Originally posted by DarthDuelist9 Let me give you an example to clarify my view on it, you have two fighters (let's name them A & B) who are roughly equals in terms of strength. Now, during a certain situation fighter B takes down fighter A (e.g. pins him to the ground) because fighter A was distracted or something like that, then it would be much more difficult for fighter A, despite his rivalling fighter B in strength, to break free of that grip compared to when they would just meet toe-to-toe in the beginning. You can also see it as the fact that Caedus/Jacen has to "overcome" this extra disadvantage in order to be on a fair ground compared to Luke.
I've highlighted the word that's missing from this hypothesis. What you have given me is a theory, a speculative guess into the varying degrees at which Force users can afflict one another. What you have not provided is an example. Last time I checked 'The Force According to DarthDuelist9' wasn't in any of the Expanded Universe Collections. Is there some other interaction in the mythos that validates your claim?
Originally posted by DarthDuelist9 Not entirely, you can't really quantify Luke's amount of effort compared to Caedus's disadvantageous situation.
Why can't we? Do you not see the double standard here? Why should we accept that freeing oneself from the invisible fingers of a Force grip is any harder than preventing one, especially in this case where Luke had pinned Caedus and kept him without exerting anything remotely resembling effort and could keep him motionless save for his ability to speak? The ease in which Luke was humiliating his nephew, can not, and should not be ignored. If there was some sort of struggle, then you might have a point, but there wasn't. Let's have a look at that excerpt again.
"In the next instant, Caedus found himself flying across the cabin toward his observation bubble. Luke had not gestured, had not flinched, had not even shifted his gaze; he had simply grabbed Caedus in the Force and hurled him five meters into his chair."Don't lie." Luke started across the cabin. "I'm getting tired of it."
Caedus sprang out of the chair... or attempted to. Instead, he found himself struggling against an invisible weight. He felt as if he were accelerating to lightspeed with a faulty inertial compensator.
"Luke, you've gone mad." Caedus reached for the controls on the arm of his chair and discovered he couldn't even do that much. "You can't do this. I know you're having trouble dealing with Mara's death, but..."
"This has nothing to do with Mara," Luke said. "And you're lucky it doesn't. If she were here-if she had known what you were using Ben for-there'd be pieces of you scattered along the entire length of the Hydian Way."
The irony of the statement was far from lost on Caedus, but he was too astonished-and too frightened-to take any pleasure in it. While it was true that Luke had taken him by surprise, it was equally true that he had done so with no visible effort-and that he was continuing to hold him with no apparent exertion.
Keenly aware that all that stood between him and a quick death was Luke Skywalker's much-strained sense of decency, Caedus let a little of his very real fear seep into the Force, just enough to seem properly alarmed.
[...]
"Then I'll take it for what it's worth," Luke said. Leaving Caedus Force-pinned in his chair, he started toward the door. "I'll show myself out."
Caedus knew he would be freed as soon as Luke turned his concentration to something other than Force-pinning him-but that might take minutes, and Caedus needed to send in the Home Fleet now. Besides, he was the Chief of State of the Galactic Alliance, and he could not allow anyone, even Luke Skywalker, to humiliate him and simply leave. He had to assert some sort of authority."
- Legacy of the Force
The disparity in their command of the Force is apparent. It's apparent both times when Luke dominates his nephew, and implied with the vast discrepancies in their feats - Luke reconstructing and destroying Vader's mountain sized fortress, while Jacen is just about rolling forty meter ships with the Force. It must be said, that most cases of ragdolling happen when the victim isn't expecting it, and usually the perpetrator is either met with an invisible wall, or if their target is strong enough, they escape. The difference between Jaina and Caedus is pretty huge, but even when she is sent flying through the air at her brother's command, she was still able to regain some control over herself.
Jaina launched herself into a Force flip, tumbling over the conveyor belt head-down so that she could strike before Caedus had time to unclip and ignite his lightsaber.
Caedus didn't even try. He simply glanced toward the open mouth of the fusion incinerator. In the next instant Jaina felt herself rushing toward its searing heat, and it took all her Force strength to pull herself aside the half meter that saved her life.
- Legacy of the Force
Jacen wasn't able to do that against Luke. Not in any measure of the sense :
"Caedus reached for the controls on the arm of his chair and discovered he couldn't even do that much."
- Legacy of the Force
Originally posted by DarthDuelist9There are obviously different grades of "domination", it's not because character A breaks through the defenses of character B that he can dominate him.
Yes it absolutely does mean you can dominate them. If I overpower the one layer of defence that's protecting you against telekinsis, then what do you have left to stop me constricting your windpipe, or puppeteering your limbs, or simply keeping you in the same spot for several minutes? Is it your physical strength that stops me from controlling your arms and legs like a Shakespearian marionette? Are you going to start manipulating the air currents around your body in an unsteady manner to manipulate your physical being into something resembling conscious movement?
Originally posted by DarthDuelist9 Caedus's defenses could very well have compensated for part of Luke's power, e.g. instead of knocking him unconsciousness he's only broken something. It's not stated directly
It's not even inferred. I'm not going to give any awards to Caedus because he didn't spontaneously explode as soon as Luke moved him. Regardless, the point here is that you need to provide evidence for your claims. No one is going to accept an unsubstantiated hypothesis when it's the least likely one - Occams Razor. The below example does at least imply than Bane could protect himself in some manner against Zannah, the same can not be said for Caedus.
Originally posted by DarthDuelist9in the text but other examples have been presented to us in other novels, e.g. Darth Zannah Force Pushing Darth Bane in the prison in DoE, Bane's defenses countered part of Zannah's power but he was still thrown back by it (meaning that his defenses were broken).
Completely incomparable example. First of all, the action between Bane and Zannah is happening in a direct confrontation, whereas Luke was on an entirely different ship when rummaging through the drives of Caedus' vessel, he tried to block Luke with the Force Luke's power redoubled. What Zannah unleashed on Bane, wasn't a Force grip or movement, but rather a Force Wave. The force push is variation of telekinesis, which in turn uses the Force to move objects. Or, as The Essential Guide through the Force describes it:
"a manipulation of the Force to control the movement of objects through space"- Essential Guide through the Force
A Force Wave is far less focused and used to take out or incapacitate several targets as well as objects, and unlike a Force grip which directly affects the desired object or person, a Force Wave is a pressurised air missile that manipulates and compresses air particles to affect a very wide area - ie Bane collapsing a temple, Mace Windu scattering battledroids or this :
Which is why what Bane experienced was described as a wall of Force energy coming towards him. What Bane's defence could be analogised with, in affect, is comparable to wearing a protective bomb suit. The suit produced by the Force will protect the wearer from the impact of an explosion, but the momentum produced will still send him backwards. Instead, we have examples of people rooting themselves to the ground in order to become immovable objects - Luke vs Unuthul, Bane does nothing to that effect.
"But before he could unleash it he was hit by a wall of thunderous force rolling out from a corridor to his left. Instinctively he threw up a defensive shield, absorbing the blow. Despite this, he was slammed against the opposite wall, knocking the breath from his lungs. Lucia was not so fortunate. Unable to call upon the Force to protect herself, she was sent careering down the corridor, flipping and twisting. Her skull smashed against the stone half a dozen times as her body ricocheted off the walls and ceiling, reducing it to a bloody, misshapen mess. Her corpse finally tumbled to a stop thirty meters away where the hall made an abrupt ninety-degree turn."- Darth Bane: Dynasty of Evil