I have to give you credit for concisely replying to me this time, although I'm not sure I agree with you; I at least respect that you presented something I can both easily understand and address. That being said, I will honor you back with a civil reply.
Originally posted by The_Tempest
No one said George has to care about or be informed of the EU to make declarations concerning it.
Which we both agreed upon. I said clearly that GL is fully within his rights to upset the apple cart whenever he wants. I've also noted that he's distanced himself from EU canon, considers it a world separate from his own, recognizes that it has excesses and differs, and only strives to keep a minimum consistency.
I also noted that, in the case of a statement of power, GL completely ignored Ragnos' claim to the most powerful of the most powerful but instead said his sarcophagus needed to be less Egyptian-like. With this evidence in hand, IF Lucas wanted to establish a pecking order, across both worlds with his own creations firmly on top, THEN it would stand to reason this declaration would be omitted or altered.
If we're going to have reasonable discussions on who beats who, it's worth noting that the highest canon of all, GL, has opted not to interfere beyond his own world. This is crucial, because that means unless he explicitly says otherwise, his claims (such as prime of the Jedi) are best noted as within his own world. Why else would he take great pains, through multiple interviews over the years, to reiterate that he does not and cannot control EU canon? Why does he also take great pains to let us know it is a dependent but ultimately different world than his own?
G-canon came first. It is the most valid in terms of close to his wishes. And it is the scope in which he specializes. In which he is both creator, director, and enforcer. It is unreasonable to assume that he would establish EU-wide statements of power when he is both happily ignorant of the "other world" and he notes that it runs off on its own direction.
Trust me, if GL wanted to clamp down on power charts so that no one topped Anakin or Sidious, all he'd have to do is this:
"Anakin and/or Sidious are the strongest Jedi and Sith respectively in both worlds/both canons, etc."
And it would be so.
Do you now understand why I find blind acceptance of his words to be a fallacy?
No one said we take EVERY SINGLE THING ever uttered by George as infallible gospel. (His remarks about the PT being “the prime of the Jedi” and whatnot are included as part of official commentary released with the DVD and Blu-ray versions of the films; that should count pretty strongly.)
Actually, any time his words are used out of the context of his world, they are being used incorrectly. I pulled the quotes straight out of his mouth. Can GL mandate anything he wants? Absolutely. That was never in contention. What was is this assumption that he is creating standards for EU when talking solely about his own work. GL thinks Anakin got his scar slipping in a bath tub. EU says otherwise. GL says the Emperor never was cloned, Luke never got married, etc. EU says otherwise. GL never once breathed a word about Vaapad, or Juyo, or Makashi. EU created these concepts in full.
Do you see what I'm saying now? EU is dependent on GL's work. This is true. But it is also moving in its own direction, evolving outside of his control. And he is allowing this, because he doesn't want to police it and because it makes him money.
It is entirely unreasonable to assume that EU is beholden to every errant remark by GL when he speaks only with his own world in mind. Again, unless he explicitly says otherwise, we have no reason to wipe EU canon out or retcon it without context. You wouldn't obliterate everything post-RotJ, including DE Sidious, just because GL didn't think anything would exist and didn't plan for anything to exist. You wouldn't suddenly argue that the saber forms don't exist because GL doesn't use them nor care. And you wouldn't say Anakin got his scar from a bathrub, novels be damned because GL uttered it.
So why would you use a blanket quote from him as binding in all cases?
I am using the terms “power chart” and “hierarchy” interchangeably and I provided my definition: anytime X is stated to be stronger/more powerful/more skilled/better in some martial way than Y.
I understand your semantics here, but I still think the term power chart is misleading, since it implies to some people both objectivity and a firm chart. Even hierarchy is unclear, as A might beat B, but B beats C whom A could never beat.
That being said, I won't comment any more on this. If you want to use power chart all day long, I've had my say.
LFL-approved works issue “power charts” and “hierarchies” all the time, across all levels of canon. They exist in G-canon, T-canon, and the vast expanse of C-canon. (E.g., Ragnos being “the most powerful of the most powerful.)
And we use context to evaluate them, so that reason and some small measure of objectivity can be applied. We can't account for all variables. We can't empirically measure saber skill, or Force power, or even nexus boosting capabilities. What we can measure are the elements in established fights or feats that can give us in turn upper limits of the characters we seek to pit against each other. It's not a simple science here.
Statements of power give us some nebulous idea of where someone should be generally. So the most powerful Sith/Force users can be safely put into a top tier versus everyone else. Establishing a hierarchy in that tier is harder; it involves us using actual evidence to show power, proficiency, cunning, etc. We have to account for as many elements as possible. If we simply said "Well, X is more powerful than everyone else by virtue of a statement made by GL/Filoni/Chee", this ignores reason and method in favor of bias confirmation or laziness.
Yes, this includes accepting Ragnos as the end-all based on one quote created over a decade ago.
When X is said to be the “_ of all _” or “_ in history,” they obviously concern the EU and G-canon together. This is, for better or worse, one continuity.
Except that it's two worlds. Chee's smoke and mirrors that there's one continuity is not designed to allow for what-if fights but to mesh the EU canon with G-canon when they are under completely different creators. Even though EU canon draws from GL, it has gone way beyond and in some ways far away from what he considers valid. GL thought love compromised Jedi, made them emotional and hateful. EU says otherwise. Etc. Etc.
”Sweeping generalizations” are also canon when issued authoritatively in the proper source. If one character says “X is the _ of all time,” then of course we should take this with a grain of salt. But when fact files, encyclopedias, Leland Chee, etc. start issuing them, there is no reason to pretend they don’t exist. When they are contradicted at a later date, we can say there has been a retcon. (Cf. my perfectly reasonable and canon-cooperative solution for Kun, Vitiate, and Sidious each being declared the most powerful Sith.)
[/list]Satisfied? No snark and no .gifs.
Quite satisfied. And see above; you do the discussion no justice if you simply accept a status quo and don't objectively examine things, and make rational arguments beyond "X says Y is epic über alles" and leave it at that.
When you first got here, you utterly detested the blind way in which Antediluvians accepted hierarchies without giving an inch, and rightfully so. Don't make the same mistake of replacing one status quo with another.