Piett is arguably the most human and sympathetic character in the whole series.
What I love about Piett is how he breaks up the facelessness of the Empire. He's not a masked and anonymous stormtrooper, he's not a villain for villainy's sake, he doesn't even seem to be particularly brutal or cruel—although he is an officer on the Emperor's flagship, so he may not be particularly nice or innocent either; none of which means he cannot be sympathetic—he's a man with the most unenviable boss in the galaxy and no matter that he's onscreen for perhaps five minutes total in The Empire Strikes Back, you care whether he survives or not. (The odds are, admittedly, against him. The heroes are practically guaranteed by the conventions of myth and cinema to reach the finale unscathed, but the moment Darth Vader calls him "Admiral," you know the crew have started taking bets on Piett's life expectancy. One wonders if a career in the upper echelons of the Imperial Starfleet always involves this fine tightrope-walk between success and suicide.) He's not in many ways plot-critical. He's not even that deeply characterized: I couldn't tell you a single fact about him before his sudden promotion. But he's a person, and that's remarkable for the supposedly straightforward war, noble Rebels against evil Empire, white hats and black hats and very few shades of grey, that George Lucas has set up onscreen. He has complication. Hence, I suppose, the impressive amounts of fanfiction dedicated to him.
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What I love about Piett is how he breaks up the facelessness of the Empire. He's not a masked and anonymous stormtrooper, he's not a villain for villainy's sake, he doesn't even seem to be particularly brutal or cruel—although he is an officer on the Emperor's flagship, so he may not be particularly nice or innocent either; none of which means he cannot be sympathetic—he's a man with the most unenviable boss in the galaxy and no matter that he's onscreen for perhaps five minutes total in The Empire Strikes Back, you care whether he survives or not. (The odds are, admittedly, against him. The heroes are practically guaranteed by the conventions of myth and cinema to reach the finale unscathed, but the moment Darth Vader calls him "Admiral," you know the crew have started taking bets on Piett's life expectancy. One wonders if a career in the upper echelons of the Imperial Starfleet always involves this fine tightrope-walk between success and suicide.) He's not in many ways plot-critical. He's not even that deeply characterized: I couldn't tell you a single fact about him before his sudden promotion. But he's a person, and that's remarkable for the supposedly straightforward war, noble Rebels against evil Empire, white hats and black hats and very few shades of grey, that George Lucas has set up onscreen. He has complication. Hence, I suppose, the impressive amounts of fanfiction dedicated to him.
. . . Besides, if it hadn't been for Piett, I wouldn't have been able to read the best T.S. Eliot parody ever.