Originally posted by NewGuy01
Anakin. By miles.
People are saying Luke? Seriously?
Originally posted by The Ellimist
If we buy that RotJ Vader > Dooku, I don't see how this is such as clear victory for Anakin.
Because ROTJ Vader didn't want to kill Luke and was emotionally conflicted. Although granted no one likes to also consider that Dooku was supposed to lose his battle with Anakin.
Originally posted by Lord Stark
Because ROTJ Vader didn't want to kill Luke and was emotionally conflicted. Although granted no one likes to also consider that Dooku was supposed to lose his battle with Anakin.
I don't think Vader was trying to get so overwhelmed by Luke's power that he was stumbling around and falling down. He may have been conflicted, by the RotJ novel makes it clear that he wasn't consciously holding back.
The RotS novel makes it pretty clear that Dooku wasn't in the second half of their duel either - he was just flat out overpowered and humiliated. I'd say that RotJ Vader < Dooku as a swordsman but stronger in the Force, and Luke was more clearly dominating Vader with the Force but not as quickly winning the duel. .ie, Rage! Luke is more powerful than Zonakin, but less coherent or technically skilled.
Given that the empirical result was that Zonakin won more quickly, I'd say he wins. He's strong enough in the Force that he's not going to get overwhelmed by Luke, and will methodically cut him down with superior technique.
Originally posted by The Ellimist✅
Unlikely. Do you think Vader could've done to Dooku what Zonakin did? That's utter nonsense if we're using Legends; even if we're using Canon we'd have to conclude that Ahsoka and Ben Kenobi each >> Dooku.
Nah but really, you're not acknowledging the fact that Dooku expressly states he cannot handle power attacks. Savage knocked Dooku on his ass, does that mean Savage > Dooku? He was at a significant stylistic disadvantage, which a lot of people ignore. Alternatively yes, if Dooku faced off against Vader all evidence suggests he'd be destroyed.
Regardless what you make if it really isn't my issue. No textual evidence in Legends and certainly not in Canon states Zonakin is some kind of outlier. And Lords of the Sith clearly states Vader is altogether more powerful than he was before, which frankly can also be inferred from his showings in Legends.
Originally posted by JKBartI just like to admire her lekku. 🙂
why is ur ahsoka avatar focused on her back admit it you have a thing for her ass
Originally posted by Darth Thor
I think Vader almost certainly did hold back on his TK against Luke for most that fight. Dooku was simply being overwhelmed, and we've seen his use of TK and FL before in weaker incarnations of Anakin.
It's possible that Vader held back with the Force, but I don't think he could've done anything to Rage! Luke even with telekinesis, given that he was clearly unable to match his augmentation.
Originally posted by Beniboybling
Nah but really, you're not acknowledging the fact that Dooku expressly states he cannot handle power attacks.
It's a relative weakness of his, but it's not like any random strongman with a lightsaber poses a threat to him - Dooku still comfortably defeated AotC Anakin and regularly defeats General Grievous. Before Anakin goes beserk, Dooku is backtracking against him but still matches him in their saber lock, and before broke his guard and kicked him to the curb while ragdolling Obi Wan. He's not some sort of weakling who turns to paste at anyone with big muscles.
Also the RotS novelization makes it really clear, in Stover's trademarked eloquence, that Dooku was being destroyed in every facet by Anakin's sheer strength in the Force. It wasn't just a mere form disadvantage and Anakin having bigger muscles.
Alternatively yes, if Dooku faced off against Vader all evidence suggests he'd be destroyed.
I think he's a more generally dangerous duelist than Vader is, but he would be especially vulnerable to his enormous power as you put it. I do not think he would be turned into paste like he was against Zonakin. Vader did not dominate the likes of Ahsoka to a comparable degree.
Regardless what you make if it really isn't my issue. No textual evidence in Legends and certainly not in Canon states Zonakin is some kind of outlier.
I think the circumstantial evidence is pretty clear; Dooku seems to do fine against Anakin, then they saber lock, he specifically points out that Anakin isn't harnessing his anger, and then suddenly Anakin dominates him.
You could make the case that base Anakin > Dooku, but that doesn't change the fact that he had an outlier performance that night.
And Lords of the Sith clearly states Vader is altogether more powerful than he was before, which frankly can also be inferred from his showings in Legends.
Actually there are several explicit Legends statements that Anakin > Vader as a duelist, although some contradiction abounds and it isn't entirely clear. The Death Star novel does state that Obi Wan has weakened by ANH, yet Vader seems to not do as well against him as pre-suit Vader does against a more powerful version.
Regardless he clearly isn't above Zonakin in Legends or he would've one-shotted Obi Wan and Starkiller, and probably taken on his master as well.
Originally posted by The EllimistWhat's your point? Anakin is not "any random strongman" he's one the best Djem So stylists in history, who would obviously exacerbate this stylistic weakness to the extreme. As would Luke or Vader for that matter. And for the record neither AotC Anakin or Grievous wielded Djem So.
It's a relative weakness of his, but it's not like any random strongman with a lightsaber poses a threat to him - Dooku still comfortably defeated AotC Anakin and regularly defeats General Grievous.
Before Anakin goes beserk, Dooku is backtracking against him but still matches him in their saber lock, and before broke his guard and kicked him to the curb while ragdolling Obi Wan. He's not some sort of weakling who turns to paste at anyone with big muscles.Right but according to the text he was struggling, very much:
Skywalker was all over him.
The shining blue lightsaber whirled and spat and every overhand chop crashed against Dooku's defense with the unstoppable power of a meteor strike; the Sith Lord spent lavishly of his reserve of the Force merely to meet these attacks without being cut in half, and Skywalker-Skywalker was getting stronger.
Each parry cost Dooku more power than he'd used to throw Kenobi across the room; each block aged him a decade.
It's evident he can't really handle RotS Anakin full stop.
Also the RotS novelization makes it really clear, in Stover's trademarked eloquence, that Dooku was being destroyed in every facet by Anakin's sheer strength in the Force. It wasn't just a mere form disadvantage and Anakin having bigger muscles.And I never stated as much, but Stover also makes very clear that Anakin's use of Djem So played a significant part in his defeat, or rather at least the swiftness of it.
I think he's a more generally dangerous duelist than Vader is, but he would be especially vulnerable to his enormous power as you put it. I do not think he would be turned into paste like he was against Zonakin. Vader did not dominate the likes of Ahsoka to a comparable degree.Right, but assuming continuity between Legends and Canon is flawed on principle, evidently Anakin was able to quickly defeat him, but we can't be sure he was so utterly outclassed to the degree Stover described, if that in itself wasn't just the usual hyperbolic descriptive Stover dishes out on a regular basis.
I think the circumstantial evidence is pretty clear; Dooku seems to do fine against Anakin, then they saber lock, he specifically points out that Anakin isn't harnessing his anger, and then suddenly Anakin dominates him.Right but if we are going by the description in the novel, at that point Dooku was playing on Anakin's fear to unbalance him.You could make the case that base Anakin > Dooku, but that doesn't change the fact that he had an outlier performance that night.
Actually there are several explicit Legends statements that Anakin > Vader as a duelist, although some contradiction abounds and it isn't entirely clear. The Death Star novel does state that Obi Wan has weakened by ANH, yet Vader seems to not do as well against him as pre-suit Vader does against a more powerful version.Yeah I was referring exclusively to Force power.
And really? I'd say defeating your opponent > getting all your limbs cut off, especially when Vader was expressly playing it cautious.
Regardless he clearly isn't above Zonakin in Legends or he would've one-shotted Obi Wan and Starkiller, and probably taken on his master as well.That really depends on to what extent you believe Anakin eclipsed Dooku's abilities.
Originally posted by Beniboybling
What's your point? Anakin is not "any random strongman" he's one the best Djem So stylists in history, who would obviously exacerbate this stylistic weakness to the extreme. As would Luke or Vader for that matter. And for the record neither AotC Anakin or Grievous wielded Djem So.Right but according to the text he was struggling, very much:
AotC Anakin wielded djem so, and Grievous was trained in all seven lightsaber forms. Besides, it's not like Grievous's immense physical strength magically vanishes if he doesn't move his sabers in the particular configuration of djem so.
Read:
This is the death of Count Dooku:
A starburst of clarity blossoms within Anakin Skywalker's mind, when he says to himself Oh. I get it, now and discovers that the fear within his heart can be a weapon, too.
It is that simple, and that complex.
And it is final.
Dooku is dead already. The rest is mere detail.
The play is still on; the comedy of lightsabers flashes and snaps and hisses. Dooku and Skywalker, a one-time-only command performance, for an audience of one. Jedi and Sith and Sith and Jedi, spinning, whirling, crashing together, slashing and chopping, parrying, binding, slipping and whipping and ripping the air around them with snarls of power.
And all for nothing, because a nuclear flame has consumed Anakin Skywalker's Jedi restraint, and fear becomes fury without effort, and fury is a blade that makes his lightsaber into a toy.
The play goes on, but the suspense is over. It has become mere pantomime, as intricate and as meaningless as the space-time curves that guide galactic clusters through a measureless cosmos.
Dooku's decades of combat experience are irrelevant. His mastery of swordplay is useless. His vast wealth, his political influence, impeccable breeding, immaculate manners, exquisite taste—the pursuits and points of pride to which he has devoted so much of his time and attention over the long, long years of his life—are now chains hung upon his spirit, bending his neck before the ax.
Even his knowledge of the Force has become a joke.
It is this knowledge that shows him his death, makes him handle it, turn it this way and that in his mind, examine it in detail like a black gemstone so cold it burns. Dooku's elegant farce has degenerated into bathetic melodrama, and not one shed tear will mark the passing of its hero.
But for Anakin, in the fight there is only terror, and rage. Only he stands between death and the two men he loves best in all the world, and he can no longer afford to hold anything back.
That imaginary dead-star dragon tries its best to freeze away his strength, to whisper him that Dooku has beaten him before, that Dooku has all the power of the darkness, to remind him how Dooku took his hand, how Dooku could strike down even Obi-Wan himself seemingly without effort and now Anakin is all alone and he will never be a match for any Lord of the Sith—
But Palpatine's words rage is your weapon have given Anakin permission to unseal the shielding around his furnace heart, and all his fears and all his doubts shrivel in its flame. When Count Dooku flies at him, blade flashing, Watto's fist cracks out from Anakin's childhood to knock the Sith Lord tumbling back.
When with all the power that the dark side can draw from throughout the universe, Dooku hurls a jagged fragment of the durasteel table, Shmi Skywalker's gentle murmur I knew you would come for me, Anakin smashes it aside.
His head has been filled with the smoke from his smothered heart for far too long; it has been the thunder that darkens his mind. On Aargonar, on Jabiim, in the Tusken camp on Tatooine, that smoke had clouded his mind, had blinded him and left him flailing in the dark, a mindless machine of slaughter; but here now, within this ship, this microscopic cell of life in the infinite sterile desert of space, his firewalls have opened so that the terror and the rage are out there, in the fight instead of in his head, and Anakin's mind is clear as a crystal bell.
In that pristine clarity, there is only one thing he must do.
Decide.
So he does.
He decides to win.
He decides that Dooku should lose the same hand he took.
Decision is reality, here: his blade moves simultaneously with his will and blue fire vaporizes black Corellian nanosilk and disintegrates flesh and shears bone, and away falls a Sith Lord's lightsaber hand, trailing smoke that tastes of charred meat and burned hair. The hand falls with a bar of scarlet blaze still extending from its spastic death grip, and Anakin's heart sings for the fall of that red blade.
He reaches out and the Force catches it for him.
And then Anakin takes Dooku's other hand as well.
This does not read "Anakin uses djem so and he's young and strong so he just smashes Dooku down". It's a little more dominating than that.
Skywalker was all over him.The shining blue lightsaber whirled and spat and every overhand chop crashed against Dooku's defense with the unstoppable power of a meteor strike; the Sith Lord spent lavishly of his reserve of the Force merely to meet these attacks without being cut in half, and Skywalker-Skywalker was getting stronger.
Each parry cost Dooku more power than he'd used to throw Kenobi across the room; each block aged him a decade.
Yes, he struggles against Anakin, but he also breaks his guard and kicks him across the room, and then later taunts him about how he doesn't use his anger, right after which Stover goes into the "Dooku is f*cked" description.
In other words, Zonakin >> base Anakin.
It's evident he can't really handle RotS Anakin full stop.And I never stated as much, but Stover also makes very clear that Anakin's use of Djem So played a significant part in his defeat.
Base Anakin arguably can defeat Dooku; that does not mean that Zonakin isn't > base Anakin. You make this assumption for some reason.
Right, but assuming continuity between Legends and Canon is flawed on principle, evidently Anakin was able to quickly defeat him, but we can't be sure he was so utterly outclassed to the degree Stover described, if that in itself wasn't just the usual hyperbolic descriptive Stover dishes out on a regular basis.
The movie-novels are still canon, and we can compare his language to the language he uses to describe other, closer fights, and see that Dooku is getting uniquely f*cked.
I don't think Vader could do the same thing. Certainly not in Legends, probably not in Canon.
Right but if we are going by the description in the novel, at that point Dooku was playing on Anakin's fear to unbalance him.
Yeah and it obviously backfired. Dooku's intentions are irrelevant.
Yeah I was referring exclusively to Force power.And really? I'd say defeating your opponent > getting all your limbs cut off, especially when Vader was expressly playing it cautious.
The point remains that Legends puts Vader below Anakin in sabers, or if he's above him, it's not to such an extent that he could've done to Dooku what Zonakin did. There is no indication that such a disparity exists; Zonakin is probably comparable to Palpatine.
That really depends on to what extent you believe Anakin eclipsed Dooku's abilities.
Uh, no; it's pretty clear in Legends that Vader fears Sidious and struggles against sub-Dooku tier duelists, and it's pretty clear in Legends that he cannot dominate Ahsoka to the same extent that Zonakin sh*ts on Dooku.
Zonakin >>> Vader, I don't see how this could be a question.
Luke is the weak one here IMO. Yes he overpowered Vader, but with blind rage. He doesn't have as much control; this I believe the other two can exploit.
Anakin vs Maul
I'm malleable on my opinion here, but I personally believe Maul's performance against Sidious was more impressive than what Anakin did with Dooku.
I mean that, was years of pent-up anger unleashed on Sidious right there.
Originally posted by Kurk
I personally believe Maul's performance against Sidious was more impressive than what Anakin did with Dooku.I mean that, was years of pent-up anger unleashed on Sidious right there.
Nah, I don't see that Maul stomping Dooku. Besting him in that enraged state? Sure. But not to the level Skyealker best him.
I'm using the version that people believed was amped by Savage's death. He then proceeded to hold his own against Sidious and even pressure Sheev in a saber lock before being overwhelmed (ie. forcing Sidious to actually try). That's popular opinion, anyway.
Do people really think that Anakin would stomp both Maul and Luke at the same time?