Do you think Anakin could best Sidious or Yoda relatively quickly, and turn this into a 3 on 1 scenario? Or do you think Yoda or sidious are good enough to hold their own with Anakin for a long period of time?
hm. personally i don't think sidious or yoda could own dooku as quickly and easily as IH anakin did once he got serious. i see him as having an edge over either of them in pure sabers.
ESB Luke has already shown he can keep up with, and even defeat ESB Yoda in Treasure of the Dragonsnake. He then grew quite a bit between ESB and RotJ. While I don't feel this means Luke>Yoda, it does prove he can at least contend fairly well. With how powerful Anakin is, and how powerful Vader is, I feel if Team 1 played it smart, they have a very real chance here.
No he didn't. Yoda would have killed him within a second had his stick been a lightsaber, and Luke would have grabbed a lightsaber had his little gambit paid off in a real fight.
Luke was nowhere near capable of defeating Yoda or even capable of fighting him in that comic.
You apparently missed the entire lesson Yoda was teaching. The lightsaber is an impressive weapon, yes, but a fight isn't about the weapon. It's about the combatants. Yes, Yoda would have beaten him in the first few rounds of sparring if he'd had a lightsaber, but Yoda also beat him in those rounds while using a stick. Sparring isn't about killing your opponent, it's about teaching them. And during their third or fourth round, Yoda himself began to praise Luke as Skywalker started "fighting his opponent" instead of focusing on the fact that Yoda was 'only' weilding a stick. And in the end, Luke did score a win, although Yoda concedes in his usual ESB snarky fashion. You are making the exact same mistake Luke did by stating that "Yoda would win if he had a lightsaber." Defeating Yoda who was weilding a stick is still a good showing, as he was still able to keep pace with Yoda and find an opening to score a win.
He caught a stick bro after throwing his lightsaber away. In no way does that correlate into him being on par with Yoda. Also lol at acting like there were 4 rounds of fighting like it was a drawn out affair. This is apparently being on par with Yoda. http://imgur.com/a/bm2m0Jv
And yes, absolutely is the lightsaber relevant in a thread involving lightsaber dueling. In an actual fight assuming we skip to the lightsaber throw as the start of the fight, Luke would have had his lightsaber deflected and got cut in half. He learned a lesson, he didn't actually "beat" Yoda. Yoda in mid air moved out of the way of a lightsaber and got grabbed. That would have never happened had he his own lightsaber or used the force.
Strawman. At no point did I make the claim that Luke is “on par with Yoda.” I stated that Luke can “keep up with” Yoda, and stated the fact that Luke did defeat ESB Yoda, which Yoda himself concedes. There’s a huge difference between being able to “keep up” with someone and being “on par” with someone. Kit Fisto could “keep up” with Sidious, for example. He was able to see and react to Palpatine’s lightsaber strikes, and even throw a swing of his own. However, he was not “on par” with Sidious, as evidenced by how easily he was struck down.
Once more, I never claimed Luke is “on par” with Yoda. And I’m not sure if you’ve ever practiced weapons-based martial arts or not, but I have. Typically during training sessions and tournaments, when one combatant tags a hit, the two combatants break off and reset. That is what I mean by a “round.” Yoda tagged Luke three times, and it makes more sense to believe the two would have reset after each tag than it does to believe Yoda just pummeled Luke into submission. If it was the former, that’s how typical martial arts training goes. If it was the latter, that isn’t informative or constructive, that’s just excessive brutality for no real reason.
Also, as to whether or not this was a “drawn out affair” like you stated, there were 11 panels of combat here. The duel between Old Ben and Darth Vader? 8 panels. The duel between Luke and Vader in Empire Strikes Back? 14 panels. Return of the Jedi? 10 panels of combat. Should I look at some examples outside of the movie adaptations? Exar Kun vs. Ulic Qel-Droma, 6 panels. Exar Kun’s first duel with Vodo-Siosk Baas, 9 panels. Luke’s first duel with Sidious in Dark Empire, 3 panels. His second, 5 panels.
My point here is that comic panels are a very, very poor way to judge the length of time that something took place over. Comics are limited by how many pages they have to work with, and when a duel or training session isn’t the main focus of the comic (as was the case here), it typically gets shafted in how many panels it takes place over. Just because this appears to be a short duel in comic format doesn’t mean that the training session was either particularly short or particularly long. We’re not given any time frame over which this training session happened. So it might have been a drawn out affair, or it might not have.
However, that being said, I would like you to try something for me. Read these lines in your best Yoda voice, and time yourself as you do it. Don’t try to speed-read it. We all know Yoda is no auctioneer.
“Now fighting the opponent, you are –
– But only with what you hold in your hands.
Look beyond your weapon. Look to yourself.
A good weapon, the lightsaber is, but you are more than what you hold.”
I averaged about 11 to 12 seconds after three reads. That’s at least 11 seconds that Luke and Yoda were dueling without Yoda tagging Luke, or nearly three times as long as Kit Fisto lasted against Sidious. We know there was more than that beforehand, otherwise Yoda wouldn’t have been commenting on how Luke is “now fighting the opponent,” when before Luke had been only focusing on the weapon Yoda was using, the stick. So yes, Luke “kept up” with Yoda by the end of their training session. And remember, this is pre-Bespin Luke, still relatively early on in his training with Yoda. We know for a fact that he grew drastically between here and Return of the Jedi. Vader himself is astonished at how much faster Luke has grown by RotJ. So if Luke could keep up with Yoda in ESB, there should be no question that he should be able to rival the speed of Yoda or Sidious as of RotJ.
It’s quite a huge assumption to believe that Luke would fight exactly the same against Yoda if Yoda had been armed with a lightsaber. We know Luke had initially been holding back against Yoda out of fear of hurting Yoda with his lightsaber in this comic.
“What? I can’t fight you, master!”
“All right! But I don’t want to hurt you.”
This lead to Luke drastically underestimating Yoda, and promptly getting beaten.
“How did you beat me? You’ve only got a stick.”
Presumably, had Yoda actually been using a lightsaber, Luke would not have been as hesitant to face his master, and there’s no way he would have fought in exactly the same manner that he did. Your assumption is quite frankly ridiculous.
Again, you missed the entire point of Yoda’s lesson here.
“Only a stick? No. Experience I have. Training. Discipline. And the Force.
Do not fight the stick. Look beyond the weapon. Fight the opponent. The opponent has strengths… and weaknesses. Look closely.”
Yoda isn’t an amazing combatant because he wields a lightsaber. What makes Yoda such a dangerous combatant is his experience, training, discipline, and power in the Force. During a non-lethal training session, there’s pretty much nothing Yoda could do with a lightsaber that he couldn’t do with his walking stick. (Unless you believe Yoda couldn’t imbue his stick with the Force the same way Vodo-Siosk Baas could, but I find the idea that Yoda couldn’t do so to be highly unlikely.)
And yes, for the record, Luke did actually “beat” Yoda.
“I did it!”
“Hmmph…
Only beat a stick you did.”
Yoda may be acting snarky here, echoing Luke’s own words about Yoda only having a stick, but considering the entire lesson was about how Yoda was more than the weapon he held, this is still Luke defeating Yoda. Yoda taught Luke to look for his strengths and weaknesses, Luke exploited one of those weaknesses, and Luke beat Yoda during that final round of training. The fact that Yoda was wielding a walking stick rather than a lightsaber does not mean it wasn’t Luke’s victory. Unless you believe Exar Kun never beat Vodo-Siosk Baas, since Baas was never using a lightsaber?
And once more, all of this takes place before Bespin happens in ESB. And we know Luke grew massively between ESB and RotJ, to the point that Luke’s newfound speed astonished Vader, who has never really had much trouble keeping up with speed-based duelists before.
Between Luke and Anakin, I feel Sidious and Yoda are going to be hard-pressed in actual lightsaber combat. Regardless of who takes on who, Sidious and Yoda are going to have their hands full with just those two. Vader is honestly the weakest link here when it comes to lightsaber combat, which is really saying something. But with him backing up either Anakin or Luke, I have no doubt the pair could drop either Palpatine or Yoda before the other member of Team 1 was defeated. I’d say if Anakin stalled Palpatine while Vader and Luke took on Yoda, Team 2 would have virtually no chance. And there’s no way Palpatine could stand against the combined might and skill of all three members of Team 1.
So you're saying that Luke can keep up with Yoda, and that he defeated him, yet you think it's a strawman to think you're speaking of him being "on par with" Yoda even though the actual meaning of the two terms of very close? Alright. I think you're splitting hairs between the meanings here, but I digress. Especially when you're using this showing to say he could later rival Yoda/Palpatine in speed as of ROTJ.
I don't think Fisto is the best example to use though for "keep up" though. That's a very generous use of that term when you're applying it to 1 or 2 seconds of combat where he didn't look too good and then DIED. I don't think that helps what you're trying to do here with Luke at all, and had you the interpretation that "keeping up" was at the minimum Kit Fisto vs Sidious, I doubt I'd have problem with your initial point about the Luke/Yoda fight.
"OW!!! Stop. Hitting. Me."
"How did you beat me? You've only got a stick."
That doesn't indicate a stop and reset sort of deal. Especially when the combat is only shown to stop once Luke gets the lightsaber knocked out of his hand. And why would he only ask how Yoda kept beating him if they had a round sort of deal where Yoda would have already have hit him the first two times and yet Luke said nothing those first two times? Why after his third "loss" did he start to ask questions?
No, it was all one fight. There were no implications that they reset after every hit.
And no, just like the panels show, Yoda didn't keep pummeling him, he hit him, moved, and then hit him again. That is not excessive brutality, that is teaching him a lesson, that Yoda can keep doing it and Luke swinging to react to the hit still can't tag him. It teaches about as much as resetting if not more, but it shows how fluid Yoda can move in an extended fight and how he doesn't stop after he lands a hit. There's many reasons why he would have continued instead of resetting, as well as Luke being a little shit at that time as well. Any reasons you want to insert are applicable, but I care not to list more, since there's no indication that they stopped and reset in the first place, outside showing them actually stop and reset after he disarms him.
The difference is that all of those battles have an outside source telling him of how fierce the battle was, or how it was happening faster than the eyes could see, or how it was in a movie and it was very long. The Yoda vs Luke fight doesn't have that other source to tell you that more is happening off panel than what they cared to depict, that I'm aware of anyway.
Yes there's an issue with how long something takes in the medium, and it is limited. However, usually when something takes a while, or is intended to be long, there is an indication that this is happening. Cutaways to a different happening, time being stated to have passed somehow, "fierce", "faster than the eye can see", etc. None of the tell tale signs of time passing faster than what was depicted were there. So for all intents and purposes, what we saw was what happened. The only thing it has in common with those other duels is that it happened in a comic - those other duels have additional context that Yoda sparring Luke lacks. It's non applicable.
That's fine. That means Yoda either took multiple seconds for that jump, or he telegraphed where he came from when he actually decided to attack. Either way, by his speaking, that was only advantageous to Luke. We know by Yoda's actual speed that he can't exactly be speaking when he gets into his high speed mode, so basically it's a concession that Yoda was holding back his speed tremendously, which again makes it not applicable to an actual fight between the two. And that's fine, it is sparring after all, which is apparently both of our points, yet you think it's a pass for Luke ("he wasn't trying to kill him") and I think it's a pass for Yoda. Funny how two different interpretations can differ of the same event, but that's where the magic of debate lies.
Anyway, onto what you actually said.
Because Yoda wasn't shown to have tried to attack him either. He was speaking to Luke to try and get him to fight better. It's very possible that those 11 seconds were all that happened with what we saw. IE, Yoda was wading out of the way of the attack while speaking, and then attacked while still speaking/just finished. It doesn't have to be 11 seconds of off panel combat when what was shown is conducive to what was said. Yoda dodges while telling him to get good. Then he telegraphs an attack and Luke is finally able to accomplish something, which is very likely only accomplished by Yoda giving away his mode of attack.
I don't think that definitely means that that was the middle of a fight, nor do I think that disproves the possibility that Yoda was tagging him if indeed the start of the fight was off panel. It's very possible that that was the start of the fight and Luke just came at him in a more serious, focused, or just plain better attack. It's also possible that if indeed more was off panel, that Yoda was playing with him still so that Luke would actually learn the lesson and apply it.
All he really did again, was throw a lightsaber at him and grab his staff in a sparring match where Yoda was literally teaching him how to fight. Luke surprised him and showed promise is all. That doesn't mean it actually factors into an actual battle with Yoda no matter how far Luke has grown, which is where the underlying point of contention lies here.
And yes, this is Pre Bespin Luke, but this is also not far removed from Yoda dying, while fighting with a stick, while training Luke while holding back. So yeah. It's not really the best example of pissed off Yoda from ROTS fighting evenly with someone who can make a fool of the famed Kit Fisto.
Then the showing loses a lot of meaning if you can't apply it to an actual fight - if you can't put it in the context of an actual fight.
Yes Luke might have fought different in an actual fight, but considering that's assuming he could have fought better or different, I doubt it would have made much of a difference. Luke was simply not fast enough to stop Yoda from circling around him, and very much picked his shots.
And that's also ignoring what he actually did. Once he got "serious", the only thing he could accomplish while trying to hit Yoda was throwing his lightsaber at Yoda... that would have disarmed himself, and then grabbing an armed Yoda... 's weapon. What would he have done had he fought a serious fight that you can actually glean from this and base it on his sparring session? He couldn't hit him. He only accomplished anything because of Yoda telegraphing himself, and Yoda dodged his only real attack in mid air. I'll get to the importance of the staff later, but what could he have done different, and what would he have done different in an actual fight? It's a pretty big ASSUMPTION that suddenly he could have given Yoda an actual battle had he been prepared for one. Nothing in that scene indicated such. It was sparring, and it taught him a lesson. It doesn't directly apply to Yoda, but it did help Luke against the Drake.
He surprised Yoda and showed promise, but he didn't actually get one over on Yoda in a combat applicable situation.
Also you put a lot of stock in Luke's words, yet write off what Yoda said as "snark" about Luke only beating a stick. Yet that's exactly what Luke did if we take it as an absolute win. Yoda was correct, while Luke was simply sharing his feelings while swinging a lightsaber at him that would kill him in one swipe.
I fully understand the lesson. And I understand why Luke "won" in the context of the lesson. What I don't understand - and where our disagreement lies - is how it's contextually relevant to an actual fight between the two. Hence why I'm trying to put it in the context of a fight. When you look at it like that, Luke did not look good.
He missed a lot. He got hit. Yoda was wading through his attacks. He missed, and threw away his weapon, and he grabbed Yoda's weapon. Keep in mind he never hit Yoda. He never even touched Yoda's skin. He simply grabbed his staff.
Yoda was shown much faster, much more skilled, and he was actively teaching Luke during the sparring, which means he wasn't going all out either, while it's very possible Luke was at the end.
Again, it was very much a sparring session, and it should stay that way. Yoda taught Luke a lesson, and Luke learned that lesson, but what he didn't do, is "beat" Yoda in a way relevant to an actual fight, let alone psycho Yoda that isn't playing around. Which means he was able to mentally "keep up" with a subdued Yoda, but not "physically".
Very true. Yoda with a stick is still a very powerful combatant, no one is disagreeing with that.
Though just because we believe Yoda can mimic what Vodo could do with his stick, that doesn't mean he did. And we know he didn't, or at least had no use for it considering he didn't touch his staff to his lightsaber once. And that's very important because with a lightsaber, he could easily parry and saber lock Luke.
That's the main difference. He doesn't have to dodge every attack. He doesn't have to mid air dodge Luke's lightsaber throw and get his lightsaber grabbed. What happens when he saber locks Luke and disarms him everytime they lock up? What happens when he stops letting Luke swing at him and simply parries him everytime? It's a whole different fight for Luke at that stage. Yoda doesn't have to get in a position to strike him, he can simply take away Luke's weapon everytime.
He could theoretically do that with his staff, but he didn't, nor was it relevant to the lesson for him to do so.
Let's also keep in mind under the same writer Vader swatted back a blast from a turret the size of a Y-Wing with his lightsaber, so obviously the writer held a serious lightsaber wielder in high regard. I imagine he would have had a serious Yoda also swinging pretty hard.
Luke beat Yoda in the same way that any student in fiction beats a master by landing one punch. That's not him actually winning a fight, that's just them winning the lesson. Look at Vegeta vs Trunks for instance where Trunks lands a punch and then gets one shotted. He won the contest, but he didn't win in an actual fight.
The difference is that Exar Kun didn't disarm himself and only grab onto Vodo's staff, while both him and Vodo were still holding it.
I think I've talked about this enough that I don't have to go in depth here. Basically in summation, Luke passed the test, but he didn't actually defeat Yoda in a fight. I'm sure you will still disagree, but I hope you see where I'm coming from here.
It's impressive for Luke, but it's not really an accurate portrayal of a serious Yoda, while it's very probable that it's an accurate portrayal of ESB Luke at his max.
To reiterate, Yoda is really ****ing fast when he's serious. He doesn't wade around attacks while scolding people. He screams and throws attacks in a whirlwind blur that has been described as a literal blur before. I'm sure you can picture Yoda moving around slowly only dodging what he needs to and not attacking relentlessly. I believe that's exactly what happened against Luke, and that's what the panels depict. But that's a stark contrast against something like his Dooku/Sidious, and even Battledroids fight.
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That's perfectly fine. I just don't believe it's an accurate portrayal of Yoda's actual speed, so I don't think you can scale based off of it. I think that's basically what I'm saying, if that makes sense.
I'm not saying who wins this actual thread by the way, or that Luke can't be Yoda level as of ROTJ, I just don't believe you can base that off of his sparring session with Yoda is all. As well as Yoda was really old at that point in time too.
Oct 7th, 2018 06:33 PM
Thanks Scribble!
