Why does all literature place Sidious as strongest sith lord?
Literature has ruined other Sith Lords competing with this guy, George Lucas has ruined all chances we had at making proper Versus forum, and ruined all chances at any other Sith Lord being able to compare to him. I understand it's his universe and all, but really? It was kind of a douchebag move, he knew people would be curious, and when people ask, now Mace is top because he took Sidious down in Sabers. Starkiller, one of the MOST HATED characters in Star Wars history is now considered one of the strongest, people are putting Tanks like Vitiate and Bane and even ****in Exar Kun below him, and it's just stupid, this post was made because I'm being bitchy, I know. But these are good point's. Because of Star Wars Literature and George Lucas, we can never compare Sidious with any other single Sith Lord. Maybe Sidious has made some claims to back it up but other Sith Lord's have done far more impressing things than he has in terms of sheer force power. But now everyone is all like "Hey, he knows every force ability and can create new ones on the spot" or "Oh no, you're wrong, George Lucas wins because it's universe and Sidious beats All TROLOLOLOLOLOLOLO." It's starting to get annoying knowing that we can only compare Sidious to Luke Skywalker and several other Jedi. I'd like to know your thoughts on this, guys. Do you think Sidious deserves the title, or do you think that others should've been given the title? Give a detailed explanation why Sidious should, or should not be the most powerful Sith Lord in Star Wars History. (Not that our opinion's matter, thanks to George Lucas)
(P.S. I love Star Wars EU, I just don't like the fact that they named him as strongest)
(P.S.S. Mods/Admins, feel free to move/delete this post if it isn't within the sites Jurisdiction)
Last edited by Jmanghan on Nov 6th, 2013 at 09:15 AM
There were many survivors of Order 66. The Jedi Order may have been destroyed, but the Jedi weren't. It wasn't even the first time the Jedi were nearly wiped out either, what about KOTOR 2.
This is a matter of perspective and interpretation.
I don't think that George Lucas have personally claimed that Sidious is the most powerful Sith Lord in "galactic history." He did pointed out in one of his interviews that Sidious is the most powerful individual "in the galaxy." Sidious was not only powerful in the ways of the Force but also the supreme ruler of the Galactic Empire which ruled over the galaxy.
Now keep in mind that Mr. Lucas have stated this as well:
"There are two worlds here," explained Lucas. "There's my world, which is the movies, and there's this other world that has been created, which I say is the parallel universe—the licensing world of the books, games and comic books. They don't intrude on my world, which is a select period of time, [but] they do intrude in between the movies. I don't get too involved in the parallel universe."
Mr. Lucas always represents his works in his interviews; not the Expanded Universe.
Now some other contributors to Star Wars lore (who are possibly fanboys and fangirls of Mr. Lucas's works) have actually went out of their way to overhype some G-canon characters in the Expanded Universe such as Yoda and Sidious by labeling them as most powerful practitioners of the light and dark respectively. Among all of the authors of Star Wars lore, you will find Daniel Wallace favoring and hyping Sidious in most of his works.
This began with Matthew Stover who unnecessarily hyped Yoda in ROTS novel. Since Yoda was touted to be the strongest Jedi ever in this source, it was expected from other authors to take the liberty to hype Sidious in the same fashion in other works since ROTS movie depicted a fight between these two ending in a stalemate. This is where Mr. Wallace stepped in. However, this official "Yoda/Sidious wanking brigade" seems to have taken a break in recent times.
So what we have now is:-
ROTS novel (released in 2005): Declared Yoda as the most powerful Jedi ever.
SWTCE (released in 2008): Declared both Yoda and Sidious as most powerful practitioners of the light and dark respectively.
It shall be noted that James Luceno believes in superiority of Plagueis.
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Now among the authors of Star Wars mythos, some have fetish for ancient era lore and have come up with remarkably powerful creations of their own with the hopes of getting as much recognition as Yoda and Sidious have. This began with introduction of Marka Ragnos and Revan. Bioware (under leadership of Drew Karpyshyn) earned enormous fanbase (sort of like cult like following) with KoTOR and along with it came the belief in superiority of Revan. This dialed down (at least in debates in forums) with the release of sources such as ROTS novel and SWTCE. Obsidian (under leadership of Chris Avellone) also stepped in by strongly hyping up ancient era lore in all of its forms. KoTOR II not just hyped Revan but also introduced monsters of its own with Nihilus being the most prominent. Unfortunately, the sheer bad@ssry of Nihilus have been under-appreciated in canon.
Currently, Bioware (under leadership of Hall Hood) have stepped-up in its game and is doing a good job in promoting its most recent work SWTOR. It remains to be seen how these promotions will be received in future canon content. So far, Pablo Hidalgo (one of the authors of SWTCE) seems to have gone neutral in the light of recent canon developments; his latest work SWTERC (released in 2012) represents Star Wars history from real-world perspective and the author have not wanked/hyped Yoda and Sidious in it.
Finally comes the fan based interpretation of these matters:
The "Yoda/Sidious wanking brigade among fans" are adamant about the superiority of these characters over all others barring Luke. Ironically Luke have never been hyped in comparable fashion in canon as Yoda and Sidious have been but he "escapes criticism" by being part of the lore that goes beyond the existence of Yoda and Sidious (future). However, similar flexibility in opinion is not witnessed from the "Yoda/Sidious wanking brigade among fans" for predecessors of Yoda and Sidious, irrespective of their capabilities and accomplishments. Whenever this issue is brought up, the "Yoda/Sidious wanking brigade among fans" counters with an argument that all of the predecessors of Yoda and Sidious are supposed to be inferior to them because these two are the most powerful "in history" in canon. My personal counterargument in this case is that the sources which have hyped Yoda and Sidious (as most powerful) are now outdated in the light of latest canon developments and these two characters require re-evaluation accordingly. My point is that the accolades given to Yoda and Sidious in lets say SWTCE are valid in the context of the information contained in it.
To each his own but what I have noticed is that fanboys try to suppress one another in these matters which is a bad thing to do.
I believe that HoT can defeat Yoda (on the basis of his holistic picture) and I should not be blindly shunned by fans of Yoda for this claim. Similarly, I believe that Vitiate can defeat Sidious (on the basis of his holistic picture) and I should not be blindly shunned by fans of Sidious for this claim. I am not trying to devalue Yoda and Sidious but I am keeping an open mind.
I am not a blind believer in superiority of any character in the Star Wars mythos in-fact though I do have my favorites. Still I try to roll with latest developments. I do accept the fact that I find the ancient era lore of Star Wars most fascinating, but this is due to interesting stuff that have made it appealing to me. TOR is a nice alternative to G-canon works.
I consider myself a fan of both TOR and G-canon works. However, needless G-canon wanking have forced me to debate in favor of TOR era lore more often then I would want to.
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Legend:
ROTS = Revenge of the Sith
SWTCE = Star Wars: The Complete Encyclopedia
SWTERC = Star Wars: The Essential Reader's Companion
KoTOR = Knights of the Old Republic
SWTOR = Star Wars: The Old Republic
TOR = The Old Republic
Last edited by S_W_LeGenD on Nov 6th, 2013 at 04:59 PM
Vitiate was already an extremely powerful Sith who then went on to drain the power of 8000 Sith Lords and an entire planet. And then he continued to grow more powerful over 1300 years time. Logically it makes no sense for Sidious to be more powerful than him.
BUT SIDIOUS HAS ABSOLUTE STATEMENTS SURROUNDING G-CANON THAT CAN BE EXTRAPOLATED TO IMPLY POWER REALLY HIGH, EVEN THOUGH HIS FEATS INCLUDE BEING TKED OVER CHAIRS AND BENCHPRESSED INTO SHAFTS!
Also, at this point it's probably better to just acknowledge that within the context of G-canon, Sids is the Sith badass, and without, he is a big player, but not a martial powerhouse. THIS MAY SHOCK SOME PEOPLEZ, but I think it's a crime that his showings in RotJ/RotS were done so poorly. If GL wanted us to think that Sidious was this untouchable badass, he presented it very poorly, allowing Yoda to look in some cases superior (having Sids run away, get unbalanced, disarmed, lose the Force fight etc.) and GL likewise opted not to let the professional stuntsmen sub in for Ian and Sammy but instead let the real actors film their own duel.
The latter resulted in a rather lackluster battle that was frankly boring to watch and over before it began, and the former only cements Sidious as a benefactor of circumstance, not a Force unto himself. Either Sidious should have simply been too smart to catch/duel, or he should have been able to WTFcrush the Jedi in single combat, no exceptions. Instead, GL makes this muddy representation that makes him look relatively unimpressive on the EU stage.
And this is years after he okayed TOTJ comics, so WTF, dude?
Also, the strongest Sith is Bandon. Stop pretending otherwise.