Luke vs Ahsoka (canon only)

Round 1: 14 year old Ahsoka vs ESB Luke
Round 2: 17 year old Ahsoka vs RotJ Luke
Round 3: Rebels Ahsoka vs RotJ Luke
Round 4: prime Ahsoka vs prime Luke.
Explain your reasoning for all outcomes

Luke all rounds
Round 1: Luke is likely more powerfull based on the new post ESB comic, which take place very shortly after the fight with Vader. And while he was no match for Vader he showed decent skill with a lightsaber. Granted, Ahsoka did good against magnaguards but Luke still impress me more.
Round 2: ROTJ Luke is a match for Vader. Ahsoka gets stomped
Round 3: ROTJ Luke is a match for Vader while Ahsoka is his clear inferior.
Round 4: Prime Luke >Vader>Ahsoka

luke prolly all rounds tbh

1: Probably Luke, unless if Vader held back a lot more in Canon than he did in Legends.
2: RotJ Luke = RotJ Vader, he stomps.
3: Luke still wins.
4: Luke ragdolls.

R1: Luke. Ahsoka struggled against three magnaguards meanwhile Luke before his training with Yoda was able to contend with Sargent Kreel who casually beat similar magnaguards. After Luke’s training with Yoda, he would give Vader a run for his money and even surprise him a couple to times. Keep in mind Darth Vader is a seasoned Jedi killer so surprising him is no easy feat.
R2: toss up. Luke is stronger and faster but Ahsoka is vastly more skillful, experienced, and uses a form that Luke has never seen before.
R3: Ahsoka. She matched prime Vader meanwhile in Disney canon Luke was forced to hide from a hindered Vader (I still think EU Luke is equal to Vader as early as RotJ but this is canon) only beating him by catching him off guard with the Dark Side amp and pressing that advantage before he can regain his footing. Ahsoka held her own against prime Vader who wasn’t hindered at all while Ahsoka had no amps. Oh, and Ahsoka still uses a style Luke has never seen before
R4: IDK

@AlakanSpacewalker: Luke was hiding because he didn't want to fight and draw himself closer to the dark side, not because he couldn't fight. He was doing just fine defending against Vader prior to that.

A while back, I did an analysis of the RotJ duel in Canon, and I've updated it slightly. My main source for this is the novel Beware the Power of the Dark Side! Which, to my knowledge, is currently the only Canon novelization of the movie (the original novelization is considered part of Legends, it would seem). 

First, in the novel, we have Luke confronting Vader on Endor. When Vader first sees Luke, we get this little passage:

Vader could end all this right now. He could strike Luke down and be done—if not for his master’s orders. He certainly feels enough hate to do it. Of course, we know, reader, that Vader’s hate is not really hatred of Luke, but of his own past. But Vader has a fear of Luke, too. And fear and hate have long ruled this powerful Sith Lord.

So, we know Vader’s primary source of hatred, and thus, power, is self-hatred. And he feels enough of that hatred that he's tempted to outright kill Luke, were it not for Palpatine's orders. A bit later into the conversation, we have this bit:

But Luke isn’t going to be distracted.
“Come with me,” he says.
Now Vader truly understands why he has feared his son so much. Not because of his mastery of the Force or skill with a lightsaber. But because Luke can make him question the dark truths that have long ruled him.
Defensively, he recites these truths now . . . even as he begins to wonder if they really are true.

First, the quote does establish that Luke has “mastery of the force” and skill with a lightsaber, but those aren’t the reasons Vader fears him at this point. Vader fears him because Luke is able to make Vader question the decisions he’s made in the past. So yes, Luke is capable of making Vader feel conflicted. But if you continue reading, you find that when Vader draws upon the dark side, it allows him to close off "the questions, the memories, the hopes." Even when Vader is internally conflicted, there is no proof that it directly hinders him within the novel, especially since the novel gives us a scene which explicitly shows us he's capable of closing off those feelings when he's drawing on the dark side. 

“Search your feelings, Father. You can’t do this. I feel the conflict within you. Let go of your hate.”
Luke’s attack has at last reached into the great, dark, troubled mind of Anakin Skywalker. And to Vader it is far more painful than the lightsaber slash Luke scored in Cloud City.
But even this is not enough, Luke. Ah, they all tried to warn you; the dark side is strong. Vader uses it to close off the questions, the memories, the hopes. The dark truths are true again.
“It is too late for me, son. The Emperor will show you the true nature of the Force. He is your master now.”
Vader turns abruptly and signals two of his two stormtroopers to come take the prisoner.
The battle is over and Luke has lost.

Vader briefly questioned the dark side due to Luke’s offer on Endor, but he re-committed himself to the dark side and used it to close off the conflict. “The dark truths are true again.” Luke may have briefly gotten Vader to question his actions, but at the end of the confrontation, Vader is still committed to what he feels is truth: the dark side. This carries over to the duel, as I'll show below. 


Next, let’s look at the actual duel itself.

And now the two must fight again.
Blades whirl and clash and spark. Luke crouches low, ready to either dodge or lunge. Vader stands tall and simply pushes forward, driving Luke backward with powerful swings.
But now Luke spins and changes the flow of the attack, surprising Vader who is just a little too slow to turn. Luke rushes in to bring down a mighty two-handed blow. Vader blocks it, but finds himself thrown off balance by the intensity of it. He steps back, not realizing that Luke had driven him to the edge of the stairs.
He falls and Luke is preparing to leap down after him when he hears the Emperor behind him.
“Good. Use your aggressive feelings, boy. Let the hate flow through you.”
Again, the Emperor is telling the truth and Luke knows it. He has won, but only by using the dark side of the Force. The hate is flowing through him and he is winning this battle against his father because of it.
Luke looks down at this father, clambering to his feet at the foot of the stairs. He had told Obi-Wan he couldn’t kill his father . . . and yet he almost had.
He turns off his lightsaber and at the same time attempts to turn off the hate and anger.

The start of the fight is brief. Incredibly brief. Both in the movie and the novelization. Barely 8 seconds in the movie. Barely two paragraphs here. And Luke has shown a definitive edge over Vader by giving in to his anger. Even in similar situations where we’ve seen a character get a rage-amp (Obi-Wan vs. Maul, Anakin vs. Dooku), it still took some time for the amped character to win. Here, Luke wins the exchange in a matter of seconds. This implies amped Luke is well above RotJ Vader, who I’ve already established is still a dark side user and who draws his power from self-hatred, not hatred for Luke.


On top of this, after Luke explicitly “attempts to turn off the hate and anger,” we see Luke matching Vader in the movie, engaging in multiple blade locks and matching Vader in raw strength. On top of that, Luke even overpowers Vader in one of the lightsaber binds, immediately before leaping out of Vader’s reach. By the end of it, Vader’s normally slow, methodical breathing has hastened to short pants for breath. So RotJ Luke, explicitly not using the dark side, is still equal to, if not greater than Vader in terms of raw Force augmentation. He stonewalled Vader’s assault until Vader audibly tired, overpowered Vader in a lightsaber clash, and by the end, Luke didn’t even appear to be breathing heavily.


Then we have the end of the duel:

“Never!” screams Luke, launching himself out of the gloom, lightsaber blazing, fighting as he has never fought before.
He swings wildly, madly, using the dark side to move faster and strike harder. He has felt anger and hate before, but never this much fear . . . fear for his sister, Leia.
It is too much for Vader. He blocks attack after attack but is pushed back farther each time. Always fueled by hatred, he now gathers additional strength from fear . . . but it is not enough. Luke lands a blow on his arm, then one on his side.
The Sith Lord is forced backward until he reaches the bridge over the reactor shaft. Here he tries to strike back, but Luke knocks him down. He sprawls onto the bridge, lifting his lightsaber in a vain attempt to block whatever comes next. But Luke slashes with his saber, slicing Vader’s arm off. The metal limb tumbles down into the shaft, taking the lightsaber with it.

The bolded statement here makes it perfectly clear, Vader is “always fueled by hate,” which applies to the duel earlier as well. If he's fueled by hate, that means he's drawing on the dark side. Which, as previously established, allows him to block out his internal conflict. On top of that, as Luke was beating down Vader, Vader explicitly “gathers additional strength from fear,” but “it is not enough.” Therefore, rage-amped Luke is greater than hate- and fear-amped Vader. 

It's also inaccurate to say Luke was hiding from a hindered Vader. As I've demonstrated, there is no proof in Canon that Vader actually was hindered, and there's actually evidence to the contrary that implies Vader drew "additional strength" during the duel. On top of that, the reason Luke was hiding was because he was refusing to fight, since Luke knew fighting here was the path to the dark side. George Lucas elaborated on this in the 2003 RotJ Commentary. It's also not necessarily true to state Luke pressed his advantage before Vader could regain his footing, as the novel explicitly points out a segment where Vader attempted to strike back (which we also see in the movie), but Luke overpowers Vader when the Dark Lord tries. 

I haven’t even gotten into the number of statements which back up this viewpoint. Going through lines from Yoda, Ben, Sidious, and Vader in RotJ and comparing them to statements from ESB, you can clearly tell that almost every major Force sensitive character seems to be under the assumption that Luke is at least comparable to Vader, if not outright superior, by RotJ. 

Yoda in ESB tried to talk Luke out of facing Vader due to Luke not being ready, but now insists that Luke must go confront Vader. Yoda wouldn't send Luke on a suicide mission. He believes Luke to be one of the last hopes for the Jedi, and believes that everything depends on the Sith being stopped, as stated in ESB. Yoda would only send Luke to confront Vader if he believed Luke could kill the Dark Lord. Ben reinforces this when he tells Luke that, should Luke refuse to kill Vader, the Emperor has already won. Keep in mind, Ben is literally part of the Force right now. If any character in the franchise should be able to accurately tell us if Luke is powerful enough to kill Vader, it's Ben. What's more, both Ben and Yoda would want Luke to kill Vader without drawing on the dark side, as they've actively discouraged him from doing so up until this point. So they both believe base, light side Luke is greater than Vader. 

Sidious, in his first appearance on screen in RotJ, tells Vader that when Luke comes before Vader, the Dark Lord must bring the boy before the Emperor. Palpatine's reasoning? Luke has grown strong. Only together can they turn him to the dark side. Sidious believes Vader alone is insufficient to turn Luke to the dark side, and the reason he gives for this is explicitly Luke's strength. And finally, upon meeting Luke in RotJ, Vader acknowledges that Luke's skills are complete, and that Luke is indeed as powerful as the Emperor foresaw. In ESB, the Emperor explicitly foresaw Luke being powerful enough to threaten the Sith. "He could destroy us." 

That's four separate characters whose statements within the movies alone all point to the same conclusion. RotJ Luke is above Vader. Which is then demonstrated thrice in their duel. Luke, on the attack, quickly overwhelms Vader in eight seconds and sends him flying through the air with a kick, in the same manner in which Vader has ragdolled previous opponents like Ezra and Cere Junda with physical strikes. Luke, on the defense, stonewalls Vader until the Sith tires, yet Luke does not appear fatigued. Luke, when enraged, batters Vader into submission and slices off his hand. It's all narratively consistent, and all points toward one truth. Vader is inferior to Luke in Canon, arguably even more so than he was in Legends. 




TL;DR: So, in summary, RotJ Luke as a light sider has at least some parity to dark side RotJ Vader, if not outright superiority (as evidenced by Luke stonewalling Vader, Luke overpowering Vader in a blade lock, and Vader tiring himself against Luke's defenses while Luke shows virtually no signs of fatigue). Amped Luke is massively above Vader, even after Vader gathers "additional strength" from his fear, which implies Vader was operating above his normal ability. And Yoda, Ben Kenobi (who is literally part of the Force by this point, mind you), Sidious (the most powerful Sith ever with literal galactic-scale precise sensing feats in Canon), and Vader all have statements implying Luke's superiority as well. 


So, with all that said, I'd say Luke takes each round. The first is arguably the closest. But, as @AlakanSpacewalker already pointed out, Luke has often contended with Sergeant Kreel before the events of Empire Strikes Back. In two occassions, he held off Kreel in blade-to-blade combat until outside factors prevented the fights from reaching their natural conclusions (Vader's presence distracting Luke in the first, Luke deliberately baiting Kreel in the second), but we do have an example of Luke outright defeating Kreel on Crait. What's more, after Luke's roughly one month of training under Thane (who was taught everything he knew about combat by his Jedi mother), Thane is solidly of the opinion that Luke is Kreel's outright superior. As Thane put it, Luke would have thrashed Kreel if the duel had continued. 

This should put ESB Luke well above 14 year old Ahsoka, who had serious difficulty against three Magnaguards. Kreel has destroyed similar numbers of Magnaguards on Nar Shaddaa. On top of that, despite never being stated to be Force Sensitive, Kreel's reflexes are so well honed that he's able to reflect blaster fire, seemingly without the aid of the Force. ESB Luke's ability to "thrash" Kreel should put him well above Ahsoka's ability. 

For all the reasons stated above, I'd put RotJ Luke solidly above both 17 year old Ahsoka and Rebels Ahsoka. The duel with Rebels Ahsoka would be fun to watch, and she'd put up a great fight, but Luke's demonstration against Vader is just outright better than Ahsoka's. Ahsoka was stuck fighting a losing battle, left on the defensive for almost the entire duel. And twice during her confrontation with Vader, she was beaten (first when Vader Force pushed her off the temple, removing her from the encounter, and second when he nearly killed her before Ezra intervened with the World Between Worlds). On the flip side, Luke held the advantage against Vader during all three stages of their duel, even when he was willingly not attacking. 

As for prime versions of each character, I'd definitely say Luke takes it. Luke's potential is supposed to be comparable to Anakin's own. I don't see Ahsoka ever matching that, even if she continues to grow after Rebels. 



As an aside, this year’s main Star Wars comic focuses on the Rebellion post-ESB, which should give us a greater insight into RotJ-era Luke. Already, the comic has shown End-of-ESB Luke using TK to rip the controls from the grasps of at least 17 TIE pilots simultaneously, by my count, which is one of the best TK feats in Canon for pure control. I'm looking forward to future releases of this comic line, as it's sure to give us a great deal of awesome Luke feats to better scale the character to his Prequel and Sequel counterparts.

Underachiever599 wrote:The bolded statement here makes it perfectly clear, Vader is “always fueled by hate,” which applies to the duel earlier as well. If he's fueled by hate, that means he's drawing on the dark side. Which, as previously stablished, allows him to block out his internal conflict. [...]. As I've demonstrated, there is no proof in Canon that Vader actually was hindered, and there's actually evidence to the contrary that implies Vader drew "additional strength" during the duel.

I still fundamentally disagree with this point in your otherwise amazing post. Here's another Beware the Power of the Dark Side! excerpt which takes place right after the one you posted regarding the conversation on Endor:

Beware the Power of the Dark Side! wrote:The battle is over and Luke has lost.
“Then my father is truly dead,” he says as he is prodded toward the landing pad.
Yes, Luke did lose this battle, but once he has gone, we can see that Vader has lost something, too. He stares out at the trees, no longer so impatient for action.

That Vader was able to use the dark side (i.e. his negative emotions) to block out the conflict then doesn't mean that those dark emotions would always remain strong enough for Vader to do so. In fact, they didn't, since Luke sensed the conflict within Vader during the duel:

https://www.starwars.com/video/there-is-no-conflict[/mention] wrote:During their duel on the second Death Star, Luke feels the good in Vader and attempts to draw him back from the dark side by lowering his defenses.

This means there were cracks in Vader's surface of dark emotions through which Luke's senses were able to reach the good in Vader. Compassion for his son was weakening his hatred (eventually overcoming it later in the film). Even though Vader was still using the dark side to fight, he couldn't do it in full capacity. We do have indirect evidence of this, such as Kylo Ren being weakened by conflicted emotions:

https://www.starwars.com/databank/kylo-ren[/mention] wrote:Kylo faced his father inside the First Order’s Starkiller Base, and struck Han down with his lightsaber. But this shocking act of patricide didn’t make the former Ben Solo feel stronger – somehow he felt weaker.

The Force Awakens wrote:Stunned by his own action, Kylo Ren fell to his knees. Following through on the act ought to have made him stronger, a part of him believed. Instead, he found himself weakened.

The Last Jedi: Expanded Edition wrote:“Yes,” Snoke said. “There it is. You have too much of your father’s heart in you. Young Solo.”
Kylo’s eyes snapped to Snoke’s, burning with rage. “I killed Han Solo. I killed my… when the moment came I put my blade through him. I didn’t hesitate.”
“Petulance, not strength,” sneered Snoke. “And look at you. The deed split your spirit to the bone. You were unbalanced, bested by a girl who had never held a lightsaber. You failed.”

Luke should sweep, yeah.