He does't have to be fully recovered for wounds to get or simply feel worse after a bout of strenuous movements - such as struggling to block the lone Jedi knight attacking him relentlessly, all while his powers are being wavered by split concentration and a fresh blaster wound.
Even with your interpretation, the wounds are obviously still hindering him. Regardless of when they started,I don't think the drastic drop of performance happened suddenly after he dispatched Katarn.
He would've felt it even while battling Kyle.
All of these mental contortions just to explain why Caedus didn't necessarily bother mentioning his injuries at the very beginning of the fight while his attention was devoted to the tactical situation?
BTW, I know the purpose of these Caedus threads has been to lowball Caedus, but you haven't even established why Katarn is weak in the first place. He could be Dooku+ level for all you know.
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The mental contortions are from your camp. To explain why they're some big factor at the beginning of the fight despite the lack of evidence and a dubious omission. What I'm doing is applying context. I do this by actually reading the story and taking note of things like character traits and the expanded lore. I conclude that the injuries are mostly healed and that Jacen can strengthen himself off them anyway. And guess what.... the book in question tells me exactly that :
Excerpt taken some time before the Katarn fight. Jacen notes the wounds he received form Luke strengthen him. A pretty consistent trait. Perhaps the only consistant trait regarding him. This ability tends to only be impeded in truly overwhelming situations or over some period of time spent fighting. So like I said... there's no reason to believe these - mostly healed - injuries were hindering him until they get mentioned.
To the contrary, he's actually being strengthened by them to some extent, until things go really badly.
It's like I said to DC77... just because we're examining an aggregate of Jacen's feats - bar the single time he didn't get one-shotted by Luke or subjective blurbs - doesn't mean we're lowballing. Lowballing would be lambasting that time he ran away from some random mandolorion and dubbing that his true depiction. Just because my lips aren't wrapped round his cock doesn't make me a lowballer. I'm simply trying to have a conversation in good faith and give an accurate interpretation of his power level. Your interests seem to be elsewhere, hence the false equivalence to TFUII Starkiller.
I never said he was weak. But he has to be very very exceptionally strong to justify Caedus as Yoda tier - being someone who's out of his rag doll range and can match him with 3 complete noobs while the Sith lord himself is amped beyond usual. I consider Kyle's hype and age and say that Qui Gon Jinn level is generously appropriate. Which isn't exactly weak. Just not good enough to satisfy you.
Well... I find the notion that he's above Dooku very unlikely Andy. The Count wins in the hype department even as a Jedi - a once-in-a 900 years lightsaber prodigy. Trained from infancy within a well established order. I doubt Luke could just find another duellist like that when he was scrounging for trainees. And of course, Dooku gets a boon as a Sith lord.
It's very rich that we'd have to throw a massive bone to Katarn and give him the benefit of the doubt that you certainly wouldn't give other nebulously placed Jedi/sith. Even when you go as far as dubbing everyone who's not in your favourite circle of characters trash
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I mean.. Kao Cen Darach could be Dooku+ level for all you know
So Starkiller wasn't meaningfully exhausted against Vader then, right? Because Starkiller never mentions that as a hindering factor; he mentions before the fight that it exists and he is rectifying it, just as how Caedus mentioned he was injured before the fight, and then in Starkiller's case it's never brought up again, nor does it factor into any of his tactical calculations.
I mean, he can tell himself and Niathal that all he wants, but that doesn't match up well to his commentary in the actual fight. If the blaster bolt is the problem, why doesn't he isolate said blaster bolt as the problem, and not his previous injuries? And why can't he draw on the blaster bolt for strength the same way he draws on the previous stuff? The wording of the statement doesn't sound like the wound was being exacerbated by, what was it you said - moving around or something, and if so it would only serve to show how tenuous and shaky his alleged lack of concern over the injury really was, if just walking around would weaken him.
Furthermore, what even happens before the blaster bolt injury that meaningfully compares Caedus to Katarn? That he called Katarn a "threat"? What does that even mean? That he couldn't just ragdoll him?
This is all based on the idea that there is a discrepancy that needs rationalizing in the first place. There isn't - Caedus's narrative perspective doesn't require him to immediately list all aspects of the fight at the same time.
Scaling backwards from Yoda, Sidious, and Mace's supremacy quotes, in confluence with the generally large gap between Ancient Sith of the Week and every Jedi of a certain era, leads to the conclusion that any pre-Yoda Jedi aside from Revan (and maybe the HoT) were significantly weaker than the top dogs of the PT, which was the context of that quote. That's a pretty easy to justify argument that has nothing to do with arbitrary biases.
On the other hand, your only case for Kyle Katarn being weak is that you don't think he has enough feats, even though the logical conclusion should be to use Caedus as the anchor between the two, not the relative unknown.
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I don't know why you keep bringing this up. He was very exhausted against Vader. More exhausted than he'd ever been at every fiber of his being. The situation(s) are mutually exclusive. Unless you can find a passage claiming that an empty tank strengthens Starkiller.
It's very simple. The wounds do strengthen him. This should be assumed the default paradigm for Caedus until stated otherwise. That Caedus claimed those exact wounds fuel his power and then presents them as a negative in an exceptional situation, does not mean this ability has disappeared wholesale. It just means that this power is impeded in that moment. You only need a novice level of research on how Jedi and Sith wield their powers to come to that conclusion. If we look at the fight itself :
#1 - Long before the fight Caedus claims the (mostly healed) injuries strengthen him
#2 - He routinely amps himself from pain and injury
#3 - Caedus fights evenly with Kyle & Noobs
#4 - He Incapacitates Kyle via trickery
#5 - Kyle is superior to the collective triad of trainees
#6 - The Neophyte trio assail him and are "doomed to lose"
#7 - A unexpected blaster bolt is redirected at his leg
#8 - His attention is split between the saber fight, unpredictable trajectories of blind blaster fire and the Jedi redirecting bolts at him
#9 - His performance level dips massively - Struggles to block the strikes from one of the trio in question
#10 - It's in this moment he laments all his injuries
Just because #10 is a thing doesn't mean points #1 and 2# are debunked. If you apply context it is clear to see why #7 and #8 mean that his usual power to draw from his pain is hindered. That power was never presented as something indefinite and it can be compromised in extreme circumstances. All Force powers are activated by thoughts and emotions. They are sustained by a degree of concentration. You can imagine that Jedi enter a quasi trance-like state where the Force "guides their actions" in a sense but also obeys their command. However, they can be forcibly yanked out of that trance by an unexpected distraction and have difficulty re-entering that clairvoyant state when their mind is elsewhere.
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A simple visual does this phenomena some justice. A more complex example is how Bane handles Kasim. The battle-master is more seasoned, but overwhelming force power means that Bane can react to anything he does and drive the instructor back. This is until Kasim presents him with an unfamiliar talent in fighting with two blades at once. Suddenly Bane's power advantage is compromised as his mind is less focussed on emotions that strengthen his own connection to the Darkside but rather is flooded with all the possible angels his opponent can attack from. Caedus is in a similar yet even less familiar predicament, where his attentions are focused on overcoming the severe tactical situation itself, rather than strengthening his connection to the dark side with his anger hatred and physical pain :
Not only does this premise work from a technical standpoint and is the most logical conclusion to follow - his pain amplifying powers didn't just vanish during the entirety of the fight - it's also probably what the author intended. if you care about intentions. After all... He had Caedus claim the (mostly healed) injuries from Luke empowered him. It makes sense that he created a exceptional situation where they wouldn't have and only then have Caedus lament those injuries as a hinderance. This is not a lesson in mental gymnastics. It's called reading the book and then applying context. We can do the same to Starkiller and come to the conclusion that he's in no fit shape to fight a regular club bouncer. Caedus on the other hand, is at full strength when fighting Katarn and then some.
As for Katarn and his standing in the history of the Jedi order. That all the Jedi before the prequels are in the trash bin because of quotes found on the back of chocolate bar wrappings, and the a rare few PT top dogs are truly exceptional to be above everyone that had a name and a lightsaber, tells me that Katarn is more likey to dwell amongst everyone who existed in the 20,000 years before, as someone without the required accolades. Even though he technically skirts the quotes by existing after their chronological expiration date.
Even if I give him all the generosity in the world compare this stormtrooper Luke dug up when tying to revive the Jedi Order to prime Obi Wan (even though he has a few years on Old ben)
Caedus is still far from the Yoda combatant you want him to be, and not even on level with Dooku. Because the latter can dispose of Obi Wan in a direct manner with Anakin to pressure him. Jacen has to use some underhanded advantage of environment to rid Kyle with a few nobodies assisting him.
Your argument re: Caedus is that Caedus doesn't bother to mention his injuries as a hindering factor at the start of the fight, so they must not have been a problem and we should try to come up with reasons as to why. Well Starkiller doesn't mention his fatigue as a hindering factor at all, so by your logic, we should come up with reasons as to why (which is easy - time to recover + intense motivation / adrenaline). Starkiller mentions before he knew he was going to fight Vader that he is exhausted, just like how Caedus mentions before the fight begins that he is injured, but then there's an ambiguous time lapse.
OK, you still haven't explained:
1. That he gets blindsided by the blaster bolt, so his concentration is slipping before that injury.
2. Why he doesn't mention the blaster injury as a greater problem than his injuries from Luke.
3. Why we should even care, since he is dominating the fight before the blaster bolt anyway.
The most you can conclude is that his injuries strengthen him in very specific ways, but that this strength is extremely flimsy - it can give him a +15 buff passively but even the slightest distraction or aggravation and it turns into a -30. That may be better than other characters for which it's consistently a -15, but then we circle back to point #3, which is why whether he wasn't hindered at the start of the fight even matters. I guess you've demonstrated that Caedus can't ragdoll Katarn? Are you trying to note that he viewed Katarn as a "threat"? Because someone having a 5% chance of killing you is still a significant "threat", especially given that his injuries can be aggravated into hinderances at the slightest provocation.
Well:
1. Those "chocolate bar wrappings" still hold weight when there are like 15 of them.
2. As I'm sure you know, there are multiple sources that are clearly not the back of "chocolate bar wrappings", like the RotS novelization.
The logic is pretty simple: Sidious is the most powerful Sith, and there are three Jedi who can to varying levels compete with Sidious (Yoda, Mace, and, whether you agree, Anakin), so they get dragged far above the ancient Jedi who were always vastly weaker than the top Ancient Sith.
You're assuming that whatever factor caused the PT to have so many powerhouses went away with the Jedi Order. For whatever IU reason (poor balance of the Force maybe? Mortis?), the few decades surrounding the movies have spawned more potent Force users than the entire previous history of the Old Republic.
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Dec 3rd, 2018 07:38 PM
