Is Plagueis overrated?

Started by Beniboybling7 pages

Originally posted by Ziggystardust
No Beni, I'm giving you a general differentiation between the what's inside the novel written by the author and what's outside the novel written by the publisher. That is what you asked for, after all. As again, the burden of proof is on the claimant - and the statement you gave me does't clear up the issue.
I didn't, I know the difference between a blurb and the novel proper, but in terms of what is canon and what is not, no such distinction has been made. On the other hand yes, publisher's summaries qualify for what is considered canon per the statement provided.

Which means the burden of proof is now on you to demonstrate it's exempt regardless. So far you've only offered me assertions.

Del Rey published Plagueis. It isn't a Lucas company.

Originally posted by DarthAnt66
It's possible the blurb labels Darth Plagueis as the most powerful due to his mastery over midichlorian manipulation, not because his command of the Force is greater, tbh.

After all, I recall another blurb of the book saying something along the lines of "Darth Plagueis has mastered the ultimate power - the power over life and death," or something like that.

Originally posted by Nephthys
Del Rey published Plagueis. It isn't a Lucas company.
So the novel isn't canon at all then? 😂

Del Rey publish under the LucasBooks imprint, which is stickered on the back and the inside, they count.

Originally posted by DarthAnt66

It's possible if you take every straw humans have ever manufactured and make a house out of them.

👆

Originally posted by Beniboybling
So the novel isn't canon at all then? 😂

Del Rey publish under the LucasBooks imprint, which is stickered on the back and the inside, they count.

Funny. The point is that the blurb is produced by Del Ray alone without the creative oversight of any Lucas affiliated influence and is therefore not included in that quote you posted.

And now you're just back to making assertions.

Actually I'm basing this off of what an actual SW author said about the blurbs of his actual SW books that he'd actually written.

About how they're bs and shouldn't be taken seriously.

The main point here is that those who are skeptical about how seriously we should take Publisher summaries have plenty of reasons to be. Those in favour, seem to just think that they shouldn't be scrutinised and that they're cannon, just because.

Originally posted by Nephthys
Actually I'm basing this off of what an actual SW author said about the blurbs of his actual SW books that he'd actually written.

About how they're bs and shouldn't be taken seriously.

Oh please, the fact they didn't ask Drew about it means jack shit. He is not a Lucas company and the less advice they go to him for the better.
Originally posted by Ziggystardust
The main point here is that those who are skeptical about how seriously we should take Publisher summaries have plenty of reasons to be. Those in favour, seem to just think that they shouldn't be scrutinised and that they're cannon, just because.
It's the difference between conceding to the facts and clinging to personal judgement. And if you've nothing but personal conclusions or rather 'gut feelings' to add, this discussion isn't going to go anywhere.

Who said anything about gut feelings? LMAO. There is an amount of reasonable scepticism here that's being applied based on the difference between what's inside the novel and what the external notes of the publisher are. Are they canon, and why should they be taken seriously? You can't seem to provide an answer to either. So why should we take them seriously, just because?

I've provided you with a clear answer and all you've mustered in response is "am still skceptial!" in which case yeah, I couldn't care less.

Originally posted by Ziggystardust
It's very simple. The notes of the publisher aren't meant to be part of the story - i.e. adding to the continuity in any measure and is simply just a interpretation of the events for the purposes of selling and aren't always checked over by the author. And this is the case for pretty much every book that was ever written. You can see several different publisher blurbs from various companies that have published harry potter, not one of them introduce anything new to the continuity. So we're left with Plagueis' opinion on the matter.

Alright, let's cycle through your complaints, which seem to align closely with Neph's:

1. "They aren't a part of the story" - since when does information have to be narrative to constitute a part of the official literature? What about sourcebooks, guides, visual dictionaries, etc.? None of these add new stories to the universe, but they're still accepted as parts of the continuity. This is, as we'll see to be a pattern, a made-up rule.

2. "just an interpretation of events" - so are sourcebooks, guides, visual dictionaries, and even novelizations and other adaptations. There is, once again, no actual policy suggesting that interpretative sources don't count. And if there's a reason to discount them, nobody has actually made it - they just restate their reservations as justification for themselves, .i.e. here.

3. "they're made to sell" - rather horribly naive given that this applies to basically everything, and still another arbitrary rule. Are you prepared to vet every source available to us by guessing which author is in it for the art, and which is in it for the money? Where's your line going to be? You don't even know that the publisher doesn't care about the story, and is using the blurb to add excitement or wonder to it - it's another arbitrary claim, and even if it were true, irrelevant to the question of whether it counts as evidence.

4. "not checked over by the author" - the author is perfectly capable of checking or objecting to the blurb. But even if they were not, there's no rule suggesting that authors have exclusive monopolies over their creation. They already have editors, the publishers already influence which books they create, and others can put their characters into sourcebooks and add new information on that. What matter is whether Lucasarts/films approves of the material, not whether any individual author does. This complaint is, yet again, another arbitrary rule.

Nobody here is suggesting that publisher's blurbs are sacrosanct; like all other aspects of the literature, they must be taken into account with the surrounding evidence. But here, you offer no "surrounding evidence" to force discrediting or reinterpreting the blurb; you just offer your gut hidden behind a bunch of circular criteria for canon that you made up.

Now, if you want to explain why something being on the outside of the story rather than the inside is grounds to dismiss it, you're welcome to present your case. But your whole post here has been a thinly veiled exercise in circular argumentation - "this arbitrary rule of mine is right because of these five other arbitrary rules of mine that justify each other!"

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people dont trust blurbs because they say pretty dubious shit most of the time. not to mention that the very definition of a blurb is "to make people want to buy [the book] or see it". it's primary objective is not to inform with 100% facts but rather to promote and blurbs should be taken with a grain of salt if the claims in them are not repeated elsewhere.

http://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/blurb

sw blurbs also have the reputation of being sketchy as hell

what makes this doe blurb any different from the plagueis blurb tbh? it's the exact same message (except broader, as it is saying bane>all previous darksiders).

point is that neither karpyshyn/luceno (/faceless publisher) have the authority or depth of knowledge to make those statements as if they were facts. it's not as if they actually researched all prior sith to see if their statements would make sense and obviously they will sideline some (/most?) facts in order to make their blurb more eye-catching because the sole and main purpose of a blurb is to get people reading the book. that sometimes involves making exaggerated claims that are not supported anywhere else except perhaps vaguely in the novel. i highly doubt that blurbs are subject to the same amount of scrutiny as factbooks/novels themselves so to put them on the same level in terms of reliability is totally unjustified imo. just because blurbs haven't been disregarded officially in canon doesnt mean they auto are gospel. in fact it would probably be better to assume things are non-canon until proven canon instead of the reverse.

mostly i just wish that the arguments put forward by plagueis fans were strong enough that they didnt need sketchy asf blurbs to prove their point. like the idea that plagueis is most powerful sith up to his time is not impossible to swallow but if you're using grade-F sources to prove your point then no-one will be able to agree on that standing apart from the fanboys. referring to the blurb is just a way to shut down discussion and silence those who question the supremacy of hego. like not only are the canonicty of the blurbs suspect from the get go but the claims the blurbs make obviously dont perfectly stack up to scrutiny and are never repeated anywhere. if a shifty claim like that is only made in a blurb and no where else then you should think again as to whether that was a genuine factual statement on the blurb or a contrived/vague statements which had a different purpose entirely.

so to answer your question: yes plagueis is definitely overrated. many of the banite sith would die slow and painful deaths to receive the amount of respect that plagueis does. especially bane because he has a similar accolade to plagueis on the doe blurb yet is not given the same respect due to double standards from plagueis fanboys. not saying i agree with the bane statement but if you are going to accept the plagueis blurb then you must accept other blurbs.

but really the "most powerful jedi/sith" quotes are not the be all and end all in the first place and are usually very vague and definitely up to debate (i believe leland chee disputed the sidious quotes before and said canon doesnt deal in absolutes or something or the sort). weight the blurb into your rankings if you want but keep in mind that you are therefore legitimizing other blurbs which make all kind of nonsense claims and that blurbs have never been confirmed as canon and are not to be interpreted as a 100% reliable source of information by definition. if you want that then go to sourcebooks (which dont repeat the claim of the blurbs but do give us other info like banite scaling which can help fill in gaps in our knowledge regarding plagueis' power). people kind of need to stop this preconception that the likes of plagueis are untouchable when they clearly and obviously are not. i'm not suggesting a feats-only approach but we need to take an unbiased look into the accomplishments of plagueis if we want to say if that hype is warranted (while factoring in reasonable inference and banite scaling) . i would say that he is very high-tier but i wouldn't put him above vitiate and maybe not even nihilus. can anyone really imagine him lifting fleets from gravity wells? not really tbh. although obviously any gap between them will be minute and imo they are in the same tier.

thought i'd also add this

purpose of blurbs: just to promote and maximize profit and inform only with the info needed to get people to buy the book.

purpose of novels: to tell a story, to inform and also to make a profit

purpose of factbooks: to inform with verified facts and also to make a profit

there's obviously a difference between the blurbs and the other source material. they are all meant to make money but the blurb's only purpose is to make money and promote whereas the other two have other priorities. the most obvious to tell a story and give facts.

Many of your concerns are addressed in my previous post; I'll deal with the new ones:

The Bane blurb - yeah, Bane was the dark side's most powerful master alive at that point, not including entities like The Son. The blurb is only problematic if it extends to all of time, and there's no reason to think that it does. Moreover, even if it were a flawed statement, were that enough to discredit all blurbs, then I could discredit all novelizations by pointing out that the RotJ novelization claims Ben Owens is Kenobi's brother.

Your claim about a lack of authority is inaccurate, and your claim about a lack of research is both unsupported and equally applicable to every content creator.

"Less scrutiny" - this would be a point if you had strong evidence going against the blurb. But seeing as how the surrounding evidence is very easy to fit into the blurb (.i.e. Plagueis claiming exactly what it says, unbalancing the Force itself, scaling from Sidious, etc.), the burden of proof shifts to the side seeking to toss out an official statement, even if the statement unto itself isn't gospel.

What it does is grant a preference to the interpretation of other evidence that better fits with the blurb. So for instance, when Plagueis researches the ancient sith and concludes that he is more powerful than them, the interpretation that he's being reasonable better fits the blurb than the null hypothesis. Likewise, when Plagueis and Sidious unbalance the Force itself, the interpretation that this is as incredible a showing as it sounds beats the claim that it's deceptively overrated. The same applies to backwards scaling from RotS Sidious. Saying that the blurb isn't gospel is not grounds to automatically dismiss it and the surrounding context.

Originally posted by aalyasecura95
people dont trust blurbs because they say pretty dubious shit most of the time. not to mention that the very definition of a blurb is "to make people want to buy [the book] or see it". it's primary objective is not to inform with 100% facts but rather to promote and blurbs should be taken with a grain of salt if the claims in them are not repeated elsewhere.

http://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/blurb

sw blurbs also have the reputation of being sketchy as hell

what makes this doe blurb any different from the plagueis blurb tbh? it's the exact same message (except broader, as it is saying bane>all previous darksiders).

point is that neither karpyshyn/luceno (/faceless publisher) have the authority or depth of knowledge to make those statements as if they were facts. it's not as if they actually researched all prior sith to see if their statements would make sense and obviously they will sideline some (/most?) facts in order to make their blurb more eye-catching because the sole and main purpose of a blurb is to get people reading the book. that sometimes involves making exaggerated claims that are not supported anywhere else except perhaps vaguely in the novel. i highly doubt that blurbs are subject to the same amount of scrutiny as factbooks/novels themselves so to put them on the same level in terms of reliability is totally unjustified imo. just because blurbs haven't been disregarded officially in canon doesnt mean they auto are gospel. in fact it would probably be better to assume things are non-canon until proven canon instead of the reverse.

mostly i just wish that the arguments put forward by plagueis fans were strong enough that they didnt need sketchy asf blurbs to prove their point. like the idea that plagueis is most powerful sith up to his time is not impossible to swallow but if you're using grade-F sources to prove your point then no-one will be able to agree on that standing apart from the fanboys. referring to the blurb is just a way to shut down discussion and silence those who question the supremacy of hego. like not only are the canonicty of the blurbs suspect from the get go but the claims the blurbs make obviously dont perfectly stack up to scrutiny and are never repeated anywhere. if a shifty claim like that is only made in a blurb and no where else then you should think again as to whether that was a genuine factual statement on the blurb or a contrived/vague statements which had a different purpose entirely.

so to answer your question: yes plagueis is definitely overrated. many of the banite sith would die slow and painful deaths to receive the amount of respect that plagueis does. especially bane because he has a similar accolade to plagueis on the doe blurb yet is not given the same respect due to double standards from plagueis fanboys. not saying i agree with the bane statement but if you are going to accept the plagueis blurb then you must accept other blurbs.

but really the "most powerful jedi/sith" quotes are not the be all and end all in the first place and are usually very vague and definitely up to debate (i believe leland chee disputed the sidious quotes before and said canon doesnt deal in absolutes or something or the sort). weight the blurb into your rankings if you want but keep in mind that you are therefore legitimizing other blurbs which make all kind of nonsense claims and that blurbs have never been confirmed as canon and are not to be interpreted as a 100% reliable source of information by definition. if you want that then go to sourcebooks (which dont repeat the claim of the blurbs but do give us other info like banite scaling which can help fill in gaps in our knowledge regarding plagueis' power). people kind of need to stop this preconception that the likes of plagueis are untouchable when they clearly and obviously are not. i'm not suggesting a feats-only approach but we need to take an unbiased look into the accomplishments of plagueis if we want to say if that hype is warranted (while factoring in reasonable inference and banite scaling) . i would say that he is very high-tier but i wouldn't put him above vitiate and maybe not even nihilus. can anyone really imagine him lifting fleets from gravity wells? not really tbh. although obviously any gap between them will be minute and imo they are in the same tier.

thought i'd also add this

purpose of blurbs: just to promote and maximize profit and inform only with the info needed to get people to buy the book.

purpose of novels: to tell a story, to inform and also to make a profit

purpose of factbooks: to inform with verified facts and also to make a profit

there's obviously a difference between the blurbs and the other source material. they are all meant to make money but the blurb's only purpose is to make money and promote whereas the other two have other priorities. the most obvious to tell a story and give facts.

👆

Originally posted by The Ellimist

The Bane blurb - yeah, Bane was the dark side's most powerful master alive at that point, not including entities like The Son. The blurb is only problematic if it extends to all of time, and there's no reason to think that it does. Moreover, even if it were a flawed statement, were that enough to discredit all blurbs, then I could discredit all novelizations by pointing out that the RotJ novelization claims Ben Owens is Kenobi's brother.

well it does seem to apply to all time prior due to the wording. "the dark side's most powerful master" (which in the context does seem to be referring to the time he lives and the time before him) sounds pretty clear cut to me. it's open to interpretation but these blurbs generally are (which is why they are unreliable)

i agree it doesn't discredit them all 100%, but it does bring their credibility into question severely. i mean at least the rotj mistakes were redacted, the blurbs have never been redacted and are very problematic with the emergence of all sort of new top tier contenders. novels are also different from blurbs and thats very important. the novel is far more reliable so its reasonable to give it more benefit of the doubt.

will respond to rest of your points later.

would also like to add that i dont flat out object to using the blurb but it shouldn't be a main part of an argument or something to mainly fall back on. it's something that should not be taken at face value and should be weighted against other things without exagerrating its importance and accepting it has a purely promotional purpose and vulnerable to being distorted (so its value is less than factbooks/novelization/contextual evidence/feats and accomplishments of prior sith).

Most anti-blurb people here are basically relying on emotion and personal feelings to discredit the novel blurb. Which doesn't work.