★ Top Fifteen Tournament #8 - Darth Plagueis

Good post @BoD

@Ziggy good post

The Ellimist wrote:Good post @BoD

The lord of hunger wrote:great post

Thanks.

@BoD

BoD wrote:Compelling arguments have been made for both Plagueis and Caedus for the no. 8 slot. However, I want to make one of my own for Mace Windu.

Statements

To begin, we have several statements that already establish Mace as being on the level of Yoda and Sheev, several of which are out of universe or made by Lucas himself, putting them as G-Canon:

“You have to be either Mace or Yoda to compete with the Emperor," Lucas says. "If Anakin hadn't got all beat up, he could've beat the Emperor."

• George Lucas, The Making Of Revenge Of The Sith; page 204.
  

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As they approach the end of the climactic battle between Obi-Wan and Anakin, Gillard explains how he's rated the various swordsmen: "On Attack of the Clones, I had to give them levels," he says. "Sidious is a level nine[out of ten]. On this film, Obi is eight-he's moved up-Anakin is a nine; Mace is a nine, Yoda is a nine. They're up with Sidious.
Once you get to eight, you have a Pandora's box. You could go any way with it. The way not to go is the dark side. But it would tempt you, because that would jump you right past the others. So you need to arrive at level eight at the right age-not as young as Anakin. That young, the dark side is just too tempting."

• Nick Gillard, The Making of Revenge of the Sith.
  

Note that Gillard quotes are only G-Canon when in collaboration with Lucas or when approved by him, such as in the Making of Revenge of the Sith. As established here, Mace is an undeniable peer of Sidious and Yoda.

A rival perhaps, but not a direct equal. From the novelization, which you liberally enjoy quoting:

Mace was deep in it now: submerged in Vaapad, swallowed by it, he no longer truly existed as an independent being.

Vaapad is a channel for darkness, and that darkness flowed both ways. He accepted the furious speed of the Sith Lord, drew the shadow's rage and power into his inmost center-

And let it fountain out again.

He reflected the fury upon its source as a lightsaber redirects a blaster bolt.

There was a time when Mace Windu had feared the power of the dark; there was a time when he had feared the darkness in himself. But the Clone Wars had given him a gift of understanding: on a world called Haruun Kal, he had faced his darkness and had learned that the power of darkness is not to be feared.

He had learned that it is fear that gives the darkness power.

He was not afraid. The darkness had no power over him. But-

Neither did he have power over it.

Vaapad made him an open channel, half of a superconducting loop completed by the shadow; they became a standing wave of battle that expanded into every cubic centimeter of the Chancellor's office. There was no scrap of carpet nor shred of chair that might not at any second disintegrate in flares of red or purple; lampstands became brief shields, sliced into segments that whirled through the air; couches became terrain to be climbed for advantage or overleapt in retreat. But there was still only the cycle of power, the endless loop, no wound taken on either side, not even the possibility of fatigue.

Impasse.


Mace is explicitly described as drawing Palpatine's power into himself. Despite this, he has no control over that power and the best he can achieve is a perpetual stalemate through fashioning a superconducting loop via Vaapad wherein the Force energies of the two combatants pass in and out of each other eternally. This is why Mace "no longer truly existed as an independent being": the power he drew from Palpatine to fuel the superconducting loop that allowed him to contend was not his own. If Mace could compete with Sidious as an equal by merit of his own strength, he would not need to draw on Palpatine's to achieve a stalemate, and drawing on Palpatine's energies would in fact have made him stronger than the Sith Lord, not his merely equal. Which leads me to...





Lucas personally line-edited the novelization word-by-word, as succinctly summarized by author Matthew Stover: "What's in that book is there because Mr. Lucas wanted it to be there. What's not in the book is not there because Mr. Lucas wanted it gone. Period." Vaapad, the superconducting loop, Mace drawing on Palpatine's strength to only to achieve a stalemate, etc. are all ideas endorsed by Lucas. I thus believe it pertinent to recontextualize your citations, beginning with the one coming directly from Lucas's mouth:

“You have to be either Mace or Yoda to compete with the Emperor."

Yes, Mace can compete with the Emperor... by weaponizing the Emperor's darkness and power with Vaapad and drawing on it to produce a superconducting loop. This is an ability inherent to Mace and something he can duplicate every time he is confronted by Sheev, but that doesn't mean the power he harnesses to achieve the stalemate can be attributed to him personally. Plainly speaking, he is not the Emperor's equal in pure power.

But then what of his tier nine status? Aren't all tier nines more or less equal per starwars.com? Well, yes, Mace is a tier 9 and a peer of Sidious... under the circumstances present in their duel. On an another occasion, Gillard has described Mace as "an eight bordering on nine", which on the surface appears to simply be a contradiction, but it doesn't have to be so. In the same interview, he stated that "the difference between eight and nine really is the dark side" (something he affirmed back during the production of RotS as well) and to attain tier nine "the right way" you have to be "enlightened", which Mace evidently isn't to the same extent as someone like Yoda. This nicely coincides with the novelization:

Sinking into Vaapad, Mace Windu fought for his life.

More than his life: each whirl of blade and whipcrack of lightning was a strike in defense of democracy, of justice and peace, of the rights of ordinary beings to live their own lives in their own ways.

He was fighting for the Republic that he loved.

Vaapad, the seventh form of lightsaber combat, takes its name from a notoriously dangerous predator native to the moons of Sarapin: a vaapad attacks its prey with whipping strikes of its blindingly fast tentacles. Most have at least seven. It is not uncommon for them to have as many as twelve; the largest ever killed had twenty-three. With a vaapad, one never knew how many tentacles it had until it was dead: they move too fast to count. Almost too fast to see.

So did Mace's blade.

Vaapad is as aggressive and powerful as its namesake, but its power comes at great risk: immersion in Vaapad opens the gates that restrain one's inner darkness. To use Vaapad, a Jedi must allow himself to enjoy the fight; he must give himself over to the thrill of battle. The rush of winning. Vaapad is a path that leads through the penumbra of the dark side.

Mace Windu created this style, and he was its only living master.

This was Vaapad's ultimate test.

Anakin blinked and rubbed his eyes again. Maybe he was still a bit flash-blind - the Korun Master seemed to be fading in and out of existence, half swallowed by a thickening black haze in which danced a meter-long bar of sunfire. Mace pressed back the darkness with a relentless straight-ahead march; his own blade, that distinctive amethyst blaze that had been the final sight of so many evil beings across the galaxy, made a haze of its own: an oblate sphere of purple fire within which there seemed to be dozens of swords slashing in all directions at once.

The shadow he fought, that blur of speed - could that be Palpatine?

Their blades flared and flashed, crashing together with bursts of fire, weaving nets of killing energy in exchanges so fast that Anakin could not truly see them-

But he could feel them in the Force.

The Force itself roiled and burst and crashed around them, boiling with power and lightspeed ricochets of lethal intent.

And it was darkening.

Anakin could feel how the Force fed upon the shadow's murderous exaltation; he could feel fury spray into the Force as though some poisonous abscess had crested in both their hearts.

There was no Jedi restraint here.

Mace Windu was cutting loose.


If the only way to get to tier nine is by falling the dark side, then it is only appropriate that a fighting style which "leads through the penumbra of the dark side" enabled Mace Windu to match a tier nine fighter as an equal. Per the text, "Vaapad opens the gates that restrain one's inner darkness," which led to Mace "cutting loose" and forgoing the typical Jedi restraint of not giving into passionate emotions. This is explains why Anakin sensed "fury spray into the Force as though some poisonous abscess had crested in both their hearts." Essentially, for the duration of that battle, Mace Windu "fell" to the dark side without giving up his soul to it; he was able to use the power that comes with the dark side without letting the dark side touch his spirit. So, yes, he is a tier nine... exclusively for the duration of this battle, but his ordinary power level is merely that of "an eight bordering on nine" - close, but not quite up there with Sheev or Yoda. At least this is the only way I can think of to reconcile all the disparate statements with each other and the novelization without tossing any of it out.

I'm not going to address the window feat or lightning struggle in detail because I feel like any reasonable person can interpret them in a way which doesn't come into conflict with the above evidence, especially when the novelization, from which the window feat comes from and which you cite extensively to analyze the lightning struggle, enforces the idea of Mace being Palpatine's inferior in power by necessity.

And another point: the disarm only ever happened due to Anakin being an outside influence.

cool cool

Plagueis

To expand on what @Meatpants said, and indeed to recontextualize the entire duel, Palpatine planned for the arrival of Anakin. He knew he would interfere in his arrest. More, he knew that being in a position of perceived weakness when Anakin arrived would be the final step in seducing Anakin to the dark side:

Revenge of the Sith, Pg 345 wrote:The Coruscant nightfall was spreading through the galaxy. The darkness in the Force was no hindrance to the shadow in the Chancellor's office; it was the darkness. Wherever darkness dwelled, the shadow could send perception. In the night, the shadow felt the boy's anguish, and it was good. The shadow felt the grim determination of four Jedi Masters approaching by air. This, too, was good.


The shadow felt Jedi Masters stride the vast echoic emptiness of the vaulted halls outside. It could practically hear the cadence of their boot heels on the Alderaanian marble. The darkness within the sculpture whispered of the shape and the feel and every intimate resonance of the device it cradled. With a twist of its will, the shadow triggered the device. The neuranium got warm. A small round spot, smaller than the circle a human child might make of thumb and forefinger, turned the color of old blood.


As shouts of the Force scattered Redrobes beyond the office's outer doors, the shadow gestured and lampdisks ignited. Another shout of the Force burst open the inner door to the private office. As Jedi stormed in, a final flick of the shadow's will triggered a recording device concealed within the desk.


Audio only.


"Why, Master Windu," said the shadow. "What a pleasant surprise." 

Palpatine not only feels Anakin's turmoil in the Force, he senses that the Jedi Masters are on their way, and he thinks that this is good. He retrieves his lightsaber and activates an audio recorder in advance. He's not worried at any point leading up to the duel. He's not worried at any point during the duel:

Revenge of the Sith, Pg 356-358 wrote:Impasse.


Which might have gone on forever, if Vaapad were Mace's only gift. The fighting was effortless for him now; he let his body handle it without the intervention of his mind. While his blade spun and crackled, while his feet slid and his weight shifted and his shoulders turned in precise curves of their own direction, his mind slid along the circuit of dark power, tracing it back to its limitless source. Feeling for its shatterpoint. He found a knot of fault lines in the shadow's future; he chose the largest fracture and followed it back to the here and the now—


And it led him, astonishingly, to a man standing frozen in the slashed-open doorway. Mace had no need to look; the presence in the Force was familiar, and was as uplifting as sunlight breaking through a thunderhead. The chosen one was here.


Mace disengaged from the shadow's blade and leapt for the window; he slashed away the transparisteel with a single flourish. His instant's distraction cost him: a dark surge of the Force nearly blew him right out of the gap he had just cut. Only a desperate Force-push of his own altered his path enough that he slammed into a stanchion instead of plunging half a kilometer from the ledge outside. He bounced off and the Force cleared his head and once again he gave himself to Vaapad.


He could feel the end of this battle approaching, and so could the blur of Sith he faced; in the Force, the shadow had become a pulsar of fear. Easily, almost effortlessly, he turned the shadow's fear into a weapon: he angled the battle to bring them both out onto the window ledge. Out in the wind. Out with the lightning. Out on a rain-slicked ledge above a half-kilometer drop. Out where the shadow's fear made it hesitate. Out where the shadow's fear turned some of its Force-powered speed into a Force-powered grip on the slippery permacrete. Out where Mace could flick his blade in one precise arc and slash the shadow's lightsaber in half.


One piece flipped back in through the cut-open window. The other tumbled from opening fingers, bounced on the ledge, and fell through the rain toward the distant alleys below. Now the shadow was only Palpatine: old and shrunken, thinning hair bleached white by time and care, face lined with exhaustion.


"For all your power, you are no Jedi. All you are, my lord," Mace said evenly, staring past his blade, "is under arrest."


"Do you see, Anakin? Do you?" Palpatine's voice once again had the broken cadence of a frightened old man's. "Didn't I warn you of the Jedi and their treason?"


"Save your twisted words, my lord. There are no politicians here. The Sith will never regain control of the Republic. It's over. You've lost." Mace leveled his blade. "You lost for the same reason the Sith always lose: defeated by your own fear."


Palpatine lifted his head. His eyes smoked with hate. "Fool," he said. He lifted his arms, his robes of office spreading wide into raptor's wings, his hands hooking into talons.


"Fool!" His voice was a shout of thunder. "Do you think the fear you feel is mine?"

As you can see, this is a performance, for an audience of one. Palpatine effortlessly disposed of three Jedi Masters - each a renowned swordsman with accolades stating they are some of the best in the Order's history - before setting the final scene.

A tense duel with someone who not moments ago could barely react before Palpatine had gone through two of the Jedi, and still couldn't react when Palpatine took out the other?

Revenge of the Sith, Pg 350-352 wrote:A fountain of amethyst energy burst from Mace Windu's fist. "Don't try to resist."


The song of his blade was echoed by green fire from the hands of Kit Fisto, Agen Kolar, and Saesee Tiin. Kolar and Tiin closed on Palpatine, blocking the path to the door. Shadows dripped and oozed color, weaving and coiling up office walls slipping over chairs, spreading along the floor.


"Resist? How could I possibly resist?" Still seated at the desk Palpatine shook an empty fist helplessly, the perfect image of a tired, frightened old man. "This is murder, you Jedi traitors! How can I be any threat to you?"


He turned desperately to Saesee Tiin. "Master Tiin—you're the telepath. What am I thinking right now?" Tiin frowned and cocked his head. His blade dipped. A smear of red-flashing darkness hurtled from behind the desk. Saesee Tiin's head bounced when it hit the floor. Smoke curled from the neck, and from the twin stumps of the horns, severed just below the chin.


Kit Fisto gasped, "Saesee!"


The headless corpse, still standing, twisted as its knees buckled, and a thin sigh escaped from its trachea as it folded to the floor.


"It doesn't..." Agen Kolar swayed. His emerald blade shrank away, and the handgrip tumbled from his opening fingers. A small, neat hole in the middle of his forehead leaked smoke, showing light from the back of his head. "...hurt..." He pitched forward onto his face, and lay still.


Palpatine stood at the doorway, but the door stayed shut. From his right hand extended a blade the color of fire. The door locked itself at his back.


"Help! Help!" Palpatine cried like a man in desperate fear for his life. "Security—someone! Help me! Murder! Treason!"


Then he smiled. He held one finger to his lips, and, astonishingly, he winked. In the blank second that followed, while Mace Windu and Kit Fisto could do no more than angle their lightsabers to guard, Palpatine swiftly stepped over the bodies back toward his desk, reversed his blade, and drove it in a swift, surgically precise stab down through his desktop.


"That's enough of that."


He let it burn its way free through the front, then he turned, lifting his weapon, appearing to study it as one might study the face of a beloved friend one has long thought dead. Power gathered around him until the Force shimmered with darkness.


"If you only knew," he said softly, perhaps speaking to the Jedi Masters, or perhaps to himself, or perhaps even to the scarlet blade lifted now as though in mocking salute, "how long I have been waiting for this..." 

No, I think the more likely scenario is that Palpatine lets Mace contend with him - and just that, contend, as even with Vaapad Mace can only stalemate Palpatine - while he waits in anticipation for Anakin to arrive.

This is backed up by the fact that Mace doesn't disarm Palpatine until Anakin is present. At that point the entire scene changes for Anakin. He has to choose a side. Palpatine is defending himself from Anakin's perspective. Mace isn't going to arrest Palpatine, he's going to kill him, and Anakin needs Palpatine in order to save Padme.

Just as Palpatine has planned, planting the visions in Anakin's dreams of Padme dying, and then revealing he had the means to save someone from death.

Looked at like this, is the duel even a duel?

well, yes, its a duel lol just one in which windu is massively amped, and fighting like a wild animal (lol u get what i mean), while sheev may have been weaker cuz of the vapaad, and was very likely holding back in speed, strength, and fighting tactics.

lorenzo.r.2nd wrote:well, yes, its a duel lol just one in which windu is massively amped, and fighting like a wild animal (lol u get what i mean), while sheev may have been weaker cuz of the vapaad, and was very likely holding back in speed, strength, and fighting tactics.

This isn't the first time I've had to say this. Please read posts before replying to them.

Going with Dooku.

Blade_of_Dorin wrote:Going with Dooku.

How does Dooku beat Revan lmao?

 IG (Exists) wrote:

Blade_of_Dorin wrote:Going with Dooku.

How does Dooku beat Revan lmao?

Via having parity (or at the very least, being extremely close to having parity) to Yoda lMaO.

Gaps between tiers beg to differ

Such as?

Gillard quote @Blade_of_Dorin: You know I actually hold Dooku ~ Plagueis, right?

Hmm gillards opinion that covers purely the movies and isn't consistent or logical whatsoever or dookus and Yodas opinions and in and out of universe saying otherwise

@Corvinus Take this as you will, but it's potentially more evidence for Palpatine's loss being staged.

What's the current vote tally right now?

Darth Plagueis: 11 votes

Darth Caedus: 6 votes

Revan: 2 votes

Starkiller: 1

Mace Windu: 1

Gethzerion: 1

I'm gonna go with Plaguies, Caedus can't win this and I don't want Revan on this list at all

Plagueis

voting caedus tbh

[...]

I don't know I'll change anyones opinions at this point, but one final plea for Plagueis for those on the fence.  

The man, or should I say Muun, is actually worthy of a top ten.  His accomplishments are too hard to mitigate, vaster in scope and hinge on tangible evidence.  


1) He does a least have a very solid case to scale above the entire banite line and their lessers 

2) He, along with Palpatine touched the deepest strata of power eliciting space Jesus in consequence 

3) When attempting another grandiose feat - communicating with every living being in the Galaxy - the will of the Force denied him the power and retaliated by killing some of his lab animals.  This is not the same as lacking the necessary power, rather the force recognised Plagueis' threat and responded with it's own.  How the will of the force manifests as a reactionary phenomena is one of the main themes in the Plagueis novel and the feat itself was a macrocosm of this.  It tells us that Plagueis is so powerful the Force itself intervenes upon his megalomaniacal machinations.  It signifies that, while he is not quite God, he's teetering on the line despite his mortality. 

4) He has a few decent environmental showings, already more than the person he's contending with for votes.  This is despite only being featured in one book.  Said book mostly depicting the life of a covetous Sith Lord posing as a studious banker and pulling strings from the dark.  This book doesn't allow for many huge displays of power for the most part, yet atomising Maladian assassins under severe bloodloss and heart failure is still better than anything we see from Jacen in the 30(?) books he's in. That is telling.  


The case for Caedus rests on a tether.  


It Understands Luke's performance inconsistency as a rule of thumb, but claims he fights with full power in LOTF.  

It claims that Jacen should have a good measure of the mans ability.  

It claims that no explicit mention of Luke's jobbing by Jacen is evidence enough... but it's not enough.  


First of all, omission is not contradiction.  

A premise does not have to be explicitly claimed for it to be true.  Luke's jobbing is self evident in LOTF as seen in fights with Lumiya.  The Dark Lady actually beats him in Tempest, yet no one bats an eye or questions whether or not Luke is going all out.  Jaina believes that Lumiya is the Grandmaster's rough equal.  This is despite being the other person witnessing Luke's maelstrom in TUF and knowing he beat Unuthul - the two parameters used to validate Jacen's opinion by The Ellimst.   In Sacrifice, Lumiya has enough augmentative clout to match Luke's strength before the rocks underneath her feat give way and she falls.  Despite being injured, at an environmental disadvantage and literally wanting to die at that point.  If the goal was survival, I'm sure she could have prolonged the fight with underhanded tactics...  Just like Jacen did.  Unlike Jacen, she never gets pinned to a chair by him with no effort. Unlike Jacen, she can actually meet his strength head on without escapism and environmeal crutches.

Is Lumiya Luke's genuine equal?  Someone weaker than Vader, someone never truly regarded by Palpatine, someone who only stalemates Nelani Dinn (random Jedi) Somone who can't take Tresrina Lobi on her own and was nearly killed by Mara too.  Do we just upscale everyone to facilitate NJO wank, and by comparison, Caedus wank?  Or do Jacen fans want to have one set of standards for him and a different set for the rubes? 


Secondly... Truthfully Jacen does not have Luke's power true power level understood.  If he did, he wouldn't have claimed that he was closing in on Luke  as of the second LOTF book... only to suffer bad feature comparisons against every other person he fights in later books.  Among this rolodex of literal fodder amazinn fighterz, is Aurra Sing.... a true top tier with cross era reference right..?  It's rather funny, Caedus stans always harper on about "astonishing growth" throughout the series... yet the man thinks he's approaching Luke's power in the early days only to have trouble with the bottom shelf...  

Jacen is blatantly wrong about Luke's power in the book.  And if he's wrong about Luke's power in one instance, he can be wrong in other instances.  And if he's wrong in other instances, then the scaling chain - which is based on Jacen's view of Luke being > a DE palpatine leveller - can no longer be used.  We have to look at his other feats to judge him.  Which is something Caedus fans never want to do.  You will hear accusations of lowball.  Fact is that their case is predicated on a low showing from Luke.  And unlike Jacen, low showings are the precedent for the Jedi Grandmaster.  Not only can they be observed in a an out of universe sense, but they also have a narrative explanation.  



Simply put, the case for Jacen assessing Luke above DE palpatine or peak Unuthul (Jacen never met either btw) is so transpicuous that there can be several reasons for it's failure.  

As mentioned Jacen never met peak Unu.  So there is already shade on this comparison.  Jaina actually did meet peak Unu, but still believes Luke is roughly around Lumiya level.  Perhaps Luke never did reach his full power in TUF, as the perspective is from Jaina and Jacen. Just because they never saw power like that in their life-times before hand, doesn't mean Luke still isn't holding back some of his latent ability.  It's hard to believe that Luke's fear of the Darkside evaporates here, and that he isn't still operating with some degree of caution.  I mean, that Luke would struggle against Shimra, who has the immense disadvantage of no force sensitivity at all, let alone the world destroying power of DE Sidious, means that something is up here.  Perhaps there is an inherent issue with sensing power.  That unlike measuring it with a DBZ scouter, it is much less quantifiable to the person witnessing it than we think. Jacen might have little precision with that ability. Perhaps Jacen thinks the power is a "one off" occasion like the oneness he attained against Omni, in which case it doesn't factor in his general opinion of Luke

Any of these things can be true and break the scaling Caedus fans have drummed up.  Or we could trust that Jacen's opinion is infallible and then proceed to upscale him and all his adversaries.  Which means that Lumiya is above DE palpatine, as is Tresrina Lobi, Nelani Dinn and Mara too.  Aurra Sing might be > ROTS Palpatine level now, as is Kyle Katarn and Saba.  The three Jedi assisting Kyle are Mace Windu level.  The 8 YVH droids Caedus set on luke are all above Dooku, as is the average NJO Jedi Knight.  The Fondorian technicians Caedus exhausted all his power to mind trick were actually the Dread Masters re-incarnated....  It's just that Jacen being failable in his assessment is the more likely answer rather than Shonen Anime upscaling in Star Wars.  It's just that, like usual, Luke is not displaying a decent measure of his full power.  


Character opinions are subject to quirks by their very nature, even if the represent authorial intent.  The SW mythos is simply too expansive to regard the views of the individual and character opinion must be weighed against the rest of the lore and cold hard logic. Caedus being >> De Palpatine breaks too many facets of the lore to take seriously.  With someone like Plagueis, holding him in the highest regard is hardly contested by anything.  Which is why he is far more deserving of a top ten spot.  Like, he can actually defeat one Darth Malgus at the very least, which Jacen can not do.