Then you should know this.
1. Dooku wasn't trying to kill Anakin, the plan was to kill Kenobi and let Skywalker capture him.
2. "A starburst of clarity blossoms within Anakin Skywalker's mind,
when he says to himself Oh. I get it, now and discovers that the fear
within his heart can be a weapon, too.
It is that simple, and that complex.
And it is final.
Dooku is dead already. The rest is mere detail."-Anakin never gets this sort of clarity anywhere else.
3. Anakin had just lost Kenobi. No shit he'd unlock power he'd never touched upon before (sans perhaps on Mortis).
Many people know this, from myself to Intrepid to NewGuy01 to others, but that doesn't establish "Zoanakin."
Though, I'm not in the mood to have a Zonakin debate. My life is occupied on killing Darth Zash atm.
__________________ "There is only Revan. Only he can shape this galaxy as it is meant to be shaped."
No. That wasn't the point.
The point was many people who read the novel don't believe in Zonakin.
So you implying anyone who reads the novel believes in Zonakin is false.
__________________ "There is only Revan. Only he can shape this galaxy as it is meant to be shaped."
And there are people who read and watched ROTS who don't believe Anakin was weakened at Mustafar, doesn't make it any less horseshit. Anakin's performance against Dooku is just as much an outlier as him losing to Kenobi.
Also love how you conveniently leave out that Dooku was given orders not to kill Anakin.
And yet not long before ROTS Dooku fends off Kenobi and Skywalker with little difficulty. Not denying Skywalker wouldn't give him a spectacular fight every time, but most times Dooku wins.
All right, I promised the OP I would post a counter-analysis to this so here it is:
Firstly, I accept that when amped by a DS nexus Nyriss' lightning is superior to Dooku's - and I accept that Yoda struggled against Dooku's lighting whereas Revan seemingly did not. However I reject this as proof that Revan is anywhere near Yoda's league in terms of power.
And this is because the OPs theory is flawed, because he assumes that Yoda's struggle against Dooku was down to a lack of Force power as opposed to age induced infirmity and over-dependency on a non-combative/scholarly environment to use his Force powers - which in fact, is evidently the case.
Yoda is a scholar, an aged scholar who suffers from arthritis among other things, and because of that Yoda finds it difficult to build up and exert his vast reservoirs of Force energy on his environment. And this is why Yoda struggled against Dooku, not because he lacked power, but lacked the ability to quickly exert it. He was old, frail and slow - but still vastly powerful.
And this is a view that the Jensaarai, who you may be familiar, concurs with. Here is his summary of the topic - relevant until the 32:00 mark.
Indeed compare the following:
Here is Yoda warding of Dooku's TK attacks, note the slow deliberate motions and the obvious exertions it takes for him to do this. Something decidedly absent from the lesser Dooku's attacks. Yet here we have two far younger and more combat-experienced Force Users throwing around projectiles with consummate ease. And then again here a similar pair also wield TK without the exertion Yoda displays. Neither Ventress, Anakin, Malgus or Darach are in the same league as Yoda, and yet - because they are younger and unlike Yoda used to using their powers in the field - they are able to use TK far quicker than he.
And yet we would not argue these individuals superior or even equal Force Users. For despite Yoda's age and scholarly persona, when he is able to bring his full powers to bear through concentration they are vast to say the least, vastly superior to what Revan is capable of.
To apply that to the example given, Yoda would have struggled at first to absorb and redirect Dooku's lightning because it would have required an immediate and unexpected response, which Yoda is not geared towards, however once given time to concentrate, he could negate Dooku's attack with little effort. The novel and the film, demonstrate this, in the film the visible signs of exertion are in keeping with his previous difficult in deflecting Dooku's TK and the overall concept as Yoda as old and scholarly. The novel itself elaborates on this, noting that as Yoda is given time to concentrate, he becomes increasingly more confident and ready:
...but Yoda continued to catch it and turn it, and seemed to become even more settled in his defensive posture.
"Much to learn you still have," Yoda remarked.
Dooku disengaged the futile lightning assault.
--Taken from Attack of the Clones novelisation
And here is the Offical Databank's take on the event:
The Sith claimed to be more powerful than any Jedi, but Yoda easily absorbed his Force lightning attack.
Which, may I add, is canonically superior to the novel anyway.
Revan on the other hand, a practiced, younger warrior who like Anakin, Ventress, Malgus and Darach had been in many battles and became accustomed to use his powers quickly, had no such difficulty in gather his energies immediately and deflecting Nyriss' power.
So again, the premise that Yoda struggled due to a lack of Force ability is flawed, he did not, he struggled because he was out of his element. A far more accurate comparison, to properly compare Revan and Yoda's abilities is to show them at their absolute limits rather than trying to draw flawed conclusions from circumstantial evidence. Instead substitute Nyriss for the Sith Emperor and substitute Dooku for Sidious. For in those engagements where both Yoda and Revan pushed to the limits of their abilities and by comparing their limitations we can accurately compare their power:
Here is what happened when Revan tried to catch the Sith Emperor's lightning:
A dozen bolts of purple lightning arced from the Emperor toward him, Revan tried to draw them in and contain them but the Emperor was infinitely more powerful than than Nyriss had ever been. Revan's body was engulfed in agony as the electricity coursed through his body, his skin began to boil and blister, the flesh of his face melting and sticking to the superheated metal of his mask as the Emperor poured more and more power into him.
--Taken from The Old Republic: Revan
To say he struggled would be an understatement, as it is quite obvious that had T3 not intervened Revan would have shortly died.
Noting that after:
...the Jedi collapsed to the ground, burned, but still alive
and he was:
...almost too weak to move
Revan was, quite simply, totally surpassed by the Sith Emperor's power.
Now, to compare that to Yoda's performance against Sidious who is comparable (though markedly superior) in ability:
The difference is staggering, Yoda is not only capable of catching the full brunt of Sidious' lighting without being burned, but he was able to gather his energies and push them back, almost completely overwhelming Sidious before the energy explodes and luck has it that Yoda loses the high ground.
I don't think I need to go into much more detail here, Yoda was able to capably catch Sidious' lighting and almost overwhelm him, whereas against an opponent of similar (though weaker) strength Revan was not only incapable of fully catching the bolts, but was almost killed by them.
Yoda is clearly the superior wielder of tutaminis here, grossly superior, and this only reinforces the fact that Yoda only struggled against Dooku because he was out of his element. To conclude I would draw your attention to Yoda's initial inability to contain Sidious' energy, thanks to his age and scholarly persona, yet after having time to concentrate he pushes back and gains the advantage, and it is at that point that the full extent of his power comes to bear.
TL;DR Yoda struggled against Dooku because as an aged-scholar he was not used to exerting his powers quickly, yet clearly Yoda is grossly superior to Revan given his performance against the Sidious in comparison to Revan's less than impressive performance against the Sith Emperor.
If need be, I can go into detail as to why Darth Sidious' lighting is superior to that of the Sith Emperor. In fact I think I will to validate the above.
I'd just like point out that in order to make that claim you'd have to have the opinion that Darth Sidious' lightining was considerably less powerful than the Sith Emperor's - given the gap between Yoda handling Sidious and Revan handling the Sith Emperor is vast.
Also, it does not revolve around that point Ant. It revolves around the fact that you incorrectly assume that Yoda struggling against Dooku had anything to do with a lack of Force Ability - which it does not.
I merely felt the latter was a better comparison of their abilities.
Anyway, I'll get to that, and your points on Bane, when I have time.
In terms of Force Lightning, Darth Sidious receives the edge. He simply surpasses the Sith Emperor in every feasible way. He has incapacitated and killed more powerful Force users with lightning; he has generated far larger Force storms and has dispatched his dark side energies across a far greater radius. Now one may argue that this is unfair, as the Sith Emperor has never been in a position where he would need to kill a Force user or conjure a Force Storm. However I would retort to the first that the Sith Emperor required a Force Maelstrom to incapacitate the Jedi Strike Team, and a further blast of powerful energy to render them fully unconscious.
Yet with a single blast Sidious was has show himself capable of reducing three dark side prophets to ash, and in a weakened state a single gout was capable of incapacitating Leia (after being trained as a Jedi), seriously wounding Empatojayos Brand, and killing another trained Force User. One would think therefore that if the Sith Emperor’s lightning truly was more potent, he would have would have been able to incapacitate and render unconscious the Jedi Strike Team with something far less potent that a Force Maelstorm coupled with a Force Blast - some of the most potent demonstrations of Sith Lightning.
Furthermore Sidious’ ability to overwhelm Force deflection/absorption with Force lightning is considerably more impressive than the Sith Emperor’s. The Sith Emperor had blasts of Force lightning capably deflected by Revan, yet Sidious’ lightning was enough to bend Mace Windu’s lightsaber back into his face to the point where he was choking on ozone, with Windu remarking that it was beyond Vaapad. This being Mace mother-#%3$ing Windu using a form designed to absorb and reflect dark side attacks such as this, and yet even he was overwhelmed. And in terms of when one does have Vaapad, look no further than Yoda, Yoda’s blade was slapped right of out his hand with a single shock. Revan’s was not - do the math.
And to the second I would retort that if the Sith Emperor in all his one thousand years of study had mastered the Force Storm, he would have most certainly used it. It was definitely a power the Sith Emperor would have been aware of, on top of 1,000+ years of study dedicating to uncovering the secrets of the dark side, the Sith Emperor actually had the Darkstaff in his possession. An immensely powerful dark side artifact that could, after consuming a vast reservoir of energy, conjure a Force Storm. So if the Sith Emperor had knowledge of the ability, why did he not wield it? Would that not have made him easily capable of crushing the Republic without even leaving Dromund Kaas? Of easily committing the mass genocide necessary to enact his final ritual as opposed to the time -consuming and carefully laid plans he favoured instead? One would fully expect it would. The only explanation is that he simply was not powerful enough to harness such power, yet Darth Sidious was, and then some.
All in all this is more than sufficient proof to demonstrate that Sidious is at the very least very much in the Sith Emperor's league and at most notably superior to him. The former being all that is necessary to demonstrate Yoda as vastly superior to Revan.
I needn't add, but I will. Given that Sidious has been confirmed by multiple sources to be canonically the most powerful dark sider ever - and given that Force lightning is a pure expression of the dark side, it is practically canon that Sidious is the superior wielder of his power.
Jun 23rd, 2014 08:48 PM
