@thevivas said:
@dxc said:
I was under the impression that Caedus fought Luke to somewhat of a draw?
So why does he lose here?
Circumstances and context.
Circumstances and context indeed. Let's talk about them.
Let's first establish that Luke is so far beyond Caedus as a Force user it stops being funny, and then gets a little bit funny again. As you'll read below, Luke without even the slightest amount of effort, without gesturing, without doing anything that could resemble actual effort, keeps Caedus pinned to a chair, completely motionless save for his ability to speak, for several minutes, completely embarrassing him.
"In the next instant, Caedus found himself flying across the cabin toward his observation bubble. Luke had not gestured, had not flinched, had not even shifted his gaze; he had simply grabbed Caedus in the Force and hurled him five meters into his chair.
"Don't lie." Luke started across the cabin. "I'm getting tired of it."
Caedus sprang out of the chair... or attempted to. Instead, he found himself struggling against an invisible weight. He felt as if he were accelerating to lightspeed with a faulty inertial compensator.
"Luke, you've gone mad." Caedus reached for the controls on the arm of his chair and discovered he couldn't even do that much. "You can't do this. I know you're having trouble dealing with Mara's death, but..."
"This has nothing to do with Mara," Luke said. "And you're lucky it doesn't. If she were here-if she had known what you were using Ben for-there'd be pieces of you scattered along the entire length of the Hydian Way."
The irony of the statement was far from lost on Caedus, but he was too astonished-and too frightened-to take any pleasure in it. While it was true that Luke had taken him by surprise, it was equally true that he had done so with no visible effort-and that he was continuing to hold him with no apparent exertion.
Keenly aware that all that stood between him and a quick death was Luke Skywalker's much-strained sense of decency, Caedus let a little of his very real fear seep into the Force, just enough to seem properly alarmed.
[...]
"Then I'll take it for what it's worth," Luke said. Leaving Caedus Force-pinned in his chair, he started toward the door. "I'll show myself out."
Caedus knew he would be freed as soon as Luke turned his concentration to something other than Force-pinning him-but that might take minutes, and Caedus needed to send in the Home Fleet now. Besides, he was the Chief of State of the Galactic Alliance, and he could not allow anyone, even Luke Skywalker, to humiliate him and simply leave. He had to assert some sort of authority."
--Legacy of the Force: Inferno
So what have we learned? That.. Caedus has absolutely no business "dueling evenly" with Luke Skywalker. The disparity in their command of the Force, which is the absolute core of lightsaber combat due to the heavy reliance of enhanced physical abilities, enhanced, supernatural senses, inexplicable clairvoyance and precognition (which are almost always determined by how powerful the individual is), is just far too big to justify Caedus being good enough to duel Luke on even footing. The disparity between Caedus and Luke is about as large as, if not even larger than the difference between individuals like Count Dooku and Yoda; and while Dooku is a good challenge for Yoda, any fight between them is still going to be heavily one sided, as we've seen both of the times they've fought.
Which makes me wonder... why for years and years on this website have people been parroting "Caedus dueled evenly with Luke" and so on? How is that even possible? Well, it's pretty simple. Less than a handful of reputable users claimed as much and the rest of the website fell into line like obedient myrmidons and ran along with the idea without even the slightest bit of resistance -- had they read the fight for themselves and gauged their viewpoint off of something other than hearsay, they would probably have realized that the fight was circumstance-ridden and didn't come close to resembling a traditional lightsaber duel.
The fight starts with an angered Luke ambushing and stabbing a few centimeters into Caedus' stomach, touching his kidney. While the injury logically would have affected Caedus negatively, as the text notes that kind of injury would paralyse most normal beings, it's explicitly noted that Caedus not only recovered from the injury instantly, but fed off of it to make himself stronger and faster, which is further indicated by him "simply completing his pivot and landing a rib-crunching roundhouse".
"Luke didn't give Jacen a chance to surrender. He just sprang.
Ben's jaw dropped, and Jacen started to spin, snatching his lightsaber from his belt and igniting it in the same motion, bringing the emerald blade around high to protect his heart and head.
But Luke was attacking low, striking for the kidney to disable in the most painful way possible. Jacen's eyes widened. He flipped his lightsaber down in the same moment Luke's met flesh.
The tip sank a few centimeters, drawing a pained hiss as it touched a kidney, then Jacen's blade made contact and knocked it aside. Even that small wound would have left most humans paralyzed with agony. But Jacen thrived on pain, fed on it to make himself stronger and faster. He simply completed his pivot and landed a rib-crunching roundhouse."
Said rib-crunching roundhouse landed squarely on a barely healed scar from a previous fight of Luke's, causing him to begin breathing in "short, painful gasps". Luke isn't too worked up over this, though.
"Luke stumbled back, his chest filled with fire. Jacen had caught him on the barely healed scar from his first fight with Lumiya, and now his breath was coming in short painful gasps.
Good, Luke thought. This was supposed to hurt."
Advantage thus far? Caedus. He's relishing off of the pain of an injury that has only benefited him while Luke is breathing poorly from being struck in an old wound.
Next.. Luke essentially has Caedus dead to rights. He elbows Caedus, drops him to his knees, cracks his teeth with a knee to his chin, and then prepares to finish him off with a stab to the chest -- a fitting end for someone so far below Luke as a Force user.
"Jacen followed the kick with a high slash. Luke blocked and spun inside, landing an elbow smash to the temple that dropped Jacen to his knees. He brought his own knee up under Jacen's chin, hearing teeth crack-and relishing it. He parried a weak slash at his thighs, then drew his blade up diagonally where his nephew's chest should have been."
Caedus survives.. by using telekinesis to pull himself toward a Yuuzhan Vong torture rack elsewhere in the room. Call it what you want, but Caedus survived because he had an anchor to cling onto; as far as pure combat is concerned, Luke did everything but kill Caedus in a very, very brief fight.
"Except Jacen was sliding backward, one hand extended behind him, using the Force to pull himself toward a tendril-draped rack in the far corner of the torture chamber. Luke leapt after him, bringing his lightsaber around in a low, clearing sweep."
Next, Luke is further disadvantaged: Jacen feigns that he's about to use Force Lightning, Luke prepares a protective shield, and instead Caedus launches a Vong torture rack at Luke from across the room. Luke's body "explodes into pain" as he is slammed into a steel wall, is stabbed by a bed of thorns, has poison pumped all around his body, and as a result "his hearing fades" and "his head begins to spin".
"Jacen stopped pulling and started to swing his free hand around. Luke was ready, had been expecting this since the fight started. Still flying through the air, he raised his own hand, palm outward, and pushed the Force out through his arm to form a protective shield.
The lightning never came. Instead, Luke was blindsided by something heavy and spiky, and his body exploded into pain as he slammed into a durasteel wall. He found himself pinned in place, trapped by a bed of thorns Jacen had hurled across the cabin. He felt the hot sting of the thorns pumping their venom into him. His hearing faded and his head began to spin, and he saw Jacen, one hand still raised to keep Luke pinned, sneering and taking his time rising."
Advantage? Very much Caedus; he wriggled out of being killed and opportunistically injured Luke and pumped him full of venom. I'm not saying he isn't playing by the rules or that there's anything wrong with what he chose to do, but it's pretty different from "stalemating" Luke, and it's only adding to the laundry list of injuries Luke is now having to cope with as he fights an amplified Jacen.
Next, despite the injuries inflicted, Luke breaks out of the thorn bed, and Jacen barely blocks a downstroke; Luke then proceeds to kick Jacen a meter off the ground and comes close to take his head off. Caedus ducks and throws a Force-enhanced punch into the same spot that he had already targeted; Luke's old wound. Luke's chest again explodes into pain and now he's croaking instead of the short, painful breaths he was already taking.
Bad mistake.
Luke raised his lightsaber, slashing through the thorn bed as he sprang. Jacen scrambled to his feet, barely bringing his weapon up in time to block a vicious downstroke. Luke landed a snap-kick to the stomach that lifted Jacen a meter off the deck, then followed it with a slash to the neck-
-which Jacen ducked. He came up under Luke's guard, holding his weapon with one hand and driving a Force-enhanced punch into Luke's ribs with the other, striking for the same place he had kicked earlier. Luke's chest exploded into pain, and he found himself croaking instead of breathing.
It needs to be said that Caedus can take some credit for not being killed by Luke, but it's also necessary to point out that there's no way he'd be doing this well were Luke not already badly injured.
Next, again in spite of the growing list of injuries, Luke smashes Caedus' guard with such force that Caedus' lightsaber digs into his own shoulder; Caedus in return throws a kick at Luke's legs, and appears to either break of at least severely injure Luke's knee.
Luke struck again with his lightsaber, using both hands and putting all his strength into the attack, beating his nephew's guard down so far that Jacen's emerald blade bit into his own shoulder. Jacen kicked at Luke's legs, catching the side of a knee. Something popped and Luke felt himself going down. On the way, he swept his blade horizontally.
Jacen screamed, and the smell of scorched bone and singed hair filled the air.
Yeah, Luke's now on top of everything else fighting with a nigh-broken knee. Again, credit to Caedus for inflicting the injury, but as I'll repeat, Luke was already suffering from much more negative circumstances than his opponent, and it's merely dumb luck that Caedus could break Luke's knee of all the injuries he could inflict. Caedus does have the skin on his skull sliced off but as we've already established; Caedus thrives off of pain more than anything else, and given that it was just an incredibly painful flesh wound, this would have only helped him.
Next is where the fight turns around for Luke; he begins exchanging blows with Caedus in this awful physical state and then manages to land a finger-jab in Caedus' eye, sending him away roaring in pain. I think it's pretty clear by this point who the better fighter is. Luke then throws Caedus into a Vong torture apparatus. At this point it's fair to assume/point out that from this point on Caedus will have some of the same venom in him that Luke had been injected by before.
Knowing Jacen would strike despite the wound, Luke rolled over his throbbing knee and spun back to his feet with a clearing sweep.
His blade met Jacen's in a shower of brilliant sparks. Luke freed one hand and drove a finger-strike at Jacen's eyes.
Jacen turned his head, but Luke's little finger scratched across something soft and bulbous. Jacen roared and stumbled away, shaking his head. Luke feinted a dash toward his nephew's blind side, then-as Jacen pivoted to protect his injured eye-Luke hit him with a Force wave.
Jacen went flying, and it required only a soft nudge to steer him into a tendril-draped rack in the far corner. He hit with so much cracking and crashing that Luke worried the rack had broken, but the thin tendrils quickly entwined Jacen in a net of pulsing green.
Luke's basically won the fight, again, having said that. He has a few seconds of time to simply gut Caedus and would have done so if Ben hadn't cried out and distracted him; it's also an illustration of how badly damaged Luke's knee is, because all it takes is Ben shouting out to cause Luke to lose balance completely and buckle over his knee.
Luke started forward, his injured knee buckling each time he put weight on it. The rack's slender tendrils were tightening around Jacen, cutting into his flesh and oozing a yellowish irritant that made skin puff up and split. Jacen began to slash his lightsaber up and down, cutting the vines away two and three at a time. If Luke wanted to finish this-and it seemed like a good idea, given how battered he was himself-he had only a few seconds.
Luke closed to within two meters without saying a word. What point would there have been? Jacen wasn't going to surrender, and Luke wouldn't have believed him if he offered. It was better to attack quickly, while he still had the advantage. He brought his lightsaber up to strike.
"Wait!" Ben cried from behind him. "Let me do it!"
Astonished and appalled, Luke put a little too much weight on his injured knee-and fell as it buckled. He rolled beyond the reach of Jacen's lightsaber and looked back across the chamber. Ben was still strapped in the Embrace, but he had summoned the vibrodagger off the floor and was battling to cut himself free of the chair's lashing tentacles.
Luke shook his head. "I don't think so, Ben."
"You have to!" Ben insisted. "I deserve it!"
"Deserve it?" Luke returned to his feet, far angrier with Jacen than he had been just a moment earlier. "To kill someone?"
"You don't understand, "Ben insisted. "It was my fault. If I don't do this..."
"I said no, "Luke interrupted. How could Ben believe that he had a right to kill someone? "You're very confused, Ben. We'll talk about this later."
Giving his son no further chance to argue, Luke turned back to Jacen, who by now was almost free. Only one leg remained caught, though it was still entwined in a half a dozen places. Luke limped forward, circling toward Jacen's trapped side.
Next, while Luke is on the ground, Caedus brings down a large light fixture directly on Luke's head, which is subsequently smashed into the durasteel flooring hard enough to break Luke's nose and cause him to instantly start choking on his own blood.
Jacen stopped cutting at the tendrils and flung a hand toward the ceiling.
"Dad, look — "
Luke was already throwing himself to the deck. A tremendous crash sounded from the illumination panel, and the chamber fell instantly dark. He rolled opposite the direction he had just been moving, but wasn't quick enough. The fixture smashed into his head and shoulders, slamming his face into the deck. He heard something crunch in his nose and was instantly choking on his own thick blood.
Next, Caedus starts making his way over to Ben, who has for this whole time been trapped in a Yuuzhan Vong torture apparatus. Despite his laundry list of injuries Luke gets up, trades some effortless blows with Caedus as he flips over him, and then manages to catch up to Caedus as he runs towards Ben - they exchange blows. Caedus kicks Luke in the knee again and Luke lands another elbow in response, shattering a bone in Caedus' face.
Jacen's lightsaber droned twice, filling that corner of the torture chamber with flickering green light. Luke Force-hurled the light fixture off his back, then hobbled to his feet.
Jacen launched himself over Luke in a high Force flip. They exchanged perfunctory attacks as he tumbled past, then Luke was alone in the corner, watching the green column of his nephew's lightsaber move toward the door.
Jacen was running.
Luke spat out a mouthful of blood and Force-leapt after his nephew, at the same time reaching out to drag him back. They came together in a blinding flurry of sparks, their blades colliding faster than the eye could follow, filling the dark chamber with flashing fans of color. Blows came out of nowhere. Luke caught another kick in his knee and found himself calling on the Force to keep his balance. He landed an elbow and felt a bone in Jacen's face shatter.
That's where any dueling between the two finishes. The rest of the fight is pretty simple. Caedus uses an illusion to briefly fool Luke, and then tangles one of the Vong tendrils around Luke's throat, injecting him with the same venom as before and causing him immense pain. Luke repeatedly smashes Caedus with elbows and a palm strike until the fight is finished by Ben stabbing Caedus in the shoulder with a vibroblade.
Jacen stumbled back, groaning, the green light of his lightsaber briefly illuminating Ben's face as the boy struggled to cut himself free. Luke pressed forward, angling toward the Embrace to keep Jacen away from Ben. Jacen fought his way over anyway, placing himself squarely between Luke and the chair, then gave ground and vanished behind the green ribbons his lightsaber was weaving through the darkness.
Luke Force-leapt after him, knowing that this Jacen- the Jacen he had caught torturing his son-would not hesitate to take Ben hostage... or to kill him. Luke landed half a meter in front of Jacen's lightsaber and quickly beat down his nephew's guard-too quickly. When he did not glimpse a face in the light of his own blade, Luke knew something was wrong and stopped.
Which was exactly what Jacen was waiting for, of course.
Luke had barely started to turn before a loop of thin tendril slipped over his head and tightened around his throat, oozing toxin and cutting deep into the flesh. The wound swelled and burned as if it were on fire. Luke whipped his lightsaber around, trying to cut Jacen off his back, but Jacen was already spinning away, tightening his garrote and placing Luke's body between himself and the deadly blade.
"Should have let me go when you had the chance, "Jacen snarled. "Now you're done."
Luke slammed an elbow into Jacen's ribs, but it was like hitting a permacrete wall. Instead of continuing to fight, he accelerated into the spin, using the Force to hurl them both into the nearest wall.
Jacen hit first, his skull clunking hard into the durasteel. The garrote loosened a little. Luke dropped his lightsaber, bracing one hand against the other so he could use the strength of both arms to hammer his elbow up under Jacen's chin.
The garrote went completely slack. Luke followed up with a palm-heel to the same target, using the impact to drive himself away from his attacker and buy some maneuvering room.
Then Jacen let out a bloodcurdling scream and stumbled away, a black silhouette vanishing into the darkness of the torture chamber.
Luke stepped back in shock and confusion, summoning his lightsaber to hand, but knowing by the surprise in Jacen's scream that this was not another trick.
"It's okay, Dad, "Ben said from beside him. "It's just me."
Ben took the glow rod from Luke's belt and activated it. Jacen was crawling across the torture chamber, the hilt of a vibrodagger protruding from between his shoulder blades. His face was inflamed and misshapen, his clothes were smoking and tattered, a hand-sized rectangle of scorched skull showed through his scalp, and still he was stretching a hand toward his lightsaber.
--Legacy of the Force: Inferno
So, what have we learned?
- That Luke was suffering from circumstantially inflicted, and/or pre-existing and far more debilitating injuries than Caedus throughout the course of the fight.
- That any pain derived from the injuries either received would have fueled and strengthened Caedus, making him stronger and faster, while in contrast Luke would simply suffer through the pain with no benefit coming to himself.
- That even in states of physical ability where Luke shouldn't have even been standing, he was not only trading lightsaber blows evenly with Caedus, but he was out-fighting him, in reference to the various elbows, kicks and the eye-jab Luke landed.
- That Luke had Caedus dead to rights not long after the fight had started initially, with Caedus only managing to survive because he had an anchor to pull himself to with telekinesis.
Moral of the story? (and this is directed at the community as a whole and no one person in particular)
Don't be a sheep. I don't even read this series of books but I find myself accessing them and reading through them regularly just because a "reputable user" said something and their army of sheep obediently agreed with their point of view without challenging it or even doing their own research. If I can work out on my first reading that this fight was chalked-full of circumstances that benefited Caedus heavily, anyone else should be able to. But for some reason it doesn't happen, and it continues not to happen: one person says something and the rest go along with it like it's canon. I want that to change but I don't see it happening any time soon.
As a footnote, I'm aware there's going to be the usual suspects branding me the "NJO hater" of the Star Wars community; my response is the same as it always is. I'm indifferent to the era, I just despise poor debating and context being concealed or brushed over.
Also, Yoda wins. Caedus doesn't have any circumstance-free feats, or any other form of evidence, to suggest he's capable of dueling Darth Sidious -- the most powerful and skilled Sith in Star Wars as we know it -- to a near-standstill, in both a lightsaber duel and a contest in the Force. The best you can hope for is that Caedus would give Yoda a pretty good fight, but ultimately one that has a very clear winner.
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