SS - Mace Windu (KnightfallVader / alex s) vs Darth Tyranus (Darth Dorin's Baneling)

Mace Windu vs Darth Tyranus

Standard LFL rules apply

To start off with, Dooku is considered Mace's superior in almost every comparison between the two.

First, to look at their duels.

Jedi Dooku has beaten Mace in their duels before, while nothing suggests that Mace has done the same.

Power of the Jedi Sourcebook wrote:Master Windu himself remained perfectly balanced and centered. In the history of the Jedi Order, only two opponents ever overcame him in battle. One was Master Yoda, who some said was the Order's true master of lightsaber combat. The other was former Master Dooku, whose own fighting style was archaic, yet stunningly effective.

Dooku then grew immensely when he became Darth Tyranus.

https://imsdb.com/scripts/Star-Wars-Attack-of-the-Clones.html[/mention] wrote:"I have spent the last ten years learning to use the power of the Dark Side. It gives me infinitely greater power."

Revenge of the Sith novel wrote:Once a great Jedi master, now an even greater Lord of the Sith, Dooku is a dark colossus bestriding the galaxy. Nemesis of the corrupt Republic, oriflamme of the principled Confederacy of Independent Systems, he is the very personification of shock and awe.

Attack of the Clones junior novelization wrote:He felt Dooku gathering power, and he bowed his head in shock and sorrow as he sensed the true source of the Count's increased ability.

On the other hand, while arguments can certainly be made for Mace's progression from TPM to RotS, the films and the material surrounding them don't stress his growth even remotely the same way that they do for Dooku. This is in line with the vast majority of known transitions from Jedi to Dark Jedi/Sith, from Tol Braga to Anakin Skywalker. The turn of a Jedi to the Dark Side almost always correlates with an otherwise unnatural increase in power.

Darth Tyranus's escalated power is reflected in their next fight on Boz Pity in Obsession #5.




Although their battle ultimately ends in a stalemate, Dooku definitely performed better. Not only did he shrug off Mace Windu's initial force wave, but in the ensuing duel, he managed to drive Dooku back towards the cliff. Considering Makashi's inherent lack of kinetic strength compared to the other forms, this is no mean feat.

Besides direct comparisons between the two, comparisons with other characters that they come into contact with during the war paint a very clear picture.

For example, let's take a look at General Grievous.

When Mace Windu engaged the good general in a duel during the Battle of Coruscant, it was an extremely close battle that ended in a stalemate, despite the fact that Grievous had to clamp onto the top of the train with both legs to avoid being blown off. Considering that Makashi, his most practiced form, is highly dependent on footwork, as well as mobility being an important part of lightsaber dueling in general, making Grievous's performance even more impressive. In the end Mace needed to cut off the duel before it got any more out of hand.

Labyrinth of Evil wrote:Without pausing, Grievous drew two lightsabers from inside his billowing cloak. By the time they were ignited, Mace was already on and all over the cyborg, batting away at the two blades, swinging low at Grievous's artificial legs, thrusting at his skeletal face.

The lightsabers thrummed and hissed, meeting one another in bursts of dazzling light. In a corner of Mace's mind he wondered to which Jedi Grievous's blades had belonged. Just as the Force was keeping Mace from being blown from the mag-lev's roof, magnetism of some sort was keeping the general fastened in place. For the cyborg, though, the coherence hindered as much as it helped, whereas Mace never remained in one place for very long. Again and again the three blades joined, in snarling attacks and parries.

As Mace already knew from Ki-Adi-Mundi and Shaak Ti, Grievous was well trained in the Jedi arts. He could recognize the hand of Dooku in the general's training and technique. His strikes were as forceful as any Mace had ever had to counter, and his speed was astonishing.

But he didn't know Vaapad-the technique of dark flirtation in which Mace excelled.

[...]

The loss of his confederates was noted by whatever computers were slaved to Grievous's organic brain, but the loss neither distracted nor slowed him. His sole setting was attack. Successful at analysing Mace's lightsaber style, those same computers suggested that Grievous alter his stance and posture, along with the angle of his parries, ripostes, and thrusts.

The result wasn't Vaapad, but it was close enough, and Mace wasn't interested in prolonging the contest any longer than necessary.

Crouching low, he angled the blade downward and slashed, guiding it through the roof of the car, perpendicular to Grievous's stalwart advance.

Grievous's superiority to Mace is further reinforced by Mace Windu's own dialogue in Battlefront: Elite Squadron, where he implores X2 for aid, stating that he isn't a match for Grievous on his own.



In contrast, Grievous, though capable of challenging Tyranus on occasion, has never once in all their many duels bested him.

Labyrinth of Evil wrote:Grievous had been a delight to train, as well. No need to coax him to release his anger and rage, as Dooku had been forced to do during the training of his so-called Dark Jedi disciples. The Geonosians had arranged for Grievous to be nothing but anger and rage. And as to the general's combat skills, few, if any, Jedi would be capable of defeating him. There had been moments during the extensive combat sessions when even Dooku had been hard-pressed to outduel the cyborg.

In the one spar between the two that we get to see onscreen/panel/page, Dooku is easily able to keep up with Grievous, despite the cyborg general employing several unpredictable and deadly moves that would have been impossible under the circumstances in which he dueled Windu, whilst simultaneously providing a running verbal critique of Grievous's style, before ending the duel by disarming him of one of his weapons.

Before the fact that Dooku taught Grievous is used as a counter to Dooku's worthier performances against Grievous, it should be noted that Dooku was a Makashi specialist, even well-known for only focusing on the one form, while in contrast Grievous was a practitioner of all the forms, and switched between them on a whim. Grievous was also a swordmaster from before his transformation into a cyborg, and he gained knowledge of other forms simply by fighting their users (for example, in the Windu fight shown earlier when he began to mimic Vaapad). So while Dooku started Grievous off by teaching Grievous the basics of Makashi, the majority of Grievous's methods would have been styled from his own combat experience, and so would be as alien to Dooku as they were to Mace.

Mace was unable to make significant progress in his duel against Grievous, despite Grievous being hindered by the conditions of the duel, and admitted inferiority to him. On the other hand, Dooku is undefeated against Grievous in all their many, many duels, and is only sometimes given difficulty in them. So this is one combatant that Dooku has a markedly better track record against.

Another is the Jedi Grand Master, Yoda.

As George Lucas stated, Yoda, although Tyranus's better as a lightsaber duelist, was his exact equal in terms of power.

George Lucas, Attack of the Clones Alternative Commentary wrote:”After Anakin is defeated, and Yoda comes, I took a completely different route with this swordfight. We had all this controversy about whether this was going to work, and could Yoda actually fight, you know a 2 foot frog fight a 6 foot 2 Sith Lord. And, I started out doing it fairly conservatively where he just came and fought, but that really didn’t work. And it was actually Ben Burtt and John Knoll and a bunch of the people in Editorial and ILM that were saying ‘oh you gotta make more out of this, you know, you gotta use Jedi powers, and you gotta, you can’t just go right into the swordfight’. So I decided to go back to The Empire Strikes Back of throwing things at eachother even though I knew they were equal to eachother so it was a hopeless gesture and they would’ve figured that out in two seconds, but for the audience it actually, it’s nice for them to go through this process of everybody throwing everything around.”

In the meantime, just about every comparison between Yoda and Mace Windu favors Yoda, more often than not by a hefty margin.

Nick Gilliard, fight choreographer for the Star Wars Prequels wrote:"We've not seen Mace fight yet, and we know that he's second only to Yoda."

Dark Rendezvous wrote:[Palpatine said] "But Master Yoda is a teacher at heart. You are a warrior. Regrettably, this sad age of the world may be your time more than his."
"Master Yoda is many things, and I am not his equal in peace or war," Mace said.

Samuel L Jackson wrote:"I'm like the second baddest Jedi in the universe..."

Even if Dooku hadn't left the Order to become a Sith Lord (a change which greatly increased his power), he would have been on par with Yoda.

Insider #113 wrote:Dooku was a unique case in the history of the Jedi Order. Universally respected, he would have been a Master on a par with Yoda had he not abandoned the Order to join its greatest enemies.

Then, when it comes to the dueling session, Yoda went all out on Dooku.

George Lucas and Rob Coleman, From Puppets to Pixels wrote:Rob Coleman: "In terms of his facial expression, where we are going with that, a little concern, some effort?"
George Lucas: "Little Demon..."
Rob Coleman: "So he becomes a little more of this evil.. gremlin."
George Lucas: "He has to go from this funny old man to this tough Sergio Leone killer, if Sergio Leone can do it with Henry Fonda we can do it with Yoda."

(Lucas compares Yoda's facial expressions to that of a killer)



(Yoda would have been willing to deliver the "final blow" if that wouldn't have required sacrificing Obi-Wan and Anakin)

The New Essential Chronology wrote:The count left Obi-Wan beaten and Anakin without his right-arm, and may have killed them both if not for Yoda, who arrived and launched a whirlwind attack. Dooku barely escaped with his life.

Yet Dooku held his own.

Christopher Lee, Revenge of the Sith Alternative Commentary wrote:”Always, always, always, surprise the audience, I have said that about films, do something they don’t expect. And I try to do that, that has actually been done for me in this film, because I’ve already fought Kenobi and Anakin, and beaten them, taken off Anakin’s arm and wounded Kenobi, so I’ve beaten both of them, and I wasn’t defeated by Yoda, close maybe but nobody could beat me, but that’s going to surprise the audience, there is someone that can beat me, who can finish me off, because he does, that will be a surprise, it will be unexpected and I think that’s a good thing because when they see me arrive, there is Kenobi and there is Anakin. They will think ‘uh oh, here we go again’ and I do quite a lot of damage to them, quite a lot.”

Star Wars Relaunched Fact Files #18 wrote:“Dooku battled his former tutor Yoda on Geonosis, then again on Vjun. On both occasions, Dooku fled before the outcome was clear.”

Star Wars Relaunched Fact Files #21 wrote:“Although neither opponent achieved a clear victory, the power Yoda wielded had begun to gain the upper hand against Dooku, forcing his retreat.”

So then we have Dooku being Yoda's equal in force power, and on par in terms of skill, with Mace being decisively below Yoda on both counts.

Not only is Tyranus almost invariably considered Mace's superior in direct comparisons between the two, but he has better performances and juxtapositions with other characters that he comes into contact with than Mace does. His greater power and skill are evident.

I am going to establish why and how Mace Windu is a better duelist and a more powerful force user than Darth Tyranus/ Count Dooku

To begin, I’d like to break down your point about Dooku being a better duelist than Mace.

Firstly, just because Dooku beat Mace in a spar doesn’t mean he is the better duelist, just as Plo Koon defeated Yoda in a spar, for which we know that Yoda is far better than him.

Dooku is also stated to be eclipsed by ‘Mace Windu and Yoda’ with a lightsaber’




This shows that Mace is the better duelist and perhaps even the best duelist of the clone wars era.

Note that none of Mace’s performances prior to RoTS are reflected in his full power. He has a restraint on him, including in his duel against the Count, which was a stale mate

Revenge of the Sith adult novelization wrote:‘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 though some poisonous
abscess had crested in both their hearts.
There was no Jedi restraint here.
Mace Windu was cutting loose.
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’

This shows Mace has a pretty hard Jedi restraint on, which is made evident from his seemingly poor showings, and now this is the only direct showing of Mace's full power as he is rivaling the power of Sidious, who is also going full out.



'unrestrained potency of the dark side'

George Lucas, The Making Of Revenge Of The Sith; page 204 wrote:"You have to be either Mace or Yoda to compete with the Emperor,"

Mace defeats Darth Sidious in single combat, whereas Dooku isn’t able to even compete with him and his force abilities are above the Count’s as he was only second to Yoda in The Clone Wars.

Star Wars: Clone Wars Ultimate Battle Sticker wrote:`Mace is a brilliant Jedi warrior whose abilities with the Force are surpassed only by Yoda. `

These Quotes confirm Mace > Hero of Umbara who demonstrated parity to Dooku when they stalemated in the Clone Wars Adventures Video Game, it also caps Mace above S1 Kenobi who is doing this to Dooku.



So thus meaning S2 Mace>S1 Kenobi>AoTC Yoda=Dooku



To tackle your point about Mace and Grevious having a Stalemate:


‘Grevious is much more deadly’ than Dooku.

This means that Grevious is more of a challenge in a duel and thus a harder opponent for Mace to face.



`“As a senior member of the Jedi Order, the power he wielded rivaled that of Supreme Chancellor Palpatine.” `
--Official Episode III Souvenir Movie Guide
 
This puts Mace on the same tier as Palpatine who is far above Dooku.
 
This is supported by Anakin destroying Dooku in RoTS
 

Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith adult novelization wrote:‘ When Count Dooku flies at him, blade flashing, Watto's fist cracks out from Anakin's childhood to knock the Sith Lord tumbling back.
 
When with all the power that the dark side can draw from throughout the universe, Dooku hurls a jagged fragment of the durasteel table, Shmi Skywalker's gentle murmur I knew you would come for me, Anakin smashes it aside.
 
His head has been filled with the smoke from his smothered heart for far too long; it has been the thunder that darkens his mind. On Aargonar, on Jabiim, in the Tusken camp on Tatooine, that smoke had clouded his mind, had blinded him and left him flailing in the dark, a mindless machine of slaughter; but here now, within this ship, this microscopic cell of life in the infinite sterile desert of space, his firewalls have opened so that the terror and the rage are out there, in the fight instead of in his head, and Anakin's mind is clear as a crystal bell.
 
In that pristine clarity, there is only one thing he must do.
 
Decide.
 
So he does.
 
He decides to win.
 
He decides that Dooku should lose the same hand he took. Decision is reality, here: his blade moves simultaneously with his will and blue fire vaporizes black Corellian nanosilk and disintegrates flesh and shears bone, and away falls a Sith Lord's lightsaber hand, trailing smoke that tastes of charred meat and burned hair. The hand falls with a bar of scarlet blaze still extending from its spastic death grip, and Anakin's heart sings for the fall of that red blade.
 
He reaches out and the Force catches it for him.
 
And then Anakin takes Dooku's other hand as well.
 
Dooku crumples to his knees, face blank, mouth slack, and his weapon whirs through the air to the victor's hand, and Anakin finds his vision of the future happening before his eyes: two blades at Count Dooku's throat. ‘

And Anakin is stated Palpatine's equal in RoTS
 

George Lucas wrote:
"From then on, he wasn't as strong as the Emperor - he was like Darth Maul or Count Dooku."

So coming to an overall conclusion, not only is Mace is the better duelist but he is the stronger force user by a large gap considering that Mace could rival Dooku’s Sith Master Palpatine who is equal to Anakin Skywalker. And we know that Anakin scales way above Dooku as he destroyed him in single combat. Other factors include Mace only being comparable to Yoda in force power during The Clone Wars and him being able to 'eclipse' Dooku's dueling abilities.

@KnightfallVader wrote:Firstly, just because Dooku beat Mace in a spar doesn’t mean he is the better duelist, just as Plo Koon defeated Yoda in a spar, for which we know that Yoda is far better than him.

There are major problems with this comparison.

First off, Yoda annihilated Plo Koon, Saesee Tiin and Depa Billaba all at once in a spar.

Darth Maul: Shadow Hunter wrote:Yoda had faced the assembled students and spoken, his thin reedy voice somehow carrying to the far corners of the lecture hall without benefit of amplifiers.

"Better than training, the Force is. More than experience or speed it gives."

And he had given a demonstration. Three members of the council-Plo Koon, Saesee Tiin, and Depa Billaba, excellent fighters all-had come forward and attacked him. Master Yoda had not been armed, and had not seemed to move more than a meter or so, his tread slow and measured. Nevertheless, none of the three had been able to lay a finger on him. The lesson had struck powerfully home: Knowledge of the Force was infinitely better than technique.

On the other hand, we have nothing suggesting that Mace ever defeated Dooku, let alone soundly stomped him.

Secondly, it was only ever a rumor that Plo Koon had beaten Yoda. Given their known performance against each other, and pretty much all scaling surrounding the two, it seems highly likely that that's all it was: a rumor.

Yet Mace Windu's defeat at the hands of Dooku is confirmed to have taken place. While this feat alone doesn't cement Dooku's superiority, it certainly suggests it.

Finally, you use this exact logic in your own post when you place Season 1 Kenobi above Dooku based on a single fight between them (another severely flawed scaling route that I will get to later in the post).

As far as the "only eclipsed" quote goes, that applies only to Jedi Dooku. "Eclipsed" is synonymous with "surpassed" or "exceeded", which could just as easily mean that, while Dooku was superior to Mace during his time as a Jedi, Mace later surpassed him (with a decade or so of additional experience). This still favors Tyranus, as his growth from that time was greater than Mace's, as he is consistently lauded as having grown "infinitely" from his time as a Jedi, while Mace has nothing of the sort.

The other quote only says that he is arguably the best duelist. That's hardly a concrete placement over Dooku.

@KnightfallVader wrote:Note that none of Mace’s performances prior to RoTS are reflected in his full power. He has a restraint on him, including in his duel against the Count, which was a stale mate

The quote you provided merely states that he had no restraint during his duel against Palpatine, not that it was the first time he had fought without restraint. He was certainly going all out in the battle on Boz Pity. Mace was willing to kill Dooku during their duel, hardly something "Jedi restraint" would come into play with.



If one pays attention to the dialogue during this confrontation, Mace makes his intent to end the war by attacking Dooku clear. Dooku repeatedly states that Mace's goal is to kill him, and Mace says nothing to contradict that.

KnightfallVader wrote:Mace defeats Darth Sidious in single combat, whereas Dooku isn’t able to even compete with him

On the contrary, though Mace did outduel Palpatine, once force powers came into play, he himself admitted that Palpatine was too powerful for him to handle, and begged Anakin for help.

Revenge of the Sith novelization wrote:Mace's blade bent so close to his face that he was choking on ozone. "Anakin, he's too strong for me--"

Besides this, Mace was only able to outduel the Sith Lord in the first place due to several extreme circumstances. Not only was he able to utilize Vaapad against Sidious in a way that would be impossible against any other opponent from the time, but he was also only able to find an opening in Palpatine's defenses with his Shatterpoint ability... an ability that he notes hardly ever helped him in combat situations (more often being used for less combat-oriented purposes, such as when he identified Anakin as the fulcrum that would decide the fate of the galaxy).

Revenge of the Sith novel wrote:Impasse.
Which might have gone on forever, if Vaapad were Mace's only gift.

On top of all this, special note is made of his motivations: of how he's not only fighting for his life, but for the Republic itself.

Revenge of the Sith novelization wrote: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.

As no note is made in any material of his use of Shatterpoint or any particularly deep connection to Vaapad during his duel against Tyranus on Boz Pity, we have no reason to believe that he could employ anything like that in this hypothetical battle. Hence, Mace is able to compete with Palpatine only because of a set of unique abilities and traits that allow him to fight people above his league (think Obi-Wan and pre-suit Vader), not because he's on the same level. Even with that beneficial skillset, he was still no match for Sidious when it came down to it.

@KnightfallVader wrote:Mace defeats Darth Sidious in single combat, whereas Dooku isn’t able to even compete with him and his force abilities are above the Count’s as he was only second to Yoda in The Clone Wars.

All three of the quotes you provided as evidence for this make special mention of them being Jedi, hence the comparison is within the Order. Darth Tyranus was not in the order anymore, hence he is not part of this comparison.

@KnightfallVader wrote:These Quotes confirm Mace > Hero of Umbara who demonstrated parity to Dooku when they stalemated in the Clone Wars Adventures Video Game

You didn't source the latter two quotes, so I can't verify for those two, but the first one at least does not apply to the Hero of Umbara, as the source in question was released in October of 2009, while Clone Wars Adventures wasn't released until September of 2010. If you could provide the release date for the sources of the other two quotes, that would be helpful.

In any case, the Hero of Umbara's existence is largely glossed over in other material, and as the Hero of Umbara defeated Mace Windu in the game without any circumstances of note. So that gives us a statement that might not have been made when the HoU was a character that wouldn't be likely to take the character into account, versus a direct comparison between the two that clearly favors HoU.

Besides, if Mace's (possible) supremacy quote overrides that, wouldn't this quote for Dooku override his own stalemate with  the Hero of Umbara invalid using the same logic, rendering the scaling useless?

Force Collection wrote:[Dooku's] skill with a lightsaber is matched only by Master Yoda.

As a bonus, it's yet another quote putting Dooku above Mace as a duelist. It's almost as if the writers are trying to tell us something.

KnightfallVader wrote:it also caps Mace above S1 Kenobi who is doing this to Dooku.

Kenobi had the help from squads of clones throughout their duel, blasting away at Dooku from the sidelines, and running up at the end to ensure Dooku's capture. On top of that, the constant listing of the ship under barrage from the Malevolence's cannons made for an unreliable battlefield, reducing the chances of an accurate reflection of the character's relative power. At the risk of sounding tongue in cheek, it gave Kenobi the high ground towards the end of the duel. Placing Season 1 Kenobi above Dooku because of that fight is nearly as flawed to placing Bastila Shan above Darth Revan because Malak's bombardment knocked Revan out but not her.

Either way, it's all but irrelevant, as by Season 6, Dooku was able to keep up with Obi-Wan and his superior, Anakin Skywalker, dispatching Kenobi himself with near contemptuous ease. This showing in line with him taking down Kenobi "so neatly" despite Anakin's aid in RotS.

@KnightfallVader wrote:‘Grevious is much more deadly’ than Dooku.

This means that Grevious is more of a challenge in a duel and thus a harder opponent for Mace to face.

A single statement saying Grievous is more deadly than Dooku doesn't override the many Dooku has over Grievous and the track record of their duels that shows Dooku as his vast superior in a dueling sense, just as that statement's assertion that Grievous is a droid doesn't override the many statements that he's a cyborg and the fact that we see his internal organs and eyes.

Not to mention, it's a walkthrough of the level, so its statements are from a gameplay perspective, not an in-universe one.

@KnightfallVader wrote:`“As a senior member of the Jedi Order, the power he wielded rivaled that of Supreme Chancellor Palpatine.” `
--Official Episode III Souvenir Movie Guide

This puts Mace on the same tier as Palpatine who is far above Dooku.

The double-emphasis on the rank of the two seems to imply political power more than force power. It also says "As a senior member of the Jedi Order," which implies that the same would hold true for other "senior members" of the Jedi Order. Would you maintain that Coleman Trebor was on par with Palpatine? Even Piell?

@KnightfallVader wrote:This is supported by Anakin destroying Dooku in RoTS

Once again all-important context is completely glossed over.

It is made clear that Anakin (at least at that point in time) was not capable of defeating Dooku under normal circumstances. He had to turn to the Dark Side for the additional power needed to hammer through Dooku's defenses, which, prior to that shift, were doing just fine holding off Anakin and Obi-Wan.

Revenge of the Sith novelization wrote:[Palpatine] ticked his fingers one by one. "I have kept the secret of your marriage all these years. The slaughter at the Tusken camp, you shared with me. I was there when you executed Count Dooku. And I know where you got the power to defeat him."

So Palpatine is above Mace, despite Mace having a massive amplification from Vaapad and his motives that would be inapplicable in this duel, as well as a stroke of luck with Shatterpoint. Yoda is also above Mace by a hefty margin.

In comparison, Palpatine's equal in Anakin needed a boost from the Dark Side to defeat Dooku, and Dooku was exactly equal to Yoda in the force and skilled enough to stalemate (albeit at a disadvantage) an all-out Yoda.

That about finishes it for the debunks. Now for another argument in favor of Dooku.

In Ventress's duel with Mace Windu mid way through the Clone Wars, she keeps up evenly with the Jedi Master, using only one blade. As a Jar'kai specialist, this is a severe hindrance, yet she makes do just fine.



[...]


This duel takes place on a flying mall directly above the Jedi Temple itself, which was an extremely potent Light Side Nexus.

Revenge of the Sith novelization wrote:The Jedi Temple was the greatest nexus of Force energy in the Republic; its ziggurat design focused the Force the way a lightsaber's gemstone focused its energy stream. With the thousands of Jedi and Padawans within it every day contemplating peace, seeking knowledge, and meditating on justice and surrender to the will of the Force, the Temple was a fountain of the light.

Ventress then grew from that point to the end of the war, at which point she is still below Grievous, who is in turn far below Dooku for the reasons already explored in this post and the previous one.

Yoda: Dark Rendezvous wrote:He had a meeting scheduled with the formidable General Grievous, who was even more powerful than Ventress, but a great deal less interesting as a dinner-table conversationalist.

Dooku is also able to shrug off her force wave, a pure expression of her hate and fear. This same wave sent Kenobi flying and propelled debris with enough force to decapitate a Magna Guard, speaking volumes about its power.




So this further strengthens Dooku's superiority to Mace. Dooku >> Ventress > Ventress with one blade ~ Mace Windu on a Light Side Nexus > Mace Windu.

Rebuttals

@\"Darth Durin's Baneling" wrote:‘Finally, you use this exact logic in your own post when you place Season 1 Kenobi above Dooku based on a single fight between them (another severely flawed scaling route that I will get to later in the post).’

 A friendly Temple spar is a lot different than an encounter with the leader of the opposing side of the war and circumstances are different so you can’t draw a comparison here. The point is Obiwan is showing some parity to Dooku during TCW and Mace is confirmed > Obiwan (during TCW) via many statements I have provided in my previous post.
 

@\"Darth Durin's Baneling" wrote:‘It is made clear that Anakin (at least at that point in time) was not capable of defeating Dooku under normal circumstances. He had to turn to the Dark Side for the additional power needed to hammer through Dooku's defenses, which, prior to that shift, were doing just fine holding off Anakin and Obi-Wan.’

 
While this is true, it does not make a difference as the statement I provided says that ‘from then on, he wasn’t as strong as the emperor’ meaning that in his prime he was = Sidious, and his prime was on Mustafar before he became conflicted. So KFV (primed Anakin) would do better against Dooku than he did before, thus making the gap between Dooku and Sidious even larger.
 

@\"Darth Durin's Baneling" wrote:‘The double-emphasis on the rank of the two seems to imply political power more than force power. It also says "As a senior member of the Jedi Order," which implies that the same would hold true for other "senior members" of the Jedi Order. Would you maintain that Coleman Trebor was on par with Palpatine? Even Piell?’

Why would it refer to political power, nobody is rivaling the supreme chancellor in political power, that quote is obviously referring to force power and no he is obviously referring to Mace and only Mace obviously not just members of the high council, it's all befitting with what Lucas says, ‘’you have to be Mace or Yoda to compete with the emperor’’, not "you have to be on the high council" to compete with the emperor.
 

@\"Darth Durin's Baneling" wrote:‘So Palpatine is above Mace, despite Mace having a massive amplification from Vaapad and his motives that would be inapplicable in this duel, as well as a stroke of luck with Shatterpoint. Yoda is also above Mace by a hefty margin’

Well, the burden of proof is on you, I can't prove a negative, you need to prove that he was amped because the default assumption is that one is not amped and also saying that yoda > mace by a large margin, with no proof whatsoever gets you nowhere in this argument.
 

@\"Darth Durin's Baneling" wrote:‘All three of the quotes you provided as evidence for this make special mention of them being Jedi, hence the comparison is within the Order. Darth Tyranus was not in the order anymore, hence he is not part of this comparison’

Star Wars: Clone Wars Ultimate Battle Sticker Book` wrote:Mace is a brilliant Jedi warrior whose abilities with the Force are surpassed only by Yoda.

It doesn’t mention anything about it only including Jedi, so one would assume it was talking about all Force Users, so as of The Clone Wars only Yoda has more force power than Mace so even Sidious is not as powerful at this point.

@\"Darth Durin's Baneling" wrote:In Ventress's duel with Mace Windu mid way through the Clone Wars, she keeps up evenly with the Jedi Master, using only one blade. As a Jar'kai specialist, this is a severe hindrance, yet she makes do just fine.

This further highlights the growth that Mace Windu experiences from their fight to RoTS and also how much weaker his restraint makes him, as we see it being let go in the office against the soon-to-be Emperor, where he defeats Sidious, who is above Dooku, as I have proved in my last post.

@\"Darth Durin's Baneling" wrote:A single statement saying Grievous is more deadly than Dooku doesn't override the many Dooku has over Grievous and the track record of their duels that shows Dooku as his vast superior in a dueling sense, just as that statement's assertion that Grievous is a droid doesn't override the many statements that he's a cyborg and the fact that we see his internal organs and eyes.
 

Not to mention, it's a walkthrough of the level, so its statements are from a gameplay perspective, not an in-universe one.

I’m not aware of any quotes saying Dooku is more deadly than grievous. Are you going to provide any or just deny it? You need to provide the quotes, so you haven’t disproven anything.

@\"Darth Durin's Baneling" wrote:‘’You didn't source the latter two quotes, so I can't verify for those two, but the first one at least does not apply to the Hero of Umbara, as the source in question was released in October of 2009, while Clone Wars Adventures wasn't released until September of 2010. If you could provide the release date for the sources of the other two quotes, that would be helpful.
 
In any case, the Hero of Umbara's existence is largely glossed over in other material, and as the Hero of Umbara defeated Mace Windu in the game without any circumstances of note. So that gives us a statement that might not have been made when the HoU was a character that wouldn't be likely to take the character into account, versus a direct comparison between the two that clearly favors HoU.
 
Besides, if Mace's (possible) supremacy quote overrides that, wouldn't this quote for Dooku override his own stalemate with  the Hero of Umbara invalid using the same logic, rendering the scaling useless?’’

 
Mace has a strong narrative intent argument in where he is constantly placed as the Jedi with the most proximity to Yoda

-- George Lucas, The Making Of Revenge Of The Sith; page 204 wrote: 
"You have to be either Mace or Yoda to compete with the Emperor,"

This quote is G-Canon so it can’t be bound by SL, meaning it doesn’t matter when HoU was made, and by saying ‘you have to be either mace or Yoda puts Mace > HoU as it is implied that the HoU can’t compete with the Emperor.

So Mace > Dooku

And like I’ve said before, HoU fights Count Dooku, ending in a stalemate. 
 

Star Wars: Adventures Game wrote: wrote:Stalemate! Count Dooku is battled to a standstill, but before the Sith Lord can be apprehended, Asajj Ventress intervenes! With the Dark Jedi covering her Master's retreat, your only option is to battle the dangerous assassin!

 So HoU = Dooku



 2010 Topps Star Wars: The Clone Wars- Rise of the Bounty Hunters - Foil Character #8 Mace Windu


Meaning S2 Mace > HoU = Dooku

---

Stat Comparison

As we can see from this Stat Comparison, Mace surpasses Dooku in almost everything, with some of their stats being equal


So to conclude, Mace has shown superiority in not just Duelling, but overall power, and this is supported through a number of statements including a G-Canon statement that caps Mace > Dooku.

@KnightfallVader wrote: A friendly Temple spar is a lot different than an encounter with the leader of the opposing side of the war and circumstances are different so you can’t draw a comparison here.

If there were anything to suggest that either would have been holding back from trying to win the duel, this might be a valid point. However, based on what we know of the two characters, the opposite holds to be true. We know that Mace enjoys the thrill of combat (as is made amply clear in both Shatterpoint and The Colossus of Destiny), and we also know that Dooku reveled in his superiority to others, even as a student (Yoda: Dark Rendezvous). It would be out of character for either to have held back in their spars.

Star Wars: The Clone Wars Lightsaber Duels wrote:"You [Mace Windu] were never able to defeat me at the Jedi Temple, and you won’t defeat me now.”

The fact that Mace never once outdueled Dooku in the several duels confirmed to have taken place shows solid superiority as a duelist on Dooku's part, as there are no limitations that would have applied to Mace that wouldn't have also restrained Dooku. Dooku then grew massively from then to his time as Darth Tyranus (as I pointed out in my previous posts), with no acknowledgement of similar growth from Mace.

@KnightfallVader wrote:The point is Obiwan is showing some parity to Dooku during TCW and Mace is confirmed > Obiwan (during TCW) via many statements I have provided in my previous post.

A single duel (that, I might add, canonically never took place, as the duel contradicts TCW Season 1 Episode 3, T-Canon material) with circumstances that heavily favored Kenobi in no way takes away from the fact that Dooku was able to take down Kenobi with ease at the end of the war.

On top of this, while Mace is above Kenobi, it isn't to all that great a degree. Kenobi was able to take down Grievous, while Mace himself admitted that he was incapable of accomplishing this, proving that they are so close that it comes down to mere style rather than power or skill. Hence, Mace may as well be equal to Kenobi.

Revenge of the Sith novelization wrote:“In fact, Obi-Wan, I believe that of all living Jedi, you have the best chance to defeat him."

…

"But surely, Master Windu," Obi-Wan had said, "you, with the power of Vaapad-or Yoda's mastery of Ataru-"

Mace Windu had almost smiled. "I created Vaapad to answer my weakness: it channels my own darkness into a weapon of the light. Master Yoda's Ataru is also an answer to weakness: the limitations of reach and mobility imposed by his stature and his age. But for you? What weakness does Soresu answer?"

Blinking, Obi-Wan had been forced to admit he'd never actually thought of it that way.

"That is so like you, Master Kenobi," the Korun Master had said, shaking his head. "I am called a great swordsman because I invented a lethal style; but who is greater, the creator of a killing form-or the master of the classic form?"

"I'm very flattered that you would consider me a master, but really-"

"Not a master. The master," Mace had said. "Be who you are, and Grievous will never defeat you."

Dooku >>> Kenobi ~< Windu

@KnightfallVader wrote:Why would it refer to political power,

The double emphasis on rank. "As a senior member of the Jedi Order" makes the comparison dependent on his position within the Jedi order, hence, political power. Again, unless you'd say that the same holds true for other senior members of the Jedi Order, which would include the likes of Piell and Trebor. Dooku was also a senior member of the order during his tenure as a Jedi, as he was a highly regarded Master who was himself offered a place on the High Council. So if it is personal power (as you've been arguing up to this point), would it not also benefit Dooku?

@KnightfallVader wrote:nobody is rivaling the supreme chancellor in political power,

Jedi had great influence over the galaxy. Each Senior member of the Jedi Council were also skilled negotiators. Trebor (who could settle disputes without ever pulling out the lightsaber) rivalling Palpatine in political power is certainly more logical than him being comparable in force power.

@KnightfallVader wrote:that quote is obviously referring to force power and no he is obviously referring to Mace and only Mace obviously not just members of the high council,

As a senior member of the Jedi Order. The members of the Jedi High Council are the most senior members of the Order.

If we know that:

a. members of the Jedi Council are senior members of the Order

b. Mace's "rivalry" with Palpatine in some form is dependent on his rank as a senior member of the Order

It then follows that the other members of the Council have the same rivalry with Palpatine.

Is that rivalry political or tangible? If it's political, then it's irrelevant to the debate. If it's tangible, then you're arguing that pretty mid-tier Jedi are on the same level as Palpatine as well as Mace, and it would also likely extend to Dooku. One is logical. The other is not. Neither helps your position in this debate.

@KnightfallVader wrote:it's all befitting with what Lucas says, ‘’you have to be Mace or Yoda to compete with the emperor’’, not "you have to be on the high council" to compete with the emperor.

So a G-Canon quote belies the possibility of the other Council Members being on par with Sidious, as that quote would suggest, conclusively showing that the "power" is something other than the tangible sort. Now we've narrowed it down to only one of the two arguments that lead nowhere in the discussion.

@KnightfallVader wrote:Well, the burden of proof is on you, I can't prove a negative, you need to prove that he was amped because the default assumption is that one is not amped

Gladly.

First of all, Mace's superior in Yoda was inferior to Palpatine, so there goes putting Mace above Palpatine to scale above Dooku.

Complete Star Wars Encyclopedia wrote:The two engaged in a spectacular duel- a contest between the most powerful practitioners of the Force's light and dark sides. The Emperor proved too powerful to defeat. Although Yoda held his own for much of the duel, in the end the Sith bested him. He realized that continuing to directly confront Palpatine would mean failure. Defeated, Yoda slunk away into the shadow's of the Senate chamber's cavernous depths, leaping into a waiting getaway speeder piloted by Bail Organa.

Revenge of the Sith novelization wrote:This truth: that he, the avatar of light, Supreme Master of the Jedi Order, the fiercest, most implacable, most devastatingly powerful foe the darkness had ever known...
just-
didn't-
have it.

So that already puts Mace conclusively below Sidious, meaning either the duel was a bit of a fluke, or there were some outside circumstances, rendering a "Mace>Palpatine>Dooku" scaling route invalid.

Now for proof he was amped, rather than simply lucky.

I already brought up the novel's emphasis on his mindset. He was fighting for his love, the Republic, and got extra strength because of that. His motivations already gave him an advantage in this duel that would be inapplicable to this hypothetical battle between him and Dooku.

Revenge of the Sith novelization wrote: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.

Next we need to look at how he fared before he doubled down on this emotional boost with Vaapad.

Revenge of the Sith novelization wrote:"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.

He kills Agen Kolar and Saesee Tiin before Mace could react, and was able to move across the room and destroy the computer console in the time it took Mace to move his lightsaber into a combat ready position. He was clearly moving much faster than Mace.

Speed correlates with power, as force users augment their physical abilities with the force. Hence, Palpatine moving faster than Mace is proof of Mace's lesser power.

This means that, as Mace wasn't speedblitzed, he received a boost in power that also increased his speed for the latter portion of the duel.

Now we just need to look at how Vaapad works.

With the aid of Vaapad, stacked on top of his beneficial mindset, he was able to channel Palpatine's dark side energy into a loop, which would have made for an endless stalemate in their duel if not for Mace's Shatterpoint ability.

@KnightfallVader wrote:[Windu] 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 of 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.

Which might have gone on forever, if Vaapad were Mace's only gift.

Shatterpoint doesn't even help him reliably against non force sensitives. It seems unlikely that it would against Dooku.


(Shatterpoint)

So Mace, after an already substantial boost from his irregularly intense motivation, was then able to channel Palpatine's dark side power to equalize the power difference between them. Hence, amped.

Now you might ask why he wouldn't be able to do the same thing against Dooku. The answer is simple. He was unable to do that against anyone he fought, except Palpatine, who is narratively the embodiment of the dark side. He is even referred to as "the Shadow" and such in the RotS novelization (the source that goes the most in-depth in the fight). Even when he went up against Dark Siders in Shatterpoint (also written by Stover, the author of the RotS novelization), such as Kar Vastor and Depa Billaba, he was unable to use Vaapad in the same way to make up the difference. On top of this, Dooku had 60+ years as a Jedi, so unlike Palpatine, he can duel Mace without using the Dark Side to nearly the same degree, thus negating Vaapad's already precarious advantage.

And again, he was already helped by the fact that he was fighting above his normal capacity due to the threat that Palpatine posed to the Republic.

On top of this, out of the Jedi, only Yoda is capable of challenging Dooku.

Star Wars Force Collection: Dooku [Dark Lord] wrote:After years of careful planning, misdirection, and manipulation, Dooku finally stands ready to bring his master's vision for an ordered galaxy and an end to the Clone Wars to fruition. Staging the kidnapping of the Supreme Chancellor, Dooku now moves to quickly dispatch the only remaining Jedi who can still oppose him.

So if Dooku can't challenge Palpatine, but Mace can, but Mace can't challenge Dooku, that means that Mace must either have been amped against Sidious, or severely disadvantaged against Dooku enough that he can't challenge him. Either way, Dooku stomps.

@KnightfallVader wrote:and also saying that yoda > mace by a large margin, with no proof whatsoever gets you nowhere in this argument.

I already provided three statements for you that place Yoda as Mace's superior. Hardly "no proof whatsoever." Here they are again:

Nick Gilliard, fight choreographer for the Star Wars Prequels wrote:"We've not seen Mace fight yet, and we know that he's second only to Yoda."

Dark Rendezvous wrote:[Palpatine said] "But Master Yoda is a teacher at heart. You are a warrior. Regrettably, this sad age of the world may be your time more than his."

"Master Yoda is many things, and I am not his equal in peace or war," Mace said.

Samuel L Jackson wrote:"I'm like the second baddest Jedi in the universe..."

Here are some more.

Jedi Quest: The False Peace wrote:That was why Mace was on the Jedi Council. That was why, except for Yoda, Obi-Wan thought him the most powerful Jedi he'd ever known.

Clone Wars Gambit: Siege wrote:As the most skilled and experienced Jedi Master in the Temple, Yoda could hide those inconvenient feelings from everyone who knew him, but they were there.

Fact Files wrote:Despite his diminutive size and frailty, Yoda’s incomparable ability to summon the power of the Force enabled him to greatly enhance his agility and speed.

As a bonus, here's a nice little admission from Mace himself.

Shatterpoint wrote:Mace opened himself to the Force. He could hear Yoda's voice: Size matters not--which, Mace had always privately considered, was more true for Yoda than it was for any of his students. Yoda would probably just reach out, lift the steamcrawler from the gully, and casually float it up the mountain to the outpost while croaking some enigmatic maxim about how Even a volcano is as nothing compared to the power of the Force... Mace was much less confident in his own raw power.

@KnightfallVader wrote:It doesn’t mention anything about it only including Jedi, so one would assume it was talking about all Force Users, so as of The Clone Wars only Yoda has more force power than Mace so even Sidious is not as powerful at this point.

Clone Wars Ultimate Battle Sticker wrote:Mace is a brilliant Jedi warrior whose abilities with the Force are surpassed only by Yoda.

2010 Topps Star Wars: The Clone Wars- Rise of the Bounty Hunters - Foil Character #8 Mace Windu wrote:Mace Windu is one of the most powerful and respected Jedi, second only to Yoda.

In terms of power and wisdom, Mace Windu is second only to Yoda in the Jedi Order.

Also, if these affected force users as a whole, that would be capping Wutzek and stuff below Mace, which is flawed for obvious reasons.

In any case, if these did affect Dooku, these are all contradicted by this Lucas quote that I posted at the beginning of the debate (as Dooku < Mace < Yoda in force power is incompatible with Mace < Yoda = Dooku in force power).

George Lucas, Attack of the Clones Alternative Commentary wrote:”After Anakin is defeated, and Yoda comes, I took a completely different route with this swordfight. We had all this controversy about whether this was going to work, and could Yoda actually fight, you know a 2 foot frog fight a 6 foot 2 Sith Lord. And, I started out doing it fairly conservatively where he just came and fought, but that really didn’t work. And it was actually Ben Burtt and John Knoll and a bunch of the people in Editorial and ILM that were saying ‘oh you gotta make more out of this, you know, you gotta use Jedi powers, and you gotta, you can’t just go right into the swordfight’. So I decided to go back to The Empire Strikes Back of throwing things at eachother even though I knew they were equal to eachother so it was a hopeless gesture and they would’ve figured that out in two seconds, but for the audience it actually, it’s nice for them to go through this process of everybody throwing everything around.”

Also, weren't you just asking for evidence of Yoda being Mace's superior? Really seems like you're trying to have your cake and eat it too with these quotes.

@KnightfallVader wrote:This further highlights the growth that Mace Windu experiences from their fight to RoTS and also how much weaker his restraint makes him, as we see it being let go in the office against the soon-to-be Emperor, where he defeats Sidious, who is above Dooku, as I have proved in my last post.

So we're just going to gloss over the fact that the quote you used as "evidence" of Mace using restraint in all previous fights doesn't even say that, it only says that he didn't have restraint against Palpatine?

Revenge of the Sith novelization wrote:
There was no Jedi restraint here.
Mace Windu was cutting loose.

And we're also going to ignore the fact that the writers of Obsession made it clear that Mace intended to kill Dooku on Boz Pity?



Because I brought both these points up in previous posts. In order for the debate to work, you need to either concede these points, or elaborate on why this actually works okay with Mace using restraint in all prior battles, or give a better reason for why it does. Brushing it off to the side and continuing along while still incorporating the disputed reasoning in your paradigm is counterproductive.

Mace Windu regretted the fact that he didn't decapitate Dooku on the spot at the cost of his own life every single day of the Clone War. Do you mean to tell me that Mace wouldn't try his hardest against Dooku the next time they fought? With the dialogue exchanged in the comic itself staring in your face?

Shatterpoint wrote:FROM THE PRIVATE JOURNALS OF MACE WINDU
[...]
But I do it right.
My blade doesn't light the underside of Jango Fett's square jaw. I don't waste time with words. I don't hesitate.
I believe.
In my dreams, the purple flare of my blade sizzles the gray hairs of Dooku's beard, and in the critical semisecond it takes Jango Fett to aim and fire, I twitch that blade and take Dooku with me into death.

I'm not buying the idea that the office duel was the first time Mace fought without restraint, especially without any evidence to actually support that claim. It goes entirely against the thematic focus of Stover's other novel.  

Regardless, even if we ignore all the evidence to the contrary and treat non-evidence as evidence, isn't in-character the default for this matches? Why would Mace exercise restraint on Boz Pity but not in this hypothetical battle?

@KnightfallVader wrote:I’m not aware of any quotes saying Dooku is more deadly than grievous. Are you going to provide any or just deny it? You need to provide the quotes, so you haven’t disproven anything.

Again, it's from a gameplay perspective.

But if you want a statement to put Dooku above Grievous (kind of a funny request tbh), here you go.



Now I'll do you one better. How about a statement putting Dooku above Grievous and his entire army by a large margin?



Palpatine knew (meaning that he was correct in this) that Grievous and his entire army couldn't possibly withstand Anakin, yet he holds Dooku on par with Anakin (as Dooku's teacher for 10+ years and Anakin's father figure who spent a lot of time analyzing his capabilities, that's about as reliable an assessment as we can get).

@KnightfallVader wrote:Mace has a strong narrative intent argument in where he is constantly placed as the Jedi with the most proximity to Yoda

A narrative intent that was held at a time when HoU didn't exist, or by people who almost certainly don't know he does exist. If you can find a source that continues to espouse this same intent and also acknowledges HoU's existence, this argument might hold water.

@KnightfallVader wrote:This quote is G-Canon so it can’t be bound by SL, meaning it doesn’t matter when HoU was made, and by saying ‘you have to be either mace or Yoda puts Mace > HoU as it is implied that the HoU can’t compete with the Emperor.

Your entire argument is now essentially tied on that one comparison with a character, one that Mace has a very specific advantage against that I already described. On top of that, you left out the context surrounding the quote.



First of all, if you let George Lucas finish his statement, he lists Anakin as among those who could keep up with Palpatine. The very same Anakin who, as I proved earlier, needed the dark side to defeat Dooku (you already agreed to this).



Hence, Dooku breaks from this statement regardless of its other implications under your rules (and, man, what implications they are).

In context, with it talking about the B-team and their inability to keep up with Palpatine, it's clear that it's talking about those who would fight Palpatine, so modern day Jedi, not characters in general. So it shouldn't apply to Tyranus at all.

If we're going by your assertions that it needs to directly state that it's only referring to Jedi and that OOU timeline is unimportant in regards to Lucasfilm policy (you insist on both in the Windu/HoU comparisons), then that also locks the Father of Shadows, Wutzek, Tilotny, Horliss Horliss, Splendid Ap, Cold Danda Sine, Typhojem, Valkorion, Krayt, Caedus, Revan, Onimi, Abeloth, the Ones, etc, etc, etc, under those three.

Will you defend...

1. Palpatine
2. Windu
3. Yoda

...as your top three list of Star Wars characters in general? If not, then you need to reevaluate a lot of the positions that you've taken over the course of this debate. If this is indeed your top three list, I'll just say I look forward to the conclusions.

@KnightfallVader wrote:As we can see from this Stat Comparison, Mace surpasses Dooku in almost everything, with some of their stats being equal

Stats are S-Canon, and as such they take a backseat to C-Canon and above, in which I showed that Dooku is far and away Mace's better.

On top of this, a single stat comparison far from proves Mace's overarching "superiority". Some stats, such as Head to Head Tag Teams, favor Dooku far over Windu.



Pablo Hidalgo is credited as the author.

@KnightfallVader wrote:So to conclude, Mace has shown superiority in not just Duelling,

Far from it.

@KnightfallVader wrote:but overall power

Not even close.

@KnightfallVader wrote:and this is supported through a number of statements

And contradicted by a greater number of statements and pretty much every showing.

@KnightfallVader wrote:including a G-Canon statement that caps Mace > Dooku.

It caps Dooku to the same degree that it caps literally everybody else in the verse including nigh-omniscient force entities.

To close out, I have three more arguments for Mace's inferiority to Dooku.

First, Dooku's better feats of raw force power.



(arguably the best AoE TK feat in the TCW medium)

Jedi Quest: The Final Showdown wrote:They moved farther into the darkness.

"Keep your focus loose," Obi-Wan warned him in a low tone. "He will come from anywhere when he comes."

"This time I'll be prepared."

"Don't be so confident," Obi-Wan answered. "You probably won't be."

They were nearing the end of the hangar. He sensed it rather than saw it. The corroded vehicles were more numerous now, lined up like dark, giant phantoms.

Like phantoms..

Phantoms that move...

Obi-Wan wrenched his gaze away. He could have sworn the ancient ships were moving.

Then he knew.

"This way!" he yelled, as the first vehicle suddenly flipped over. It would have crushed them if Obi-Wan hadn't dashed to the side with Anakin on his heels. He flattened himself against the wall as another vehicle moved, its jagged wing a lethal weapon, capable of slicing them to ribbons. A cruiser suddenly zoomed toward the wall, straight at them.

"Drop!" Anakin and Obi-Wan hit the floor, hugging the stones as the cruiser passed over them and smashed into the wall.

Vehicle parts began to fall like rain. The crashes were deafening. They leaped, twisted, and dived to avoid them, using the Force to deflect them when they could. Finally they came to rest in the shadow of one of the giant statues. Obi-Wan leaned against a clawed foot and squinted into the darkness.

He could not see the Sith, but he felt the Sith's amusement, his triumph.

The vehicles now smashed into one another, creating a solid mass of screaming metal, effectively blocking them from the front of the hangar.

Anakin ran to the mountain of metal and tried to climb over it. Obi-Wan felt the dark side rise in a crest and then fall, leaving a vacuum behind.

"It's no use," he told Anakin. "The Sith is gone."

(For reference, cruisers are at least 400 meters long. Dooku threw one along with a small fleet of smaller vessels. It easily beats out any TK feat of Mace's.)

Second, Dooku's force sense/TP advantage.

Mace can't sense the intentions of untrained force sensitives.

Shatterpoint wrote:Though he couldn't say for certain that it would be any more chancy than spending more time with these young Korunnai. They worried him; they had enough Force-touch to be unpredictable, and enough savagery to be dangerously powerful. And then there was Nick, who was at best marginally sane.

Plo Koon can sense Mace's every move before he makes it.

The Clone Wars: Lightsaber Duels wrote:“You may be able to sense my moves, but I’m still too fast for you.”

-Mace Windu to Plo Koon

Mace's inferiority to Plo as a telepath is further solidified when Plo is selected to restore Aayla's lost memories when Mace was also onboard the ship.


(Republic #36)

In contrast, Dooku's mind was unknowable to Yoda, Mace's superior, due to his power in telepathy.


(The Complete Visual Dictionary)

So Mace would be an open book to Dooku. According to Path of Destruction, precognition and force sense are vitally important to a duel. Dooku having such a distinct advantage there would further tip it into his territory.

Finally, Mace's inferiority to Anakin as of the beginning of Revenge of the Sith, who you agreed was below Dooku under normal circumstances.

Revenge of the Sith novelization wrote:This is Anakin Skywalker:

The most powerful Jedi of his generation. Perhaps of any generation. The fastest. The strongest. An unbeatable pilot. An unstoppable warrior. On the ground, in the air or sea or space, there is no one even close. He has not just power, not just skill, but dash: that rare, invaluable combination of boldness and grace.

He is the best there is at what he does. The best there has ever been. And he knows it.

And to close out, some superiority statements.

Yoda: Dark Rendezvous wrote:"Mm. Thinking of students, I am. Best then I should go to battle with him in whom the Force is strongest, hmm? With young Skywalker; think you?"

"He's not polished," Ilena said.

"And too impulsive," Mace added.

"Hm." Yoda stirred again with his stick. "Then best of all would be the strongest student, yes? Wisest? Most learned in the ways of the Force?" He nodded. "Best of all, Dooku would be!"

His eyes found the other Jedi, one by one: and one by one, they looked away.

Star Wars Insider Magazine #113 wrote:In adolescence Dooku became the Padawan learner of Thame Cerulian, a Jedi scholar on the Council who called Dooku the finest swordsman he had ever seen.

Star Wars: Force Collection: Count Dooku wrote:A former Jedi Master, Dooku’s fall to the Dark Side happened after he had left the Jedi Order. His skill with a lightsaber is matched only by Master Yoda.

Star Wars: Bounty Hunter Manual wrote:As the prized pupil of Yoda, many believed that Dooku’s knowledge of the Force was second only to his Master.

Star Wars: The Official Figurine Collection #3 wrote:Dark side powers enabled Sith Lord Darth Tyranus to manipulate the Force at will, hurling objects or casting devastating energy bolts. Only a Jedi Master as powerful as Yoda could survive such an attack.

Yoda: Dark Rendezvous wrote:On the other side of the galaxy, the Order's most gifted apprentice reached out to tap a lightsaber with the toe of his boot. Count Dooku grimaced.

Dooku is better at everything.

I feel sad for you man because it’s just such a shame that Dooku just isn’t equal to Yoda, which from what I’m seeing is the sole foundation of your argument. Now my friend, watch and learn from your superior
 
So the  reason that you hold Yoda and Dooku as equals is based upon the George Lucas quote below:
 

George Lucas, Attack of the Clones Alternative Commentary wrote: wrote:
”After Anakin is defeated, and Yoda comes, I took a completely different route with this swordfight. We had all this controversy about whether this was going to work, and could Yoda actually fight, you know a 2 foot frog fight a 6 foot 2 Sith Lord. And, I started out doing it fairly conservatively where he just came and fought, but that really didn’t work. And it was actually Ben Burtt and John Knoll and a bunch of the people in Editorial and ILM that were saying ‘oh you gotta make more out of this, you know, you gotta use Jedi powers, and you gotta, you can’t just go right into the swordfight’. So I decided to go back to The Empire Strikes Back of throwing things at each other even though I knew they were equal to eachother so it was a hopeless gesture and they would’ve figured that out in two seconds, but for the audience it actually, it’s nice for them to go through this process of everybody throwing everything around.”

 
And as you can tell it was from Attack of the Clones, so its validity upon their prime versions, which i assume that you can agree are in Revenge of the Sith, isn’t there. In fact it just isn’t a sufficient argument for you to be making such big reaches like that. So let’s take a different route to make a comparison between these two lovely chaps.
 
 
Firstly I’ll establish Anakin's vast superiority to Dooku or as I like to call him, ‘Sub Windu’. 
 
 
Anakin is much more powerful than Dooku.

Source: Revenge of the Sith wrote: 
"Soon, I shall have a new apprentice. One far younger and more powerful."

Source: The Complete Star Wars Encyclopedia wrote: 
Sidious then turned his attention to Anakin Skywalker, knowing that young Skywalker was much stronger in the Force than Tyranus.

Source: Dark Lord: The Rise of Darth Vader wrote:Sidious bared his teeth, but only briefly. "Darth Tyranus knew what he risked, Lord Vader. If he had been stronger in the dark side, you would be dead, and he would be my right hand."

 

Source: Battle Arena: Federation Cruiser wrote:Re-live the incredible battle between two of the most powerful Jedi of all - as they fight to the finish on a Trade Federation Cruiser! Only the strongest Jedi remains—will it be the light side or the dark side of the Force?

I know what your thinking man, ‘Wow so many quotes’, well bro I’ve got another, just for you.
 

Source: Revenge of the Sith Incredible Cross-Sections wrote:Sidious is merely playing for time until he is ready to replace Tyranus with a new, more powerful apprentice, who will help him to achieve his ultimate aim: utter subjugation of the galaxy under Sith rule and the formation of a merciless new order — the Galactic Empire.

 
Oh and yes I forgot to mention, this is BoRoTS Anakin, so his powers aren’t even near to his prime form on Mustafar, you know when he has yellow eyes while slaughtering the last of Dooku’s separatists.
 
 
Some representation of Skywalkers growth throughout RoTS:
 

Revenge of the Sith Novelization wrote: wrote:Anakin had never felt so powerful. The Force was with him today in ways more potent than he had ever experienced

Revenge of the Sith Novelization wrote: wrote:If anyone can save Palpatine, Anakin will. Because he's already the best, and he's still getting better.
 

Mace Windu | Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith adult novelization wrote: wrote:
Skywalker is arguably the most powerful Jedi alive, and he is still getting stronger."

Source: Revenge of the Sith wrote:You have done well, my new apprentice. Do you feel your power growing?"
"Yes, my Master."

Source: Revenge of the Sith wrote:He could feel his power growing, indeed. He had the measure of his “Master” already; not long after Palpatine shared the secret of Darth Plagueis’s discovery, their relationship would undergo a sudden … transformation.

 
Anakin just keeps growing, his potency is just so immense and after he turns to dark-side his powers are more than just far beyond Dooku’s, they are at the level where Anakin could potentially one-shot him. But enough on that, I don’t want to bore you, so I shall continue my point.
 
 
Okay so now Anakin has been established as infinitely more powerful than Dooku(sub windu). I would like to show that Anakin is ~ to Palpatine.
 
Here we have George Lucas saying Anakin's power is equal to the Emperors and saying that after his injuries he is comparable to Dooku or Maul. So this quote is not good for Dooku man, in fact, it’s terrible for him, being compared to Maul and Suit Vader is not something that happens to someone who is equal to Mace Windu lol.
 

George Lucas wrote:"From then on, he wasn't as strong as the Emperor – he was like Darth Maul or Count Dooku. He wasn't what he was supposed to become. But the son could become that."

 
Anakin is so potent that Palpatine even believes him to be more powerful than himself
 

Source: Revenge of the Sith wrote:"He is powerful. Potentially more powerful than even myself."

 
And Yoda is also considered to by many sources to be ~ or just sub Palpatine, as they demonstrate much parity.
 
Yoda's knowledge of the Force made him just as powerful as Darth Sidious:
 

—Star Wars: Mysteries of the Jedi wrote:Yoda's knowledge of the Force makes him just as powerful as Darth Sidious.

—Hasbro: Yoda action figure wrote:On Coruscant, Yoda and the Emperor meet in the ultimate confrontation between the galaxy's most powerful masters of the Force.

—Complete Star Wars Encyclopedia wrote:
Inside the spacious interior of the Galactic Senate chamber, Yoda challenged the Emperor. The two engaged in a spectacular duel—a contest between the most powerful practitioners of the Force’s light and dark sides.

 
So now we come to the conclusion that Dooku<<~Yoda not Yoda=Dooku lol, this begs to ask the question, where does mace fit? Well my friend I shall show you. But before I show you that, I would like to look back to season 6 of TCW where Yoda receives a buff where the scaling chain looks something like this, Sidious~Yoda>Anakin>>Dooku, and correct me if I’m wrong but I believe that Dooku has no growth quotes or even any implications of growth between S6 and RoTS.
 
‘We have failed to break Master Yoda, he is strong, we will need more time if WE are to defeat him’
Source: The Clone Wars TV Show
 
Oh well actually after reading this T-Canon quote,  the implication is made clear. Yoda during season 6 of The Clone Wars is more powerful than Darth Sidious who is vastly more powerful than Darth Tyranus. To make this clearer, I have provided a Filoni quote below:

Dave Filoni wrote:'Anakin was defeated and Yoda has too kinda come and save the day'

 
I think I’ve proven my point then, so onto Mace.
 
He is stated in this to be only below Yoda
 
 

The implication here is that Yoda and Mace are above early RoTS Anakin, who is beyond Dooku.
Also note that this was released in 2013, so unless you have a newer quote contradicting this or a G-Canon quote contradicting this then I take it that you can agree with me here. Wait no, you can’t agree with me here, otherwise then you would accept the inherent truth which is Mace > Dooku.
 
Debunks
 

@DarthDurin'sBaneling wrote:‘’The double emphasis on rank. "As a senior member of the Jedi Order" makes the comparison dependent on his position within the Jedi order, hence, political power. Again, unless you'd say that the same holds true for other senior members of the Jedi Order, which would include the likes of Piell and Trebor. Dooku was also a senior member of the order during his tenure as a Jedi, as he was a highly regarded Master who was himself offered a place on the High Council. So if it is personal power (as you've been arguing up to this point), would it not also benefit Dooku?’’

I can’t help but notice you keep bringing up political power for this quote, you do realize that Palpatine is the supreme chancellor, I don’t know about you but it seems silly to me to assume that Mace Rivals the Supreme Chancellor of the Galactic Republic in political power.
 

@DarthDurin'sBaneling wrote:‘’Jedi had great influence over the galaxy. Each Senior member of the Jedi Council were also skilled negotiators. Trebor (who could settle disputes without ever pulling out the lightsaber) rivalling Palpatine in political power is certainly more logical than him being comparable in force power.’’

 
You must be joking, Mace has multiple other quotes putting him on the level or at-least near Palpatines in power whereas he has none labelling his ‘political power’ as near to Palpatines, in fact no one does, do you want to guess why, actually you know what? I’ll be nice and tell it to you for you. It’s because, as i’ve repeated before, NO ONE RIVALS THE SUPREME CHANCELLOR IN POWER. I thought i’d write it in caps so that you don’t accidentally try and shy away from that fact.
 

@DarthDurin'sBaneling wrote:‘’So a G-Canon quote belies the possibility of the other Council Members being on par with Sidious, as that quote would suggest, conclusively showing that the "power" is something other than the tangible sort. Now we've narrowed it down to only one of the two arguments that lead nowhere in the discussion.’’

 
I expected better of you man, the quote is clearly referring to only Mace and Yoda, as it says ‘you have to be’ and to solidify this even further, the rest of the quote says that Anakin would have beaten Sidious if it were not for his injuries, and Anakin was on the Council so why didn’t he include Lightside Anakin or even Obi Wan when he was making this statement, well the answer is because, ‘You have to be either Mace or Yoda’.
 
 

@DarthDurin'sBaneling wrote:‘’So that already puts Mace conclusively below Sidious, meaning either the duel was a bit of a fluke, or there were some outside circumstances, rendering a "Mace>Palpatine>Dooku" scaling route invalid.’’

 
Would you mind telling me where I said that Mace is more powerful than Palpatine? At this point, I think your just making stuff up in order to gain the upper hand, which my friend is not yours. Rather it is mine.
 

@DarthDurin'sBaneling wrote:‘’Next we need to look at how he fared before he doubled down on this emotional boost with Vaapad.’’

 
The superconducting loop he enters is an amp, but not Vaapad itself. If you wanna take away amps by your logic then you just take away Mace’s fighting style, So if Mace can’t use Vaapad then Dooku can’t use Makashi. 
 

@DarthDurin'sBaneling wrote:‘’With the aid of Vaapad, stacked on top of his beneficial mindset, he was able to channel Palpatine's dark side energy into a loop, which would have made for an endless stalemate in their duel if not for Mace's Shatterpoint ability.’’

 
The state he enters when he gets deep into Vaapad technically amplifies his power becuase he feeds of Palpatines but that is besides the point my friend. The point is that even without the Amp of the superconducting loop, Mace shows parity with Sidious, something Dooku just couldn’t do.
 

@DarthDurin'sBaneling wrote:‘’Also, weren't you just asking for evidence of Yoda being Mace's superior? Really seems like you're trying to have your cake and eat it too with these quotes’’

No, I asked for evidence of why you said Yoda is FAR more powerful than Mace. What a surprise it is that you’re making stuff up again!
 

@DarthDurin'sBaneling wrote:‘’In context, with it talking about the B-team and their inability to keep up with Palpatine, it's clear that it's talking about those who would fight Palpatine, so modern day Jedi, not characters in general. So it shouldn't apply to Tyranus at all.
 
If we're going by your assertions that it needs to directly state that it's only referring to Jedi and that OOU timeline is unimportant in regards to Lucasfilm policy (you insist on both in the Windu/HoU comparisons), then that also locks the Father of Shadows, Wutzek, Tilotny, Horliss Horliss, Splendid Ap, Cold Danda Sine, Typhojem, Valkorion, Krayt, Caedus, Revan, Onimi, Abeloth, the Ones, etc, etc, etc, under those three.
 
Will you defend...
 
1. Palpatine
2. Windu
3. Yoda
 
...as your top three list of Star Wars characters in general? If not, then you need to reevaluate a lot of the positions that you've taken over the course of this debate. If this is indeed your top three list, I'll just say I look forward to the conclusions.’’

It does sure seem like you are taking a bad faith approach here, the appeal is that Mace is second to Yoda

 

@DarthDurin'sBaneling wrote:‘’Stats are S-Canon, and as such they take a backseat to C-Canon and above, in which I showed that Dooku is far and away Mace's better.’’
 
On top of this, a single stat comparison far from proves Mace's overarching "superiority". Some stats, such as Head to Head Tag Teams, favor Dooku far over Windu.

Yeah we have both provided cases for our characters, mine is simply backed by S-Canon while yours is not

Wizards of the Coast wrote:
Game mechanics are designed to try to match continuity to fit the purposes of the game for which they were created. They can serve to provide a scale from which to compare how one character or piece of technology stacks up against another. Because RPGs use dice, there is always the element of random chance involved, which isn't quite applicable to a book. But stats themselves aren't created randomly; they are based on what is already known. As such, we can always look to them as a basis when writing books. I often look to RPG stats to see for example, what type of Force powers a character may have. Or if we haven't determined the stats of a particular vehicle, we can look to RPG stats for a basis of comparison. Conversely, I think it would be a determinent if books were artificially limited by game stats. So I would agree that a book is going to overrule a stat if there is a contradiction. -- "They can serve to provide a scale from which to compare how one character or piece of technology stacks up against another. " "But stats themselves aren't created randomly; they are based on what is already known. "

The canonicity of these S-Canon stats are the more affirmed ones due to more LFL involvement even Lucas was involved

Wizards of the Coast wrote:On April 12th, 2007, the first accounts of unofficial sales of the expected set before the scheduled release date were confirmed when several critical pieces of information about the set were made public including scanned copies of character cards, pictures, and the official set list. Specific character stats have also been unofficially made available. This information has appeared on several websites and message boards since the discovery. The early sales occurred in Spain after an alleged error indicated that the street date for sale was seven weeks before the official release. Some of the pieces appeared briefly on E-Bay before they were taken off the auction site. Wizards of the Coast has made extensive efforts to keep the content "under wraps" as George Lucas was explicit that he wanted the miniatures to be unveiled on the official day of release. Additionally, the legal ramifications for this could be severe since Wizards of the Coast is a publicly-traded company and the information is considered a trade secret until the official release and the official release date falls under contract law. At this time no official announcements about prosecution have been made by Wizards. Because of all of the commotion regarding this issue, WizO_Sith, a moderator for the Wizards of the Coast forums, made the following announcement on April 17th, 2007 (directly from Wizards' HQ): "Wizards of the Coast is aware of an error in shipping of Alliance and Empire in our European market. We have taken swift and immediate action to correct the error and apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused."

@DarthDurinsBaneling wrote:The Clone Wars: Lightsaber Duels wrote: “You may be able to sense my moves, but I’m still too fast for you.” -Mace Windu to Plo Koon Mace's inferiority to Plo as a telepath is further solidified when Plo is selected to restore Aayla's lost memories when Mace was also onboard the ship.

That's just irrelevant though, isn't it? Mace is confirmed many times to be more powerful

@DarthDurinsBaneling wrote:I'm not buying the idea that the office duel was the first time Mace fought without restraint, especially without any evidence to actually support that claim. It goes entirely against the thematic focus of Stover's other novel. Regardless, even if we ignore all the evidence to the contrary and treat non-evidence as evidence, isn't in-character the default for this matches? Why would Mace exercise restraint on Boz Pity but not in this hypothetical battle?

The point here is Mace cutting loose is able to take on Sidious, of course he is going to be able to take on Dooku

Now the rest of your argument relies on Yoda being equal to Dooku which I have proven wrong, so I find no need to respond to those little points.
 
So now I am going to leave you with this quote:
 



So by ROTS, Mace surpasses all versions of Dooku because Dooku was produced by the order and it talks about what he became so it is referring to his swordsmen skill at his peak, which we know is in ROTS.
 
Have a good day, my friend,
 

Regards Alex

@KnightfallVader wrote:I feel sad for you man because it’s just such a shame that Dooku just isn’t equal to Yoda, which from what I’m seeing is the sole foundation of your argument.

Unfortunately, my argument is very much multifaceted, and I never claimed that Yoda was his equal all around, only in force power. Windu, on the other hand, is below on both counts.

@KnightfallVader wrote:Now my friend, watch and learn from your superior

When they show up, I will be sure to

I'll try to keep things short, so I'll only respond to the main points in your most recent post before going back and recapping why exactly Dooku is Mace's superior.

@KnightfallVader wrote:And as you can tell it was from Attack of the Clones, so its validity upon their prime versions, which i assume that you can agree are in Revenge of the Sith, isn’t there. In fact it just isn’t a sufficient argument for you to be making such big reaches like that. So let’s take a different route to make a comparison between these two lovely chaps.

Many of Mace's inferiority to Yoda in the force quotes are from/before AotC (for example, Gilliard's quote), and thus far you have provided no evidence to suggest that Mace grew any amount from AotC to RotS. By the way, thank you for the concession that RotS Dooku > AotC Dooku.

The Clone Wars wrote:‘We have failed to break Master Yoda, he is strong, we will need more time if we are to defeat him’

They were attempting to break Yoda's spirit. Yoda's moral strength was too strong for them to break.

@KnightfallVader wrote:The implication here is that Yoda and Mace are above early RoTS Anakin, who is beyond Dooku.

Again with ignoring who the quotes apply to and who they do not. It specifies "on the Jedi Council." Mace is second to Yoda on the Jedi Council. Take a guess who wasn't on the Jedi Council at the beginning of RotS (the stage you claim the quote applies to)? Anakin.

@KnightfallVader wrote:I can’t help but notice you keep bringing up political power for this quote, you do realize that Palpatine is the supreme chancellor, I don’t know about you but it seems silly to me to assume that Mace Rivals the Supreme Chancellor of the Galactic Republic in political power.

@KnightfallVader wrote:You must be joking, Mace has multiple other quotes putting him on the level or at-least near Palpatines in power whereas he has none labelling his ‘political power’ as near to Palpatines, in fact no one does, do you want to guess why, actually you know what? I’ll be nice and tell it to you for you. It’s because, as i’ve repeated before, NO ONE RIVALS THE SUPREME CHANCELLOR IN POWER. I thought i’d write it in caps so that you don’t accidentally try and shy away from that fact.

You haven't established anything. You might say that it is silly for any of the most influential Jedi in the galaxy to rival the Supreme Chancellor politically, but we've been discussing this for several posts now and you haven't provided a shred of evidence to back your position, while I've pointed out that the Jedi's ability to settle conflicts and the trust placed in them by the public is heavily emphasized.

The alternative is that all the senior members of the Jedi Order rival Palpatine in personal power, which is easily the less reasonable argument. Pretty much every member of the High Council (the most senior members in the Order) scale directly below Palpatine, including Mace Windu, for the reasons I've pointed out previously. All you need to do is look at the senior members who composed the B-team, who were gutted by Palpatine in only a few seconds. There is no such demonstration of Palpatine's supposedly incomparably superior political power.

@KnightfallVader wrote:I expected better of you man, the quote is clearly referring to only Mace and Yoda, as it says ‘you have to be’ and to solidify this even further, the rest of the quote says that Anakin would have beaten Sidious if it were not for his injuries, and Anakin was on the Council so why didn’t he include Lightside Anakin or even Obi Wan when he was making this statement, well the answer is because, ‘You have to be either Mace or Yoda’.

I said nothing to contradict this. My point was that the G-Canon quote you've been using proves that most of the Senior members of the Order cannot compete with Palpatine in a combative sense, therefore the other quote we were discussing must be in another sense, with by far the most likely being a political one.

@KnightfallVader wrote:Would you mind telling me where I said that Mace is more powerful than Palpatine? At this point, I think your just making stuff up in order to gain the upper hand, which my friend is not yours. Rather it is mine.

You demanded evidence that Mace was amped in his duel with Sidious, who he outdueled. If you didn't agree that the duel he won was circumstantial, that implies that you believe that Mace's defeat of Palpatine is within his regular capabilities. Do you concede then that it is not?

@KnightfallVader wrote:The superconducting loop he enters is an amp, but not Vaapad itself. If you wanna take away amps by your logic then you just take away Mace’s fighting style, So if Mace can’t use Vaapad then Dooku can’t use Makashi.

We agreed before the debate began that we were going to use the base versions of the characters.



If you believe that Mace would get an amp mid-duel against Dooku, you need to prove it. I've already provided the evidence of him not doing so against Dooku in their duel on Boz Pity.

@KnightfallVader wrote:The state he enters when he gets deep into Vaapad technically amplifies his power becuase he feeds of Palpatines but that is besides the point my friend. The point is that even without the Amp of the superconducting loop, Mace shows parity with Sidious, something Dooku just couldn’t do.

I showed in my last point that Mace could barely react by the time Palpatine had already killed two of his teammates before he went into the superconducting loop. He has nothing resembling parity once we factor out the fact that his fighting style has a massive unique advantage against Sidious.

@KnightfallVader wrote:No, I asked for evidence of why you said Yoda is FAR more powerful than Mace. What a surprise it is that you’re making stuff up again!

Yoda being invariably listed as Mace's superior across dozens of statements is in itself pretty convincing evidence of a sizeable gap between the two.

Then we have the fact that two of the statements I provided directly state that there's a significant gap.

Fact Files wrote:Despite his diminutive size and frailty, Yoda’s incomparable ability to summon the power of the Force enabled him to greatly enhance his agility and speed.

Shatterpoint wrote:Mace opened himself to the Force. He could hear Yoda's voice: Size matters not--which, Mace had always privately considered, was more true for Yoda than it was for any of his students. Yoda would probably just reach out, lift the steamcrawler from the gully, and casually float it up the mountain to the outpost while croaking some enigmatic maxim about how Even a volcano is as nothing compared to the power of the Force... Mace was much less confident in his own raw power.

@KnightfallVader wrote:It does sure seem like you are taking a bad faith approach here, the appeal is that Mace is second to Yoda

Pointing out the gaping holes in your rhetoric isn't "bad faith." If you use your rules to apply them to one thing, then they need to apply to the others. To argue anything else is definitively bad faith. So again, does that statement apply to everyone? Or only Jedi from the time? If it applies to everyone, then explain to me why you don't have Wutzek below Mace, even though he is just as bound by that statement as Dooku is. If it doesn't, explain to me why the G-Canon quote is bound by the timeline in this case, but not in the case where you argued for 2005 quotes binding HoU, and why that is consistent with the logic you have presented so far.

@KnightfallVader wrote:Yeah we have both provided cases for our characters, mine is simply backed by S-Canon while yours is not

If my case is backed by G-Canon and C-Canon (which it is), and yours is backed by S-Canon, mine comes out on top. Unfortunately, S-Canon does not back your argument either, as that Hidalgo stat clearly displays Dooku's superiority.

@KnightfallVader wrote:The point here is Mace cutting loose is able to take on Sidious, of course he is going to be able to take on Dooku

Mace cut loose in the Boz Pity fight (as I proved and you're not even trying to disprove anymore), and lost ground to Dooku.

Mace without restraint, amped by his motivations, and amped by Vaapad, managed to outduel Palpatine but was being overwhelmed by his force lightning (as is demonstrated by him begging Anakin for help in the RotS novel). Without restraint and amped by his motivations, but not Vaapad, he was unable to react to Sidious's initial attacks at all.

@KnightfallVader wrote:That's just irrelevant though, isn't it? Mace is confirmed many times to be more powerful

You're missing the point. Mace's force sense/telepathy is so bad that it is far below those who are below him in other categories, while Dooku's is so good that he can stonewall Yoda, Mace's superior, in that category.

@KnightfallVader wrote:Now the rest of your argument relies on Yoda being equal to Dooku which I have proven wrong, so I find no need to respond to those little points.

It doesn't.



Read the quote again. Dooku's defection to the Sith was "subsequent" to him already being one of the finest swordsmasters. Hence, Dooku's growth is after he was previously capped by Windu.

It's fitting that you chose to close out on a quote that only refers to Dooku as a Jedi. Very representative of your arguments.

To recap:

Jedi Dooku outdueled Mace Windu every time they fought.

Dooku grew vastly once he became Darth Tyranus.

As of AotC, he was equal in the force to Yoda per George. Mace is Yoda's inferior in the force by a wide margin.

Dooku's apprentice, Asajj Ventress, who he is able to defeat while drugged, and she is invisible and aided by two of the most powerful Nightsisters, is able to stalemate Mace Windu with only one lightsaber.

Dooku shrugs off the force wave of Mace (who is intent on killing him), and then pushes him back several meters during their duel on Boz Pity mere months before RotS.

Grievous, who has never beaten Dooku once and is considered an inferior even with the aid of his entire army, stalemated Mace Windu in a duel despite being unable to move his legs. Mace Windu admitted inferiority to Grievous.

The stats by Pablo Hidalgo put Dooku far above Mace Windu.

Dooku wins.

@DarthDurinsBaneling wrote:‘’Unfortunately, my argument is very much multifaceted, and I never claimed that Yoda was his equal all around, only in force power. Windu, on the other hand, is below on both counts.’’
 

What lol, have you even read my response, I literally prove how Yoda is more powerful than Dooku. Anyway what’s being equal all round got to do with anything stop scurrying power is the main factor here.
 
 

@DarthDurinsBaneling wrote:‘’When they show up, I will be sure to 
 
 I'll try to keep things short, so I'll only respond to the main points in your most recent post before going back and recapping why exactly Dooku is Mace's superior.’’

 
Cool, I’ll be waiting.
 
 

@DarthDurinsBaneling wrote:‘’Many of Mace's inferiority to Yoda in the force quotes are from/before AotC (for example, Gilliard's quote), and thus far you have provided no evidence to suggest that Mace grew any amount from AotC to RotS. By the way, thank you for the concession that RotS Dooku > AotC Dooku.’’

 
Once again, did I say that Dooku didn’t grow. If you read my previous post, you would know that I said he peaked at season 6, also I provided much evidence for Mace being superior in RoTS.
 
 

@DarthDurinsBaneling wrote:‘’Again with ignoring who the quotes apply to and who they do not. It specifies "on the Jedi Council." Mace is second to Yoda on the Jedi Council. Take a guess who wasn't on the Jedi Council at the beginning of RotS (the stage you claim the quote applies to)? Anakin.’’

 
Ahh, maybe i should have specified, early does not mean equal, by early I mean before he turns to Darkside, and was he on the council then? Yes he was.
 
 
 

@DarthDurinsBaneling wrote:You haven't established anything. You might say that it is silly for any of the most influential Jedi in the galaxy to rival the Supreme Chancellor politically, but we've been discussing this for several posts now and you haven't provided a shred of evidence to back your position, while I've pointed out that the Jedi's ability to settle conflicts and the trust placed in them by the public is heavily emphasized.
 
‘’The alternative is that all the senior members of the Jedi Order rival Palpatine in personal power, which is easily the less reasonable argument. Pretty much every member of the High Council (the most senior members in the Order) scale directly below Palpatine, including Mace Windu, for the reasons I've pointed out previously. All you need to do is look at the senior members who composed the B-team, who were gutted by Palpatine in only a few seconds. There is no such demonstration of Palpatine's supposedly incomparably superior political power’’

 

Correct me if im wrong, but isnt the whole narrative in ROTS that the Chancellor has to much emergency political power, that he has yet to give up, and the council doesn't like this, especially when he is now interfering in their affairs, the quote has nothing to do with political power and such notion is honestly absurd, im sure Mace managed to defeat Sidious because of his equal political power. lol.

Also the problem here is that, the quote is only refers to Mace, which I must say is very unfortunate for you due to the fact this quote is backed by several other quotes saying Mace was atleast on par with the Chancellor.
 

George Lucas wrote:‘You have to be either Mace or Yoda to compete with the Emperor’

 

@DarthDurinsBaneling wrote:‘’I said nothing to contradict this. My point was that the G-Canon quote you've been using proves that most of the Senior members of the Order cannot compete with Palpatine in a combative sense, therefore the other quote we were discussing must be in another sense, with by far the most likely being a political one.’’

 
What?? And that matters because, the quote has nothing to do with the high council, this one, like the last one, is talking about power. I think the ‘have to’ kind of solidifies that lmao.
 
 

@DarthDurinsBaneling wrote:‘’We agreed before the debate began that we were going to use the base versions of the characters.’’

 Base versions would include Mace's Vaapad but no the superconducting loop, but if im honest, if Mace was to actually fight Dooku, which is what we are debating, then he would almost certainly use the full ability and cut loose like he did with Sidious, would you like it if I said that we can do Mace vs Dooku, but Dooku cant use Makashi?? the natural assumption is that Mace can use the full extent of his power, and so can Dooku, obviously with no external amps, like a dark side nexus for example.
 

@DarthDurinsBaneling wrote:‘’Yoda being invariably listed as Mace's superior across dozens of statements is in itself pretty convincing evidence of a sizeable gap between the two’’

Correct, Yoda has always been labeled as Mace’s superior, but never by a long shot, so I don’t what your trying to argue here.
 

Fact Files wrote: wrote:Despite his diminutive size and frailty, Yoda’s incomparable ability to summon the power of the Force enabled him to greatly enhance his agility and speed.

So you have used this quote, so wouldn’t it put Yoda>Palpatine and Dooku aswell. Again, I don’t see what the point your trying to make here is.
 

Shatterpoint wrote: wrote:Mace opened himself to the Force. He could hear Yoda's voice: Size matters not--which, Mace had always privately considered, was more true for Yoda than it was for any of his students. Yoda would probably just reach out, lift the steamcrawler from the gully, and casually float it up the mountain to the outpost while croaking some enigmatic maxim about how Even a volcano is as nothing compared to the power of the Force... Mace was much less confident in his own raw power.

And you have also used this, which I am suprised by, seen as it is referring to confidence in their power, not actual power and this would make sense because Yoda is over 10x older than him lol.
 
 

@DarthDurinsBaneling wrote:‘’Pointing out the gaping holes in your rhetoric isn't "bad faith." If you use your rules to apply them to one thing, then they need to apply to the others. To argue anything else is definitively bad faith. So again, does that statement apply to everyone? Or only Jedi from the time? If it applies to everyone, then explain to me why you don't have Wutzek below Mace, even though he is just as bound by that statement as Dooku is. If it doesn't, explain to me why the G-Canon quote is bound by the timeline in this case, but not in the case where you argued for 2005 quotes binding HoU, and why that is consistent with the logic you have presented so far.’’

Why are we even having this SS if your not going to read my debate lmao,



How’s this? sure seems like binding to me.
 
 

@DarthDurinsBaneling wrote:‘’You're missing the point. Mace's force sense/telepathy is so bad that it is far below those who are below him in other categories, while Dooku's is so good that he can stonewall Yoda, Mace's superior, in that category.’’

 
Yeah cool, last time I checked, telepathy doesn’t have a direct correlation to raw power.
 

@DarthDurinsBaneling wrote: 
Read the quote again. Dooku's defection to the Sith was "subsequent" to him already being one of the finest swordsmasters. Hence, Dooku's growth is after he was previously capped by Windu.

 
Nah my friend, you read the quote again. Was Dooku produced by the order? Yes he was. Let me give you an analogy, ‘Ronaldo was the best player ever produced by QPR’, even though he doesn’t play for QPR anymore. he was still produced by them. How does that look my friend? Pretty convincing right?

@DarthDurinsBaneling wrote: 
‘’If my case is backed by G-Canon and C-Canon (which it is), and yours is backed by S-Canon, mine comes out on top. Unfortunately, S-Canon does not back your argument either, as that Hidalgo stat clearly displays Dooku's superiority’’

 
Well I fail to see how your case is backed by G-Canon if I’m honest, yes Dooku = Yoda in AOTC is backed by G-Canon but this is not AOTC, it’s ROTS, in between which T-Canon buffs Yoda as of S6, and George says you have to be either Mace or Yoda to compete with the emperor, as well as the S-Canon backing, my S-Canon being Miniatures, which of course are the most affirmed sources of S-Canon, so while yes you get your G-Canon backing in AOTC, unfortunately that does not help you much when I get G,T,C and S canon all leading up to my conclusion being correct.
 
‘To recap:’
 
No need, I shall do it for you.
 
I have responded to every single one of your silly points and provided evidence for my disagreement with you. Whereas I cannot say the same about you, as you have completely ignored the scaling chain in my 3rd post, which utterly dwarfs your argument. So I take that as you recognizing your superior lol.
 
Mace is more powerful than Dooku. Dooku is not as powerful as Yoda, you have failed to prove me wrong, this is probably due to you completely ignoring my scaling chain, so I take that as a win for me.
 
Mace is also a better swordsman and you have failed to prove me wrong on that quote, in fact i have proven you wrong lol, so I take that as a win.
 
It is unfortunate that you provided such silly answers on my most important points
 
Have a good day my friend,
 

Regards Alex

Won't be a long judgement, but I will try to tell my views on the most important points:

Stats: If put in a vacuum, Alex won the stat debate, as he mentioned his stats have more LFL involvement (including Lucas), and this was never countered. However as Baneling mentioned, this takes the backseat behind every other argument made here.

Second to Yoda: As Baneling said and argued, all these quotes are exclusively about jedi. He also argued that the quote saying Mace's power rivaled palpatine's was about political power, and I do not think that Alex provided satisfactory counters to this.

Growth?: Both agree that Dooku had great growth throughout the war. But Baneling argued that Mace did not grow, and Alex provided no proof or indication that he did. Meaning that while for Dooku the HoU and Kenobi fights can be excused, the Ventress fight for Mace can't. Alex does argue that Mace legitimatively beating Sidious would be automatic proof of growth, which is a fair point.

Sidious vs Mace: I do not think that Alex sufficiently countered Baneling's points on the circumstances in Mace's favour. He did not counter Vaapad amping him, Sidious moving faster earlier being proof of that, Mace having an advantage with shatterpoint, nor the fact that in a pure power contest Mace admitted inferiority. Alex does however mention that vaapad would apply against Dooku as well, as its simply his fighting style, but doesn't counter the fact that Dooku would rely less on DS/shatterpoint won't work on Dooku.

Grievous vs Mace: Alex dropped this point mid-debate, meaning that the Dooku > Grievous > Mace chain stood mostly on solid ground

Boz Pity/Mace holding back: I don't think that Alex's arguments for Mace only ever letting loose against Sidious strong enough to stop Baneling's counters, nor did he argue against Dooku's superior performance

Skill/Advantages: Bar the vaapad and shatterpoint arguments already talked about, in terms of skill I am unconvinced by the quote putting Mace > Dooku, as i think baneling argued it being exclusively jedi dooku well. However arguments against dooku's advantage in skill were somewhat lackluster. Alex left dooku's advantages in tk/telepathy unopposed

Judgement: Overall I feel like Baneling won most of the points that mattered for his overall case, and Alex's wins were comparatively minor. So my vote goes to @Darth_Durin's_Baneling

Durin opener: Starts of solid. Establishes Dooku's superiority. And does a good job explaining why Dooku running away in Obsession doesn't make him weaker. Grievous comparisons are also solid. The Yoda comparisons are also really good. Also... good SLJ quote lol.

Alz opener: Addressed the Mace v Dooku spar really well. Good use of more obscure sources + the novelization to counter Durin's points. Good use of Mace's parity with Sidious. Countered a lot of Durin's points well.

Durin response 1: I like your addressing of Alz's feats and the counters you're making. Also, using his own words against him. Very good. Loved the usage of the Boz Pity duel and the countering of Mace's restraint. Love the addressing of Mace's parity to Sidious too. Did a good job countering the Obi Wan point. With the Ventress points and the Grievous points, I'm leaning towards Durin.

Alz response 1: Decent job with the counters. Especially the Obi Wan parity thing. Although, haven't addressed his point of S6 Dooku handling both Anakin and Obi Wan. Did a good job countering his political power point though. Really helps your case with the parity with Sidious. Good job calling Dooku>Grievous into question. Always wanna get sources from your opponent. Durin did something similar too. Good usage of G canon too. Stats too. I'm more on the fence now

Durin response 2: Right off the bat, very solid defense of Dooku defeating Mace in a spar. Like the debunk  of the duel of Obi Wan and Dooku in the video game. Using the contradiction to your advantage. The usage of the ROTS novel as well as the Grievous fight for Mace's closeness to Obi Wan is really good too. Shortening the gap between Windu and Kenobi is good. Didn't find the defense of the political power point all that convincing. Analysis of the office duel is very good. And showing Mace's dependency on superconductive loop amp as well. The amp really helps your point. Good job on the counter of Mace's "restraint". Your addressing of Dooku>Grievous isn't exactly too strong. It works but you don't exactly have a one to one comparison or supremacy quote or anything. It's a bit questionable. But it stands. The feat comparisons were good too. Still leaning towards Durin.

Alz response 2: Bringing up Yoda's supremacy to Anakin and Anakin's supremacy to Dooku. Good route. It's definitely a decent case. I like it. I find the counter to the political power quote to be strong. Love the more aggressive energy you're showing here. While your argument for Mace's fight against Sidious isn't bad... I don't think it's too compelling. Mostly because you haven't exactly proven Mace could use Vapaad against Dooku the same way he did against Palps (the superconductive loop amp I mean) and he kinda set up that he couldn't. You did good calling him out for misrepresenting your stance. Good defense of your use of stats too. While it won't be a huge factor, it's always good to cover every base.

Durin response 3: Starting off with a decent counter to the 2013 Topps quote Alz posted. Again... I find the political power point to be very not compelling here. Just going in circles at this point. You've proven very well that Mace won through the amp. And since we're going with non amped characters, you've also proven Dooku's superiority to Mace. Finding your defenses to be far more compelling too. Especially the Hidalgo stat one. Ultimately your defense is much stronger than his so far.

Alz response 3: I find your defense of the 2013 Topps quote to be interesting... You've defended it well. Also good job again on your counters to his "political power" quote. I found that to be a massive weakpoint of his. I do like your defense of Mace's use of Vapaad. More on this later. Good defense on the gap between Yoda and Mace not being too large. Your rebuttal to his rebuttal of "Dooku being eclipsed by Mace and Yoda" is an interesting one. I like the energy here. Not sure how well it works though tbh. His take on the quote was more convincing.



Both debaters did well enough and there were points of both debaters that didn't quite win me over. But Durin's use of various Yoda parity quotes, Dooku>Grievouos, the Mace vs Dooku fights we did have (including Obsession), and various other things definitely got me more convinced that Alz's points did. Not to mention the Ventress fight. That was one of Durin's better points.
Durin's case for Office Mace being amped to a degree he wouldn't be amped against Dooku is another big one. While Alz countered some of those points decently, I feel Durin still held up his argument.
While I found Durin's political power points to be very unconvincing, he holds up the rest of his case rather well.
Alz, you did really good and I love the energy you both put into this. But overall, I don't feel you've countered Durin's points all that well. Though, I respect the sourcing and the various arguments. You did decently. Just not well enough.

My vote goes to @Darth Durin's Baneling  here. I could go deeper point by point, but Cheth summarized it well enough already. And my reaction can be found above.

Thank you for asking me to judge this. Good job to both of you. You both made decent arguments. And I love the energy you both put into this.
@Darth Durin's Baneling  @Alz