
The two figures together make a natural display — the animated Rebels Thrawn and the live-action Ahsoka Thrawn side by side, showing how the same character translates across production formats and two decades of storytelling.
All Chiss Figures in the Black Series
Check off the figures you own with the Black Series Checklist.
Part of Star Wars The Black Series | Species Index. Related: Peridea Ruins | Duel With Ahsoka | Expanded Universe Display | Species Index.