Let's get this show on the road!
Funny how I was about to recommend doing this as a CaV in my follow up post that I was going to post today. Only annoyance is there's no point replying to that Galen vs Mace debate we were having @arkhamasylum3.
T4V and TAEP.
@hope_w Humour it.
Glad you took me up on this, think it'll be pretty interesting. Only annoyance is there's no point replying to that Galen vs Mace debate we were having @arkhamasylum3.
T4V.
You were having a debate on this? Oh. I didn't know. Guess I'll try not to steal your debate next time :) Sorry
And so it begins.
First off, I’d like to note that this is my first SW CaV post of decent length on this site with me only participating in a mini-tourney beforehand with a limited character count, 3 days to post and a character I knew nothing about. This, therefore, makes me somewhat inexperienced so I, therefore, advise you to not judge my arguments too harshly although I hope I can articulate my points well and you should not of course vote for me out of pity. Feedback is also very much appreciated. Secondly, I’d like to give a massive thank you to @azronger for creating a simply colossal respect thread for Marek which contained much of the material used in this post and to @killbilly for debating against me on Marek’s behalf numerous times which considerably raised Marek’s standing in my eyes and restored my former passion and love for the character making me much more motivated to debate on his behalf. And finally, I must make note of the fact that I absolutely despise the formality of creating a mini RT for my opener as its exceedingly boring for the reader to get through (from personal experience anyway) and even more boring for me to type so I will, therefore spend considerably more time on a comparison between Galen and Mace as opposed to Galen’s feats though some of Galen’s feats will be listed once the comparison is out of the way. With that said onto my actual post.
To start this CaV off with a bang I decided to bring up quite possibly the fairest comparison I could which is how Mace and Galen performed against The Emperor and how Galen’s performance is infinitely better. At the end of The Force Unleashed Galen after defeating Vader engages The Emperor in what is quite possibly one of the most underrated showings off Force Power in the mythos (link). Galen through sheer willpower deflects the full force of The Emperor’s lightning in a Force lock and manages to take multiple steps towards The Emperor eventually closing the distance and placing both hands on The Emperor’s shoulders. This showing of Force Power results in Sidious becoming desperate. Sidious then subsequently uses that desperation to fuel his power yet is incapable of breaking Marek’s grip and the latter acts as a conductor for Sidious’s lightning reflecting it back at its source causing The Emperor to howl with pain. I don’t think I need to elaborate on why deflecting lightning from the most powerful Sith in history with his bare hands is impressive and truly noteworthy and a feat far beyond Windu.
Speaking of Windu when he also went up against Sidious’s lightning the results were unsatisfying, to say the least (link). When Windu goes up against Sidious’s lightning in Revenge of the Sith he simply stands on the spot, does not move and blocks it which is a stark contrast to Marek who as outlined previously managed to take multiple steps towards Sidious. Then you have the added fact that Mace also had a lightsaber which makes it substantially easier to deflect Force Lightning. An example of the boost a lightsaber gives was displayed in Attack of the Clones where Obi-Wan Kenobi despite obviously being vastly inferior to Dooku (see their lightsaber duel) can block The Count’s Force Lightning in an effortless fashion (link). It’s self-evident that a Lightsaber obviously provides a dramatic boost in a Force Users defensive capability. All the above already proves Galen’s performance is better but let’s look at the effect the respective scenarios had on Sidious. In Galen’s case Sidious was incapable of breaking Galen’s grip on him resulting the former becoming desperate whereas in Sidious’s confrontation with Windu he bends the lightsaber back to its source leaving Mace helpless at his mercy yet, of course, chooses to break the attack off as of course he’s trying to get Anakin to join the Dark Side of the Force in this scene (link).
So, to summarise the key points on why Galen’s performance against Sidious was better:
Now the above analysis is with me ignoring two other major factors that aren’t even needed given Galen’s performance already exceeds Mace’s by a reasonable margin however I will include these factors just to make it even more clear that this is a borderline flat out stomp.
The next factor that needs to be considered is The Emperor’s power growth. It is stated about half a dozen times in the Dark Empire Sourcebook that The Emperor’s knowledge in the Force drastically increased from Revenge of the Sith to Return of the Jedi Sidious being noted to have studied the Force in “all its guises” (Credit: The Dark Empire SourceBook) which would make The Emperor a significantly better and a much more efficient Force User. In fact, with only 4 years to grow in power (maximum) between Return of the Jedi and Dark Empire it’s noted that The Emperor’s powers increased “significantly” (Credit: The Dark Empire Sourcebook) and that’s 5 times less time to grow than he had between Revenge of the Sith and The Force Unleashed therefore indicating that Sidious’s powers between Revenge of the Sith and The Force Unleashed would have increased “significantly” 5 times over indicating a pretty colossal increase in power thereby making Marek’s performance against Sheev vastly better than Windu’s. This isn’t me even including the fact that The Emperor was draining Byss for 20 years which of course would massively increase his power (link). Note that Byss’s population increased by several million each month with the population eventually reaching 20 billion as of Return of the Jedi (link) meaning Sidious’s powers would have increased vastly between Revenge of the Sith and The Force Unleashed. The gap between Galen and Windu just keeps getting bigger.
Now the most important factor. During his fight with Sidious Mace was ludicrously amped far beyond his normal power level by factors that will not be present in this match up nor any other matchup.
To start off and make the argument for the amp I’m going to have to delve into the properties of Vaapad the core part of the amp (I know everyone reading this is probably aware for them but still I feel I need to go over it). Vaapad is a style which specifically focuses on harnessing and channeling ones inner to combat without falling victim to the dark side of the Force. The concept of Vaapad is that it allows one to channel their darkness into combat as a weapon of the light. Thus, the more darkness within a person the more efficient Vaapad will be. Vaapad also allows the user to draw off the darkness of the opponent it is facing and use it against them.
Now Mace’s darkness was dramatically increased prior to his fight with Sidious due to him harboring a love for the Republic so when he found out Palpatine was a Sith Lord and that the Sith had influence over the Republic he was fighting for his inner darkness and determination were massively increased therefore making Vaapad far more efficient than it normally is. He also had Sidious’s darkness to draw off as well absorbing it into himself and funnelling it back out again which further boosted him basically allowing him to permanently stalemate Sidious in lightsaber combat through a superconducting loop (link).
Now given Mace was ludicrously amped in his fight with Sidious yet still performed significantly worse than Marek let’s see how he fairs without that strength and how much wider the gap between the two characters. During Labyrinth of Evil which takes place in the same year as Revenge of the Sith Mace Windu faced General Grievous in a close bout with neither gaining a definitive upper hand despite Grievous being bound to the roof of their arena which is noted to hinder him (link). Furthermore, it’s noted Mace wasn’t interested in prolonging the engagement indicating that an engagement between the two would be a prolonged one. This basically flat out confirms a hindered Grievous is a match for Mace which given Grievous’s standing next to Sidious isn’t good. To prove this point conveniently enough in that very same novel it is noted that Dooku comfortably wins most of his fights against Grievous (link) indicating potential superiority to Mace Windu in the same year as Revenge of the Sith via a far superior performance against Grievous. This is supported by Yoda: Dark Rendezvous when it notes that “perhaps only Mace Windu could have been his equal on neutral ground” which given the context of the quote is talking about which of the Jedi could match Dooku the “perhaps” seems to suggest uncertainty that Mace could match Dooku which means Dooku is quite possibly superior to base Mace Windu which indeed isn’t an unreasonable position. Now given most canon evidence in the same year as Revenge of the Sith seems to suggest Dooku=>Mace let’s see how Dooku fairs against Sidious shall we?
At the very start of Revenge of the Sith, Dooku confronts Anakin Skywalker aboard the Invisible Hand and it really doesn’t go well for him. Dooku gets utterly battered within 15 seconds when Anakin fully embraces his fury (1,2) with the novel noting Dooku was a “joke” in comparison to Anakin. Now Anakin is canonically equal to Sidious as of Revenge of the Sith with Lucas himself noting Anakin was “as strong as The Emperor” which means The Emperor could also definitely stomp Dooku which translates over to Mace Windu.
This also means Galen based on his superior performance to amped Windu could more or less one-shot base Windu given the vast disparity between amped Mace and base Mace with one being able to contend with Sheev in sabers and the other being sub-Dooku. Not looking too good for Samuel L Jackson, is it? The relevant part of his name is underlined and bolded.
So, to briefly summarise this whole section:
Galen scales above amped Mace via a significantly superior performance against a more powerful version of Sheev which basically means he can one-shot base Windu. To be honest this on its own should be more than enough to prove Galen is stronger than Windu though I will further elaborate below with feats that are completely beyond Mace and no matter how hard you try I can almost guarantee you won’t find feats comparable.
Below are over half a dozen TK feats for Marek which is hopefully satisfactory.
I) After departing from Raxus Prime Galen muses that he could destroy Paratus’s Junk Jedi Temple with a single Force Push which was stated to look exactly like the real Jedi Temple by Juno Eclipse making it over 1km in height (link).
Also, before you go and bring up Marek’s showings prior to defeating Paratus and argue that Marek can’t level the Jedi Temple based on these showings (it's an argument I've seen others use hence why I'm going over it) I’d like to point out that there is absolutely no reason for Marek to think he can destroy the Temple but be nowhere close to accomplishing such a feat. The simple and most logical conclusion is that Marek grew massively in power after defeating Paratus and I will support this conclusion with reasons below:
Reasons: The amount of power Marek can unleash is, like most prodigies in Star Wars (e.g. Kyp Durron, Vaylin, and Anakin Skywalker), almost entirely dependent on his psychological state and his mentality. Now Marek’s entire line of thinking at the start of the novel is that he needs to please Vader and acts on his masters every command. He gets by on knowing he’s the apprentice of Darth Vader and uses that as his belief system to fuel his power during the opening stages of The Force Unleashed novel: “A slow smile crept across his face. Why be coy? He was the apprentice of Darth Vader and a servant of the dark side. It didn't pay to creep about in fear of raising his head.” So naturally pleasing Darth Vader and killing his first Jedi (he didn’t kill Kota and left with the belief he had failed) would motivate him much more logically give him a significant increase in power because of course with most prodigies in their mental state is key to achieving victory and unlocking more of their near limitless reserves.
Furthermore I find it incredibly illogical that Marek would somehow undergo a massive increase in power in a few weeks (at most) to where he can go from being given a fight by Paratus (link) to easily defeating Shaak Ti while hindered by a Light Side nexus on Felucia (link) who was labelled as “far more formidable” (Credit: Insider #140) than Paratus which is supported by Vader saying “you’ve defeated an old man and an outcast” (Credit: The Force Unleashed Game) in response to Galen saying he’s ready and then elaborating that in his next mission Galen will face “a true Jedi Master.” The conclusion that Galen grew massively in power from beating Paratus is by far the most logical conclusion (certainly more logical than Galen growing massively in power in a few weeks) and it aligns with his comment of thinking he can destroy the temple after defeating Paratus.
II) When Galen returns to Felucia he confronts a Bull Rancor with lightsaber resistant skin yet when he uses Telekinesis on it, he blows up its head from within despite its durability (link). In essence, Galen broke through Lightsaber resistant material with his Telekinesis.
III) During his return to Raxus Prime Galen pulls off quite possibly his greatest Telekinesis feat which is successfully managing to pull an Imperial Star Destroyer out of the sky (link). Keep in mind that the Star Destroyer was over 1600 meters long and has been calculated by fans to weigh at least 20 million tons minimum. I know fan calculations aren’t exactly the most reliable evidence, but it seems logical and this is me being generous and going with the absolute minimum.
IV) Partway through The Force Unleashed 2 when Galen goes to the city of Cato Neimoidia he blows a massive hole in it that is remarkably bigger than the Tarko-se arena (I,2) which is pretty big in size (link).
V) During The Force Unleashed 2 Galen wills the Rogue Shadow to fly straight against the gravitational disturbances of a nearby nebula (link).
VI) During the events of The Force Unleashed 2 when Galen is aboard the Rogue Shadow, he attempts to pull in the Slave I but is interrupted. After his hold on it is released the Slave 1 enters Lightspeed indicating Galen’s Telekinesis was exerting enough Force to stop the Slave I from entering Light Speed (link).
VII) Finally, near the end of The Force Unleashed 2 Galen shifts a simply colossal ship which dwarfed TIE Fighters to create a bridge (link) despite being exhausted.
Does Windu have comparable showings to any of the above? Didn’t think so. Now onto Force Lightning.
Below are 3 different showings of Marek using Force Lightning to great effect.
I) When Galen returns to Raxus Prime he powers a canon with lightning that can punch a hole in an Imperial Star Destroyer and destroy an Imperial Shipyard (1,2) with the latter structure being bigger than any structure Juno had seen which includes Darth Vader’s flagship the Executor which is 19000 meters long (link).
II) Also, during the events on Raxus Prime Galen destroys the Core’s entire network and reduces it to slag (link) with the Core’s network being spread across the entirety of Raxus Prime (link) meaning Galen effectively spread his lightning over the entire planet.
III) On Kashyyyk, Galen manages to disable an AT-AT with his lightning (link) which is incredibly impressive given only the toughest turbolasers can damage AT-AT’s (link).
Does Windu have feats even close to any of the above? Didn’t think so.
I) When Galen goes to the city of Cato Neimoidia, he faces the Gorog a simply humungous creature (link) with its fists having enough Force to “crack a moon in two” (Credit: The Force Unleashed 2 Novelization) which Galen managed to block (link). It has also utterly crushed a bull rancor (link) who as mentioned before have lightsaber resistant skin basically meaning Galen would have blocked a Force Far greater than lightsaber plasma.
II) During the finale of The Force Unleashed 2 when Galen travels to Kamino Galen defends himself from atmospheric re-entry (link) which greatly damages the Salvation and is heat comparable to “the outer layers of a star”.
And yet again Windu has no feats comparable to any of the above. I think you should be starting to notice a consistent pattern here.
Now that I’m done I’ll provide you with a proposal: please provide me with feats that even remotely compare to one-shotting a massive structure bigger than a 19km long ship, being able to casually collapse the largest structure on Coruscant with a single push which is around 1km in height, telekinetically ripping an Imperial Star Destroyer from the sky and making the most powerful Dark Sider in the galaxy desperate and then we’ll talk. Unfortunately, being nearly killed by Sidious before the latter decided to stop his attack while amped to the high heavens and being stalemated by General Grievous and admitting it would be a prolonged fight despite the general’s disadvantages do not count and neither does being weaker than Count Dooku. You might as well give up now before you embarrass yourself because Windu does not hold a candle to Marek if we remove the ludicrous delusions, he’s close, to Sidious. I’m sorry @dark-sith123 but Windu is nothing but a load of non-existent feats and empty hype without a single piece of evidence to back his case up.
Log in to comment