Star Wars Episode IX: The Rise of Skywalker (spoilers obviously)

It is noteworthy that Ahsoka was not random, despite of not be longer a Jedi.

She managed to survive fights against Maul and Vader, two powerful dark users.

Ahsoka is probably one of the strongest female Jedi in canon.(Especially considering that Shaak ti has almost no feats.)

Rey has the potential to surpass her, but she remains a Jedi knight with a long way to go.

Edited by JoLuRo075 on Oct 25th 2020 at 11:40:50 AM

Shaak Ti's feats are her ability to die a Thousand deaths.

Obligatory, "Kenny from South park" joke.

Ahsoka generally speaking is a good example of what a full-fledged Jedi Knight, but not at the Master level, looks like in terms of ability, intellect and mastery of the force.

There's aren't a lot of examples of that in the series, simply because Anakin - our protag - is an outlier, nearly everyone else he knows who's plot important is Master level, and most other Jedi Knights (in the current canon) don't get a lot of time to shine (or turn to the dark side).

Heck, in the current canon, practically all the OT-era Jedi protags we've gotten thus far are people with either padawan level training, or with ramshackle and largely self-taught training like Luke.

Edited by KnownUnknown on Oct 25th 2020 at 4:28:05 AM

What?

Ahsoka > Average Jedi Master.

Anakin and Maul > Average Jedi Master.

Edited by JoLuRo075 on Oct 25th 2020 at 8:34:18 AM

... based on..?

Edited by KnownUnknown on Oct 25th 2020 at 8:37:11 AM

In her fights against Maul and Vader, they are much stronger than the average master.

Ahsoka is master level, not Knight level.

Qui gon Jinn was considered one of the best masters and was killed by Maul.

Edited by JoLuRo075 on Oct 25th 2020 at 8:38:06 AM

This isn't Dragonball. Power Leveling has never been something that has much weight in Star Wars. The series has simply never at any point on the logic that defeating a powerful opponent inherently makes one far more powerful than them. Nor has it ever utilized the idea that characters can only be defeated or challenged by enemies stronger in power than them in the first place.

When it comes to that, Star Wars has exceptions - people so inhumanly powerful that you need overwhelming force to fight - but they're rare, and that sort of characterizing and plot is simply not in line with the series' overall themes and narrative style.

Obi-Wan defeated Maul while still a padawan. This does not mean that at the time he fought Maul, Obi-Wan was more powerful than Qui-Gon, who lost to Maul, or any other master.

Meanwhile, Ahsoka lost to Vader.

Edited by KnownUnknown on Oct 25th 2020 at 8:41:52 AM

My point is that Ahsoka cannot be below a master, when she has had so many good feats.

Ahsoka fought Canon Vader, something most masters couldn't do.

Edited by JoLuRo075 on Oct 25th 2020 at 8:44:16 AM

And my point is that "Ahsoka fought X and ergo must be stronger than X" is - first and foremost - not a "feat" (at best it's an educated guess, but its more along the lines of an assumption), nor does it have much bearing on the way the narrative of Star Wars as a series is actually told.

Edited by KnownUnknown on Oct 25th 2020 at 8:48:54 AM

I'm tired of the "This is not Dragon Ball" argument.

I know this is not Dragon Ball, but that does not change that fighting on equal terms against two skilled Sith are good feats.

—-

In Disney canon, Vader has killed multiple masters.

Edited by JoLuRo075 on Oct 25th 2020 at 8:49:52 AM

You being tired of it doesn't have any bearing on whether its true or not.

Power Leveling is - simply - not a thing in most western series. You're hard pressed to find many series, especially perpetual ones, that internalize the idea that being able to defeat a foe is an instant echelon over everything else. There are narrative reasons for this: a freer depiction of characters and their ability to fight other characters cuts down on escalation and ensures that the universe remains open for possibilities and varied kinds of threats.

This is especially true in series that are predominantly influenced by the adventure genre, like Star Wars is. Heroes in adventure stories typically find victory through their wits, their guile or their sense of self/morality: violence is more a means to an end in adventure stories than a means of categorizing characters. The alternative undercuts the primary way stories like Star Wars create conflict.

The films, especially, carry that concept - with only the rare exception being so powerful that regular force can't combat them. Generally speaking, the current canon follows that a bit more closely than the old-EU, which is where you would get a lot of emphasis on power and strength through the force.

This doesn't quite track, given that most of the masters in the current canon died to the clones or Sidious (so we can't compare), and the most well known master Anakin did fight in canon kicked his ass and hacked off all his limbs.

Edited by KnownUnknown on Oct 25th 2020 at 8:55:56 AM

Remember that Anakin's main contribution to the slaughter of the Jedi was killing children. And lopping off Mace Windu's arm at that critical point.

He didn't actually fight many Masters one-on-one.

Edited by M84 on Oct 25th 2020 at 11:55:01 PM

Saying obi-wan kicked his ass is the same hyperbolic stance of Ahsoka fought X therefore must be as strong as.

SW is all about Context and what Narratively gets the point across

Maul was cut in half by Obi Wan... cause Maul arrogance got the better of him and Maul had already proven to be stronger

Ahsoka against any major Saber opponent in Clone wars wins by outsmarting them not outdueling them or in Vader's case being saved by a spacetime anus cause she was done for

and in context She's always struggling to keep up.

Technically Its implied Anakin killed plenty of Knights and Masters we just see the tail end of the slaughter where he is cleaning up

Unless you count the Awesome ROTS game where him and the Battle Master duke it out

Edited by FrozenWolf2 on Oct 25th 2020 at 10:59:18 AM

It tends to be more rock-paper-scissors or a strategy game than most would think. Skill and power count, but you need to count their mindset, personality, playstyles and a lot of x-factors.

In canon - that is, the comics - Anakin also faces Jocasta Nu and a Master whos name I can't remember who was in exile.

I especially like the way he defeated the latter: he takes advantage of the Master's compassion and threatens a town, and then kills him when exhausts himself trying to defend the people.

Buh? My point was that Obi-Wan defeating Maul as a padawan showed that the ability to lose or in Star Wars is thus not based solely on any power level or single element, but also involves elements like ingenuity, situation, tropes like heroic resolve, etc.

Battles in Star Wars are not typically made cut and dry by any internal aspect and are instead made to go in many directions based on what the narrative wants. I thought that was clear from context.

Edited by KnownUnknown on Oct 25th 2020 at 9:03:18 AM

"There is no such thing as luck... simply the force favoring Fools over the Natural Winner... Such a loathsome concept" Kreia ... Probaply

[1]

I must have misread it I thought you had something alone the lines that Obiwan kicked Anakins' ass and looped off his limbs

Disney canon has him kill Shaak Ti during the attack on the Temple still IIRC and has him kill Master Cin Drallig when he attacked the Temple, after becoming Vader he also killed Master Kirak who specialized in lightsaber combat to acquire the kyber crystal for his new lightsaber, and there's his whole unstoppable threat at the end of Fallen Order as Cere was a Jedi Master not a Knight.

Oh, and his killing of Master Eeth Koth though he wasn't particularly impressive and had been kicked off the Council and Jocastu Nu.

Edited by doineedaname on Oct 25th 2020 at 12:04:53 PM

He did kick Anakin's ass and hack off his limbs. That happened in ROTS.

Bringing it up was a response to the claim that no master could fight Vader, thus Ahsoka being able to fight him (even if she lost) is a sign she must be stronger than any of the masters. Vader did fight a master at his peak (supposedly) in the films, and he lost. He then further went on to fight other masters in the comics, with variable results. Thus, the claim that no master could fight him is in question.

That's not hyperbolic, unless you thought I was making the claim that Obi-Wan must have been more powerful than Vader to defeat him.

Edited by KnownUnknown on Oct 25th 2020 at 9:06:16 AM

Anyway, it's kind of ridiculous to claim that Ahsoka was more powerful than most Jedi Masters just because she survived a fight with Vader. Heck, the only reason she even survived was because of time travel bullshit.

*2. I did not say that none master could fight vader, I said that most could not.

If you're going to quote me, at least get it right.

—-

Anyway, Ahsoka is at the level of a master, not a knight.

Edited by JoLuRo075 on Oct 25th 2020 at 9:11:11 AM

Long ago before Episode II came out someone asked Leeland Che why Obi-Wan didn't use force super speed to catch up to Maul and Qui-Gon after getting separated, and his response was directly that physical exhaustion matters in a fight. It's like asking why a baseball team don't consistently beat the same team every time they play. Likewise, you have to take into account emotional stability and skill atrophy, though in the prequels every character improves in their skill and maturity from movie to movie.

Ahsoka showed immense talent and was on the edge of becoming a Knight before leaving the Order and, later, Order 66. It's because of her experiences that made her more resilient to skill atrophy during the Civil War. There were some diplomatic/scholar Jedi Masters who nonetheless may not have the skill to defeat a battle-hardened Knight or Padawan. Maul, rather explicitly, suffered an immense emotional breakdown after his defeat in TPM and later sequential defeats through The Clone Wars and Rebels. His swift final duel with Obi-Wan wasn't just that Obi-Wan is that much better since the last time they faced, but that Maul had long been too broken to improve.

Ah, ok. The master Vader kills for his kyber crystal is Kirak Infil'a (now that's a name I'll never remember). He beats him by setting a flood on a city, and while Infil'a puts all his effort into using the force to divert the flow of water Vader murders him. And then makes the flood worse, because Sith.

It's one of my favorite Vader moments, at least for him being an evil bastard: and it really feeds into the philsophy Vader uses in OT era stories: that the way to defeat Jedi, or Rebels who think like them, is to use their compulsion to help others against them. It's the way he defeats the cast of Rebels in Siege of Lothal as well.

It's the same lesson Dooku taught Grievous in the Tartakovsky series. Jedi are at their strongest when focused, so use their own ideologies against them and unfocus them.

Edited by KnownUnknown on Oct 25th 2020 at 9:13:04 AM

SW fights are rarely clean-cut 1x1. There's always asterisks like emotional state, geography (Yoda vs Palpatine being a fight basically entirely decided on the tricky geography they fought in), general luck. In the case of Vader he's often fighting someone he's attached to which throws him out of balance (and the person he's fighting against of course) like Obi-Wan, Ahsoka, Luke.