@hope_w:
As I said a lot of this is a metaphor and not meant to be taken literally. That's Stover's writing style throughout the entirety of the RotS novel. It's the same hyperbole he uses when he says Dooku is dead the moment Anakin literally wills it. Or that Anakin was the strongest and fastest of the Jedi, which would put him above Yoda in strength and speed.
When Stover wrote about Vaapad in Shatterpoint, there isn't any mention of dark side leeching when he used it against the powerful dark sider Kar Vastar; in fact:
He lost that fight despite using Vaapad.
All Vaapad does is turns the users own inner darkness into a weapon of the light. External factors like discovering the truth of Palpatine, seeing his Jedi comrades die, and accepting Sidious's fury, may, however, increase his own level of darkness. But to be sure it is all his own power coming from within.
Most of the text can more realistically be likened to Mace being amped by his own emotions throughout the fight.
Italics are mine bold is yours. I'm also going to add more text from the novel to clear up the context:
Vaapad is as aggressive and powerful as its namesake, but its power comes at great risk: immersion in Vaapad opens the gates that restrain one's inner darkness.
This affirms with what I said: Vaapad channels ones own inner darkness.
To use Vaapad, a Jedi must allow himself to enjoy the fight; he must give himself over to the thrill of battle. The rush of winning. Vaapad is a path that leads through the penumbra of the dark side. Mace Windu created this style, and he was its only living master. This was Vaapad's ultimate test.
This is basically what Sith do: Use their emotions to fuel their power. The distinction here is that Mace isn't allowing that rush to consume him.
Anakin could feel how the Force fed upon the shadow's murderous exaltation; he could feel fury spray into the Force though some poisonous abscess had crested in both their hearts. There was no Jedi restraint here. Mace Windu was cutting loose.
Nothing in that text you underlined confirms Mace was leeching of Palpatine's power. The Force itself is leeching off the dark side aura as it's doing to Mace; it appears to be creating a small dark side nexus of sorts. This is what Anakin senses.
Mace was deep in it now: submerged in Vaapad, swallowed by it, he no longer truly existed as an independent being. Vaapad is a channel for darkness, and that darkness flowed both ways. He accepted the furious speed of the Sith Lord, drew the shadow's rage and power into his inmost center—
And let it fountain out again. He reflected the fury upon its source as a lightsaber redirects a blaster bolt.
Again the use of metaphor here. What is literally happening here is Palpatine attacking Mace with full power of the dark side, Mace is blocking it and fighting back with unrestrained but totally controlled darkness in kind.
The metaphorical blaster blots are Palpatine's attacks and the redirection is meant to describe Mace responding with a fury of his own as he deflects the dark lord's attacks.
There was a time when Mace Windu had feared the power of the dark; there was a time when he had feared the darkness in himself. But the Clone Wars had given him a gift of understanding: on a world called Haruun Kal, he had faced his darkness and had learned that the power of darkness is not to be feared. He had learned that it is fear that gives the darkness power. He was not afraid. The darkness had no power over him. But—
Neither did he have power over it.
Vaapad made him an open channel, half of a superconducting loop completed by the shadow; they became a standing wave of battle that expanded into every cubic centimeter of the Chancellor's office. There was no scrap of carpet nor shred of chair that might not at any second disintegrate in flares of red or purple; lampstands became brief shields, sliced into segments that whirled through the air; couches became terrain to be climbed for advantage or overleapt in retreat. But there was still only the cycle of power, the endless loop, no wound taken on either side, not even the possibility of fatigue.
Impasse.
There is a good reason to believe the superconducting loop isn't literal.
First, as I already noted Sidious was fatigued after his battle with Yoda, so the possibility of Sidious not becoming fatigued in his duel against Mace is debunked in Stover's own novel. A clear indication the passage is meant to be metaphoric of their mutual exchange of aggression.
Second, it's been established that the flesh can't sustain the raw power of the dark side; here's an example from the Bane Trilogy:
"Age was beginning to take its toll on Bane, but it was nothing compared with the toll already wrought upon his body by decades of drawing upon the dark side of the Force. He couldn't help but smile at the grim irony: through the dark side he had access to near-infinite power, but it was power that came with a terrible cost. Flesh and bone lacked the strength to withstand the unfathomable energy unleashed by the Force. The unquenchable fire of the dark side was consuming him, devouring him bit by bit. After decades of focusing and channeling its power, his body was beginning to break down." ~ Darth Bane: Dynasty of Evil
That's just one of countless examples. If their duel continued to play out as it did, with Sidious continuously sustaining himself with the dark side, his body would have eventually withered away to a shriveled husk.
Vaapad is directly stated as a reflection of the emperor several times:
Vaapad is a channel for darkness, and that darkness flowed both ways. He accepted the furious speed of the Sith Lord, drew the shadow's rage and power into his inmost center—
He's letting the dark lord's rage bolster his own fury. It's an internal increase in power - the amp is coming from Mace's own increased emotional potency.
; in the Force, the shadow had become a pulsar of fear. Easily, almost effortlessly, he turned the shadow's fear into a weapon:Rots Novel
That's Shatterpoint, not Vaapad. It's a different ability entirely.
Because Vaapad is more than a fighting style. It is a state of mind: a channel for darkness. Power passed into him and out again without touching him. And the circuit completed itself: the lightning reflected back to its source Rots Novel
This ability isn't limited to Vaapad. As you said Yoda did the same thing - reflect lightning back to its source, and he's not a Vaapad user and there are other non-Vaapad users who have replicated this.
This is all, of course, speculative on my part. I don't have access to Stover's mind, but I think it's a common theme throughout the novel that many passages are not meant to be taken literally. That and taken literally it's inconsistent with the lore, including Stovers own writing as I already outlined.
@i_like_swords:
You made a post similar to this some months ago, though it appears to have been deleted, as had been happening to a lot of prolific users at the time. Would you say this is accurate to what you wrote at the time?
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