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DarthAnt66
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Shedding Limitations - Revisited  Empty Shedding Limitations - Revisited

October 11th 2019, 12:20 am
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I want this to be more discussion-oriented than some long blog, so I'm going to throw out some thoughts I had after discussing with @Jake and @The Ellimist and see where this goes. This will be a re-tread of my original infamous "Shedding Limitations" thread that everyone mocked back in 2016.

ROTJ Vader is said to attack Luke "with more deadly invincibility as ever" in the ROTJ comic (1983). Assuming that "ever" refers to the in-universe chronology (i.e. the mainstream assumption since, like, 2005), then ROTJ Vader fought with more "deadly invincibility" than Anakin ever did. Today, we generally dismiss this quote given it's contradicted by the preponderance of evidence stating Anakin was a far greater combatant. Still, why do we assume that an out-of-universe statement is bound by the in-universe chronology (i.e. 4 ABY vs 19 BBY)? Why can't out-of-universe statements instead be bound by the out-of-universe chronology (i.e. 1983 vs 2005)? As in, since an out-of-universe statement recognizes they are talking to an audience about a fictional universe, doesn't it even logically follow that the "ever" in "with more deadly invincibility as ever" refers to 'more deadly invincibility than the audience has ever seen' instead? To my knowledge, no LFL official has ever stated our current rule is true -- I think that's something people ran with early in the formation of SW debating and never looked back. If anything, Leland Chee has instead advocated for a constantly evolving expanded universe that is not retroactively bound by the past (hence his take on "most powerful Sith" quotes).

Obviously, the full ramifications of what I'm suggesting here are vast, but it's worth the consideration.


Last edited by DarthAnt66 on December 6th 2019, 10:07 am; edited 1 time in total
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October 11th 2019, 3:14 am
Interresting idea. Need to think a bit about it
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October 11th 2019, 3:24 am
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Well, let's look at the example you used and let's understand the connotations of such a statement.

First off, let's take it literally as opposed to a hyperbolic statement as we know those don't exist in Star Wars - attack with deadly invincibility sounds like a very literal thing after all.

Second, this assumes the writer has the power to retroactively insert Anakin into such a statement even though NO ONE, not even George knew what was going to happen in Clone Wars. Lucas put a literal lock on that era and his own comments go against such a statement; which seeks to belittle his power over "ever". Even assuming that Lucas kept quiet on the issue, this would be assuming that every appearance of Anakin prior to losing his potential is beholden to a handful of comments. The writer doesn't have the power to predict the future and cast a blanket statement over everything Anakin would ever be written to do just because it happens chronologically later in-universe. That would be assuming a degree of infallibility in a universe subject to change by dozens upon dozens of writers taking on the same universe. Going back to the first point, if taken literally this would mean that the writer put Anakin above two oneness amps, ragdolling Gods, and even 1000x amp - albeit that last one actually happened sometime around that time to the "same" character; but that just highlights how insane we go to the degrees of acceptance (ROTJ Vader > ESB Vader >1000x amped Vader > ANH Vader). Sure these are extreme examples, but how far do you have to shift it back to the center to still make it unbelievable? Anakin being repeatedly stated to be above Yoda, Anakin doing things no one else even dares to, Dreadnaughtakin? For all intents and purposes, Anakin is largely a "new" character introduced in TPM when Lucas decided to lift the veil. While I feel older statements about Suited Vader being in his Prime have merit due in large part to it being the end of his life, and because we had a decent amount of story about him; well, actually the most important story from his Suited adventures. Those statements don't ring true for Anakin. There was a drastic, drastic change in Anakin that directly impacted his powers. ROTJ Vader wasn't Anakin just naturally living his life to get to that point, and that bit of differentiation is enough to separate the two in terms of older quotes. Now whether Vader eventually surpassed Anakin or not is irrelevant to this discussion, the fact of the matter is that a statement made 2 decades before Anakin was even allowed to exist isn't going to be the deciding factor. All anyone knew about Anakin at that stage in time is that he chucked Sheev down a hole, he was a great Jedi Knight, he knocked a girl up, and he wears the suit because he lost to Obi-Wan when he chucked him in a volcano. I would take any statement about Vader > Anakin with a lot more validity when we have the actual story of Anakin already written, not when there's a gag order about The Clone Wars because Lucas hadn't written it yet.

Third, though it might still be the second. But hyperbolic statements don't make for future-proofing. He was writing it for the audience at the time with what he knew at the time, not for the audience in two decades. His chronological knowledge was limited to Star Wars circa 1983, not Star Wars circa 2013. He's not an IU Star Wars character reciting history just because it was supposed to happen later than TCW. Star Wars Canon isn't that strict to making anything outside of Lucas binding from that timeframe. "RETCONNING" a random OOU statement is a lot different than retconning an actual event that happened inside of Star Wars canon.

Moving away from Vader but staying on this train of thought; we see this happen with Exar Kun for the two statements he has. He was equal to DE Sheev as a spirit, and he was the Darkest Power in the Galaxy. Naturally we have to retroactively insert ROTS, TPM and even every Jedi from PT into the former because it makes sense, and naturally, he was darker than The Son, Star Forge, Nathema, Vitiate, Abeloth, etc for the latter. We're not allowed to actually look back at the timeframe he was compared to Sheev via Luke and look at how he compared every dark threat to Sheev. Luke and the writers were using Sheev and Dagobah as an extreme example because that's all either had at the time. The universe was expanding and adding in new threats daily, naturally, it's going to go back to the primeval of the most famous work from Star Wars (the movies), or the Dagobah Cave. No one knew that the universe was going to be so expanded upon in the way it was, nor did they know that Young Sheev was going to also be utterly ridiculous and the writers would be on a mission to retcon something that never had to be retconned by hoisting up TPM Sheev to be above every prior Sith. Which of course also has its issues - irrelevant to the conversation. The dichotomy, of course, is that Spirit Kun simultaneously shares parity with DE and is below TPM Sheev per statements. We have to scramble to fit this in via any means necessary instead of the DE Sheev comparison simply being a product of its time. Both have to be true, or the one I like more is true. Not the most recent example because Kun lost a bunch of power as a spirit and even the most fervent supporter of him argues this...

Back on track.

Darkest Power in The Galaxy represents the (Darth) Bane of every other work of fiction. Only in Star Wars debating would it make sense for everything created 1-2 decades later to be constricted to a hyperbolic statement like that. It's not meant to only describe things that we as an audience might think of, it's actually supposed to constrain every being or power that can possibly exist to that statement with retroactive retcons. Did you know Exar Kun was actually more powerful than Nathema at the time? That the entirety of Dromund Kaas and Vitiate were below his darkness? We simply have to fit it into the timeline because the writer was on the Geyser in Malachor 5 at the time of writing - conveniently also below Kun via Star Forge scaling. Also we don't mention the implications of Abeloth and The Son, we just use the slightly less insane examples while we scoot away from the endgame of what we're arguing.



Basically, if you have to retroactively insert characters into a quote that predates their existence by a large degree, then you're likely being very dishonest. This is made worse when that character otherwise completely overshadows them in every way besides that quote. Yes, they technically existed in-universe, but they didn't exist when the out-of-universe statement was made. This means out of the "two universes" they only technically existed in one, but not the apparently most binding one. They literally didn't exist out-of-universe for 1-2 decades and we feel this is alright to use in debates. This obviously isn't just about Vader and Kun, but they're two famous examples to use for this thread. There are exceptions to the rules of course, but they should be handled with a little more tact than what we're accustomed to.

And ROTJ!Vader > ESB!Vader > ANH!Vader > 19BBY!Vader based on older quotes has merit because newer quotes helped reinforce that foundation. Just like we can infer DE!Sheev > TPM!Sheev because the newer quotes helped build that base. With Anakin to Vader, there is a lapse in the line due to a drastic drop in power based on new quotes and even old ones. Vader lost his potential, and newer quotes help reinforce that. They are technically the same character, but they're also different. Anakin stopped steadily climbing the hill of power and his entire character is built around trying to overcome that. Nevermind the implications of Luke replacing him... but I don't feel I need to get into all of Vader's shortcomings now.

Those are my current ramblings. Sorry, it's a mess, but I figured it was either a very rough draft, or I did this:

Spoiler:
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October 11th 2019, 5:29 pm
DarthAnt66 wrote:I want this to be more discussion-oriented than some long blog, so I'm going to throw out some thoughts I had after discussing with @Jake and @The Ellimist and see where this goes. This will be a re-tread of my original infamous "Shedding Limitations" thread that everyone mocked back in 2016.

ROTJ Vader is said to attack Luke "with more deadly invincibility as ever" in the ROTJ comic (1983). Assuming that "ever" refers to the in-universe chronology (i.e. the mainstream assumption since, like, 2005), then ROTJ Vader fought with more "deadly invincibility" than Anakin ever did. Today, we generally dismiss this quote given it's contradicted by the preponderance of evidence stating Anakin was a far greater combatant. Still, why do we assume that an out-of-universe statement is bound by the in-universe chronology (i.e. 4 ABY vs 19 BBY)? Why can't out-of-universe statements instead be bound by the out-of-universe chronology (i.e. 1983 vs 2005)? As in, since an out-of-universe statement recognizes they are talking to an audience about a fictional universe, doesn't it even logically follow that the "ever" in "with more deadly invincibility as ever" refers to 'more deadly invincibility than the audience has ever seen' instead? To my knowledge, no LFL official has ever stated our current rule is true -- I think that's something people ran with early in the formation of SW debating and never looked back. If anything, Leland Chee has instead advocated for a constantly evolving expanded universe that is not retroactively bound by the past (hence his take on "most powerful Sith" quotes).

 Obviously, the full ramifications of what I'm suggesting here is unprecedented, but it's worth the consideration.


Something I've advocated for. 

Out-of-universe is merely an author writing about a snapshot in (real) time to whoever reads it.   

The quotes I can read on my old 1999 cereal boxes don't have bearing on characters from Attack of the clones.
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October 11th 2019, 7:46 pm
Shedding Limitations - Revisited  1289255181 Agreed with you here tbh.
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December 2nd 2019, 8:03 am
Yeah
lorenzo.r.2nd
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December 2nd 2019, 8:28 am
interesting. but arent there a ton of statements even back then that also say vader< anakin? i mean, i can think of 5 that say vader> anakin, but there were like, 15 times lucas said anakin> vader.

as for spirit exar kun, the ritual that made him a spirit was said to have also made him stronger, correct? this contradicts his other novel statements, which say he is much, much weaker. is this another vader/ anakin case?
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December 2nd 2019, 9:53 am
Anakin >> Vader Lorenzo. Get over it
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December 2nd 2019, 10:12 am
Vader>KFV
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December 2nd 2019, 10:13 am
agreed lol
Master Azronger
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December 2nd 2019, 10:21 am
I disagree with this idea.

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December 2nd 2019, 10:22 am
which part?
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December 2nd 2019, 12:37 pm
KFV >/>> ROTJ Vader > ROTS Anakin > ESB Vader >> ANH Vader >> AOTC Anakin.
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December 2nd 2019, 12:39 pm
Azronger wrote:I disagree with this idea.
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December 2nd 2019, 1:43 pm
Knightfall Vader > RotS Anakin > ROTJ Vader > ESB Vader > ANH Vader > AotC Anakin
lorenzo.r.2nd
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December 2nd 2019, 1:52 pm
i really cant see vader being any weaker than base ROTS anakin when he is said many times over to be a threat to a sheev much stronger than ROTS sheev lol
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December 3rd 2019, 9:55 am
lorenzo.r.2nd wrote:which part?

The idea that quotes have expiration dates and are limited to the time in which they were written.
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December 3rd 2019, 10:08 am
i kinda agree with that, ish. a lot of shit has been contradicted over time in star wars, and im sure u know how much that is.
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December 3rd 2019, 11:38 am
Right, that's called a retcon. Introducing new characters and elements that don't contradict anything isn't retconning.

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December 3rd 2019, 11:49 am
when said character represents something new, it just might. for one, back in the day, anakin skywalker was nothing more than a big deal jedi, while after we got ROTS, he is pretty much the 3rd strongest ever, or so.
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December 3rd 2019, 12:12 pm
IDK how it came to Vader but:

RotJ Vader>ESB Vader>ANH Vader>pre-suit Vader
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December 3rd 2019, 12:28 pm
HellfireUnit wrote:IDK how it came to Vader but:

RotJ Vader>ESB Vader>ANH Vader>pre-suit Vader
Hellfire, no. That's canon. In legends, KFV >>> all future iterations of Vader. That's confirmed by G-Canon.
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December 3rd 2019, 12:49 pm
Hopefully I change people's perception on this matter if Ant agrees to debate with me.
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December 3rd 2019, 1:04 pm
IdrisianGraecus wrote:
HellfireUnit wrote:IDK how it came to Vader but:

RotJ Vader>ESB Vader>ANH Vader>pre-suit Vader
Hellfire, no. That's canon. In legends, KFV >>> all future iterations of Vader. That's confirmed by G-Canon.
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December 3rd 2019, 1:51 pm
g canon also says that old ben kenobi= sheev, so i kinda dismiss a lot of what lucas said by this point.
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