Okay, let me explain my thinking here:
The first thing that made me think Tarkin was the blue-grey eyes, and the set of (what's left of) his mouth and jaw. The shape of the (relatively) undamaged right ear - identical to Tarkin's. Same thin lips with prominent indent above. No more sunken cheeks, but that's because one cheek no longer exists and the skin from the other has been pulled tight to cover an old wound.
This guy is clearly old as hell, and has been through one doozy of an explosion/fire. A disaster so bad post-Mustafar Anakin still looks like a teen idol next to him. And yet... he doesn't look like any part of his facial damage comes from excessive Dark Side use. If he's an alien, he is (or was) a completely human-looking one. He claims to have personally witnessed the fall of the Republic and rise/fall of the Empire. In deleted dialogue talking to Kylo Ren, he speaks as someone who knew both Palpatine and Vader very well. He loves planet-destroying superweapons, the bigger the better (the Death Star was Tarkin's baby). He's whipped the First Order into one hell of an efficient military machine, while showing none of the ego and overconfidence that sank Palpatine; only at the end did Tarkin get cocky. Snoke rejects clone soldiers in favor of a wide range of recruits trained from birth; Tarkin was as old-school military as they come.
You're totally right, Reverend, about Tarkin not being a Force user. But so far... we haven't seen Snoke use the Force any. "There's a disturbance in the Force"* - not "I've felt a disturbance in the Force." "It's time to complete Kylo Ren's training" - not "It's time for me to complete Kylo Ren's training." You don't really need Force powers yourself to teach a young Vader-wannabe (who's already got the powers, fighting ability and skill set from training with Luke) about Sith history/philosophy, not to mention personal anecdotes about dear ol' Granddad and his boss. And from what we've seen of Kylo Ren himself, Snoke is a very poor teacher if he himself is Sith. Anakin on Mustafar, a Sith for only a day, was far more focused and disciplined. But in a galaxy with no Jedi left, who needs a Dark-Side-using protege to be that great anyway? He's only got to be good enough to beat and kill an old, despairing Luke.
Until that girl shows up out of nowhere, that is...
* Of course, that then leads to the question of how did Snoke know of the disturbance if he didn't feel it himself. I don't as yet have an answer. It is just a theory, after all.
The first thing that made me think Tarkin was the blue-grey eyes, and the set of (what's left of) his mouth and jaw. The shape of the (relatively) undamaged right ear - identical to Tarkin's. Same thin lips with prominent indent above. No more sunken cheeks, but that's because one cheek no longer exists and the skin from the other has been pulled tight to cover an old wound.
This guy is clearly old as hell, and has been through one doozy of an explosion/fire. A disaster so bad post-Mustafar Anakin still looks like a teen idol next to him. And yet... he doesn't look like any part of his facial damage comes from excessive Dark Side use. If he's an alien, he is (or was) a completely human-looking one. He claims to have personally witnessed the fall of the Republic and rise/fall of the Empire. In deleted dialogue talking to Kylo Ren, he speaks as someone who knew both Palpatine and Vader very well. He loves planet-destroying superweapons, the bigger the better (the Death Star was Tarkin's baby). He's whipped the First Order into one hell of an efficient military machine, while showing none of the ego and overconfidence that sank Palpatine; only at the end did Tarkin get cocky. Snoke rejects clone soldiers in favor of a wide range of recruits trained from birth; Tarkin was as old-school military as they come.
You're totally right, Reverend, about Tarkin not being a Force user. But so far... we haven't seen Snoke use the Force any. "There's a disturbance in the Force"* - not "I've felt a disturbance in the Force." "It's time to complete Kylo Ren's training" - not "It's time for me to complete Kylo Ren's training." You don't really need Force powers yourself to teach a young Vader-wannabe (who's already got the powers, fighting ability and skill set from training with Luke) about Sith history/philosophy, not to mention personal anecdotes about dear ol' Granddad and his boss. And from what we've seen of Kylo Ren himself, Snoke is a very poor teacher if he himself is Sith. Anakin on Mustafar, a Sith for only a day, was far more focused and disciplined. But in a galaxy with no Jedi left, who needs a Dark-Side-using protege to be that great anyway? He's only got to be good enough to beat and kill an old, despairing Luke.
Until that girl shows up out of nowhere, that is...
* Of course, that then leads to the question of how did Snoke know of the disturbance if he didn't feel it himself. I don't as yet have an answer. It is just a theory, after all.
