Originally posted by RagingBoner
Simply a theory with which I am toying.
Rather than toying with it, Gideon should have put some thought into it. Not that one should expect any kind of logical reasoning coming from a person that is, as he admitted himself, driven by bias.
And, to nobodies surprise, since we're dealing with the analysis of fiction by a biased individual here, RB's interpretation is wrong. Let me quote of Mace Windu himself:
"To use Vaapad, a Jedi must give himself over to the thrill of battle, enjoying the fight and the satisfaction of winning. A Jedi must also accept and embrace the fury of his opponent. This transforms the Jedi into half of a superconducting loop,the other half being the power of darkness, which passes in and out of the Jedi without touching him." - Mace Windu, The Essential Guide through the Force, p. 113
Rather than taking away power from somewhere or the opponent (obviously, Windu wasn't combating dark side users only), it makes use of the Jedi's own inner darkness, from with the strength is drawn. That's the foundation of a dark siders combat ability and the "boost" in that, Anakin does apparently benefit from when utilizing the Dark Side. The point is: It's independant of the opponent that Mace fights and likewise not affecting the opponent. It just makes the Vaapad user stronger, drawing strength from his inner darkness.
First off, Gideon ignores that we don't have an idea to what extend Vjun boosted Dooku's power, with any speculation on it being that: speculation, based on unsupported assumptions. Nice premise for a "logical" argument.
The next thing, Gideon kindly assumes, is that a wish is equal to implementation. Just because Yoda didn't wish to hurt his former student, doesn't mean that he was restraining himself in the actual combat. Or are we going to assume that Obi-Wan was holding back against Anakin, too, because he clearly didn't want to kill him and had even stronger feelings for him than Yoda for Dooku? I don't think that works.
And now Gideon is back at comparing apples to oranges. Unlike Sidious, who had reinforcements for him on the way, Dooku knew that Kenobi and Skywalker were coming to aid Yoda. As a consequence, he wasn't able to stay and prolong the fight into a standstill the Sidious way. This is a reenacment of the situation we had at the end of AotC. Dooku fleds because Yoda is about to receive aid. In fact, he could easily have killed the Jedi Master, while the green fellow was attempting to save Anakin and Obi-Wan.
Wow. Two illogical conclusions in two sentences. Must be a new record, even for Gideon. First: Since we don't know how Sidious would fare on Vjun, we can't make a comparison between him and Dooku. Technically, at least Dooku made it out of the duel without getting disarmed and he managed to wound Yoda.
The second thing is that, that Sidious didn't "stalemate" Yoda in a lightsaber duel, but had to turn it into a force contest and, even then, just was lucky in the end, that Yoda fell and he didn't plus he had additional forces arriving (why Dooku had additional opponents arriving). Comparing those two situations does not compute.
Does Gideon missunderstand quotes on purpose or is he really incapable of reading? Does "perhabs Dooku's equal" really sound, as if there is the possibility, that Mace is actually better than Dooku, especially bringing other Jedi in that context and, speaking about context, take the other comparisons between Mace and Dooku into consideration (directly and indirectly).
We know that Dooku did beat Mace before. We don't know, if it happened the other way around, and while I wouldn't like to turn that into an argument ex silentio ("He didn't beat Dooku because no source does mention it."
, the lack of a reference for them having been equals can be understand so, that they weren't. Which is kind of confirmed by Yoda's statement regarding Dooku being given by the very same source:
"The best of all would be the strongest student, yes? Wisest? Most learned in the ways of the Force? Best of all, Dooku would be! Our greatest student!" - Yoda, Dark Rendevouz.
While this is the personal opinion of Yoda, which is questionable, we're dealing with the judgement of the orders grandmaster here, who doesn't even take another Jedi into consideration. He simple puts Dooku above any other student of the temple in the force mastery department and the same book introduces precisely one other Jedi who might be on par with Dooku in terms of blade work on equal ground.
Again this conclusion has come up with is devoid of any logic. Sidious didn't "defeat" Yoda, he also didn't "stalemate" Yoda. He lost the lightsaber duel, he lost the force contest and the green muppet just didn't keep it coming, because some clones were on their way and he had to make it out alive. Gideon attempts to hold the fact that Dooku escaped from Yoda against the Count, while Sidious, being in the same situation, also tried to escape ("Why leave, if so powerful you are?"
but just failed to do the job and was forced to fight. Who knows how Dooku would have done in such a situation? I don't.
Mace had all of this before, when he was beaten by Dooku. Mace gained more confidence in his control over Vaapad since then. Dooku gained the Dark Side as an additional boost in combat, and has added a nice array of Dark Side powers to his "stuff to use against Jedi while fencing" card. Does anybody honestly think that looks as if Windu increased more in skill and ability than Dooku did? Sounds like an odd idea.
