Scathan is stronger than lt because he stopped protege.
Protege was stronger than lt because it took Scathan to stop him.
__________________ Quotes from Hia8:
"I claimed that the science is sometimes faulty."
"You don't understand. This is fiction. That means none of this stuff really happened."
"There is no writer to purposely ignore a character's natural ability just because it suits the story."
"in some cases because the writer knows that Character A will dominate Character B easily and refuses to allow this to happen for the sake of the story."
Protegé got beaten by using non-organic artifacts (the Eye of Agamotto, the machine Scathan used), which he cannot absorb, thanks to those marginal advantages they were able to overpower him, but it wasn't because Scathan nor the Eye were "more powerful" than LT.
Bentley which was it stated that Scathan used a machine to handle the Protege? I have the issues and don't see that mentioned anywhere. Are you referring to the "Celestial Energy Muzzle"?
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..even the outer hells are indifferent matters for they bow only to potent and archaic Nodens.
You assume the muzzle is greater than anything another celestial has done.
For all you know it was the same strength as the crimson bands of cytorrak. Nothing in he narration tells us what that "muzzle" could contain.
Your logic is now:
Protege is above lt because it took a muzzle from Scathan to stop him.
Scathan is above lt because only his muzzle could stop protege.
And also. The scan where they recognize his level as being the one above all.... If lt acknowledges that the boy truly is above them all...
Then Scathan shouldn't have been able to muzzle him....
Thus he wasn't really above them all....
Etc etc
__________________ Quotes from Hia8:
"I claimed that the science is sometimes faulty."
"You don't understand. This is fiction. That means none of this stuff really happened."
"There is no writer to purposely ignore a character's natural ability just because it suits the story."
"in some cases because the writer knows that Character A will dominate Character B easily and refuses to allow this to happen for the sake of the story."
Protege just mimicked the power ofo the Lt and no Celestial would pose a problem to Lt like power. That's a fact unless there is some other showing I am unaware of. I made a factual statement.