Originally posted by ares834
And I was initially replying to Intrepid who is arguing that Palpatine threw the entire duel.
Mace was fighting equally with Sidious once he was fully sunk into Vapaad. He then gained a tactical advantage to disarm Sidious.
But I stand by the notion that if not for the 3 Masters helping at the beginning Sidious would have had a better chance at winning the Saber fight.
Add in his Force Powers in a more open space then I personally see Sidious taking a good majority over Mace.
I agree that in a more open space Sidious would've had a better chance of winning. But the fact is that he does have the capabilites to defeat Sidious one-on-one because he did. What Intrepid posted before wasn't evidence, it was a theory. What ares posted reinforced that even further. Sidious threw nothing.
There's also the fact that Lucas said you'd have to be Mace or Yoda to compete with Sidious. Well, guess which character Samuel L. Jackson plays?
Originally posted by ares834
That's not proof but rather a theory. And it doesn't even make sense, I mean if Windu decided to put him on trial rather than kill him his entire scheme would have collapsed.
Originally posted by ares834
Anyway, the entire "fear" argument is irrelevant as it's non-canon. Anakin isn't there when Mace and Sidious fight nor does Sidious shout that the fear Windu feels isn't his.
I'm ignoring nothing. You've provided your ludicrous strawman-theory that Sidious wanted to hide Anakin's fear from Mace, to which I responded that Mace already knew of Anakin's fear (and I have no idea why it doesn't make sense to you since he already implanted fear into Anakin's mind that would have Anakin believe he'd need Palpatine's help).
It's not only what I said, it's what others have said, as well, the fact that it's stated only Yoda and Mace can compete with Sidious, which only supports the notion that neither of them were holding back, that in the commentary the guy says Sidious was trying to destroy Mace, and other comments regarding this matter.
Originally posted by Zett
Palpatine didn't underestimated Mace's strength. It wasn't about Mace, he was just a pawn. Anakin was main goal in Palpatine's plans. Palpatine knew, that Anakin doesn't care of his freedom etc. he just wanted him alive. When Mace "defeat" him in sword fight, he was counting that Mace will try to kill him, but Mace wasn't angry enough. So he used FL to bring Mace deeper into vaapad. After that, Mace's judgement was clouded by the dark side, and he decided to do something, what Anakin cannot allow. It forced Anakin's do choose, and it was obvious for Sidious, that Anakin willl choose to defend his life.
So he was toying with Windu all the time. Maybe even Mace was better duelist, but who cares. Palpatine was superior force user, with superior TK, FL, speed... Mace can't block TK with his sword. Even full power lightning would be to much for him.
With all due respect...there are several issues with this line of reasoning.
1. Authorial fiat - not only does George Lucas suggest in his commentaries that Mace Windu overpowers Palpatine, the RotS novelization quite explicitly details how Mace Windu, although inferior in raw Force capabilities, manages to overpower Palpatine through a combination of vaapad and shatterpoint. Indeed, the novel actually suggests that Windu would have fallen early on in the battle had he not had time to sink fully into vaapad (which matches the film events of Sidious clearly having the advantage in the early stages of the duel), making the "B team" not as useless as people joke.
2. Occam's Razor - you can speculate all you want about whether or not Palpatine threw the fight, but without any solid empirical evidence, or any flaws in the simpler theory that Mace Windu, one of the most powerful Jedi in galactic history, simply overpowered Palpatine, but to do so would require you to toss out authorial fiat and the entire RotS novelization depiction of the battle. There's simply no reason to do so.
3. Path of Destruction and a combination of other sources tell us that one must be:
a) significantly more powerful in the Force
b) use a sufficiently potent Force move
or
c) catch the opponent off guard
to penetrate one's Force defenses. Palpatine using telekinesis would not fit into any of these categories.
Note that there is evidence to suggest that Palpatine was feigning, or at least exaggerating weakness after he tried to overpower Windu through Force lightning, but that doesn't mean that he could pull off the same through TK. And even in the former case, Mace Windu turned Palpatine's lightning back on his face via a superconducting loop, so whereas Palpatine may not have been as weak as he pretended to be, it's not as if he faked having his face permanently disfigured.
4. Palpatine would be a fool to "fake" losing to Windu. He'd be gambling with several assumptions:
a) That Mace Windu would take advantage of the opening Palpatine left to kick him, rather than slice him across the midsection.
b) That Mace Windu would then still try to take him under arrest, rather than chop his ****ing head off.
c) That, upon deciding to "end this, once and for all", Mace Windu would do an exaggerated overhand strike, rather than just lunging at Palpatine through his neck.
d) That, despite having already sensed Anakin's conflicted emotions to the point where he did not trust him to accompany his arrest team, and that Anakin had just rather disturbingly stated that he "needs him!", Windu would not be on guard for any sort of mischief whatsoever (even though he never really liked Skywalker), and would not sense, with his precognition, Anakin activating his lightsaber and slicing his hand off.
So yeah, it's safe to say that Windu + vaapad + shatterpoint > Palpatine.
Originally posted by Intrepid37
No one said that Mace couldn't compete with Sidious... but does he ever have a chance of winning? No. Might as well say that Dooku has a chance of beating Yoda, but that doesn't sound appropriate, does it?
Being able to compete against another opponent suggests he has the ability to win. That's why it's a competition, and that's why he says only Mace and Yoda could compete against him, because all others wouldn't be capable of fighting on par with Sidious and would be killed. It's never said that Dooku can compete against Yoda.
Originally posted by Col. Valerian
Being able to compete against another opponent suggests he has the ability to win. That's why it's a competition, and that's why he says only Mace and Yoda could compete against him, because all others wouldn't be capable of fighting on par with Sidious and would be killed. It's never said that Dooku can compete against Yoda.
Originally posted by Intrepid37
I have no idea why it's so hard to believe he threw the whole fight.
Because such an interpretation is blatantly contradicted by Lucas's audio commentary, and the RotS novelization?
Mace Windu could have simply lunged at Palpatine and skewered him right there. Palpatine couldn't possibly have known that Samuel L Jackson would be a dumbass, and opt for a telegraphed, overhand strike, without bothering to account for the Anakin that he knows is conflicted, and doesn't trust.
Originally posted by Intrepid37
Not really. To compete means to try and outdo someone (in this case, Sidious) for/in something (a fight).Yoda's capable of fighting as an equal with Sidious. Dooku and Anakin can hold their owns against Yoda (ie compete with him).
Except that they can't. I understand were you're coming from, though... But I think that by saying that Lucas meant that the only ones who could fight on par with Sidious were Yoda and Mace. I guess it's subjective.
Originally posted by Master Han
Because such an interpretation is blatantly contradicted by Lucas's audio commentary, and the RotS novelization?Mace Windu could have simply lunged at Palpatine and skewered him right there. Palpatine couldn't possibly have known that Samuel L Jackson would be a dumbass, and opt for a telegraphed, overhand strike, without bothering to account for the Anakin that he [b]knows
is conflicted, and doesn't trust. [/B]