RE:- "Part I - Shedding Limitations": Exar Kun vs. Supremacy Quotes

This is a quick guide, if you will.

As was so well put by DarthAnt66 in his blog "Star Wars VS Debating in 2021 - Part I - Shedding Limitations", the ability of quotes to bind characters beyond the limits of the known power of said characters available at the point of release is nil. Obviously, quotes can't bind characters in totality beyond a certain degree given authors can't make informed judgements on things not written yet.

This blog will discuss the relevant feats of Exar Kun and how they are respectively effected by certain quotes.

1.Darth Maul
First of all is an infamous Darth Maul quote. This quote was released on April 25, 1999 with the Star Wars Episode I Great Big Flap Book:



Ignoring the litany of contentions one can make regarding this quote. And assuming there's only one correct interpretation of the text. This quote only applies to the combat skills Exar Kun is known to have as of April 25, 1999. The most pertinent dueling skill quotes Exar Kun is stated to have, come after this, including but not limited to ones such as this. This quote is from April 4, 2000, noting that the lightsaber skills Exar Kun taught Gantoris were 'astonishing' to a Master as skilled as Luke Skywalker during Jedi Academy:

Star Wars: The Essential Chronology wrote:Before he was ready, Gantoris built his own lightsaber and challenged Skywalker to a duel. The Jedi Master was astonished at his student's skill, but deeply disturbed by the risks he took.

There are plenty of other similar quotes post facto. Simply put, only the dueling skill Kun is known to have pre-April 25, 1999 is binded here. After this, Darth Maul's hard cap on Exar Kun's combative abilities is no longer valid. Thus we regain the ability to debate such rather than state Maul wins by default.

2.Darth Malak
Secondly comes the infamous Darth Malak quote, which was released on Oct. 9, 2003:



Now, ignoring statements such as those from Star Wars: The Old Republic: Encyclopedia, the Darth Malak quote only accounts for what we know about Exar Kun's power before Oct.9, 2003. A great many of his most important statements of power comes after this fact:

1.Exar Kun only recieves his timeline supremacy quote over other Sith on Dec. 9, 2008 in The Complete Star Wars Encyclopedia:



Note: This garners him all of the Ancient Sith scaling in Knights of the Old Republic II: The Sith Lords, over Marka Ragnos, over Ku'ar Danar's ritual via the Ambrian Sorceress, the spirits and Thon, as well as much more. This is possibly the single most important accolade living Exar Kun recieves.

2. Pre-prime Exar Kun's entire power dynamic is made different by this card from Oct. 3, 2012:



Assuming the Malak quote means precisely what it has been used for. The wording in it becomes important, Darth Malak would be possessing powers from the Star Forge far greater than either of Freedon Nadd's or Exar Kun's. But now we know that Exar Kun didn't merely mortally wound Nadd's spirit, he absorbed it's essence for knowledge and became super-powerful because of it. This is a massive difference.

3.Darth Sidious
Thirdly and lastly, there's the litany of Darth Sidious supremacy quotes that have bound Kun in almost all ways given the sheer volume. However, there's one extremely large elephant in the room that none of those quotes account for.

Link: https://www.suspectinsightforums.com/t2804-a-case-for-the-neo-antediluvians

Naga Sadow is stated to be able to do what Darth Plagueis as of 67 b.b.y admitted was to him akin to stopping a raging river with a sponge. Naga Sadow did this pre-prime, noting that it is Naga Sadow's ability to do this that is relevant here, and there's no reason to believe he was only able to do so after his slumber. Nevertheless, it is only until Darth Plagueis with his not so well-known apprentice, unbalances the Force with a paradigm shift that Plagueis is now powerful enough to be able to prevent the mass die-off of midichlorians:

Darth Plagueis wrote:The question of whether he and Sidious had discovered something new or rediscovered something ancient was beside the point. All that mattered was that, almost a decade earlier, they had succeeded in willing the Force to shift and tip irrevocably to the dark side. Not a mere paradigm shift, but a tangible alteration that could be felt by anyone strong in the Force, and whether or not trained in the Sith or Jedi arts.
The shift had been the outcome of months of intense meditation, during which Plagueis and Sidious had sought to challenge the Force for sovereignty and suffuse the galaxy with the power of the dark side. Brazen and shameless, and at their own mortal peril, they had waged etheric war, anticipating that their own midi-chlorians, the Force's proxy army, might marshal to boil their blood or stop the beating of their hearts. Risen out of themselves, discorporate and as a single entity, they had brought the power of their will to bear, asserting their sovereignty over the Force. No counterforce had risen against them. In what amounted to a state of rapture they knew that the Force had yielded, as if some deity had been tipped from its throne. On the fulcrum they had fashioned, the light side had dipped and the dark side had ascended.
On the same day they had allowed Venamis to die.
Then, by manipulating the Bith's midi-chlorians, which should have been inert and unresponsive, Plagueis had resurrected him. The enormity of the event had stunned Sidious into silence and overwhelmed and addled 11-4D's processors, but Plagueis had carried on without assistance, again and again allowing Venamis to die and be returned to life, until the Bith's organs had given out and Plagueis had finally granted him everlasting death.
But having gained the power to keep another alive hadn't been enough for him. And so after Sidious had returned to Coruscant, he had devoted himself to internalizing that ability, by manipulating the midi-chlorians that animated him. For several months he made no progress, but ultimately he began to perceive a measured change. The scars that had grown over his wounds had abruptly begun to soften and fade, and he had begun to breathe more freely than he had in twenty years. He began to sense that not only were his damaged tissues healing, but his entire body was rejuvinating itself. Beneath the transpirator, areas of his skin were smooth and youthful, and he knew that eventually he would cease to age altogether.

In other words, Darth Plagueis right up until the imbalance of the Force, which occurs in 45 b.b.y per Plagueis himself, is still not as powerful as Naga Sadow as of the point at which Sadow was able to drain from others.

In other words, a Naga Sadow who is not yet in his prime, and who is utterly dwarfed by Freedon Nadd, who is utterly absorbed and dwarfed by Exar Kun well before Exar Kun undergoes vast amounts of his own power growth and then drains thousands of Massassi strong in the Force to become powerful enough to engage the combined Jedi Order in a 'titanic battle'; said to be tens of thousands in the Knights of the Old Republic: Campaign Guide. Which is then later made rather evidently even higher into the tens of thousands by a statement in Star Wars the Old Republic: Revan which states the Sith Triumvirate alone was responsible for killing tens of thousands of Jedi. Which doesn't account for the even greater losses of Jedi in the two prior galactic wars.

What this means, is that we have an in-universe event that is not bound by any of the supremacy quotes released before it, which allows, via vast amounts of scaling, Exar Kun's freedom of movement in the Revenge of the Sith power dynamic and beyond.

This is then supported by applying the numerous points of comparisons between Exar Kun and Emperor Palpatine prior to the release of Revenge of the Sith to the spirit of Exar Kun in the post-ROTS era. Noting that per Darth Sidious himself in The Essential Guide to the Force, spirits retain their power from life but require external sources of energy. Due to a spirit's inability to replenish energy on their own as they would in a body.

Thanks for your time and consideration.

Why's that Trading Card is a thing? It also has Kolar, Sion and Nihilus equally strong and many other absurd stats

The stats are S-canon, the lore on the cards are C-canon.