(READ OP) Battle misconceptions: Darth Vader (Legends) - DEFUNCT

This version of the blog has been abandoned in favour of a new thread with far more space. You can find it here and below:




https://www.suspectinsightforums.com/t3059-battle-misconceptions-darth-vader-legends


Following my recent Vader respect thread, I thought I'd go back and tackle the heart of the Vader lowballing: his alleged "poor showings" during duels. I aim to cover the most controversial of Vader's "low" showings, one at a time.




In the past, Vader’s fight on Kessel was used to lowball him and critique him as a sub-par combatant. Thankfully, that is no longer the case due to the hard work of other debaters over the years. However, I don't think Vader's showings in this fight get enough recognition, most likely due to it being a fairly minor fight in terms of importance and a lack of consideration of the context (e.g. Vader's abilities at this point, the identities of the Jedi he fought, and so on). This post aims to establish not only why this is not something that Vader should be mocked for, but also why it is actually an incredibly impressive feat for him.



This blog will cover several areas: Vader's abilities, his mental state, the opponents he fought, the fight itself, and will conclude with some final statements. I hope you enjoy.


The rest will be coming in the next couple of months (whenever my exams end up happening). The Ben Kenobi vs Vader fight is my next priority, and should be completed very soon. 






To begin, it is important to stress for the purposes of this section that Purge #1 takes place around a month after Revenge of the Sith. With the declaration of Order 66 in 16:5, Purge takes place in 16:6:







This is particularly significant due to Vader’s physical state at this point. In The Rise of Darth Vader, Vader goes into considerable detail regarding his body at this point in time:

Spoiler:

As you can see above, Vader at this point is little more than a barely moving carcass. From tall boots that were an “ill fit for his artificial feet” and which “canted him slightly forward, forcing him to move with exaggerated caution lest he stumble or topple over” to hearing that “registered (sounds) as if issuing from underwater” and made “distance and direction...difficult to determine”, Vader is incredibly hindered by his prosthetics at this point. While they offer him great strength and even greater durability, they are slow, uncomfortable, sluggish and foreign to a Vader who still thinks like Anakin to an extent at this point.



To give you an idea of how these prosthetics limited Vader even further: beyond having to “adapt his lightsaber technique to compensate”, Vader expresses frustration at how these cybernetics actually hinder him at this point, claiming that he’ll have to call on the Force even to walk from place to place”. At this point in time, Vader struggles to even move from one side of the room to another.



Now, why is this significant? Simple: Around this point in time (1 month post-ROTS), Vader attacked the conclave at Kessel with all of these limitations, hindrances, and physical ailments...and still performed incredibly well (more on that later).







I’ve briefly covered that above, but I plan to elaborate on it here. First, Vader had almost no confidence left in his abilities:

Spoiler:

After his humiliating defeat on Mustafar, Vader feels trapped, isolated and like a stranger in his own body. Unlike Anakin, who had boundless confidence that bordered on arrogance, Vader has completely lost that and is building himself back up from the lowest point he has ever reached. 



What’s worse, is that Vader was even unsure about his place within the Force:

Spoiler:

Interestingly, Vader is consumed by self-doubt and uncertainty. Vader has, for all intents and purposes, cut himself off from accessing anything even remotely comparable to what he could wield as his Knightfall or Mustafar. As we’ve seen before, even small seeds of doubt can massively impact a Force user’s abilities:



The Hero of Tython: “Malgus’s lightsaber form was flawless, but he let anger and desperation cloud his fighting. He faltered, and I followed through.”



-



The Voidhound: “There I was, blaster in hand, sidestepping Force attacks, when Malgus lost his cool. But not me. I took the shot, and that’s all she wrote.”







In the case of Malgus, this doubt and uncertainty made him vulnerable to Force attacks and knockbacks, where before the strike team had been completely unable to phase him with them:







(Source: Youtube - https://youtu.be/2B8Nv_mZPtg?t=3858)



As both these examples show, doubt and uncertainty can massively impede a Force user as powerful and masterful as Malgus, giving the strike team the opening they needed just to knock him off the walkway. 



As this suggests, Vader would have been emotionally hindered and unable to bring his full strength to bear at this point, feeling clumsy, cumbersome and like a cripple. 






This section will be brief in order to give you a sense of the power and skill levels of the Jedi Vader faced at the mine.



First up is the leader, Shadday Potkin. A Jedi Master, she was responsible for gathering all of the Jedi and luring them to the mine in order to ambush Vader. She was shown to be knowledgeable and cunning, acquiring a cortosis blade to disrupt Vader’s lightsaber and believing that only all of the Jedi together could take down Vader.



Next is probably the most prominent of the Jedi: Master Tsui Choi. Choi was a prominent figure in the Order as early as the Yinchorri Uprising in 33 BBY, and was part of Adi Gallia and Eeth Koth’s team that broke into one of their bases and stole a ship. His most impressive accolade is that he was being considered for the Jedi Council:







(Source: Insider #87)



Third is Bultar Swan, a Jedi knight who not only fought in and survived Petranaki Arena (indicating a great amount of skill even before the Clone wars began and she grew and became more battle hardened, as out of the 212 Jedi who entered the arena, only around 30 survived and she had only been recently knighted) but also received additional training from Plo Koon himself:







(Source: Ibid).



She also apparently became a Jedi Master some time prior to the end of the War.



Next up is Koffi Arana. Another Jedi Master, he survived the first wave of the Purge and went underground.



Roblio Darté was another Jedi Master. A veteran of the Clone Wars, he constructed an unusual crossguard lightsaber and used it to great effect.



Jastus Farr, another Jedi Master and veteran of the Clone Wars.



Sia-Lan Wezz, a Jedi Knight. At the age of 13, she engaged and defeated several members of a terrorist organisation on Coruscant known as the Flail. She also joined the resistance group on Naboo to fight back against the Trade Federation’s control, and was part of a group that thwarted a Separatist assassination of Alastar Treen. This group was so effective, that they received orders directly from the Jedi Council and the Chancellor’s office, an accolade only a few individuals can boast of. 



The final Jedi is the most impressive of them all. Master Ma’kis’shaalas, a Nikto Jedi from Kintan. Ma’kis’s is also a Morgukai, a culture where male warriors are trained from birth, who have even been stated to potentially be a match for Jedi knights:







(Source: Geonosis and the Outer Rim Worlds)



Even more interesting is that a Morgukai with the Force can become “unstoppable”, given time:






(Source: Ibid)



What is even more impressive is Ma’kis’shaalas’ string of accolades, which include being described as one of the most brutal combatants in the Jedi Order:







(Source: Ibid)



As if this wasn’t enough, he was also considered one of the greatest Morgukai warriors of all time, as well as the fastest, most perceptive and keenest hunter they’d trained: 







(Source: Ibid)



To clarify, Ma’kis’shaalas benefits from a quote defining him as among the greatest of the Morgukai (a group of warriors where an average one could potentially match a Jedi Knight) before he even became a Jedi. He then became “one of the most brutal combatants of the Jedi Order” by the very beginning of the Clone Wars, and then had 3 years of constant warfare and battle to become even more lethal and powerful. 






First, it’s important to establish that Shadday Potkin had been planning this ambush for quite some time, gathering as many masters and knights as she could and believing that Vader would be too powerful for any one of them individually, but together they could triumph:







Vader enters the room by blasting apart a mining door that is pressurised to keep in breathable air like it was made out of cardboard:







-







The first to attack is Sia-Lan Wezz, whose accolades are covered above. Despite all of her skills and abilities, Vader effortlessly kills her with a thrust through the chest, following it by cutting off her hand before the others can do anything more than shout in grief:







-







Immediately after, Vader crosses blades with Masters Darté and Ma’kis’shaalas, blocking strikes from both while simultaneously sending Master Arana flying with a Force push:






As Choi, Swan, Arana and Farr move to engage Vader, Vader strikes down Ma’kis’shaalas, whose accolades above speak for themselves. However, he’s struck from behind by Master Farr, and is forced to leap to avoid a strike from Arana. However, Choi moves to intercept and the two briefly cross blades, before Choi is forced to land below:






At this point, Potkin uses her cortosis blade to disable Vader’s lightsaber, gloating about how she planned very carefully for this meeting:







However, Vader quickly recovers from this and breaks through her defences with the Force, before snapping her neck and taking her weapon:







-






-








Vader then moves to attack the others while trying to pressure them into revealing what they know about Obi-Wan’s location, disabling Darte, Farr and Arana’s lightsabers before Choi and Swan use the distraction (as he’s apparently about to strike down Arana, hence the raised hand) to cut off his hand and damage his servos respectively, to the point that his leg is making “fzzt” sounds (indicating damage) and sparking:






I want to highlight how Vader’s loss of his right hand massively hindered him past this point with Vader’s thoughts on his prosthetics from The Rise of Darth Vader, which you can read in full above:



Only the right one felt natural to him—though it, too, was artificial —and the pneumatic mechanisms that supplied articulation and support were sometimes slow to respond.



(Source: Rise of Darth Vader)



Vader thinks his left arm feels foreign and unnatural, like it doesn’t compare to his former organic limb (at least at this point) and even his superior right arm is slow. His left hand, which he doesn’t even consider natural feeling, can’t compare to his right at this point in time, largely because he’s not even close to getting used to his suit yet. These limitations are only amplified by the other parts of his suit, which have forced him to adapt his fighting technique (a technique, I might add, that’s radically different from his style as Anakin and thus he’s not used in combat against a lightsaber user yet) and almost stopped him from moving his arms above his head:



The weighty cloak and pectoral plating so restricted his movement that he could scarcely lift his arms over his head, and he had already been forced to adapt his lightsaber technique to compensate.



(Source: Ibid)




Vader, trying to trick the masters into lowering their defences, then pretends to surrender, causing Arana and Swan to start arguing and Arana to kill Swan with her own blade, believing Vader is only pretending to be beaten:








Vader proves him right a few panels later, cheapshotting him by throwing the cortosis blade - which is still in his severed hand - into his chest:







A wounded Vader then once again offers to spare their lives if they tell him where Obi-Wan is, which they refuse and combine their powers to pelt him with debris, which he holds off for a time despite his wounds and having only hand :






The trio then coordinate their attacks with visible effort and concentration, hitting Vader with so much debris that he can’t stop it all, leaving him on the floor: 






-









Vader is then saved by the intervention of the 501st, who kill Farr. Choi then tries to give Darte an opening to escape, but is held in a mid-air grip by Vader:





-





Unable to break free of Vader’s grip, and knowing he’ll die anyway, Choi tries to kill Vader with a lightsaber throw, one Vader, despite his wounds and clumsiness, manages to partially dodge:







All of the Jedi are dead at this point: 3 at the hands of the Clones (two with Vader’s help), 1 killed by her ally, and the other 4 by Vader in combat. 






I think it’s safe to say that this fight was far from a low showing for Vader. Despite his physical impediments and his uncertainty in the dark side limiting his Force abilities, Vader still showed enough skill and speed to blitz a veteran Jedi before she can even get within striking distance. He then held off two veteran Jedi Masters - one of whom is most likely the greatest warrior the Morgukai had ever produced by this point and who has several accolades pegging him as one of the most brutal and effective fighters within the Jedi Order at its peak - while knocking away a third with a push that sent him flying. 



While Vader does take several hits and is knocked to the ground by the end of the duel, it’s important to stress that this is the same Vader who at this point has to “call on the Force even to walk from place to place!” At least three of the strikes are a result of him being outnumbered and surrounded, from Farr striking him from behind while he’s distracted with dispatching Ma’kis’shaalas:







To Choi and Swan attacking him from behind and the sides when he’s focused on Arana:







A Vader using his far inferior left hand and reduced to raging at them with no technique or discipline is then brought down by a Force attack from three veteran masters (one of whom was a potential Jedi Council member), which he still held off for several seconds. Sidious further reinforces the idea that Vader had allowed his rage and doubt to interfere with his abilities and hinder him:







(Source: Dark Times)



Which reinforces what we know from The Rise of Darth Vader:

Spoiler:

As we can deduce from these depictions of Vader, a month after Mustafar he was emotionally unstable and was fighting at a fraction of what he was capable of even at this point. 



Despite this, Vader shows incredibly impressive skill showings here, from holding off two masters - a veteran, and the greatest Morgukai fighter ever trained - and striking down the latter during the exchange to blocking hits from Tsui Choi and stomping Wezz before cutting off her hand before the others could do anything other than scream her name. 



His power feats are no less impressive, blasting through two masters’ defences - sending one flying and bringing another within range so he could snap her neck - holding off the combined and coordinated Force attacks of three masters for several seconds despite being heavily wounded and raging and slashing at the debris like an animal, and holding Tsui Choi in a midair Force grip so powerful that even when Vader was heavily wounded, Choi couldn’t break free and instead chose to throw his lightsaber to try and kill Vader. 







As this post has hopefully established, Kessel is far from a low showing for Vader. The underlying context and circumstances aside, Vader blitzed a highly respected Jedi knight, caught a potential Council member with a Force grip that he couldn’t quickly break free of despite Vader being heavily wounded at this point, blasted through another’s defences and sent him flying, blasted through another’s defences despite her extensive planning per her own admission and yanked her by her throat into his grip, and while heavily wounded held off the combined attacks of Tsui Choi and two other masters. 



Please note that all of this is firmly before his Roan Shryne growth, and long before his other periods of growth, such as Ferus Olin’s death, TFU, ANH, or ESB or ROTJ. 



Barely a month after Kessel, Starstone even notes that by this point, he’s noticeably faster, more agile, and has an answer to everything Forte and Kulka - two veteran Jedi knights who have studied Anakin and Obi-Wan’s tactics and techniques and try to copy them - try:

Spoiler:

Vader toys with and stomps them all, being considerably faster, more agile, more practiced and more skilful than he was on Kessel, all within a month and even before he regained any measure of his former confidence in his own abilities after killing Roan Shryne. 



In conclusion, even a month after Mustafar, when Vader was a fraction of what he was even by TFU or ANH, he could go toe to toe with some of the greatest swordsmen and swordswoman in the Jedi Order, including a veteran Jedi master who was being considered for the Jedi Council and another who was “one of the most brutal combatants in the Jedi Order” and was one of the greatest warriors ever produced by a culture that could produce average warriors with the potential to match a Jedi knight at times even before he came a Jedi and long before he was hardened by three years of warfare. Even at this point, he’s powerful and skilled enough to rival fully fledged and distinguished Jedi masters like Tsui Choi (who needed two other masters just to overwhelm him when he was badly injured and had one hand) and Ma’kis’shalaas, the latter of whom had enough veteran Jedi master to help him. 




Many thanks for reading. If you have any questions or critiques, please feel free to drop them below. 






Star Wars: Dark Times.

Star Wars: Geonosis and the Outer Rim Worlds.

Star Wars: Insider #87.

Star Wars: Purge #1.

Star Wars: Rise of Darth Vader.

Star Wars: The Old Republic (False Emperor Flashpoint). 

cant wait. i love these, man lol

Excited to see what you do with these. I'm of the opinion that Vader gets heavily lowballed on this forum, so I can't wait to see your analysis

Underachiever599 wrote:Excited to see what you do with these. I'm of the opinion that Vader gets heavily lowballed on this forum, so I can't wait to see your analysis

Thanks. Depending on how this one goes, I might cover some other underrated characters on the board in future threads. Might do Maul or Arcann.

i actually like my mental placement for them, but if u wanna, then go right ahead.

There's nothing really to debunk about any of these.

Ben vs Vader: Objective sources state they are equals, and they trade advantages and disadvantages throughout the duel.

ESB Luke vs Vader: Secondary sources are mixed, but the primary material overwhelmingly supports Luke putting up a solid fight, though they're clearly on opposite ends of the same tier.

ROTJ Luke vs Vader: A billion and one sources support their equality, and the primary material can actually be argued to favour Luke.

That's the stuff I'm going over, and honestly you're wrong on two accounts. Already found numerous G-canon quotes contradicting the Luke ones, as well as other sources.

u should do some insight on how strong some of the opponents are, by the way. it gives readers a sense of who we are talking about, giving them more information than what they already know.

https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Conclave_on_Kessel 

it has the names for the jedi that vader fought against. all of them seemed to be big deals.

This is where the fun begins.

Following.

Oh boy

Yeah BoD, you got this. Rezerved.

Atleast we got someone here who doesn't suck up to Ant just because "he is the best debater, and he say's Vader is kriff so you have to believe him"

The Witness wrote:Atleast we got someone here who doesn't suck up to Ant just because "he is the best debater, and he say's Vader is kriff so you have to believe him"

The hell is a Kriff? But that said, I never thought Vader was bad, always figured he was pretty powerful. But then I don't really get into huge debates regarding and ranking who is more powerful than who. I mean I have some idea, but I don't go too in depth like everyone else regarding Force Users.

Zenwolf wrote:

The Witness wrote:Atleast we got someone here who doesn't suck up to Ant just because "he is the best debater, and he say's Vader is kriff so you have to believe him"

The hell is a Kriff? But that said, I never thought Vader was bad, always figured he was pretty powerful. But then I don't really get into huge debates regarding and ranking who is more powerful than who. I mean I have some idea, but I don't go too in depth like everyone else regarding Force Users.

This site now censors swear words annoyingly. So when I type sh*t (Without the star), it comes out as kriff. It's frustrating but oh well. Don't worry I wasn't referring to you, just some other people on this forum lol

I never thought Kessel was a low showing. If anything it's a great display from a top duelist against multiple Jedi. What does Maul and Dooku or even Prime Anakin have in comparison? Vader was on the top of his game and more motivated than ever in his early years in his attempt to reawaken his potential.

O-Siri wrote:I never thought Kessel was a low showing. If anything it's a great display from a top duelist against multiple Jedi. What does Maul and Dooku or even Prime Anakin have in comparison? Vader was on the top of his game and more motivated than ever in his early years in his attempt to reawaken his potential.

I never really saw it as a low one either, this is like a month after him getting into the suit, going against fully trained Masters and Knights in fact I made a blog on CV about this and Bane's encounter with mercs.

I am curious as to BoDs take on this however.

Zenwolf wrote:

O-Siri wrote:I never thought Kessel was a low showing. If anything it's a great display from a top duelist against multiple Jedi. What does Maul and Dooku or even Prime Anakin have in comparison? Vader was on the top of his game and more motivated than ever in his early years in his attempt to reawaken his potential.

I never really saw it as a low one either, this is like a month after him getting into the suit, going against fully trained Masters and Knights in fact I made a blog on CV about this and Bane's encounter with mercs.

I am curious as to BoDs take on this however.

Out of curiosity, I looked up your blog on that subject and I agree with it. I've always had similar thoughts. One feat that I think gets overlooked is The Huntress's ability to tank Bane's Force push to the chest and still have the ability to leap out the way of his following lightning attack. Bane's pulverized the spines of mercenaries under blaster resistant armor before so tanking it without sustaining any perceptible damage is a really good durability feat for her. The lowballing it insulates aside I always really liked that battle, sometimes Force user vs non-Force sensitives are more interesting than lightsaber duels.

O-Siri wrote:

Zenwolf wrote:

O-Siri wrote:I never thought Kessel was a low showing. If anything it's a great display from a top duelist against multiple Jedi. What does Maul and Dooku or even Prime Anakin have in comparison? Vader was on the top of his game and more motivated than ever in his early years in his attempt to reawaken his potential.

I never really saw it as a low one either, this is like a month after him getting into the suit, going against fully trained Masters and Knights in fact I made a blog on CV about this and Bane's encounter with mercs.

I am curious as to BoDs take on this however.

Out of curiosity, I looked up your blog on that subject and I agree with it. I've always had similar thoughts. One feat that I think gets overlooked is The Huntress's ability to tank Bane's Force push to the chest and still have the ability to leap out the way of his following lightning attack. Bane's pulverized the spines of mercenaries under blaster resistant armor before so tanking it without sustaining any perceptible damage is a really good durability feat for her. The lowballing it insulates aside I always really liked that battle, sometimes Force user vs non-Force sensitives are more interesting than lightsaber duels.

I can agree to that, so long as its setup properly.

i hope BOD does a good job here. Vader is literally said to be an paralleled duelist two or so times (more times than yoda and sheev btw), but people still think dooku or maul somehow still destroy him lol