Why I think Cal Kestis is somewhat underrated

I have seen a good deal of comments around the net pertaining to Cal Kestis & his placement in the Jedi hierarchy. Most say that he is barely average Jedi Knight tier or even barely above Padawan level due to his lack of proper training & being utterly trounced by Vader (who, in canon, has force feats well above his pre-suit self). Well I'm going to attempt to prove that Cal is above average Jedi Knight tier bordering on low level Master tier. But first, I want to talk about another character: Trilla Suduri aka the Second Sister - 

Let's first start off with her name: Second Sister. Which implies (unless there is an unknown First Brother/Sister) she was the second strongest Inquisitor behind the Grand Inquisitor (who was able to defeat Jocasta Nu, a Jedi Master, in a duel). In her first two encounters with Cal, she easily trounces him, toying with him the entire time. In their second encounter, she even ragdolls him with the force:

https://giphy.com/gifs/star-wars-jedi-fallen-order-mBqIBjlVSVLAtlVuj2

While you might think, "Who cares? He's a Padawan". Well that Padawan does this earlier in the game...

https://giphy.com/gifs/star-wars-jedi-fallen-order-iIdd0bI0s81OUdEXOL

(Sorry that it is a little dark) - Cal uses his unique Slow ability to nearly freeze a large building size cyclone of debris blocking his path. I know you want to scream at the top of your lungs, "Gameplay Mechanics!". But, Cal has to slow down the debris. There is no other way to bypass it. Meaning that, while the player performs the action, it is necessary in order to advance the plot.
 
This impressive force feat happens before the aforementioned ragdoll feat & before Cal reconnects even more with the Force (which also happens before the ragdoll feat). Which means that he is noticeably stronger fighting Trilla than he was when he slowed the storm. This makes Trilla overpowering him incredibly impressive. 

Here is another impressive Force Feat: Cal overpowering the Rancor-sized Gorgara -

https://giphy.com/gifs/star-wars-PeDppnrn4mNKVmzq4z

Moving on - After undergoing considerable growth, Cal does to the Second Sister what she did to him, but even more casually - 

https://giphy.com/gifs/jedi-fallen-order-star-war-Rhr5EBEVgXnaelBdmI 

This happens after he has fully reconnected with the Force. This leads straigjt into my next point: Growth. While, yes, Cal starts out at upper tier Padawan level, he grows at an incredible rate throughout the game. Similar to Luke in the OT. 

Now on to my final bit of proof that Cal is stronger than you might think - His dual with fallen Jedi Master Taron Malicos. Now before you argue that we are not sure that he even was a Master, here is the description for the achievement the player gains for defeating him:

I Knew He Was No Good	25
Defeat a former Jedi Master

Now that we got that out of the way, let's see how the beginning of their duel went...

https://giphy.com/gifs/star-wars-jedi-fallen-order-TIA4WH2NmtSMI9ta2M

As you can see, judging by Malicos' expressions, how he was on the defensive, & the way the camera was focusing, he was losing the lightsaber duel. Now remember, Malicos has been stuck for 5 years on Dathomir. Eventually becoming the Nightbrothers leader. And, as the game shows, the NBs only value pure strength. This, I believe, shows that Malicos did not grow weaker after Order 66, but instead grew stronger. Due to the fact that he began to train in the Dark Side on a planet bathed in DS energies. 

Now lets move on to what Malicos does that cause Merrin to intervene in their duel - 

https://giphy.com/gifs/star-wars-jedi-fallen-order-hX1hqhDlWSQddgEoMP

While this is not looking to good for Cal's Force Defenses, I think it is actually a good showing. Only one other character has a similar feat against Cal in the game - 

https://giphy.com/gifs/star-wars-jedi-fallen-order-hW9agbx0bmhguPK3h1

Soooooo.... Yeah. While I do not think Malicos is Vader tier, I do think that this shows that one must have Master level Force power to truly over power Cal by the end of the game. 

Verdict: I believe, by the end of Jedi: Fallen Order, Cal is solidly Master tier in Sabers & High Level Knight/ Low Level Master tier in Force Power. Essentially, AotC Anakin (if you believe, like I do, that Dooku was toying with him the whole time). Or for a less controversial opinion: right above the Grand Inquisitor. 

This is the first time I have ever done something like this (I guess you could call it a Respect Thread?). Anyway, I am now prepared for an onslaught of counter-points. Have at ye .

Nice post. I have Cal around the Grand Inquisitor and your average Jedi Master myself. Only point of contention, I'm not convinced that the Inquisitors' numbers imply any sort of hierarchy. For one, Seventh Sister and Eighth Brother seemed like more competent fighters than Fifth Brother. But Second Sister was still credited as one of the deadliest Inquisitors: https://www.starwars.com/databank/second-sister

Only reason why I think it implies rank is because, I believe, Fifth Brother mentions something about out ranking Seventh Sister during one of their Rebels squabble s.

Hmm, I might place this in the Blog section as well. Is that cool, mods?

He's less underrated than Kanan.

Cal is definitely fairly impressive. He's absolutely above your typical Padawan/Knight. His showing against Malicos in sabers is really solid, That being said, as a Force user, I'm not too terribly impressed. His ability to slow things is cool, but I believe it's been said to be an innate ability (much like Quinlan Vos' Psychometry, Sifo-Dyas' Force visions, or how naturally Force Lightning came to Dooku in Jedi Lost). 

So just because Cal demonstrates the ability to slow things, this doesn't mean characters like the Second Sister or Darth Vader can replicate those feats, even though the characters are unquestionably more powerful than Cal had been. So Vader/Malicos/The Second Sister don't necessarily scale to Cal being able to slow a cyclone, as Cal is disproportionately more capable with Slow than he is with conventional TK. 

Outside of Cal's Slow feats, he doesn't have many big Force showings throughout the game. He's definitely still above your average Jedi, but compared to any of the main characters from the shows or movies, he's still pretty much fodder. 

With all of that said, I'm really hoping to see Fallen Order get a sequel. I'd love to see the Grand Inquisitor being a recurring, or perhaps final boss. Pre-Rebels Maul might also be able to fit in the story, with Crimson Dawn being a thing. That would give us a somewhat better concept for Cal's scaling.

Hmmm, goodpoint on the fact that, since it is an innate & unique ability of his, he might be able to perform feats above his paygrade when using it. Also, I would love to see Maul. Especially since, how well Cal might perform against him, would be the perfect way to gauge his power. 

SIDENOTE: Thank you to whomever moved this to the Blog section .

Great post really needed a cal thread

Cal is easily a contender for some of the higher tiers (not Yoda or anyone on that level) and has some haxx that go a long way. Though I wouldn't say he is above Trilla by the end of the game, he beats her in a duel (more on why that is in a future blog) but overall they seem to be equals, and equals push each other so it stands to reason he isn't vastly above her or even above her at all. The contention I have here lies with Malicos, part of the pact of Merrin and Malicos was that she was to teach him "her magic." This is supported in the line "let him and his secrets be lost here" after she phases him through the ground. Nightsisters (or people who use their magicks) are amplified in their use of the force on Dathomir so essentially, Malicos would be double amped when he fights Cal. Additionally the bios/Databank says the "fierce" fight "finally" turns in Cals favor when Merrin intervenes. That almost implies a sort of parity between the two. Ragdolls in canon are often strange, for instance going by "game mechanics" (Scripted mechanics for a boss) Ninth Sister can ragdoll Cal even if he has his guard up, yet we know she isn't vastly above him because... he wins. Furthermore, it takes Malicos an opening created after being overpowered in sabers for him to ragdoll Cal, you can consider that a show of superiority, but considering how Cal was literally beating his ass so bad he was visibly straining in a bladelock I would say that Cal being ~ Taron (amped by Dathomir, potentially twice) means he's above base Taron who was already a Jedi master. Which also gives Trilla a leg to stand on. Like I said, stay tuned for that "why inquisitors suck when they are so powerful blog" to explain some more of what I'm saying here.

Also the scene you refer where they "talk about rank" is really just implied:



I mean the implication is clear, but that might have been how they were ranked as of their indoctrination. You have to remember these guys have been around since at least 19bby and been actively hunting in 18bby, so since we have things like Seventh Sister vastly outperforming Fifth Brother, we should reconcile this "rank" thing as something not binding. After all, Trilla can't be second only to the Grand inquisitor by Rebels since the GI and Seventh aren't all that far apart, based on their respective showings with Kanan, and we know for a fact GI is more powerful than any other Inquisitor.

@> Korriban

A. Thanks for finding a video of that scene, I thought their ranks were mentioned at some point. 

B. I agree with everything you wrote except for 1 piece: I genuinely believe that Cal > Trilla by the end of the game. For two reasons -

1. Due to the nature of Fortress Inquisitorious & Cal commenting on the messed up stuff that happened there, I think it is a Dark Side Nexus like Dathomir (though not to the same extent). This would mean that Trilla was amped during their final confrontation.

2. Cal was not at peak capacity when he fought her. Before their clash, he has to fight through waves of stormtroopers, KX droids, & purgetroopers without rest (outside of game mechanics). This would mean that he had to be at least somewhat worn out by the time they fought. Speaking of worn out, after their duel, Cal is not even breathing heavily while as Trilla is noticeably tired. This indicates that he did not have to try as hard as her.

@The Slick Obi If you put @"name" with the quotations it will tag the person.

Nice post! I love seeing discussion of the Fallen Order characters.

That being said, I'd echo a few points that have already been mentioned: Cal's "Slow" ability is inherent and comparable to Quinlan Vos's psychometry, so I don't think we can transfer the magnitude of Cal's Slow feats to his telekinesis. They're different abilities with different properties. Along with that, I'm not sure how relevant Cal's unique ability is when fighting other Force users. One would think that possessing the ability to freeze an opposing Force user would have netted Cal consistent (and rather easy) victories, but we see throughout the game that Cal's victories are achieved through other means, like lightsaber ability. Even if Cal was canonically freezing his opponents (Second Sister, Ninth Sister, Taron Malicos) during battle, it must have happened for such minuscule time frames so as not to even be relevant overall.

In regards to Cal's duel with Malicos, I think it's telling that the one time Cal is faced with a legitimate Master, he's rendered helpless and only survives through the aid of a powerful Nightsister. While no one is really disputing Cal's overall inferiority to Malicos, I believe it's beyond question that Cal was undercut either by his lack of Force power, inexperience, or both. The fact of the matter is, Malicos could only exploit an opening if Cal gave him one. And he did.

I'm definitely not in agreement with the idea that Cal is ~ AotC Anakin level, but Cal approaching the Grand Inquisitor's level seems reasonable enough given his victory over the Second Sister. Personally, I still believe that Cal is hovering within the nebulous "Padawan tier," that being alongside early-Rebels Kanan Jarrus, Ezra Bridger, and various Inquisitors. Still, though, his growth is nothing to scoff at, so I'm looking forward to seeing where he ends up in the next game.

Praxis wrote:@The Slick Obi If you put @"name" with the quotations it will tag the person.

Thank you.

The Slick Obi wrote:@"> Korriban"

A. Thanks for finding a video of that scene, I thought their ranks were mentioned at some point. 

B. I agree with everything you wrote except for 1 piece: I genuinely believe that Cal > Trilla by the end of the game. For two reasons -

1. Due to the nature of Fortress Inquisitorious & Cal commenting on the messed up stuff that happened there, I think it is a Dark Side Nexus like Dathomir (though not to the same extent). This would mean that Trilla was amped during their final confrontation.

2. Cal was not at peak capacity when he fought her. Before their clash, he has to fight through waves of stormtroopers, KX droids, & purgetroopers without rest (outside of game mechanics). This would mean that he had to be at least somewhat worn out by the time they fought. Speaking of worn out, after their duel, Cal is not even breathing heavily while as Trilla is noticeably tired. This indicates that he did not have to try as hard as her.

I could accept that Trilla is inferior to endgame Cal yeah, that is a good point about the Darkside nexus, though I'm unsure how much that would amp Trilla if at all a notable amount. Suffice it to say, I think Trilla is out of Cal's "ragdoll range" so to speak, just like how I think Cal is out of Taron's "ragdoll range." In fact I found dialogue that seems to imply that the actual temple they fight in is a type of Force wellspring on top of the Dathomirian nexus:

Malicos: "What in these Ruins temps you so much... to risk death?"

Cal: "I could ask you the same thing."

Malicos: "There is power there. Beyond Jedi Understanding. Power I control!"

you can find that segment in this clip:

King Joker wrote:Nice post! I love seeing discussion of the Fallen Order characters.

That being said, I'd echo a few points that have already been mentioned: Cal's "Slow" ability is inherent and comparable to Quinlan Vos's psychometry, so I don't think we can transfer the magnitude of Cal's Slow feats to his telekinesis. They're different abilities with different properties. Along with that, I'm not sure how relevant Cal's unique ability is when fighting other Force users. One would think that possessing the ability to freeze an opposing Force user would have netted Cal consistent (and rather easy) victories, but we see throughout the game that Cal's victories are achieved through other means, like lightsaber ability. Even if Cal was canonically freezing his opponents (Second Sister, Ninth Sister, Taron Malicos) during battle, it must have happened for such minuscule time frames so as not to even be relevant overall.

I don't think that freeze is really applicable to overpowering someone with the force, in Canon it seems to be a very rare ability that few would even know how to combat. What I do think though, it it speaks to Cal's telekinetic power. The storm itself is the size of a small country and stated to interfere with the electromagnetic based devices the empire was using:



I don't think he's freezing the entire storm but still the speed those winds would be reaching as well as how much he would need to cover to stop it like he did is pretty insane. Not so outlandish that we should place him abnormally high though.

Wouldn’t say he’s either underrated or overrated.

I added Cal ragdolling the Gorgara with the Force. Because, why not?