- Darth Durin's Baneling
Plo Koon vs Asajj Ventress (The Clone Wars Issue #9) Duel Analysis
January 15th 2022, 11:55 pm
Disappointingly but unsurprisingly, some charlatans of late have been peddling the idea that Plo Koon lost his duel against Asajj Ventress. In effort to prevent this imbecilic idea from taking root in the minds of unsuspecting newcomers who, as of yet, are too ignorant to have accepted Plo supremacy into their hearts, I have prepared a thorough explanation of why exactly Plo Koon's victory over the hairless harpy is as sound as they come.
A moment of clarification before I begin: I don't believe that Plo defeats late-war Ventress, say, as of Obsession. In fact, I think it's quite clear he doesn't. The purpose of this post is to establish his victory over and superiority to Ventress as of the comic, something that I feel should be readily apparent.
For those who haven't read the comic themselves, Plo Koon's arm is broken as of the duel.
This would obviously hinder his fighting abilities: limiting his options (he's not always portrayed as dealing two-handed strikes, but it is something that he has done, so it obviously has its advantages at times) as well as causing pain. On top of this, Ventress attributes her perceived likelihood of defeating him to his injury, so it's clearly a major impediment.
Aside from the duel itself, the broken arm bears no relevance to the story of the comic, so the only conceivable purpose for its existence from a narrative standpoint is to provide Plo an extra challenge during the fight itself... a challenge that he overcomes, as I will prove.
Asajj Ventress manages to land a kick on Plo Koon's broken arm, but this attack gleans only meager benefit for her, as Plo is able to swiftly recover and send her flying through the air with a Force push.
As the Force push is not merely moving her backwards a few feet, as seen from peers, but instead blasting her yards away and through the air without any apparent strain, and she lands no such telekinetic hits (of any kind) on Plo, the only good faith interpretation of this scene is that it establishes Plo as her superior in a telekinetic sense. And, as Plo was able to so quickly land a hit on Asajj after her own kick, which didn't have any effect outside of momentary discomfort, it is clearly the more substantial of the two blows.
The next time we cut back to their duel, Plo has disarmed Asajj.
One way that some have attempted to cope with this showing and its lucid message of Plo's superiority to Ventress is pointing out its seeming correlation with the explosion.
They argue that because Plo knew the explosion was coming and Asajj didn't, it would provide a distraction for Ventress that would give Plo the opening he needed to disarm her.
One of the problems with this is that the chronology of the explosion and the disarming isn't necessarily as they say there is, as Asajj's lightsaber is already flying from her hand as the noise of the explosion reaches them. So this part of the connection they are making is at best unreliable, at worst incorrect.
The far larger problem with this line of reasoning is that Plo simply didn't know the explosion was coming... as people who read the comic for themselves would know.
In reality, the explosion was not part of the original plan. Rather, it was the direct result of an impromptu sacrifice by Captain Sharp to destroy the Separatist cannons and forces while saving Kit Fisto from them.
As Plo explicitly states, the reason he knows what the explosion entailed was that he sensed it, not because he knew beforehand. Thus, there is no reason why the explosion should have affected Asajj more than Plo, and the connection falls flat on yet another count, rendering Plo's disarming of Asajj due only to his own skill.
The relevance of this feat should be self-evident, but to add to it, disarming an opponent is noted by Cin Drallig as being especially difficult against practitioners of Asajj Ventress's form, Makashi. Yet Plo accomplishes this anyway.
Finally, Plo Koon is able to remove the detonator from Asajj Ventress's hands... at this point her goal is to detonate it, making it the "win" condition of the duel. Plo removes it from her hands, and she runs off to retrieve it.
They both had a goal that ran counter to the other's that decided the outcome of the battle. Plo achieved his. Asajj did not. This should make it pretty clear who won the duel. It was even a last ploy of Asajj's, with her admitting that Plo had fought well, and despite that fact the detonator would allow her to deprive the Republic of the mines and win the battle that way... not through defeating Plo. In fact, the way she phrases it ("You fought well today, Old Master, but your mission has failed") indicates that the hypothetical loss of Khorm would take place despite Plo's performance... meaning that the duel itself wouldn't have contributed to it, meaning that even Ventress didn't think Plo would have lost.
On top of this, the way Plo takes away the detonator further cements his superiority in telekinesis.
Force barriers extend to protecting devices in one's hands from tampering by their opponent (the example given is a lightsaber, but there is no viable reason as to why it should extend to the lightsaber but not the controller).
This necessitates that Plo, once again, violated her Force barrier... with there still being absolutely no counter-showing from Asajj of her penetrating his telekinetic defenses, setting an even more clear gap in favor of Koon in terms of TK.
Perhaps the most disgusting coping mechanism disguised as an argument presented thus far by Plo's detractors is that Asajj was winning the duel... because she was pressing Plo Koon into the railing for a single panel near the end of the duel.
There are a multitude of reasons why this claim would be laughable if only so many people didn't somehow think it was an adequate argument.
First of all, it is a far less convincing display of superiority in dueling than Plo disarming Asajj, something with lasting effects. It's only a temporary advantage. I know it's temporary because it was temporary. Arguing that Asajj was winning the entire duel because she held a slight edge for a single panel when Plo holds a more decisive edge for more panels and wins the duel as a whole is... and this is as diplomatically as I can put this... asinine.
Essentially, it amounts to "Yeah, Plo won... but what if he didn't? Then Ventress would have won."
The only reason that I have seen cited for prioritizing this panel of Ventress's minor advantage over the panels of Plo's major advantages is its chronological proximity to the end of the duel... an argument that fails to hold water as soon as you realize that it had absolutely no bearing on the end of the duel. Correlation does not imply causation, and in this case, as the effect goes directly against what one would expect from the "causes" presented by the slanderers of the Blade of Dorin, it definitively does not.
Even if we assume, for a moment (despite my previous debunking of this idea), that Plo removing the detonator from Ventress's grasp was a fluke that has no reflection on their actual power and skill, her seeming pressure on his blade is far from conclusive proof of impending victory, as absolutely nothing suggests that the duel would have ended as soon as it did if Plo had not removed the detonator from her hands.
For the final nail in the coffin of this outrageously fallacious take, Plo actually overpowers her blade at the same time as removing the detonator, with no visible strain of any kind.
As you can see, in the panel the anti-Plo apes profess to be the evidence of Asajj's superiority, Plo's blade is angled towards himself to block and hold Asajj's strike. Asajj, in doing so, has her face contorted, clearly denoting exertion.
However, in the subsequent panel, Plo is depicted as having his blade angled away from himself... pushing Asajj's blade along back with it, with no notable difficulty noted. The artist of the comic even provided some nice little markings to accentuate the movement in Asajj's wrist as it is being twisted away from her target against her will.
This detail from the comic (that is so conveniently ignored by some) not only hammers home that Ventress was not winning in any form by the end of the duel and uses their "chronology" argument that they use to brush off Plo's dominance in earlier panels against them, but it utterly annihilates their attempted escape route from arguing against the loss of the detonator signifying Plo's superiority.
In their impotent and desperate attempts to deny that Plo removing Asajj's means of victory from her grasp means that Plo won the duel, Plo-hating basement dwellers argue that Plo was only able to snatch the remote from her hand because she was focused on the duel... but if she was focused on the duel, then that means that, as she was losing as of the final point of blade-to-blade combat, it marks inferiority to Plo whilst his attention was split with TKing the remote with his broken arm. Likewise, if Asajj weren't focused on the duel, and was instead bent on bringing down the mine, then she was telekinetically overpowered by a split-attention Plo.
It's a no-win situation for her, as it has been from the start.
Plo Koon is just too strong.
To recap:
1. The duel starts out with no clear advantage to either opponent, despite Plo's broken arm (which is a noted hindrance) and Asajj ambushing him.
2. Asajj lands a kick on Plo's broken arm, but it proves inconsequential when Plo immediately recovers and sends her flying through the air with telekinesis, demonstrating a hefty advantage in that regard.
3. Plo Koon disarms Asajj of one of her lightsabers, despite her lightsaber form being tailored to prevent that from happening. Nothing suggests that the explosion had anything to do with it, and there is no reason why the explosion would have negatively impacted Asajj more than Plo if it did, leaving Plo's disarming feat completely valid.
4. Asajj admits that Plo Koon fought well, and credits her (incorrect) sense of impending victory not to his performance, but to her use of the detonator to destroy the mines, even noting that the Separatist Victory would occur despite Plo doing as well as he did.
5. Plo removes the detonator from her grasp. We know that Force barriers extend to objects being held by the Force users, meaning that Plo is now up two in terms of Force barrier violations... rendering it increasingly difficult to imagine that Asajj holds parity in that regard. With the detonator representing Asajj's (self-professed) chance at winning the battle, Plo taking it from out of her reach is victory, simple as that.
6. Asajj was pressuring Plo Koon for a single panel late in the comic, but as that pressure had no say on the outcome of the battle, its chronology is irrelevant. Atop this, Plo Koon swiftly reversed the course of the bladelock simultaneously with removing the detonator from her reach. Conveniently for me, this obliterates every weaselly anti-Plo argument based on those last panels presented thus far.
Respect Plo Koon.Yes, that is a threat.
A moment of clarification before I begin: I don't believe that Plo defeats late-war Ventress, say, as of Obsession. In fact, I think it's quite clear he doesn't. The purpose of this post is to establish his victory over and superiority to Ventress as of the comic, something that I feel should be readily apparent.
The Duel
Context
Broken Arm
For those who haven't read the comic themselves, Plo Koon's arm is broken as of the duel.
This would obviously hinder his fighting abilities: limiting his options (he's not always portrayed as dealing two-handed strikes, but it is something that he has done, so it obviously has its advantages at times) as well as causing pain. On top of this, Ventress attributes her perceived likelihood of defeating him to his injury, so it's clearly a major impediment.
Aside from the duel itself, the broken arm bears no relevance to the story of the comic, so the only conceivable purpose for its existence from a narrative standpoint is to provide Plo an extra challenge during the fight itself... a challenge that he overcomes, as I will prove.
Ragdolling
Asajj Ventress manages to land a kick on Plo Koon's broken arm, but this attack gleans only meager benefit for her, as Plo is able to swiftly recover and send her flying through the air with a Force push.
As the Force push is not merely moving her backwards a few feet, as seen from peers, but instead blasting her yards away and through the air without any apparent strain, and she lands no such telekinetic hits (of any kind) on Plo, the only good faith interpretation of this scene is that it establishes Plo as her superior in a telekinetic sense. And, as Plo was able to so quickly land a hit on Asajj after her own kick, which didn't have any effect outside of momentary discomfort, it is clearly the more substantial of the two blows.
Disarming
The next time we cut back to their duel, Plo has disarmed Asajj.
Distraction?
One way that some have attempted to cope with this showing and its lucid message of Plo's superiority to Ventress is pointing out its seeming correlation with the explosion.
They argue that because Plo knew the explosion was coming and Asajj didn't, it would provide a distraction for Ventress that would give Plo the opening he needed to disarm her.
One of the problems with this is that the chronology of the explosion and the disarming isn't necessarily as they say there is, as Asajj's lightsaber is already flying from her hand as the noise of the explosion reaches them. So this part of the connection they are making is at best unreliable, at worst incorrect.
The far larger problem with this line of reasoning is that Plo simply didn't know the explosion was coming... as people who read the comic for themselves would know.
In reality, the explosion was not part of the original plan. Rather, it was the direct result of an impromptu sacrifice by Captain Sharp to destroy the Separatist cannons and forces while saving Kit Fisto from them.
As Plo explicitly states, the reason he knows what the explosion entailed was that he sensed it, not because he knew beforehand. Thus, there is no reason why the explosion should have affected Asajj more than Plo, and the connection falls flat on yet another count, rendering Plo's disarming of Asajj due only to his own skill.
Importance
The relevance of this feat should be self-evident, but to add to it, disarming an opponent is noted by Cin Drallig as being especially difficult against practitioners of Asajj Ventress's form, Makashi. Yet Plo accomplishes this anyway.
Essential Guide to the Force wrote:Sun djem is the ancient term for "disarming." Because relieving an opponent of his weapon or destroying it could win victory without causing injury, sun djem was particularly consistent with Jedi conduct and was the primary goal of early Form I masters. However, advances in Form II made sun djem extremely difficult in lightsaber-to-lightsaber combat, as all Form II masters trained to prevent themselves from being disarmed.
Victory
Finally, Plo Koon is able to remove the detonator from Asajj Ventress's hands... at this point her goal is to detonate it, making it the "win" condition of the duel. Plo removes it from her hands, and she runs off to retrieve it.
They both had a goal that ran counter to the other's that decided the outcome of the battle. Plo achieved his. Asajj did not. This should make it pretty clear who won the duel. It was even a last ploy of Asajj's, with her admitting that Plo had fought well, and despite that fact the detonator would allow her to deprive the Republic of the mines and win the battle that way... not through defeating Plo. In fact, the way she phrases it ("You fought well today, Old Master, but your mission has failed") indicates that the hypothetical loss of Khorm would take place despite Plo's performance... meaning that the duel itself wouldn't have contributed to it, meaning that even Ventress didn't think Plo would have lost.
On top of this, the way Plo takes away the detonator further cements his superiority in telekinesis.
Force barriers extend to protecting devices in one's hands from tampering by their opponent (the example given is a lightsaber, but there is no viable reason as to why it should extend to the lightsaber but not the controller).
Path of Destruction wrote:His statement wasn't entirely factual, but it was close enough to the truth. One of the first lessons Kas'im taught students was how to build a protective shield around themselves in combat to prevent an enemy from using the Force against them. A Force-talented opponent could yank away your lightsaber, knock you off balance, or even extinguish your lightsaber's blade without the touch of a hand or weapon. A Force-shield was the most basic-and most necessary-protection there was.
It had become instinctive for all the apprentices, almost second nature. As soon as the blade was drawn, the protective veil went up. Guarding against the Force powers of the enemy and obscuring your own intentions required as much concentration and energy as augmenting your physical prowess or anticipating the moves of your foe. It was that unseen part of combat, the invisible battle of wills, not the obvious interaction of bodies and blades, that more often than not decided the fate of a duel.
This necessitates that Plo, once again, violated her Force barrier... with there still being absolutely no counter-showing from Asajj of her penetrating his telekinetic defenses, setting an even more clear gap in favor of Koon in terms of TK.
Pressuring?
Perhaps the most disgusting coping mechanism disguised as an argument presented thus far by Plo's detractors is that Asajj was winning the duel... because she was pressing Plo Koon into the railing for a single panel near the end of the duel.
There are a multitude of reasons why this claim would be laughable if only so many people didn't somehow think it was an adequate argument.
First of all, it is a far less convincing display of superiority in dueling than Plo disarming Asajj, something with lasting effects. It's only a temporary advantage. I know it's temporary because it was temporary. Arguing that Asajj was winning the entire duel because she held a slight edge for a single panel when Plo holds a more decisive edge for more panels and wins the duel as a whole is... and this is as diplomatically as I can put this... asinine.
Essentially, it amounts to "Yeah, Plo won... but what if he didn't? Then Ventress would have won."
The only reason that I have seen cited for prioritizing this panel of Ventress's minor advantage over the panels of Plo's major advantages is its chronological proximity to the end of the duel... an argument that fails to hold water as soon as you realize that it had absolutely no bearing on the end of the duel. Correlation does not imply causation, and in this case, as the effect goes directly against what one would expect from the "causes" presented by the slanderers of the Blade of Dorin, it definitively does not.
Even if we assume, for a moment (despite my previous debunking of this idea), that Plo removing the detonator from Ventress's grasp was a fluke that has no reflection on their actual power and skill, her seeming pressure on his blade is far from conclusive proof of impending victory, as absolutely nothing suggests that the duel would have ended as soon as it did if Plo had not removed the detonator from her hands.
For the final nail in the coffin of this outrageously fallacious take, Plo actually overpowers her blade at the same time as removing the detonator, with no visible strain of any kind.
As you can see, in the panel the anti-Plo apes profess to be the evidence of Asajj's superiority, Plo's blade is angled towards himself to block and hold Asajj's strike. Asajj, in doing so, has her face contorted, clearly denoting exertion.
However, in the subsequent panel, Plo is depicted as having his blade angled away from himself... pushing Asajj's blade along back with it, with no notable difficulty noted. The artist of the comic even provided some nice little markings to accentuate the movement in Asajj's wrist as it is being twisted away from her target against her will.
This detail from the comic (that is so conveniently ignored by some) not only hammers home that Ventress was not winning in any form by the end of the duel and uses their "chronology" argument that they use to brush off Plo's dominance in earlier panels against them, but it utterly annihilates their attempted escape route from arguing against the loss of the detonator signifying Plo's superiority.
In their impotent and desperate attempts to deny that Plo removing Asajj's means of victory from her grasp means that Plo won the duel, Plo-hating basement dwellers argue that Plo was only able to snatch the remote from her hand because she was focused on the duel... but if she was focused on the duel, then that means that, as she was losing as of the final point of blade-to-blade combat, it marks inferiority to Plo whilst his attention was split with TKing the remote with his broken arm. Likewise, if Asajj weren't focused on the duel, and was instead bent on bringing down the mine, then she was telekinetically overpowered by a split-attention Plo.
It's a no-win situation for her, as it has been from the start.
Plo Koon is just too strong.
To recap:
1. The duel starts out with no clear advantage to either opponent, despite Plo's broken arm (which is a noted hindrance) and Asajj ambushing him.
2. Asajj lands a kick on Plo's broken arm, but it proves inconsequential when Plo immediately recovers and sends her flying through the air with telekinesis, demonstrating a hefty advantage in that regard.
3. Plo Koon disarms Asajj of one of her lightsabers, despite her lightsaber form being tailored to prevent that from happening. Nothing suggests that the explosion had anything to do with it, and there is no reason why the explosion would have negatively impacted Asajj more than Plo if it did, leaving Plo's disarming feat completely valid.
4. Asajj admits that Plo Koon fought well, and credits her (incorrect) sense of impending victory not to his performance, but to her use of the detonator to destroy the mines, even noting that the Separatist Victory would occur despite Plo doing as well as he did.
5. Plo removes the detonator from her grasp. We know that Force barriers extend to objects being held by the Force users, meaning that Plo is now up two in terms of Force barrier violations... rendering it increasingly difficult to imagine that Asajj holds parity in that regard. With the detonator representing Asajj's (self-professed) chance at winning the battle, Plo taking it from out of her reach is victory, simple as that.
6. Asajj was pressuring Plo Koon for a single panel late in the comic, but as that pressure had no say on the outcome of the battle, its chronology is irrelevant. Atop this, Plo Koon swiftly reversed the course of the bladelock simultaneously with removing the detonator from her reach. Conveniently for me, this obliterates every weaselly anti-Plo argument based on those last panels presented thus far.
Respect Plo Koon.
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