Mace matching(or even besting) Palpatine in sabers made more sense when the 'meta' aspect of Vaapad was still a thing, because that's what helped bridge the gap in power/skill between them.
But in canon, Vaapad is just a Juyo variant with no deeper esoteric qualities that have been alluded to. So the revelation that Palpatine was indeed toying with Mace isn't overly surprising. As mentioned by others: canon has consistently portrayed Palpatine as a god amongst insects. Like it or not, that's just how it seems to be. /shrug
^
Not sure about sabers. But anyway, due to his fight with Sidious Windu was often considered as Dooku's superior in the Force. Like stronger guard in the Force etc. It seems to be like joke right now. Good.
^ Id say difference was he seems to concede in this one. The Obsession one just seemed like he wasnt interested in a long drawn out fight to see whose better on a planet swarming with Jedi and Clone Troopers.
"The Daemon lied with every breath. It could not help itself but to deceive and dismay, to riddle and ruin. The more we conversed, the closer I drew to one singularly ineluctable fact: I would gain no wisdom here."
The bad guys run away at the end of every fight pre-RotS.
__________________
"The Daemon lied with every breath. It could not help itself but to deceive and dismay, to riddle and ruin. The more we conversed, the closer I drew to one singularly ineluctable fact: I would gain no wisdom here."
Dooku is just far more valueable tbh. Mace is one of 12 member of the Council and one of thousands jedi.
Dooku is - at the moment - one of two Sith Lords and head of CIS. He still has his ego, he might be interested in killing Windu - just for himself. But when fight is closer then he thougts, he leaves. Much in Dookus characer.
If he doesnt want to risk his life against an equal or near equal then that is a form of concession. He forfeits because hes not confident enough of winning.
Certainly hard to put Dooku > Mace from that.
Anyway if they are equals thats fine with me as it would put ROTS Anakin above Mace. Heck it would put TCW Anakin equal to Windu.
Yay for revisionism. GL stated that Mace actually won, and noted that Mace was one of a mere handful of people who could tangle with the Emperor in the first place.
Nick Gillard is a tool and he's been a canon headache for decades now, between this and his stupid power chart. This is the guy responsible for the glowstick rave combat sequence where Anakin and Obi-Wan trade missing blows at point blank range without moving their feet. GL should have hired a professional.
To clarify, Yoda did beat Sids in sabers. Per the original script (and implied in the movie finished version), Yoda disarmed Sidious entirely. This is supported also by a frame-by-frame watching of the office fight, because Yoda is clearly superior and Sidious is struggling to keep his defenses up, much less get in any actual offensive swings.
I still can't explain how Mace got off an easily-telegraphed front kick and disarmed Sidious. Perhaps the Sheev has butterfingers and was snacking hard before his arrest crew came to get him. In any case, it is reasonable to assume during the Force lightning segment that he was playing weak, because he makes a point of whining about it, and it's all about Anakin's presence at that point.
Bottom line, Mace is firmly on Sidious' level if not above based on movie feats alone. I'd be highly suspicious of using a NuCanon encyclopedia which glosses over events we can actually see and verify, but that's just me. Most SW lore books have always been from in-universe third person narrative and therefore flawed or biased. It would surprise me if this book is written differently.
I mean, Dooku's got the most refined lightsaber fighting form in the PT era, and was trained by Yoda himself. The only reason he's ranked lower in general is because Anakin took him out in Episode III (and IIRC in CW their duels got progressively closer, which makes the dialogue in Episode III make no sense but whatever), not because he's shown to be a non-top tier duelist. His fighting form actually is the least stupid and most effective onscreen and the old Fightsaber article used his AOTC battle specifically to formulate Makashi. It helps that most of his fight scenes were an actual swordmaster with Chris Lee's face painted on via CGI, and therefore he fights more fluidly than everyone else.
When I did a review of his final battle with Anakin and Obi-Wan years ago, I noted that during the entire fight he basically toyed with the Jedi and controlled the engagement, to the point where he could incorporate kicks and TK usage casually and still maintain his defense. Since that battle thematically matches the ROTJ Throne Room fight, and since the original script supported that Dooku was teasing out the dark side in Anakin to turn him, it seems logical to me to assume that Dooku was not going 100% on Anakin. And when Anakin pulled his disarm maneuever, he was genuinely not prepared for it, only to be slain by Sidious' command shortly after.
It is a dumb character moment for the Count, since he should be aware that the Rule of Two is a thing, but that's GL for you. Right up until Anakin did his Limit Break, Dooku was toying hard with both Jedi, and in the past he'd been a league ahead of either. He also put up a better fight against Yoda in AOTC saber-wise than Sids did, although I'd wager Sids is stronger in the Force in general. His lighting is superior and he seems to have power over Dooku that's never quite explained. Even Dark Rendezvous made Dooku scared of Sidious' esoteric Force powers.
Back to the original point, Mace being less effective against Dooku is more reasonable than not. Dooku's the Form II bigwig of the Jedi Order, Mace's senior, and has more lightsaber training and years behind him than Mace or Sidious. Only Yoda can claim more at this rate. Meanwhile, Sidious was somehow a Juyo master by virtue of you know, late night saber practice sessions. We'll ignore that your average Jedi has to go through 10k+ hours of saber training to be considered proficient and assume that full-time senator/Emperor with no superiors to learn from just magically acquired super lightsaber mastery in the 10 hours a week he could book the gym.
Or, we could admit that it's extremely unlikely he has the same level of dedicated training as a Jedi master in the sabers, and it should be his high level of Dark Side Force powers which should set him above them. I mean, if you take away Sids' lightning, he's suddenly a lot less dangerous. Without it, the Senate room fight would have gone against him. And without it, he couldn't have held Mace off long enough to turn Anakin. He couldn't have subdued Luke in seconds. And he certainly wouldn't be Juyo'ing the Rebel fleet above Exegol later on.
Apr 1st, 2022 07:08 PM
