GL's comments regarding Vader being weaker after Mustafar are no longer canon.
Per canon, Vader's injuries only bolstered his power:
And Paul Kemp(writer of Lords of the Sith) spoke a bit on Vader's potential: (please log in to view the image) -Insider 157
Also: (please log in to view the image) -Rebels Visual Guide: Epic Battles
So yeah, the notion that Vader's injuries weakened him no longer applies.
As mentioned, his potential was still there, but the implication is that Palpatine was only giving him just enough teachings/knowledge to keep him subservient and wanting more: (please log in to view the image) -Insider #157
Even Lord Momin mused that Palpatine was hoarding knowledge for himself: (please log in to view the image) -Darth Vader v2 #24
...Which is why he never transcended Palpatine.
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Last edited by Galan007 on Mar 26th, 2020 at 08:50 PM
His injuries never weakened him before, his potential was lost, that could count as being weakened. But then I'm just looking at this from a different angle, since a lot of the new stuff just seems to retread from older stuff.
Not sure how I feel about them retconning Lucas story. I mean sure no need to make him a slow robot man. But the idea that Vader lost potential which Luke still had was an important part of Lucas commentary of the OT.
Well aside from Vaders ridiculous TK feats on inanimate objects, in battle against Jedi/Sith I just find overpowering Dooku to that extent more impressive than overpowering Ahsoka, or slowly beating Old Ben.
Not that Ahsoka or Ben are weak. But Dooku level? Perhaps Old Ben is, but Anakins overpowering of Dooku was still more impressive Imho.
Last edited by Darth Thor on Mar 26th, 2020 at 09:50 PM
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I would agree that Anakin's feat against Dooku is more impressive than Suited Vader's feats but I just considered it as that's a feat for Vader as well since sources indicate that he got stronger.
Basically how I see it is if Anakin can do it Vader can do it as well.
Right, but in Legends Vader's potential was gimped(like you said), which prevented him from ever being able to reach his true power. He was capped at 80% of Palpatine, iirc.
But in canon, Vader's potential was still there. The implication is that he never realized his full potential because Palpatine was only feeding him just enough knowledge to keep him on his side, but not enough for Vader to transcend him.
I normally don't appreciate when Lucas' original intent is f*cked with... But in Vader's case, it doesn't bother me in the slightest. He is one of the only characters that Disney hasn't wrecked... They've actually put him on a massive pedestal.
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Last edited by Galan007 on Mar 27th, 2020 at 12:39 AM
Well thats according to Vader mind you. The same guy who told Kenobi not to underestimate his power before doing a move he clearly couldnt pull off.
I see Vader and Anakin about on par. But with Anakins peak state probably being superior, whereas Vader being better in terms of consistency. I.e. Vader wouldnt stalemate ROTS Kenobi in a force contest and wouldnt be kicked on to his butt by Dooku.
But My point is ive not seen anything from Vader to put him above Peak Anakin level.
Doesnt have to be either/or though. Fact is Vader was still < Palpatine in the OT. So likely < Yoda as well. And still needed Luke to overthrow Sidious. And keeping him within that margin doesnt give him much room for improvement since ROTS.
So can make him as powerful as they want up to that point, but still keep to the explanation that hes not the Mortis level entity he was capable of being due to his injuries.
Last edited by Darth Thor on Mar 27th, 2020 at 09:03 AM
Well I mean, Palpatine also logically improved quite a bit after RotS, given the knowledge-hoarding he was doing.
So assuming that Vader kept pace with Palpatine during the OT(and we have no clear reason to assume he didn't), then I suppose you could make an argument that Vader may have surpassed the level of RotS Palpatine(and therefore Yoda) by the time of RotJ.
Canon hasn't really indicated that there was ever a massive discrepancy between Vader and Palpatine in terms of raw power. Palpatine would ultimately beat him, but I doubt the battle would be nearly as one-sided as most would be inclined to think. For all we know, canon Vader could have been 99.9% of Palpatine, but needed Luke's help to given him that extra push and clear advantage.
But again: Vader's injuries didn't hinder him at all. His potential never diminished in canon.
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I get what canon says. Im saying its silly given how little he progressed from ROTS to the OT. And contradicts Lucas commentary on a Huge plot point of the OT.
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In telekenetic feats Vader improved greatly. Sabers pretty much impossible to tell since he doesn't face an adversaries above his ROTS self. You can't say he didn't progress much since we don't know how much he progressed.
You could also argue that he didn't progress much because he was not fighting powerful adversaries. During the Clone Wars he constantly fought Count Dooku who is a very similar level to Anakin during its end, meaning he was able to progress faster.
I think Anakin and Dooku only fought like 4 or 5 times during the entirety of TCW(counting the movie), and a few of those weren't even prolonged battles. I always felt like Anakin's power-creep between AotC and RotS had more to do with him just always being engaged in standard battles and whatnot, which allowed him to hone in his power/skill. Obviously fighting the likes of Dooku and Asajj from time to time wouldn't have hurt either, but you get what I'm saying.
And as we've seen in Rebels, along with the comics and novels, Vader was constantly involved in battles/warfare during the 20+ year period between RotS and ESB(and many of those he fought over this time were exceptionally skilled/dangerous) -- and he was also training the Inquisitorius on the side. So it's not like his saber skills would have diminished due to a lack of practice, imo.
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I don't think his skills would have diminished. Just that fighting adversaries of higher skill would give him more opportunity to learn. When Vader fights most of his opponents, he doesn't even have to try, and would gain little knowledge/experience from the fight.
Whereas Anakin was constantly fighting one of the best duelists. I think duelling high skill opponents would be what would improve your duelling abillity the most, although I would say that just general combat and using force augmentation, etc would allow you to hone your overall skill.
And by the end of ROTS Anakin has fought Dooku what seven times? Along with ventress a few times. Overall my point is that you can make sense of Anakin progressing a lot faster than Vader.
I mean Anakin was already considerably stronger than Dooku (at his peak). So given Vader didnt surpass Palpatine (or presumably Yoda), that really doesnt leave much room for improvement over 20 years.
And its not like he was ragdolling Ahsoka or Ben Kenobi, and realistically how far can we scale them up? Is Ahsoka on Dookus level? Ben on Yodas?
More likely Ben is on Dookus level. Even if hes a little above Dooku, that still doesnt put Vader much above Peak Anakin, if at all.
Now I do believe Vader improved on Anakin in terms of consistency and control, hence the improved use of TK. But overall there doesnt seem to be a much of a change in terms of where we place him in comparison to other characters.
Last edited by Darth Thor on Mar 27th, 2020 at 07:02 PM
I mentioned it above, but I'm pretty sure Anakin and Dooku only fought like 4 or 5 times during TCW, and a few of those weren't even prolonged battles. While I do agree that fighting the likes of Dooku and Asajj would've helped Anakin improve, you still have to chalk his power-creep up to more than *just* his fights with them, considering that he likely went months at a time(on average) without ever directly encountering them... Which is why I think that much of his growth throughout TCW can be credited to constantly fighting in the standard battles and whatnot, which further honed his power/skill. Also keep in mind that his growth took place over a period of only 3 years.
That being said, Vader was also constantly engaged in battles in the time between RotS and ANH/ESB, and many of which were against very powerful/dangerous opposition(like Kirak, Koth, the Grysk, Momin, etc.) Difference is that following the events of RotS, Vader's connection to the Force was stronger than ever, and by ESB he'd been at it for over 20 years. We know Vader's raw power with the Force was superior to Anakin's, but logically speaking, his saber skill should have been as well.
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It was not retconned. You have to go to "Darth Sidious' biography gallery." I thought it was gone too, but I looked under "Palatine's biography gallery." There are two different ones.
As usual, we have conflicting information in star wars. How powerful is Darth Vader truly? Did he lose his potential? Keep it? Is he more powerful than his Jedi self? Depends on which canon material you read 🙁.
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^
So why do you think Vader's progression was seemingly slowed or are you not of that opinion?
Regarding his fights with Dooku I was counting every single fight, that lasts longer than a couple of clashes. So AOTC, CW Movie, Naboo, Naboo, Obi Dah, Dark Disciple, ROTS. So yes 4 times during the series/movie. 7 in total.
@Darth Thor - I don't see any reason to believe that Anakin was considerably stronger than Dooku. He only bests Dooku after he expends his energy on Kenobi. So I don't see a significant gap. Plus we're unaware of the gap between Dooku-Palpatine/Yoda and there's a source implying that Vader is a better duelist than Palpatine, atleast technically.
There's no reason for Vader to have diminished therefore at the very least Vader must be an equal to ROTS Anakin, though it's more likely he's quite a bit above him. We have no clue how strong Ahsoka is in the force so you can't diminish
Vader from that, same goes with Ben Kenobi like Vader he had 20 extra years to practice his force abillities I'm sure he was a lot stronger.
It's noted that Vader was specificly being cautious in regards to fighting Kenobi so you cannot say they're near equals in their fight. Especially considering Kenobi basically suicides. For all Kenobi knew Vader could've just dragged Luke towards him if he actually cared at that point in time, Kenobi would've held off Vader longer if he was actually able to.
Palpatine was only able to ragdoll Maul in the fight when he sat down out of breath. Palpatine could've literally swung at him with his lightsaber and I doubt Maul would've even been able to dodge it. His energy was completely diminished.
Vader is stronger in the force and stronger physically, he's also got two decades more experience and sources implying he's > Palpatine. Not that I believe that is entirely true, it's still telling.
There's no middle ground for Vader to fight in between Dooku and Sidious. He believed he wasn't ready to fight Sidious on his own so that's out of the question. Yoda is in hiding. You can't see the change because there's no one to scale off of other than Anakin. Which he seems to be above.
No Anakin was considerably above Dooku. The source which says Dooku expended energy on defeating Kenobi is the novelisation which also makes it clear that Dooku replenished his reserves, and that blocking every strike against Anakin took more energy than defeating Obi-Wan.
There is a noticeable gap between Dooku and Palpatine/Yoda. Yes. But like I said Anakin was already considerably stronger than Dooku. So placing Vader below Palpatine and Yoda doesn't leave much room for improvement for the Chosen One with an unrivalled midichlorian count over a whopping 20 years.
I'd say there's no reason to believe Vader is significantly > Peak Anakin for the reasons already stated above.
Ben Kenobi's clearly more powerful than before, but you are upscaling them for the sake of your Vader argument only, and not being very realistic IMO.
I mean just how powerful do you suppose Ahsoka and Ben Kenobi are? Ashoka would have to be Dooku level for Vader to just be on Peak Anakin's level.
So the best Vader could be is Peak Anakin level Imho.
Vader was going for the kill against Ben. Vader never passed his defences, though seemed to be slowly gaining ground on him.
Hence Ben needs to be better than Dooku just to scale Vader up to Peak Anakin level. We gotta be realistic in how far we are scaling up both Ahsoka and Ben just for the sake of scaling Vader up. Peak Anakin level is the best he could realistically be IMO.
Palpatine rag dolled both Maul and Opress with ridiculous ease. And vader wasn't even rag dolling Ahsoka
There's no reason to believe he's stronger. Like I have already pointed out, he certainly has better control of his Force powers, so can act effectively on a more consistent basis, but that doesn't make him stronger than peak Anakin in a duel.
Vader doesn't have a showing better than trouncing Dooku.
Honestly I think peak Anakin maybe a bit much. But there's no way he's above that.
Fact: Vader's injuries didn't diminish his powers at all. To the contrary, the injuries made his connection to the Force stronger than ever before.
Fact: Vader's injuries didn't diminish his lightsaber skill. He simply had to create/adopt a new style in order to overcome his bulkier stature.
Fact: Vader's injuries didn't diminish his overall potential with the Force.
Fact: We have no reason to believe that Vader's power/skill did anything but increase in the years between RotS and RotJ.
...So why are you trying to cap OT Vader at RotS Anakin level?
Seems like you're using his fight with Ahsoka as the primary measuring stick here, in lieu of logic to the contrary. We all know that Filoni isn't going to have anyone(I don't care how powerful they are) just waltz up and casually ragdoll/own his pet character Ahsoka... Not even Palpatine himself was able to do that: https://i.imgur.com/AWzMFWK.jpg
As for Vader's fight with Ben: From A Certain Point of View makes it clear that it was ultimately a one-sided stomp in Vader's favor. Ben(the same guy who owned Maul in three strikes) could defend against Vader for a brief period, but he had absolutely no chance of winning.
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Last edited by Galan007 on Mar 28th, 2020 at 11:29 AM
Mar 26th, 2020 08:10 PM
Vader>Anakin (in canon)
