You could post a link to this.A side note: If I see one of the dreaded "Mace defeated Palpatine" people, I might reference a good chunk of your post. I hope that is fine with you (credit will be given).
@Bossmonster said:
@Silver2467:
I will try to clean this post up as best as I can. I'm at work and the computer here don't support the text editor. So. Forgive me if this is hard to read. But I have just a few question. First, as I said before, that was an amazing post. And I am pretty sure that Mace/Dooku are equals now. Mostly because everything you posted was very well supported. So if you wouldn't mind addressing a few questions I have, then I will be satisfied with the entire thing.
Fair enough.
Vaapad itself is not an enhancement; the darkness within Mace is. When Anakin revealed to Mace that Palpatine was the Sith Lord, Mace's inherent attachment to the Republic was shredded, and this, as one source articulated it, "hollowed him to the core." This subsumed Mace with even more of an intrinsic darkness than usual. Vaapad operates by the darkness in an individual; it is a state of mind designed to channel darkness (not the dark side, just dark emotions or mindsets; dark emotions are not of the dark side unless utilized for an evil purpose) for the purposes of the light. With that being the case, the more darkness there is present in the Vaapad practitioner, the more potent Vaapad will be. During his duel with Sidious, Mace's own darkness was sharpened at a level he had never experienced before, and this in fact did boost his Force abilities and send him into a frenzied fighting state beyond what he had before been capable of. The RotS novelizations demonstrates this very unambiguously.1)Is Vaapad really and enhancement. It seems to me that this is the perfect style to combat foes of the darkside. And, unless I misunderstood what you were saying, it seems that you are saying that Mace recieved a crazy stat boost in his fight with Sidious. However, my question is, does that or rather should that really count as a "boost"? It seems that this would be different from a force enhancment. Again, I apologize that I can't make this a more neat post. I will try to make an edit later.
All of this is conjecture. In fact, in Obsession, Mace stated that he intended to ensure that Grievous never killed again by killing Grievous; he fought Grievous again later in Labyrinth and failed to kill him. Against Sora, Mace evinced no reluctance. More importantly, Mace fought Kar Vastor in Shatterpoint, and he said himself that he wanted to win. Yet Vastor still defeated him. And this took place on a world saturated in darkness against Vastor, who himself was a dark sider of notable power. Despite that, Mace still never achieved the fighting state he did against Sidious while fighting Vastor, and Kar beat Mace. So, no, this is not a valid refutation.2)Is it ok to say that his Dual with Sidious doesn't have bearing on other fights? Again based off the resouces you posted, Vaapad draws for two places, the user and what it's being used against. It seems to me, that Sidious was the first fight Mace had where his "Morals where off". What I mean by that is, in other duals, Mace seemed more limited by his own sense of the Jedi way. Like in Shatterpoint, Ventress and Sora. Even in your scans above. Ventress wanted the battle, but her skills so far beneath that of Mace that she just had to back down. I believe her name was Depa(from Shatterpoint) and like Sora, Mace seemed to lament his hand in there fall due to his creation of Vaapad. He seem to seek there and his own redemption. But in all three encounters, Mace as not out to kill. His dual with the General, less of every thing above, but still not really out to kill Grevious. As opposed to when he encountered him again and crushed his chest. I'm bring these thing up to say, in the his last fight, the novals state that this time he was fighting for more than even his life and he seem to have made up his mind the moment the dual started that he would kill Sidious. Unlike his other duals with Yoda, Grevious, Sora, Dapa, Ventress ect, he wanted Sidious dead. Sidious himself was using force speed.
The difference between Palpatine's Force Speed and Mace's Force Speed in that duel is that Palpatine possesses that degree of Speed by virtue of his own power; Mace does not. I already provided a source that definitively proves that Sidious is leagues and bounds ahead of Mace in Force Speed, and as I said, the RotS novel shows in no uncertain terms that Mace was amped.Could the arguement not be made that Sidious himself had to match Mace, less he be overwhelmed? I'm not saying that it's completely true, but is it at all possible? Not that as they moved to the window, he used less force speed and more force grip. In this moment, Mace stole the advantage as Sidious was no longer able to match his saber speed. So, is it really not to have any bearing on any other fight or standing of Mace. As those things seem to suggest to me that Mace is in a constant state of holding back. In fact, to further elaborate on this (I really wish I could do quote. Bear with me. I will totally clean this up when I get home) Mace said that he create Vaapad to answer his own darkness and channel it right? But even that has to be kept in check I.E Sora and Depa.
--Taken from The Complete Visual DictionaryBefore Mace realizes what has happened, Kolar, Tiin, and Fisto have fallen to Sidious's blade.
This is not how Sith train. Banite Sith train their students (and, yes, this includes even Dark Jedi and other subordinates, such as Grievous) with ferocity. They have no tolerance for hesitance or anything less than merciless stances. Dooku even mused that Grievous has given him challenge during their duels before; so clearly, the two are not withholding much from one another, as would be consistent with the Sith mentality for training their pupils.The Count trained Grevious. So, it does stand to reason that he would be more adapt at handling him in a 1v1, especially given, that they were not duals to the death and Grevious was seeking to learn.
Yes, it does. The entire purpose of Vaapad is for a lightsider to utilize it. When Depa and Sora fell to the dark side, Mace labeled their application of the form as mastering them instead of them mastering the form. Vaapad was created to harness darkness without falling victim to it and, more importantly, to discover an answer for the Dark (once again, not the dark side). However, because Vaapad draws on the Dark to fight it, it can never succeed in its grander function. Killing at all reinforces the Dark, and Vaapad is a killing form. Mace's mistake is that he believes he extract power from the Dark yet use the Dark to fight against its adherents. Mace elucidated once to Obi-Wan that he developed Vaapad to control the darkness within him, but this is just a sign of Jedi corruption in the latter years of the Rise of the Empire era. Mace should have simply expelled the darkness within himself, not attempted to attack his darkness' source with it. This underlying flaw renders Vaapad is a dangerous style and Mace one of the best duelists of his time, but it also leaves Vaapad ultimately ineffective on a greater scale. But this would be no different if Mace was a dark sider because allying with the dark side of the Force strips away the principles behind Vaapad. Think: If Jedi beliefs restrict Vaapad, why were Depa and Sora not more powerful with Vaapad once they fell? Why did they not enjoy the power and speed that Mace tapped into in RotS? Because Vaapad is designed for lightsiders, not darksiders. The light side usage of Vaapad might be flawed from its premise, but the dark side usage is contrary to Vaapad's premise altogether.However, it doesn't allow for one to use it to it's fullest if they believe what the Jedi believe.
You say "using his style to the fullest" as if Mace could actually summon that fighting potency at will. The fact is, he can't. He can fight with morals off all he wants; it would still not level him with Sidious. Sidious is faster than Mace can even see; the only way Mace could match him is by a tremendous amplification of his abilities, which he received during their duel. And really, Sidious did not "have to enhance his physical stats" to not be cut down; Sidious always fights that fast. He has done so in all of his duels to date.Yet, When Mace used the style to it's fulliest, Even the Sidious was forced to enhances his physical stats less he be killed.
No, it isn't. Sora and Depa fight with Vaapad with no limits; they are not on Dooku or Sidious' level. Turning to the dark side would not enhance Vaapad; it would just mutilate its core practicality. Mace is not on Sidious' level no matter how you look at it, nor is he above Dooku. The various sources I compiled show very evidently that Mace was enhanced during his duel with Sidious and was equal with Dooku; speculating on how the matter could be different or distorting the evidence itself is not a legitimate approach.However, it's his morals that limit has effectiveness and make them equals.
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