BTW, no worries if you don't respond, but I did reply in the RotS Sidious vs. Valkorion thread, if you're still interested, in case if you missed it.
Seeing as how you haven't explained the contradiction in appealing to out-of-universe publication dates in also appealing to the Plagueis novel to dismiss feats written before its own publication, I'm going to say those points have been swept away.
Originally posted by Nai
I'm afraid, but you are trying to restrict the meaning of two very general statements, because of the sentence uttered before that particular statements.
Yes, and I'm doing that for a reason, which is that we don't actually observe this increase in dark siders' power and decrease in light siders', nor do we see a reversal following Sidious's death. It's never mentioned or hinted at. Indeed, if you were to compare the TPM era Jedi Council and the RotS Jedi Council, which do you think would win in a fight? There doesn't seem to be this decline that you're thinking about, but the decline in foresight is mentioned repeatedly.
As for your claim that nobody survived these eras for us to know, that's absurd, seeing as how we have plenty of post-RotJ Luke books, etc. Now you claim that most of these were published before AotC - even if that were true, you're just appealing to out of universe intent, which, once again, would equally apply to why Vader's feats aren't negated because the creators of The Force Unleashed certainly weren't considering that statement in their parsing his feats for the game. You can't try to apply authorial intent on an arbitrary basis at your convenience.
A)
From the fact, that Mace thinks that now it is time to inform the Senate essentially means, that they aware of their diminishing abilities before already, and that Mace views this "failure" as either the final straw that breaks the camel's back or a such a huge slip linked to their diminishing abilities, that it is now mandatory to inform the Senate of a fact, that has been reality for a longer period of time already.
Yes, but Yoda also says at the end of AotC that the shroud (interesting word choice) of the dark side has fallen, which suggests that while it may not have happened exactly in AotC, it's very possible it hadn't completely set in by TPM.
B)
Even following your idea, that everything there is dealing with an ability seperated from the balance shift in this context, that Sidious used to cloud their foresight: The Force was still unbalanced and that is a fact that is there in TPM already, given Qui-Gon is already assuming Anakin is the Chosen One that will bring balance to the Force again, which wouldn't make much sense, if the Force wasn't unbalanced yet.
And yet neither Qui-Gon nor anyone else ever comments on how they can't jump as high or move as heavy objects, interestingly enough. Well, actually, he does. In the TPM novelization, he feels that he's slowing down...because he's getting older. Funny that he never says it's because the Force is unbalanced! Even after AotC, none of the source material ever draws this link, implicitly or explicitly, yet according to your hypothesis, the different should be really palpable. It isn't.
C)
Following from there, you have still failed to answer the question, why an unbalancing of the Force, tipping the scales in favor for the Dark Side, would just affect certain abilities. That could make sense, if we were dealing with force techniques viewed as "light side" techniques in general (e.g. "wall of light"😉. But mere glimpses into the future?
1. On balance, I'd say not knowing about the exact mechanisms of something as mysterious and seemingly inconsistent as the Force is a more exusable hole in a theory than one that posits a massive shift in power and then fails to produce actual empirical examples of that shift existing despite having literally hundreds (thousands?) of independent source material with which to do so.
2. Ignoring the Plagueis novel, the unbalance is called the shroud of the dark side, .i.e. something designed to obscure vision, not necessarily something designed to inhibit your ability to move objects.
I'd say the best cases for Vader are:
- TFU feats and powerscaling
- half of Anakin's potential
- arguably superior dueling feats
while Exar has:
- defeating Luke while a weakened spirit
- maybe the new TP feat AP found
- shattering beskar
- being implied to be the strongest ancient sith before Vitiate
- his sorcery
- some of his army busting feats
- arguably lifting a ship from Yavin if you buy that
I'm not convinced that Exar actually raised that ship, and I think the TP feat is overhyped. Shattering beskar is actually an interesting one - I'm not so sure myself yet. That may tip the scales, but as for now I'd put Vader ahead in raw power due to TFU, and slightly ahead in dueling prowess thanks to his technical accolades and fighting better opponents, and it's a question of whether that can overcome Exar's sorcery. I'm still not sure.