How would Malak fair if written in the NJO?

Thought Experiment.  


I want you to divorce conceptions of scaling, quotes feats and picture how an author, if asked to write a revived Malak into an NJO series with him as the main Villain, how would he fair against the characters. 

Defeated by some prodigal knight
Defeated by a Katarn battlemaster
Defeated only by a careless Luke 
Defeated only by a non jobbing Luke

I would reckon he'd be defeated by a prodigal knight - or at-least that's how I would want him written. One of the solo children would have a rite of passage to complete, a journey to go, through with the culmination of it being the death of the Dark Lord Malak. Sometime previously in the series, a jobbing Luke would face Malak, and it would result in a draw between both the characters. Out of the solo children, I'd probably give the job to Anakin. 

@Ziggy: Great thread idea btw, holistic portrayal is often ignored in versus debating.

probably defeated by a katarn battlemaster or either a prodigal knight

A tertiary sexual revenge arc for Saba

prolly stomp everything since he is far more powerful than prime kun. him being far weaker than vitiate doesnt matter tho

He'd be written as the next big bad who can contend with Luke or given accolades suggesting he's a threat or comparable to him, like most NJO villains.

@BoD: I'm not sure that speaking holistically, Malak would be able to contend with Luke. Malak is only really the big bad when looking through the lenses of KOTOR 1. Even then, everyone acknowledges Vitiate as the Sith Emperor, capable of dominating both Revan and Malak. This is especially the case when Luke tends to job against opponents that were once his students (assuming Alek was also a Jedi in the NJO).

He'd be written to compete with a holding back Luke and would likely dispose of most of the NJO without issue tbh. The idea that Malak would lose to a prodigal knight given the way KOTOR portrays him is rather ridiculous ngl.

ScionOfSkywalker77 wrote:He'd be written to compete with a holding back Luke and would likely dispose of most of the NJO without issue tbh. The idea that Malak would lose to a prodigal knight given the way KOTOR portrays him is rather ridiculous ngl.

This 

And @EmperorCaedus Malak was only beaten as a dark jedi, he was noted to be far stronger as a sith lord, and he grew heavily after that

@Nute_Chethray: Yea ik, but Vitiate still seems far beyond Malak to be honest. Revan beat Malak 3 times over, and Vitiate is still superior to Revan even after he was reborn. Vitiate being the "big bad" in the NJO era seems like a better fit. 

I still hold that Malak would face jobbing Luke a couple times, Malak could even win against Luke towards the end of the novel, but Anakin would ultimately be the one who kills Malak with the same emotional weight as the end of KOTOR (Alek would still exist as previously a Jedi).

Vitiate being the big bad of TOR as a whole doesn't mean Malak would be written as sub-Anakin trash should he be featured in the NJO as an antagonist. Sure, he wouldn't push Luke to his limits or anything (Like Vitiate would if he was written into the NJO), but I have a hard time believing that he wouldn't defeat the Katarn's and Mara's of the world.

@ScionofSkywalker77: You would be assuming that Anakin would retain the same power level he does now. In this NJO book, he would grow a lot more powerful and skilled as the book progresses, probably being second to Luke in the NJO towards the end. Anakin and Malak's relationship would be emphasized a lot, in a similar way to Revan and Malak.

@ScionOfSkywalker77

The idea that Malak would lose to a prodigal knight given the way KOTOR portrays him is rather ridiculous ngl.

Except that's literally the point of KOTOR, he does lose to a prodigal knight. One with presumably less potential than the Solo's as well.

OT:

-He'd be written to lose to the era's prodigy, much in the same way he lost to Revan in KOTOR.
-He'd be written to hammer down NJO Battlemasters.
-He could probably give jobbing Luke a good fight.
-He'd be thrashed by an all out Luke.

@EmperorCaedus A fact you probably should have mentioned alongside your statement about who would be the one to defeat Malak. Your initial post gives a rather misleading presentation about how you view Malak due to the lack of the detail you later made note of.

@ScionofSkywalker77: Sure I didn't outright say it, but it still seemed heavily implied in my initial post. I stated that Anakin would go a "rite of passage to complete, a journey to go, through with the culmination of it being the death of the Dark Lord Malak." If Anakin didn't grow emotionally/power-wise throughout his rite of passage, that would defeat the purpose of the entire story lmao.

"Rite of passage" merely marks an important moment in an individual's life, it doesn't necessitate an increase in power, certainly not the sort of growth you're suggesting (Which would bump him up a couple tiers), but we're getting into needless squabbling regardless given you later clarified your intent.

Caedus brigade In-fighting. Goooooooood.

Your cringe feeds me

He'd died to infant Anakin Solo.

No clue, my dude. This type of holistic scaling or whatever is far too subjective and nebulous for it to yield much discussion other than "I think" or "To me it feels like" etc. It's all based on intuitive gut feelings and vague narrative tropes.

That being said, if I were to try to gauge Malak's level this way, he'd probably be tier 2 or 3. What I mean by that is that he's clearly powerful in his own right - he leads his own Sith Empire where all unquestionably bow down to him, and he's the final boss of KOTOR for a reason. However, when inserted into the greater context of his own era, he's clearly just a stepping stone for much more impressive and relevant beings, namely Revan and Vitiate. Vitiate is the true Dark Lord, the arch-villain, the clear Palpatine analogue. He's the guy who would take the place of the Reborn Emperor, Lord Nyax, UnuThul, Abeloth, and so on. He's the guy who would make the Jedi Grand Master struggle, not Malak. A level down from him is Revan, who'd not make Luke level but would be the perennial rival type - think of how some people perceive Caedus as being on Luke's tail but still losing every time, or Vol having "much the power of Skywalker" but probably still being substantially inferior in combat based on Abeloth fight comparisons, or Kyp Durron as he's depicted in some stories. Malak's still a notch below that, so he'd probably be the second fiddle to the true villain of the story when inserted into the NJO - the Sedriss to Sheev, the Brakiss to Kueller, the Lomi Plo to UnuThul, etc. He'd be a high-end character who wouldn't provide any trouble whatsoever to a serious Luke, but would be strong enough to give grief to just about any other hero in the era. That's my "holistic" take on him.

Depends entirely what time frame he's inserted in or what the writer knows. If this were 2003 and the person writing him were working with KOTOR writers then it'd be the exact same as Kun.

If this were 2013 and they were fully aware that TOR writers wrote their characters like Dragon Ball then he likely wouldn't anywhere near as impressive. Though writers do enjoy wanking Ancients and they aren't keen on the retarded scaling chains we use, nor might they even be aware. For example, could you see Ajunta Pall entering the Clone Wars and being thought of one-shot fodder for any of the main players if he were used? Very doubtful - they tried to make Revan and Bane push around The Son. A lot of writers seem to be under the impression due to the tropes in media that old = powerful. So just drawing names from a hat with little knowledge will yield a more impressive showing than a specially picked lower-end Sith from someone who understands where they fit in; even if the characters are the same.

Think of like Troy Denning vs KingofBlades.
Troy might be an actual Star Wars writer but he doesn't really care about power levels or where they fit in. If you give him an ancient Sith as the main enemy he'll wank him. Whereas KingofBlades might just be a middling forum poster, but due to knowledge that people shoved in his face he learned, he would be much more cognizant as to how this character would fit in power-wise and center his threat around that. Then he'd walk to the library and hammer out the worst Star Wars novel ever written, but it'd be written specifically with power levels in mind.

Mind you growing knowledge might also be why we stopped seeing specific Ancients make reappearances as well. With Kun he was tag-team written for his ending and beginning and he was specifically intended to be the best at the time. Then the pool became so large and muddied that picking from this pool would just create issues. You want the best, not someone AP creates a scaling chain around. They might have just looked at all the Sith later on and said no way.

And sometimes you have Marka Ragnos getting starched by a kid which would have never happened in the 90s; surprising it happened at all actually in 2003.

So yeah, back in 2003 he would be a huge threat to any era, not just NJO. Now? It's hard to say, but I'd wager more on him being beaten by a Knight/Katarn in a story without Luke at all if he appeared. He'd still be wanked of course by actual writers, just not enough to be the main guy anymore imo.