Even on Mortis, Anakin needed special circumstances to unlock his full potential and ragdoll The Son and The Daughter. When these circumstances were not in place he was one shooted multiple times by the Son. Even if Vader didn't lost his potential after Mustafar, he would still need the same circumstances Anakin had in Overlords.
He was in a special state of mind. If it was that simple, he would have replicated the feat in the next two episodes, but he didn't. In fact, he was one shooted a few times when he tried to fight The Son in these two episodes.
Last edited by Darthadi on May 15th, 2020 at 01:42 PM
Disney Vader not losing his potential, aside from being shit writing, also doesn't make all that much sense given how all the opponents we see him given trouble by now.
How the hell did Ahsoka gain any ground on vader if he started out miles ahead and grew at a much faster rate
Ahsoka was quite a prodigy herself, given her parity with Maul when she was, what? 17 years old?
Safe to say that her own abilities would have also grown considerably in the 15 years between TCW and Rebels. The very fact that she was able to compete with Vader(who is "light years" beyond the likes of Dooku and Maul) for as long as she did is a testament to her own growth.
True.
But he created a new lightsaber style to overcome the bulk of his armor.
I mentioned this in another thread, but I really don't know if it would have even been possible for Anakin/Vader to ever reach his *full* potential(like we caught a glimpse of in the Mortis trilogy) within the mortal realm.
I also think Palpatine was still wary of Vader and held him back. He also has a mental/psychological hold over him as well:
“somewhere in the back of Palpatine's mind, he knows what Vader's potential is. He feels he may be wrong, but he is wary of it. So he's very interested in determining his ability to manipulate Vader and testing his loyalty and assuring himself that this tiger that he holds by the tail is going to stay that way.”
Ahsoka may be a prodigy, but her growth rate would suggest that she grew faster than Vader or at least at the same speed (The disparity between ROTS Anakin and ROTS Ahsoka should be at least as big as the one between Rebels Vader and Rebels Ahsoka, if not bigger). For this to be the case Ahsoka should have to has comparable potential (if not bigger) to the Chosen One if we assume Vader didn't lost potential after Mustafar. Of course, this would not make any sense and would be lore breaking.
The only potential explanations i can think of are:
1. Vader actually lost potential (But he is still more powerfull than ROTS Anakin as made clear by a few sources)
2. Vader didn't lost potential, but his power growth was slowed down significantly by psihological reasons or something like that.
Ahsoka preformed admirably against Vader, but she was still beaten decisively in both 'rounds' of their fight. She wasn't close to his level at all -- she was just able to contend with him for a bit longer than most others could have.
But no, Vader's injuries didn't reduce his potential, and he was stated to be stronger than ever after RotS.
So you think there is a bigger gap between Rebels Vader and Rebels Ahsoka than between their ROTS versions? I can't really imagine ROTS Ahsoka lasting too long against Anakin.
And i agree that Vader>ROTS Anakin in actualised power. Never contested that and i actually like the idea. I'm just not so sure about potential. I know that there is nothing in canon about Vader losing potential (at least i'm not aware of any), but it's just so strange that he didn't surpassed Palpatine in 20+ years when his potential is just so much bigger. In ROTS he is allready close to Sidious based on his performance against Dooku and it's implied that he was going to surpass him soon, but after Mustafar he never did.You'd think that by ROTJ he should be capable to wipe the floor with Palps even factoring the later's own growth. Luke with lesser potential aparently surpassed Palpatine in a similar amount of time. Maybe Luke is just a faster learner even if he has less potential?
There is also some dialog in the comics between Sheev and Vader where Sheev said that Vader fell of the mark or something like that. But i supose that could refer to something else than force potential.
Anakin growth between AOTC and ROTS just semms to be bigger than his post Mustafar growth.
If he didn't lost potential there should be other reasons for all of this and psihological reasons are the most likely IMO. This is just me trying to rationalise all this mess. There is also Chee saiyng that Vader never became as powerful as Sidious hoped, but i know their tweets are not necessarily canon.
Last edited by Darthadi on May 16th, 2020 at 09:42 PM
Maybe we have different definitions of decisive, but Vader wasn't presented an opportunity to kill or incapacitate ahsoka in like 2 and a half minuites of fighting. And even when vader's starts tiring her out, it comes after a minuite and a half where neither gain significant ground.
Compare that to Anakin outright incapacitating dooku in like 20 seconds, and it's basically a marathon by comparison.
If there's isn't a degree of closeness from that fight, than what exactly constitutes closeness? Only examples of closer fights i can think off would be anakin vs kenobi and yoda vs sidious
Sure she's a prodigee, but her potential isn't as high as anakin's who, per the source you cited for having his potential undamaged, still had a higher potential than anyone who was in the order(which would include ahsoka).
So if as of tcw, she's far below anakin, shouldn't she be getting stomped as of rebels?
Sure, Vader required some amount of time to get used to his armor/prosthetics. But by Lords of the Sith(which is set 8 years after RotS), he was fully accustomed to his armor, and was more powerful than ever:
Vader's increased connection to the Force is why he was also stated to be Palpatine's most powerful apprentice by "light years": https://i.imgur.com/CAvsKag.jpg
...Although I highly doubt it took Vader that long to acclimate to his armor -- especially given the events of the comics series. I mean, just a few days after RotS, Vader was already fighting Kirak Infil'a, who was stated to be: "A Jedi more powerful than ANY Vader has faced before" in the solicits for issue #3.
And Paul Kemp(writer of Lords of the Sith) spoke a bit on Vader's potential as well: (please log in to view the image) -Insider 157
So by all accounts, his potential was not diminished after RotS -- even Palpatine was still "wary" of it.
As for why he never transcended Palpatine: the implication is that Palpatine was only giving Vader just enough teachings/knowledge to keep him subservient and wanting more, whilst hoarding as much knowledge as possible for himself: (please log in to view the image) -Insider #157
(please log in to view the image) -Darth Vader v2 #24
And given Palpatine's own ungodly potential, that would explain why he was always a notch above Vader.
Same basic thing applies to Luke's growth. Yes, the indication is that Luke became more powerful than RotJ Palpatine by the ST-era, but he was hoarding/studying massive amounts of knowledge as well...
And before her death, Jocasta had recorded ALL of her knowledge(pertaining to the Jedi, Sith, and Force in general) onto these Holocrons in hopes of restarting the Jedi Order from scratch: https://i.imgur.com/NQOMOYy.jpg https://i.imgur.com/ucgXQeG.jpg
In the same arc, Palpatine himself confirmed the ridiculous extent of Jocasta's knowledge: https://i.imgur.com/Tfwy2Ug.jpg https://i.imgur.com/S5cV8FD.jpg "Jocasta Nu knows everything [...] Not just secrets of the light side of the Force. The dark side as well. Secrets that were not theirs to keep. Secrets even of the ancient Sith. Jocasta knows them all."
And in The Rise of Kylo Ren #2, Luke finds/collects another cache from the High Republic era that was =/> Jocasta Nu's cache: https://i.imgur.com/V87NKi5.jpg
That, in addition to studying the ancient Jedi texts and communing with the spirits of Yoda, Kenobi, and Anakin for a number of years before cutting himself off from the Force, could have certainly made canon Luke one of the most knowledgeable(and possibly powerful) beings in the entire mythos.
tl;dr
Vader was simply never able to fully explore the depth of his potential as Palpatine's apprentice. He still became extremely powerful, but obviously nowhere near as powerful as he could have been if he had access to the same resources as Palpatine or Luke.
May 15th, 2020 12:58 PM
