Originally posted by Throwaway
Yes, but as one can see from the films, Windu was driving Palpatine back after the sith lord's initial advantage.

Not sure which part of the fight your talking about here. From what I see Sidious drives Windu back for the first 20 seconds of the fight after blitzing all his team mates in front of him.

There is a small part where Mace drives Sidious back but that doesn't last more than 5 seconds. The rest of the fight seems pretty equal on both sides until Mace eventually kicks Sidious.

Originally posted by Throwaway
Yes, an impasse with Sidious translating into an advantage over Dooku. Later, you suggest that the phrase "impasse" suggests that vaapad, for some reason, only works so far as to equalize the two combatant's abilities (although IDK why, since Windu is leeching off Sidious's DS energies but primarily drawing on LS energies, so why would vaapad set some sort of equilibrium law?), yet, from what I recall, vaapad was pushed to its limits by Sidious, hence why Windu was only able to match him.

Because I don't actually see the words "leeching," or "feeding" off the darkside anywhere. I read how Mace deflected the fury like a blaster deflects laser bolts. That's suggesting hitting his opponent back with the same level of rage and power that his opponent is bringing to the table.

Then there's the fact that he reached an impasse with Sidious.

Originally posted by Throwaway
Windu would naturally draw as much of Dooku's DS energy as his vaapad will allow him, plus his own inner darkness, plus his own LS baseline, and given he closely matches Dooku in technical skill, is younger and stronger, and has shatterpoint, I'd give him, like yourself, an edge, but a more definite one.

I think I see what your getting at. That there was only so much Mace could draw from Sidious, then that added to his own power made him Sidious's equal.

But if Mace really absorbed all Vapaad could possibly absorb from Sidious, and used that power on top of his own beastly power to just stalemate Sidious, then that would suggest a Huge Huge gap between Sidious and Baseline Mace, which I don't really buy.

So then clearly Mace would absorb a lot less from Dooku(Dooku obviously not having the level of Rage, Power and Fury that Sidious has) so there's still no guarantee of him surpassing Dooku's level.

Originally posted by Throwaway
That doesn't happen in the movies. 😉 And it hardly suggests that Palpatine had a stronger Force push, just because he "almost" wins the fight.

Doesn't really matter if it happened in the movie. Because we are trying to interpret how Vapaad works as it's described in the novel. And clearly Stover didn't mean for Vapaad to make Mace's TK equal Sidious's as it describes only a "desperate" force push by Mace in another direction saving him in that part of the fight.

The FL part also clearly showed Sidious is more powerful than Mace in the Force: "This was beyond Vapaad."

Originally posted by Throwaway
I dissent; the term "shadow's fury" suggests to me that it's a metaphysical loop being compared by metaphor to a physical "loop" as a descriptor.

So do you think if Sidious just stands in front of Mace without attacking him, that Mace will start absorbing his power?

Originally posted by Throwaway
As you pointed out, Bulq isn't Mace's equal. He hadn't truly mastered vaapad. Windu, on the other hand, used vaapad to match blades with Dooku's master.

True, but then Bulq gave Windu a decent fight. And Dooku stomped Bulq really hard.

A>B>C doesn't always work that well in SW.