Seems like your argument goes along fairly straightforward lines. Your claims seem to be as follows:1. Meetra calls Revan the most powerful individual she’d ever met.
2. Meetra met N.
3. Malak surpassed Revan in power.
:.
4. Malak is more powerful than N.
I recognize that you’ve put a lot of work into the book-keeping on usage of terms like “power” and “command of the Force.”
I have online .txt files of all Star Wars books so finding "command of the Force" wasn't that difficult given we live in 2015.
In the absence of sources for the quotes I don’t recognize
Wow! What's that?
It can't be...
The source!
Part 7, Quote One: Star Wars: Jedi Quest 2: The Trail of the Jedi.
Part 7, Quote Two: Star Wars: Splinter of the Mind's Eye.
I’m forced to assume that the ones written like dialogue are in-universe and the ones written like narration are out-of-universe.
I thought you were an expert on all things KotOR and Darth Nihilus?
mmm
And for the record, no one cares about your self-narrator of your thought process.
The quote for (7) in your first post has typos that make me hesitant to rely on it at all.
That's my thing. mmm
I provided the sources above, which weren't that hard to obtain if you did approx. one minute of research.
Generally, I’m inclined to only reject the single weakest part of an argument, and watch the rest crumble. However, there are so many equivocations and omissions that the case is best confronted comprehensively. I’ll discuss first the flaws in each premise (and the evidence provided for each) and then discuss the way that the argument structure itself is insufficient to prove your claim.
For a post that is relatively small, no one needs to hear your "I'm going to do this, and then this!" We can read. 👆
--- --- ---
First you invoke the claim from the Revan novel, from Meetra’s POV: “Revan’s command of the Force was greater then [sic] that of anyone else she had ever met.”
It’s worth noting that the phrasing of this accolade requires that Meetra conceptualize any competitor as an individual who she had met.
Anyone, I'm just going to assume you're saying "Meetra Surik is comparing the individuals she met." I'm not sure why you couldn't say that, but whatever.
The quote is not “greater than any she had ever experienced.”
Thus, her experience with N. is not clearly included in the set.
I, with all honesty, have no ****ing clue how you concluded that based on your one sentence prior.
Furthermore, the trope of “power hidden outside of conflict” is alive and well in the Star Wars mythos.
Meetra’s experiences with Revan as described by KotOR II are always distant and subordinate. She is not described to have fought alongside Revan, but rather for Revan. Thus it’s not clear that Meetra is in a position to evaluate his abilities at all
Actually, the Revan novel made notice multiple times that Revan and Meetra Surik had a unique bond with one another - something that was created after fighting alongside eachother a lot of times during the Mandalorian Wars.
So no, you're wrong. And before you blabber about "the source material," I have one word for you:
"Meetra had known Revan long before Bastila; she had answered his call to go to war against the Mandalorians, and in doing so she became one of his most trusted advisers and closest friends. Bastila knew they had shared a special bond not unlike that of Padawan and Master."
"Once he had tried to reach out to her with the Force. Serving in battle with someone formed a special bond; even across the breadth of the galaxy he should have been able to get some vague sense of her presence."
There's a lot of other quotes as well, but those two should suffice.
And ah! That reminds me. The Chronicles told us that Meetra Surik wasn't even aware of the full extent of Revan's power - meaning he's even more powerful than Darth Nihilus than we originally believed as way back as the Mandalorian Wars.
"But this young one, like the other Jedi brethren, is unaware of the tremendous dark side power wielded by Revan and the terrible secrets of Malachor V."
Note that Kyp Durron makes a similar claim about Kar Vastor on Harruun Kal and Darth Vader in a Star Destroyer: observing a "stronger connection” in Vader than in Vastor. However, I’d hesitate to bet on Vader in a direct confrontation of Force power against Vastor being amped by the planet where the observation was made.
I’ve already pointed out that N. is a force of nature more than an individual foe, but here’s a quote from Kreia about Visas’s master:
Meetra’s training predisposes her to not thinking of N. as a man.
Her conversations with Visas do the same.
Your final point, that Malak surpassed Revan, is by far the most audacious claim of your entire argument. However, it’s given the absolute least evidenc... [snip] Vandar is mistaken.
Specifically, power in the Force is not a transitive relation. So the superiority of Malak to Revan, and Revan to Nihilius, is generally thought not to ensure the superiority of Malak to Nihilius.
However, your dismissal of Nephthys’s distinction between N.’s power and conventional Force users strikes me as myopic. N. and the Exile both lacked a connection to the living Force. This is a major plot point of the second game. It’s even lampshaded as a game-mechanic.
I don’t think that it does your reputation any favors to build an argument (even a trolling argument) on the complete disregard of important evidence about pillars of the (EU) canon.
For one, your time is long past, broski. I'm not sure why you're debating "reputation" or "credibility" when all the dudes who took you seriously are either dead or retired. And, based on past statements from you, and the arguments you constructed here, I would be more worried about your current reputation with the current active members of KMC.
Originally posted by Sinious
Ant soloing this thread atm.
Originally posted by Nephthys
Holy shit, that double standard. After all the years of laying into me for taking character statements about Nihilus, suddenly Meetra's clearly biased opinion, and that alone, is a good argument.
Easy, killer. First, you're arguably the last person here who has the right to lecture anyone on double standards. Second, like I said: I don't necessarily agree with Ant's argument. I'm just saying that no one has actually refuted it.
Originally posted by The_Tempest
Easy, killer. First, you're arguably the last person here who has the right to lecture anyone on double standards. Second, like I said: I don't necessarily agree with Ant's argument. I'm just saying that no one has actually refuted it.
According to you, pointing out that it's a fallible, in-universe opinion with clear bias should constitute a refutation.
Originally posted by Sinious
What fascinates me is I kept hearing Nihilus can beat any jedi/sith arguments and then suddenly found out about Darth Revan > Nihilus claims here and no one has refuted it in almost 10 pages
Nihilus drains him. Revan dies. Nihilus wins most arguments through drain, not necessarily pure power. That doesn't change for Revan. It's just also true that Nihilus is more powerful.
Originally posted by Nephthys
According to you, pointing out that it's a fallible, in-universe opinion with clear bias should constitute a refutation.
Spoiler:
Which might be why I'm not endorsing the opinion.
According to youlesser people, fallible, in-universe opinions constitute divine fact all the time when we like these opinions. Meetra being fallible only means that her opinion is not necessarily correct, not that it's flat-out wrong.
Originally posted by DarthAnt66
Revan can prolly resist Nihilus' drain too.👆 🙂
Nope.
Originally posted by The_TempestSpoiler:
Which might be why I'm not endorsing the opinion.According to
youlesser people, fallible, in-universe opinions constitute divine fact all the timewhen we like these opinions. Meetra being fallible only means that her opinion is not necessarily correct, not that it's flat-out wrong.
Not at all, I've questioned opinions when there's good cause to. There's good cause to in this case with Nihilus' unique nature and how others perceive him, Meetra's bias, the plausibility of her referring to force mastery instead of power and the out of universe explanation of Karpyshan admitting he did very little research into Kotor 2 and his own clear bias.
Doubtful. If he did he'd probably talk about Revan's tactical brilliance or something, not his power. IIRC when you asked if Revan could beat Meetra and Kreia at once he said he'd probably win through that stuff, not just being that good. Nihilus is way better than Meetra and Kreia together.
Most of those authors give non-answers anyway. Also I don't give a shit what they say.
Originally posted by Nephthys
Not at all, I've questioned opinions when there's good cause to.
If by 'good cause' you refer to your own agenda, then I absolutely agreelol ok.
Originally posted by Nephthys
There's good cause to in this case with Nihilus' unique nature
You're blowing Nihilus's "uniqueness" wildly out of proportion. It's there, but purple prose aside, dude is still a Force user and a Sith Lord. Not sure why he's automatically exempt from such considerations from Surik.
Originally posted by Nephthys
and how others perceive him,
Kinda like how Dooku "perceives" Sidious as being a black hole of the Force but we just like to consider him a regular ol' Force user, only more powerful than mostlol ok.
Originally posted by Nephthys
Meetra's bias,
Kinda like Khem Val's "bias" might inspire him to blow Tulak Hord's feats and accolades wildly out of proportion, right?lol ok.
Originally posted by Nephthys
the plausibility of her referring to force mastery instead of power
This is the second and more pertinent reason as to why I don't necessarily endorse Ant's opinion.
Originally posted by Nephthys
and the out of universe explanation of Karpyshan admitting he did very little research into Kotor 2 and his own clear bias.
Not sure what this has to do with anything here.
Originally posted by The_Tempest
You're blowing Nihilus's "uniqueness" wildly out of proportion. It's there, but purple prose aside, dude is still a Force user and a Sith Lord. Not sure why he's automatically exempt from such considerations from Surik.
Can you really call him a force user if he has no natural force connection? I'm not talking about purple prose, factually Nihilus is not connected to the Force in a conventional manner and evaluations of "his" power should reflect that.
Originally posted by The_TempestKinda like how Dooku "perceives" Sidious as being a black hole of the Force but we just like to consider him a regular ol' Force user, only more powerful than mostlol ok.
Lol @ this "heart of the force" esque bullshit.
Originally posted by The_Tempest
This is the second and more pertinent reason as to why I don't necessarily endorse Ant's opinion.
Cool.
Originally posted by The_Tempest
Not sure what this has to do with anything here.
The guy admitted that he doesn't know what he's talking about, his writing should be looked at with that in mind and a critical eye.
Originally posted by Nephthys
Can you really call him a force user if he has no natural force connection? I'm not talking about purple prose, factually Nihilus is not connected to the Force in a conventional manner and evaluations of "his" power should reflect that.
I think I can call him a Force user if he uses the Force. 😐
Originally posted by Nephthys
Lol @ this "heart of the force" esque bullshit.
True: shit sounds so zany next to "dust motes in a storm" and "the darkness in which all things die" and all the clearly objective, scientific phrases used to accurately describe Nihilus. 👆
Originally posted by Nephthys
Cool.
Which is why you guys should probably stick to that.
Originally posted by Nephthys
The guy admitted that he doesn't know what he's talking about, his writing should be looked at with that in mind and a critical eye.
You mean like the guys who designed the Temple of the Ancients in SWTOR really knew what they were doing when designing a building described as "twenty meters" tall so we look into that with their ignorance in mind and a critical eye?lol ok.