Stealth Moose
Umbrella Elite
Originally posted by The_Tempest
Regardless, that station is conferred upon them by numerous canon sources.
And similarly canon sources indicate Kit Fisto, who did the most besides Mace in the confrontation and has the most "accolades" to his name, is explicitly just above AotC Obi-Wan. Obi-Wan Kenobi wouldn't last a fart in hell's chance against Sidious. So their standing is moot.
Some of those are from the OT-era: his defeat of Starkiller, his disintegration of dark side prophets, etc. But the real question is: why should we assume that an older, more advanced, more powerful Sidious would be unable to replicate prior feats?
I don't doubt his knowledge, but it's been brought up that a much younger Qui-Gon Jinn became weaker, slower as he aged. If this is a valid stance, it's logical to assume that OT Sidious, while probably stronger in the Force and definitely more knowledgable, might not be as capable with a blade as he used to be.
Once he becomes Emperor, Palpatine obviously enters the fray far less often than he did before. But he's also dedicating himself to an unprecedented study of the Force and Starkiller, with all his stupendous feats, is "ultimately no match" for the Emperor. Whatever he may have lost in combat skill he undoubtedly makes up for in ever-increasing power.
Which is true, I agree.
This stance has always baffled me. Why is character wanking acceptable when it pertains to the EU and not the movies?
Precisely because EU started off as over the top and ridiculous, and scaling down has not really occurred. DE started most of it, as did some of the other post-RotJ stuff and the authors went on to make TotJ/GAotS, which goes even further into ridiculousness. Then you have TOR, KotOR, etc. where cosmic level powers are the norm for top tier Force users, and for many many years this was exclusive to the EU. Even the PT films and the Clone Wars novels did not attempt to bridge this gap.
But then came TFU, the newer CW series, and more books and comics about Vader and Sidious to boost them to more respectable levels. If they had been that powerful in the first place, it wouldn't have bugged me. I even admitted that Vader is more powerful now than I had realized and I ranked him higher than Dooku, which you should know is the first time I've done as much.
But the problem becomes this sudden overemphasis on the movie era, to cater to movie-centric fans, and then the wanking starts to spiral out of control and you get abominations like TFU. If anything, I liked the idea of more moderate Force users in the PT/OT era because the emphasis was on the story, not the powers.