Darth Bane and powerscaling

Originally posted by The Ellimist
Bane's lightning doesn't always disintegrate people either though, and sometimes random Jedi padawans can dodge it (I don't see even Anakin dodging Dooku's lightning, lol), so saying "Dooku's doesn't!" isn't exactly definitive.

Force attacks do not always produce environmental effects proportional to how "powerful" you'd expect them to be. I mean, hey, I've seen Dooku lift massive stone orbalisks, and Mace Windu Force push an AT-TE off a cliff; surely that takes a lot more force than which is needed to crush someone's spine! Yet we don't see Bane's TK pulverizing people like an AT-TE moving push would, so does that make him weak or something? It's difficult to judge feats this way.

As for those lifting and pushing showings however, those were sustained exertions, we are talking a TK shockwave, a rapid, instantaneous exertion, that was sufficient to pulp organs and smash bones.

Quite honestly, making Yoda absorb and redirect his lightning "far from easily" (AotC novelization) is probably a lot more impressive than disintegrating humans, seeing as how TFUII Vader can walk through an infinitely more energetic attack from Starkiller without needing to do anything but turn his head a little, and Yoda >.

Or how about when a random, no-name "shadow assassin" can withstand Bane's Force wave, but Dooku can ragdoll Obi Wan?

EDIT: Let me amend that, Windu could smash apart droids with his Force pushes so if we assume a level of parity its possible he could, however, it still seems rather arbitrary to claim that Dooku can kill Force sensitives with a push.

Feats war aside, I think the powerscaling from the Rule of Two is a more consistent framework than the random whims of authors.

Alternatively though, we could just accept Bane is as powerful as his feats imply, and increase the standing of Palpatine accordingly. 🙂

Obviously Bane > Qui-Gon, but I don't know why it's hard to accept that successive Banite Sith Lords were simply more powerful than their predecessors. That's a fact that's been relayed through multiple sources, and you can't even twist it into "political power" or any of that rubbish.

Well really this argument seems to be entirely founded on the assumption that their individuals in the PT era like Maul and Dooku are actually anywhere near Darth Sidious in Force power, and that therefore for Bane to be so beneath him he must be an utter mook.

However realistically most people in the PT era are nothing comparatively to Sheev.

I personally have Bane around Dooku level. Which by this logic would force me to assume that Sidious is at least 4 times as powerful as Dooku. However, that seems perfectly reasonable to me, heck I'm inclined to say that Sidious is 5 or even 6 times more powerful than Dooku, maybe more. (He's certainly infinitely greater in power to the likes of Jinn.)

Because really, Dooku has done absolutely nothing that compares to Palpatine, whereas Palpatine's feats outstrip every one of Dooku's showings tenfold.

Sidious could have, with a thought, cracked the foundations of the Imperial Palace, the largest building in Coruscant; he's erased memories from the minds of thousands, if not millions of people; he's made his dark presence felt throughout the entire galaxy; he's considerably more powerful than an individual who can lift and AT-AT, weighing thousands of tonnes; and an individual who altered the path of a falling Star Destroyer, weighing hundreds of thousands and tonnes, is "no match" for him; he's dominated the likes of Marek, Anakin and Maul with TK; he's telepathically forced Vader to bend the knee from light years away and read his surface thoughts with ease; he's even survived a point blank Force repulse, induced by Marek channelling more Force energy than he ever had, without so much as singed robe to show for it.

What does Dooku have that compares to this? How large a building could he level, a few blocks maybe? That's infinitely beneath a building that spans kilometres in height and width. How many minds could he erase the memories of at once, 5, 500? Either would be a percentile in comparison to Palpatine. What's the heaviest amount he's lifted, a hundred or so tonnes of obelisks? A mere fraction of what Vader and Marek have lifted that Sidious far exceeds. Who's the most powerful person he's dominated, Kenobi? He's nothing compared to Marek. Who's the strongest person he's TP'ed? Again Kenobi it seems, with difficulty, and only when he when in a significantly hampered state. As if he could even consider invading Vader's mind, let alone from lightyears away. Instead almost everyone Sidious has easily overpowered could feasibly defeat Dooku outright.

Therefore, is it so unreasonable assume, that considering how vastly Sidious outstrips Dooku in showings, that in person he could simply snap his neck? He certainly had no trouble choking him over hologram, which is itself an exceedingly impressive display of dominance.

The only argument against this is Dooku's lightsaber feats, namely his ability to hold out against Yoda. However, I find it difficult to establish a quantifiable correlation between one's ability to contend with some in sabers and contend with them in the Force (especially when in the case of Dooku, he was deflecting rather than meeting Yoda's power) when we have featless Force users, like Siolo'urmanka, defeating Maul in combat, and even non-Force sensitives like Pre Viszla contending with the likes of Ahsoka, Kenobi and again Maul; himself going on to perform admirably against Darth Sidious.

I'm inclined to believe that skill plays a much more significant factor than Force augmentation, itself, always going to be somewhat leveled by shared physical limitations.

Sorry, but Anoon Bondara didn't defeat Maul in combat, not even close. He was completely outclassed and had to suicide. Bondara's superior in Qui-Gon Jinn was also no match for Maul.

When has Maul ever "performed admirably" against Sidious?

My bad, I meant that other guy, that forced Maul to make a saberstaff, I forget his name.

EDIT: Siolo'urmanka

And in The Lawless? He did pretty well all things considered.

Originally posted by Beniboybling
My bad, I meant that other guy, that forced Maul to make a saberstaff, I forget his name.

EDIT: Siolo'urmanka

He's an unknown, though. Can't say anything about his skill or Force augmentation.

And in The Lawless? He did pretty well all things considered.

Against a Sidious who was holding back profusely and with the aid of Savage, maybe - even then, I wouldn't call it "admirably", only decently. The only time there was even a contest was after Savage's death, when Maul was obviously fueled by immense rage.

In the novelized version of the fight, the moment Sidious got serious, Maul couldn't even keep up anymore. Hardly admirable.

Originally posted by SunRazer
He's an unknown, though. Can't say anything about his skill or Force augmentation.

Against a Sidious who was holding back profusely and with the aid of Savage, maybe - even then, I wouldn't call it "admirably", only decently. The only time there was even a contest was after Savage's death, when Maul was obviously fueled by immense rage.

In the novelized version of the fight, the moment Sidious got serious, Maul couldn't even keep up anymore. Hardly admirable.

In the novel, yes, on-screen he lands a kick on him and is contending toe-to-toe for an excess of 20 seconds. How is that not admirable? You realise he's the most powerful Sith ever and one of the great duelists ever to boot?

Originally posted by Nephthys
Honestly, no one should respect your views on Bane. Calling anyone childish in regards to the topic is wildly hypocritical of you.

I think there's more to respect about his opinions on Bane than yours, honestly.

This compliment feels strangely backhanded. mmm

Originally posted by Beniboybling
His skill was noted to be profound, and if his Force power was anything close to Maul (who Sidious believed could be his legit successor) it would have garnered far more attention imo.

Everyone and their grandmother's skill is noted to be profound - including Anoon Bondara, who lost handily to Maul.

I'm talking about his final bout, and funnily enough, Maul's immense rage is where he gets his powers from.

I know you are, and funnily enough, Maul has never entered this state of rage before - especially in scenarios where it would've been very, very welcome.

In the novel, yes, on-screen he lands a kick on him and is contending toe-to-toe for an excess of 20 seconds. How is that not admirable? You realise he's the most powerful Sith ever and one of the great duelists ever to boot?

It was actually just over fifteen seconds in terms of video length, but seeing as these guys are superhumanly fast and we shouldn't be perceiving their movements at all, I'm inclined to say their fight was massively slowed down for us to see. So in reality, it would've hardly been a few seconds.

Again, Sidious didn't seem to be putting in enough stick (until the saber lock, at least), and once again, Maul was performing at an unnaturally high level.

Originally posted by Beniboybling
Well really this argument seems to be entirely founded on the assumption that their individuals in the PT era like Maul and Dooku are actually anywhere near Darth Sidious in Force power, and that therefore for Bane to be so beneath him he must be an utter mook.

However realistically most people in the PT era are nothing comparatively to Sheev.

mmm That's an interesting proposition. I think the only issue with it is, as you pointed out, Dooku's performance against Yoda. The AotC novelization does state that Yoda absorbs his second burst of lightning "far from easily", although tbh it might be the fact that Yoda hadn't really fought anyone of note for however many decades/centuries, lol.

It seems clear though, given Dark Rendevous's confirmation that Yoda doesn't want to kill Dooku, that Yoda is hardly going 100% in that fight.

So I could buy putting Bane on Dooku's level if it means making Sidious and Yoda gods, which would definitely help with anti-TOR wank. I don't think it's certain, though. I was in the process of typing up a few of Dooku and Qui Gon's feats that I could then cross-compare with Bane's to show superiority the other way, like Qui-Gon's Force speed and Dooku's illusions, and I have no idea how we parse whether Bane vaporizing people while Dooku doesn't with lightning beats Dooku being able to ragdoll Obi Wan while Bane can't ragdoll shadow assassins. At this point though, it becomes a mess.

F*ck, do I sh*t on Bane, or Valkorion? I have no idea.

Originally posted by SunRazer
Everyone and their grandmother's skill is noted to be profound - including Anoon Bondara, who lost handily to Maul.

I know you are, and funnily enough, Maul has never entered this state of rage before - especially in scenarios where it would've been very, very welcome.

It was actually just over fifteen seconds in terms of video length, but seeing as these guys are superhumanly fast and we shouldn't be perceiving their movements at all, I'm inclined to say their fight was massively slowed down for us to see. So in reality, it would've hardly been a few seconds.

Again, Sidious didn't seem to be putting in enough stick (until the saber lock, at least), and once again, Maul was performing at an unnaturally high level.

Originally posted by The Ellimist
mmm That's an interesting proposition. I think the only issue with it is, as you pointed out, Dooku's performance against Yoda. The AotC novelization does state that Yoda absorbs his second burst of lightning "far from easily", although tbh it might be the fact that Yoda hadn't really fought anyone of note for however many decades/centuries, lol.

It seems clear though, given Dark Rendevous's confirmation that Yoda doesn't want to kill Dooku, that Yoda is hardly going 100% in that fight.

So I could buy putting Bane on Dooku's level if it means making Sidious and Yoda gods, which would definitely help with anti-TOR wank. I don't think it's certain, though. I was in the process of typing up a few of Dooku and Qui Gon's feats that I could then cross-compare with Bane's to show superiority the other way, like Qui-Gon's Force speed and Dooku's illusions, and I have no idea how we parse whether Bane vaporizing people while Dooku doesn't with lightning beats Dooku being able to ragdoll Obi Wan while Bane can't ragdoll shadow assassins. At this point though, it becomes a mess.

F*ck, do I sh*t on Bane, or Valkorion? I have no idea.

On Geonosis, Yoda's easy parrying and, indeed, handling of the Sith lightning Dooku hurled at him had come as a surprise.

--Labyrinth of Evil

Regardless when you cross reference this with Yoda's "far from easily" turning away a bunch of rocks, it can easily be attributed to his age and lack of practice.

And of course Bane can ragdoll shadow assassins, he just can't straight up kill them with Force pushes, but most Force users can't do that.

Originally posted by Beniboybling
Right, what's your point? Hes clearly skilled enough to kill Maul.

My point is that because he's an unknown, he's not a strong pivot for your argument that skill > Force power. And I'm inclined to say they're equally relevant - the circumstances can favor one or the other.

Your still assuming this "special state" exists.

Well, seeing as it aligns with Filoni's take on the fight, I think it leans closer towards "fact" than "baseless assumption" as you're insinuating. A lot closer.

Well that would be the case of all lightsaber fights, so it remains relative. Perhaps?

I know, I'm just correcting you.

It seems unreasonable Sidious would allow him to land a kick however

It's unreasonable for the guy who likes to give people the illusion of them having a chance before utterly destroying them? Gillard more or less says the same when describing Sidious' skill and fighting style in The Making of Revenge of the Sith. This is Sidious we're talking about. He's sadistic and likes to make people think that they're capable of winning before he ruins their day completely - and this isn't the first time he's done it to Maul either. In fact, that's precisely what happened the last time they fought.

Or you could say the kick was the reason Sidious began to put some more stick in. After all, the only portion of the saber duel that comes after the kick is the saber lock, where Sidious is clearly putting in effort.

However you want to slice it, Maul landing the kick has the same value as Savage landing his bullrush - nothing.

Sidious needn't exert himself to beat him, and that's just your personal inference, not fact.

Not fact? It's certainly supported by the facts, and you'd have to be mind-numbingly stupid to think Maul could perform as well as he could by himself in that last portion when we have Filoni repeatedly hinting that Sidious was holding back against Maul and outright stating that Maul and Savage together couldn't even touch Sheev and Maul not being anywhere near Sheev.

Take the novelized version of the fight, and we get a good glimpse at how Maul would fare against Sidious when the latter was really going all-out. Maul gets disarmed - pretty much instantly. I mean, you can call it admirable, but then you get impressed very, very easily...

Originally posted by SunRazer
My point is that because he's an unknown, he's not a strong pivot for your argument that skill > Force power. And I'm inclined to say they're equally relevant - the circumstances can favor one or the other.

Regardless, it's one of several examples. And I'm sure there are more besides that.

Well, seeing as it aligns with Filoni's take on the fight, I think it leans closer towards "fact" than "baseless assumption" as you're insinuating. A lot closer.

I know, I'm just correcting you.

It's unreasonable for the guy who likes to give people the illusion of them having a chance before utterly destroying them? Gillard more or less says the same when describing Sidious' skill and fighting style in The Making of Revenge of the Sith. This is Sidious we're talking about. He's sadistic and likes to make people think that they're capable of winning before he ruins their day completely - and this isn't the first time he's done it to Maul either. In fact, that's precisely what happened the last time they fought.

Or you could say the kick was the reason Sidious began to put some more stick in. After all, the only portion of the saber duel that comes after the kick is the saber lock, where Sidious is clearly putting in effort.

However you want to slice it, Maul landing the kick has the same value as Savage landing his bullrush - nothing.

Not fact? It's certainly supported by the facts, and you'd have to be mind-numbingly stupid to think Maul could perform as well as he could by himself in that last portion when we have Filoni repeatedly hinting that Sidious was holding back against Maul and outright stating that Maul and Savage together couldn't even touch Sheev and Maul not being anywhere near Sheev.

Take the novelized version of the fight, and we get a good glimpse at how Maul would fare against Sidious when the latter was really going all-out. Maul gets disarmed - pretty much instantly. I mean, you can call it admirable, but then you get impressed very, very easily...

What you've proposed is a non sequitur, Sidious hold back doesn't prove Maul was extraordinarily empowered by his rage.

@Beni: I still think it's a little difficult to buy that the gap between Dooku and Sidious can fit thirty successive, noticeable power creeps, especially given the Plagueis novel's implication that apprentices gained a power-up when they killed their masters. Like, yeah, sure, Yoda was clearly better than Dooku, but I never got the impression that he could've literally thrown him into orbit with a finger flick. I dunno, maybe it's just a subjective bias of mine. You point out that Sidious's feats outstrip his by orders of magnitude, yes, but that doesn't translate into being able to defeat him 1 vs. 1 by a proportional factor - if characters who were similar in power only had similar scaled feats, it would be impossible to distinguish them given the imprecision of feats calculations - and so it happens to be that Luke's feats noticeably outstrip Vader's, but he isn't literally millions of times more powerful.

BTW, your quote doesn't really contradict the AotC "far from easily" one; "easy" doesn't necessarily modify "handling".

And Bane apparently can't ragdoll shadow assassins, or at least the more powerful out of a group of eight, because he...well...doesn't. And we know from PoD that shadow assassins are "no match for Jedi", let alone Obi Wan. I could buy that his non-powerscaled feats are better than Qui Gon's, but this probably comes more from Jinn not using Force lightning or being the type to want to disintegrate people.

Originally posted by Beniboybling
Right, and I'm saying it's unreasonable to assume he rivals Maul in power.

Fair enough.

Filoni states Maul was amped by his rage?

I didn't say that. I meant Maul being enraged is the only way he can perform to that degree, based on Filoni's comparison of the two, which isn't kind to Maul.

Honestly I don't know if I even by it, when many confrontations in SW are time sensitive, and relative to their surroundings.

That's just SW inconsistency. Maul's moved a lot faster than human perceptions before. In reality, the likes of Vizsla should be struggling to react to Maul at all.

Fair enough. However even Sidious holding back is a force to be reckoned with, and Maul was meeting him head on, there remains a massive disparity between that and say, contending with Pre Viszla.

The point was that Maul and Savage together couldn't even match a Sidious holding back. Take Sidious at full strength and effort, and how on earth is Maul supposed to "do admirably" by himself without being the beneficiary of an immense rage amp?

Which is the point I am trying to make.What facts?

The fact that Maul is nowhere near Sidious?

What you've proposed is a non sequitur, Sidious hold back doesn't prove Maul was extraordinarily empowered by his rage.

It's not non sequitur at all - you're just failing to connect the dots. If Sidious, while holding back, is able to beat Savage and Maul together, what makes you think Maul on his own would be able to "do admirably" against Sidious, especially if the latter was going all-out? He'd require a substantial amp to do so. This is reinforced in the novel, where Sidious going all-out results in Maul being disarmed instantly. Not much of an admirable fight there.

The master supplanting the apprentice, doesn't mean that the apprentice kills through sheer power, it can be sneaky and deceptive

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Nah, downscaling Bane is dumb, imo.